Book-Lovers Unite

My kindle is useful for reading in hotel rooms when the kids are sleeping, for keeping the piles of books from encroaching further into my living space, and for saving the life of trees. On the negative side, they can't be underlined, you can't flip back to find out who belongs to what family, or where that miraculous quote was that you want to copy. Also, online books have an irritating habit of announcing how far along you are in a book by percentage, pages, and reading time. I feel like I'm under the gun to finish in the allotted time. A friend of mine confessed at lunch that she had kept track of how many pages were left in her book and was shocked and horrified when it ended forty pages early! Turns out the additional forty pages were acknowledgments and the chapter from the author's next book. The unexpected ending became unsatisfying and anticlimactic even though it happened exactly as the author intended. My best solution so far has been to read both types . . .which has really just meant spending money in two places versus just one!

Hazards

Lots of hazards in our neighborhood today, with workmen in orange jackhammering the sides of major streets and the curbs and driveways over A. a broken watermain, B. immense potholes, or C. burrows of large alien beings. There is a massive hole right behind our driveway, which sits at a fairly busy corner. Backing out has become a life-or-death maneuver and no one can turn into our street until I have moved into the middle of the intersection to play a game of chicken with oncoming traffic. It's all fun and games until someone gets hit by a backhoe.

The orange cones and beeping trucks made me more aware of how hazardous driving can be any time other people are involved. People jaywalk (slowly) across busy streets without troubling their heads about the risks of a sudden halt in traffic. Folks in cars poke their headlights way out into the street to see if it's safe to make a right or a left turn, so intrusive that vehicles innocently cruising along have to make a startled swing out into the middle of the road to avoid them.

If my kids could learn to drive on empty streets I would happily look forward to the day when they got their license. Since they have to share the road with construction vehicles, looky-loos, passive pedestrians and aggressive turners I feel much more reluctant to ever let their hands grip a steering wheel. I'll need to work on my zen attitude a lot over the next four years - either that or move to Antarctica. (Speaking of Antarctica, you must read Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. Absolutely fantastic book, one that I hated to finish. Mom, you get my copy next!)

Campus Magic

There's something about being on a university campus that makes me stand straighter, walk faster, and look around with greater interest. After many years spent off-campus, that atmosphere of learning instills me with a sense of energy and purpose no different than what I felt as a prospective freshman out looking at colleges. Well, no different except that I can't see all the way across the quad without glasses, need an umbrella to shade me from the sun, and am twice as old as most of the students. When I apply for my Masters I'm sure the transcript services people at all my former institutions of higher learning will do a double-take at the year of graduation.

I spent a few hours at Regis University this morning, talking with lovely people in the MA program. The two professors that I met with helped me to outline a Creative Writing / Writing program that sounds ideal, with so much flexibility that I am left grasping for rules and regulations. I could take some courses online and could take others at weekends on campus, which sounds fun at the moment. Even the bathrooms on campus have a higher degree of intelligence: they have their own newsletter called "The Stall Street Journal." How clever is that? I'd better up my writing skills before applying so that the bathroom stalls don't out - do me.

Since I'm flush with collegiate energy today I'm going to submit some poetry for publication. Every Day Poets isn't accepting any more submissions so I'll have to branch out and try something new. If I can't find any takers perhaps I'll get in touch with the Stall Street Journal . . .

Skullcandy for Dad

We had a wonderful visit with my folks this weekend and celebrated both of their birthdays. The visit and celebration kicked off a landslide of technological innovation as my amazingly talented husband introduced Dad to Chromecast, Netflix and a new iPad. All I know about our Chromecast and Netflix is that I can watch House of Cards off my phone, but Dad caught on quick and the next day mom and I caught him watching Breaking Bad on his phone. When he mentioned a need for ear buds, I knew what to do - I summoned our eight-year-old to get the blue tooth headphones and explain them to Papa.

The next day Mom and I took the kids on an Old Navy shopping spree and decided while we were out to visit Best Buy and get some new headphones for Dad. It was fun getting the kids' input and we finally picked out a neon green and black set of SkullCandy headphones. I am chuckling now at the thought of mom and dad trying to share their headphones as they watch a downloaded movie on the flight back to Billings. Of course they're watching the movie on a new iPad because Mom decided that Dad needed one of those, as well! Please note that iPads are hard to set up when your list of related passwords resides in notebook in Polson, Montana, and the set-up process takes place in a kitchen in Denver. Yet the two men persevered and got the iPad going with the new accounts and accessories in place.

It was a great visit and I had to head off into the hills on my bike when I got back from the airport this morning; it's always hard to say good bye. But what a gift of four wonderful days, and now the promise of seeing the whole fan-damily in Montana this July. Have technology, will travel.

Breakfast and Birthdays

Mom and Dad / Nana and Papa are in town and in their honor the wind stopped and the sun came out. We kicked off this day of their joint birthday celebration by consuming vast quantities of gluten-free pancakes and eggs at The Pancake House. William ordered a plate with seven pieces of bacon, which he kindly shared. As my brother, James, says, "bacon is the candy of meat," and our family consumes it the same way.

Last night we watched lip-syncing battles from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and nearly rolled off the couch laughing at Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Emma Stone. Paul Rudd's take on Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" (Jimmy Fallon Paul Rudd lip sync) became an instant classic and so inspired my sister, Karen, that she had her fourth-grade class do a rendition of the same song during a long, rainy-day lunch. I have hopes of staging a  family lip-syncing competition this evening in honor of Nana and Papa's birthdays. Daniel has already picked "Counting Stars" by One Republic and he's rehearsing in the family room now.

In other news, The Denver Post has published several letters from SPEAK for Cherry Creek parents this week. The letter that I wrote several days ago was published yesterday under this link: Opposing School Reform Isn't Hysteria. I hope the legislators are paying attention to the Op-Ed pages!