WHY AREN'T COMMENTS WORKING?? And other stuff...

If you've been aching to leave us a comment and haven't been able to, then join the club! I typed this comment into James's (as it was posted rather late on a weekend night, may I guess semi-drunken?) rant about mass shootings and gun rights fifteen times before it dawned on me to cut-and-paste it somewhere safe until comments started working again. They still don't work. So, in case you were wondering:

"I would agree that people who commit mass murder/violence of this nature certainly have wrong/dangerous beliefs, but I don't think they're 'insane.' The whole 'mental illness' thing is bandied about in a way that might make people with genuine mental illnesses hesitant to get help, because is this how they're going to be perceived? Anyway, LOTS of people in lots of countries are 'insane,' but the gun violence isn't as high in any other developed nation.

"The guy in Dayton apparently had a history of threatening and frightening behavior that was reported by classmates to his high school, and also referred to the police. Many of them said hearing this wasn't a surprise, and that he never should have had access to a gun. So while the 'red flag' talk seems sort of subjective and 'slippery slope'y, there might be some merit to it.

"Lastly, I do not think the Founding Fathers could fathom what kind of rapid-fire, powerful guns would be available a couple of hundred years later. I'm fine with changing the constitution, if that's what it takes. I know we agree to disagree on this. But so far, no one has used high-capacity magazines to protect their families or property from aggressive government forces; they've ONLY been used to murder as many people as possible."

FIN.

And, yes, I would likely feel different about this if we were talking about limiting access to caffeine or sugar or anything else that is deemed dangerous by some people. I'm also a parent, and I'm susceptible to the fear that comes from knowing people can and do this, and have access to tools to help them... even knowing the statistics. So I can admit that fear is never a great basis for demanding legislation, and yet... here we are.

But that's not really what this post is about, is it?

You're wondering what's going on with us. aren't you? Nope? Well, too bad. Navigate away, then!

Our chickens are now almost 19 weeks old, which means that they might start laying within the next month or so.  When I went out to close the coop tonight, four of the chickens were already roosting for the night. "Fluffy Cheeks" (I tried to name her Monstro, but I think Mal's winning on this front) had her wing over AW's back. I only had my phone, and when the flash pre-shot, they both started to stand up to see what was going on, but I caught it.

I don't know whether the chickens are ready for the heat to break, but I AM READY FOR THE HEAT TO BREAK. Also, the unrelenting lack of rain. It has rained once, for approximately one hour, since July 4. There is no rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. The weather forecast does keep showing the temperatures dropping from the low 100s/high 90s into the mid-to-low 90s, but that keeps getting pushed out two weeks and now I don't believe anything. Our grass is crunchy and dormant, and every time we go outside, we get about 15 stickers in our shoes.

I guess the good news is that we haven't had to pay someone to mow our yard since the beginning of July? And it's weird: we had .12 inches more rain in July than in the average year, at 4.45 inches. And all of it was within the first 3 or so days of the month.

Our solar power is up and running, and our bill for last month was $100 less than it was last year, including a few days when we didn't have the system installed yet. It's been around 100 degrees every day for the past month, so that's not bad at all.

Mal is such a fun kid. Today, he had quite an emotional roller coaster of a day. At one point this evening, we were playing Star Wars with LEGOS, and I noticed one of his ships had a brick missing from under the seating area, so when you picked it up, the pilot fell out. I was trying to put a new brick in place, and Mal pulled the ship away from me. He wanted to keep it the way that it was (he does not like change in the least!). I "yoinked" it out of his hands and was placing the brick when he started bawling. Real tears and everything. And he wailed, "Mommy, no! You are breaking my heart up!"

When I handed him the ship back and showed him that he could just push the brick back out, he smiled and said, "That's better. It's fixing my heart now." Poor sweetie. He has so many feels.

Oh my goodness, though... yesterday he had the worst nosebleed I've ever seen him have. He used to get little bleeds quite frequently, as a result, frankly, of digital probing up in there. They are much fewer and far between now. Used to, we could expect one every couple of days. Now, it's every six months maybe? Well, he got one yesterday. I dammed up the nostril with a tissue and went outside to do something. When I came back in, Mal was still sitting at the table, but sounded weird when he said he'd mistakenly removed the tissue. There was blood all over his face, all around his mouth, dripping onto his shirt, and I even had to wash the chair. Yikes. Fortunately, he was fine. Just... a mess.

Out of the blue while I was writing this last night, Mal decided he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and it sounded like a good idea. So now I'm up and have started my Saturday and will fill you in on other developments later! Have a great weekend!

Random. R-r-r-rrrandom

I keep making plans to attend alt school open houses, then when they get close, find reasons not to go. I'm sure not the least of these reasons is that tuition even for a part-time unschool-y place would finance a REALLY NICE and a couple of plenty good vacations per year. So maybe we'll just keep homeschooling. I need to find a good source for friends for Mal, though. At this age, D already had a core group of kids we knew would be homeschooling, so when we started a co-op, we already knew a lot of families.

Then again, I'm NOT doing a co-op again, and so if I want Mal to have that same sort of social stability, I'm going to have to pay for it. There are unschooling meetups, but we went to several when he was smaller, specifically preschool groups, and it was obvious that some people had been meeting for a long time, and we'd often not talk to anyone else the whole time we were there.

Besides that... we took a one-off "art class" recently at Mess-Maker Studios. It's a great place, and the facilitator doesn't make the kids do anything; she "strews" and lets them do whatever moves them. Still, Mal flitted from the sensory stuff to three seconds of painting, to playing with toys, and announced it was time to go half an hour into a 1.5 hour session. He WAS the only kid who showed up (it was an afternoon class rather than a morning one, which was packed, but... mornings), and he DID end up finding stuff to do for another thirty minutes while I talked to the owner.

But I am not certain that even in a year and a half, we could commit to a 5-hour day, even in a really laid-back, choose-your-own-adventure kind of place.

In other news: Tonight, we took advantage of a $4.11 per serving cheese fondue at Melting Pot. Mal and I got there before James, who got hung up in traffic. As we sat in the lobby waiting, Mal was obsessed with the real actual oil candle on the table in front of the bench. He was waving his hand over it to see the flame flicker, and having one of his Sonic toys fly over it. After observing how the flame really wavered when he swung his hand pretty hard in the air above it, he thought for a minute and blew lightly. It blew the candle all the way out.

"We were supposed to bring our lighter so we could light a candle if it goes out!" Mal told me.

I said I didn't have a lighter, and they'd just have to light it again later.

Mal looked panicked, and said, "But I don't want to go to jail!"

As we were seated, I told the host that Mal had blown out their candle, but really didn't want to go to jail. She said, "It's a first offense, so we won't press charges."

Later, after we'd had our cheese course (Mal enjoyed playing but ate only some bread and green apples; he didn't even try the cheese), we ordered dessert. Mal told the server he'd like marshmallows, and when she brought the trays out, she had made a special (non-communal) one for Mal and pointed out the graham-cracker-covered marshmallow and the Oreo-covered marshmallow.

As she went on to say what everything else was, Mal interrupted loudly, "Excuse me! Sir! I'd like plain marshmallows, please." She brought him 4.

This weekend, I was thinking about a lot of the things that I'm sorry for in my life. Here are a few:
1) I'm sorry I ever believed the lie that parents have to win the battle of wills against their kids, especially when they're small, so it sets the precedence of who's boss.
2) I'm sorry I used to think that there were certain bodies that could "get away" with wearing certain articles of clothing, and others to which the clothes would be off-limits.
3) I am sorry I never really listened to my next-door neighbor's dad practice guitar because I thought he was going to hell for playing an instrument in church.
4) I'm sorry I was so ignorant that I didn't know the pain it would cause when I did the "Pointer Sisters" lip synch in our high school contest in 1987/88, when I was 15. And I'm very sorry that when a black girl, a neighbor of mine, complained, that the school didn't bring us all together to talk about it. It didn't matter that I LOVED the Pointer Sisters, or that I meant it as a tribute, or that I was just trying to be as realistic as possible, or that I didn't even know the history. I needed to learn. I needed for her to be able to look me in the face and say, "You hurt me. This is wrong." And I needed to be held accountable for finding out why.
5) I am sorry I ever intentionally lost weight.
6) I'm sorry I never offered to mow the yard or wash the cars or do jobs that weren't "mine" when I was in high school.
7) I'm kind of sorry I got an undergraduate degree; not only in theater, but at all. Not sure what else I might have done with my time (and parents' money), but it couldn't have been MORE wasted.
8) I'm sorry for all of the things I missed out on because I was "busy" trying to make some guy like me. I'm sorry I ever tried to date at all before I turned 30, although I'm glad I had D.
9) I'm sorry for any rumor I've ever listened to without speaking up. Same goes for racist or otherwise abusive jokes.
10) I'm sorry for any aggressive beliefs I've held that I believed were justified by the Bible but that did harm to other people and, ironically, the Gospel. I'm growing to hate the term "sincerely-held religious beliefs" because it sounds so innocuous, but I see how it's weaponized. It's heresy.
11) I am so sorry for people I hurt when I was hurting. There's a list, and I think about them often, and I am learning to sit in the sorrow and discomfort, because my "bent" is to try to fix things... even when there's no fix.

I've been thinking about things for which I'm sorry because of freaking Joe Biden, who might/might not be running for President in 2020. For posterity's sake (because sometimes I read decades-old blog posts and don't get the pop references), several women have accused him of approaching them physically in a way that made them uncomfortable. He's gone out of his way to "apologize" by saying social norms have changed, and that he will never apologize for his intentions, and that he always tried to build a human connection.

But, golly, Joe, all you need to do it take responsibility for your actions. Tell the truth: You never thought about how your physical advances might be taken by women because it's just not a thing you think about. It doesn't matter if "society" taught you not to worry about that kind of thing... The fact that it never occurred to you that someone might not like being hugged or kissed or having their shoulders rubbed shows, first and foremost, male privilege/assumption of space/rights to others' bodies, etc. Acknowledge that. Apologize for hurting people. Stop centering yourself by talking about intentions. That's not the point here. If someone accidentally steps on my toes in a crowded place, it's still appropriate for them to apologize. You're more culpable than that, so you owe it to these ladies.

If you asked me, and I rarely get political on here, but this kind of crap is a big reason I'm super over the old white guy President. We need someone with a different outlook on life. Not because old white guys necessarily are compromised or evil or anything like that; just the inability to conceive that your default way of thinking might be able to be improved upon is a liability, as far as I'm concerned. Let's try something different, can we please?

Taking another turn: We were supposed to get our new just-weaned pigeons yesterday, but the supplier caught a cold, so we're waiting one more week.

Mal's awake, so that's it for now. Enjoy your week, internets!

Random Observations

1) We missed quite the drama while we were on our little trip to Dallas to the State Fair of Texas! "Our" lake filled up so fast, beginning on the day we left, that it is now 146% full, ergo flooded. It has started abating this morning, and I'm sure the home- and business-owners are eager to get to cleanup. The lake has been more than 20 feet below full for the entire summer. It crested at 23 feet above full, most of it  in about three days. To put it into perspective, an NPR headline read that Lake Travis had taken on more water in one week than the city of Austin uses in FOUR years. Further, a gentleman on NextDoor said that, not accounting for the water lost via Mansfield Dam (which was releasing 11 millionish gallons of water PER MINUTE last night), the lake had taken on a gross of 253,433,873,760 gallons of water last week (just based on levels retained in the lake).

2) We go to the fair for a couple of main reasons: a) fair food, b) Little Hands on the Farm and the animals, and c) the butter sculpture. None of these disappointed, though a slight change in LHotF made it less kid-friendly, as far as I'm concerned. First, the food:

A cotton candy taco. The cotton candy was marshmallow-flavored. Waffle cone shell, plus marshmallow drizzle and crumbled cookies, with two Pocky-stick-kind of things

Fried Hill Country: mozzarella with basil, green tomato slices, battered and fried.
Field greens below, Texas honey/balsamic vinegar on top.

Fried shepherds pie with gravy, and fried green beans.

These were hearty and delicious, especially on the chilly, rainy day. But I enjoyed the beans even more.

Fried s'more. Pretty self-explanatory.

But it's not just the million dollars you spend on fair food that's awesome. The State Fair of Texas has a Go Texan! pavilion with samples. Among them are:

"I can keep this?!"

Toffee!

Ice cream float with choice of root beer or Dr. Pepper. Hmm, Texans are weird. #teamrootbeer

There was also beef jerky and cheese, local honey, and coated nuts, among others. Man, I love "free" food.

Okay, yes, you pay an admission to get into the fair, and that includes all of the shows and exhibitions. But there is never any reason to pay full price. During the week, there are daily discounts (don't go on the weekends; just don't). We chose the day to support the North Texas Food Bank. We each took 4 cans of food, and got in for $4 each (as opposed to $16). Seniors are free on Thursdays. There are some food specials on Thursday, too, but you're limited to the offers, and we like to select our treats.

This was Mal's first year to do Little Hands, and he enjoyed it.

In the past, you'd get paid at the farmer's market and immediately trade your "money" for something like a granola bar or packet of crackers. This time, it was a coupon for free ice cream that was outside of the building and around the corner, plus Mal didn't want ice cream, so there was no way to get his treat and save it for later.

They've moved the farm indoors, along with putting the animals in the same building. I thought the change was a positive one, overall.

That baby, though!

Ce-boooooooooo!

We'd picked a hotel that was close to a Dart light rail stop in Irving, so we were able to take public transportation down for cheaper than it would have cost to park. So it was a great little trip to take on a budget.

Oh, and butter.

I've never noticed it before, but the sculpture had a few blooms of mold on it. I think today is the last day of the fair, anyway, so it'll all probably get fed to pigs or something now. I just Googled it. I didn't find it, but in Ohio, it gets recycled into things from tires to soap. Also, I learned that a vegan is the sculptor for Texas, and has been for several years. Interesting.

3) I think my son is on a 25-hour schedule. Every day, he goes to sleep a bit later. Last night/this morning it was 1 AM. I DON'T LOVE IT.

4) We have tried A LOT of the meal prep delivery services, and after the initial welcome discount, I cancel because it's too expensive. Most are around $10 per serving, and, I'm sorry, I'll just go eat at a restaurant if I want to spend that kind of money. We've been doing Every Plate for a few weeks now, though, and really enjoy it. It's only $5 per serving, which is closer to what I spend on groceries, especially if you account for the unfortunate food waste which makes me wish we had animals or a compost heap.

If you try it, and you should because you can save $20 off of the first couple of deliveries, which means the cost is more like $3.50 per serving, just know that their average 10 minute prep time is only accurate if you have a cooking companion or if you have expert-level knife skills and a really good set of cutlery. I cook full meals at home 4-5 times per week, and it takes me about 25 minutes to slice and dice the produce. The finished product is awesome, though, and I like that I didn't even have to do active ordering and arrange for delivery. Also, it's refrigerated, so you don't have to be home. Oh, also, they do charge something like $7.99 shipping, whereas other companies ship for "free," but the cost per serving is still a LOT lower with Every Plate.

***I have other random thoughts that I'll share soon, but I'm going to get ready for church and just pull Mal into the car and go, because we need a bedtime closer to 10 than 1, so it's time to start the pain of waking that kid up earlier!

Clearing Out and Pondering Stuff

We have this really cute curio cabinet that I mistakenly thought was a bookshelf, so I put books on it and... well, a picture is worth a bunch of words, apparently, so:

In addition to the wavy shelving, it was leaning forward. Way forward. And the shelf is on top of another cabinet unit, so you're basically looking at a death trap waiting to be sprung.

So, I did what any responsible parent would do: I gave the shelf to someone else. And as I was clearing it out this week, I came across a few things that made me stop and think. Dang, I hate it when that happens.

The first thing I found was this.

I bought this magazine in early 1998, about the same time I was buying tickets to go to the 20th anniversary sing-along showing of Grease at a theater in Las Vegas. I know, I know. Here in Austin with the Alamo Drafthouse, there are sing-alongs all of the time. But this wasn't the case nearly 20 years ago.

I loved Grease, and I thought this would be a neat magazine to have for posterity's sake. I was living in a condo near the airport at the time, and this magazine traveled with me to the house we bought in northwest Las Vegas, then to Boys Town, then to Washington state for a few months, back to Las Vegas, to our move to north Texas... For some reason, I remember that I kept this in the broken drawer of my built-in vanity at the house in Sherman. Anyway, when I went through the divorce and moved into the RV, it was there, and then to the Nuthaus and now to Vogelfutter.

So I look at this magazine now, and I wonder, "Why?!" I have zero emotional attachment to this thing, and why do I still have it?! I should just throw it away, but I can't help but feel that someone else might want it. But probably not. This thing has traveled with me for nearly twenty years! It's time for it to go bye-bye. Because I just can't remember why, or come up with a new one that justifies keeping it.

Another thing that I came across was James' 4th grade journal, and I set it aside to read last night. It was entertaining and insightful from beginning to end.

Three weeks in, James announced that he'd developed a couple of opinions about the school year: "1) I'm going to like the 4th grade. 2) I am not going to have to study harder." Have I mentioned that my husband is very very smart? Because he is and always has been. No joke.

Anyway, the thing that struck me most (yes, even more than the introduction of the "new" game of Frogger that he happily discovered delivered to his Safeway) was this thing.

Yes, he's a proud little guy. That shows up several times in his writings. But I love the enthusiasm of his "greatest idea." AND the "Why not?" attitude.

For a day or two, at least, because then this happened:

Do you hear a balloon deflating? The "wah-wah" trombone of Debbie Downer? "We don't get to do, nobody will supervise us."

It makes me so so sad. For fourth grade James, and for every kid who ever had an amazing idea that got shot down by a grown-up because it wasn't important to the grown up to try to find a way to make it happen.

Listen, I understand. There are probably liability issues with allowing a group of unsupervised kids use the gym or the front lawn or whatever outside of school hours. I get that teachers have families and lives and already give more than they have to to the school.

But, dang it, if just one person could have been there to say, "We can't do this officially as a school thing, but let's try to figure out how to make it happen, anyway..."

Sigh.

This. This is one reason I unschool. I want to see what the kids are going to do of their own volition. Maybe it's sit around and watch videos all day. And maybe it's writing a play comparable to Shakespeare or Miller. Or maybe it's just using the oven for the first time, even though you've always been scared of it, because *you* wanted to bake brownies, not because someone told you to make something.

Adults often complain that kids are not motivated or lazy, but the truth is that a lot of times, they just don't want to do the stuff we want them to do, things that seem important to us, but for which they have no context and don't find important in the least. What if we set them free to pursue what they find important? What could they accomplish? What would Mrs. White's 1981-1982 4th grade class have accomplished?

Finally, I've been seeing (and reseeing) a bunch of memes lately about the things that "drive me crazy": things like not replacing the toilet paper roll, but just putting a new roll of TP on the counter; a kid folding laundry but not doing the "right" folds on the towels; that kind of thing. In fact, I was doing a search for the toilet paper meme, and, good grief... You can actually get a sign to put in your bathroom that says, "Replacing the toilet paper will not give you brain damage." Someone PAYS to have a sign like that in their house.

I guess if you're using it as a humorous reminder, okay, whatever. But there is an anecdote that I believe was in 30 Days of Purpose, and if not, it was in something Rick Warren wrote... and it's literally the only thing I remember about him except that when he and his wife went to visit some small African village, their helicopter blew the corrugated steel roof off of the school building.

Anyway, he said that he used to get really bothered by the fact that his wife didn't refill the ice trays when she used ice. He said that every time he had to refill them himself, knowing he hadn't used the last ice, he would grumble in his head, if not out loud. One time, he was so bothered, his self-talk went like this: "Seriously, this only takes six seconds. It's not like--" Then he realized "it only takes six seconds" applied to him as well as to her. He allowed himself to consider whether his wife was worth serving, with kindness and no ill will, for six tiny seconds, as he did something that was very important to him, and apparently not important to her.

I've remembered this for probably 15+ years. I don't always practice it, but I really try to.

Do you know what I do when I got into either of our bathrooms and the toilet paper is out? I replace it. Do I get mad at the person who let it run out and didn't replace it? No. I sincerely don't. I'm sure I do and don't do things that the other people in this house wish I did differently, too. It's nothing for me to fix the toilet paper. I hope it's nothing for them to extend grace to me.

There are lots of things that could and used to get on my nerves that I realized don't bother me when I don't let them. Most of that annerved reaction is because of pride. Because I feel like I'm not being respected or that my time is too valuable to waste doing whatever it is that didn't get done.

An example: The other day, the trash was put out for the complex valet service, which means the container we use for recycling was outside. We just put a recycling bag in the pantry to use until we pull the empty can back in. My older child had brought some trash up and had basically just sat it on the floor, on top of the bag, but not in it. Me from several years ago would have gone into the bedroom, marched the child back into the kitchen, shown the child the offending trash, and insisted that it be put away correctly. This time? I just put it in the bag and mentioned later, "If you don't feel like putting the trash into the bag, just leave it on the counter and I'll throw it away." And the reaction made me think that it wasn't intentional. It hasn't happened again, either.

There is enough to be genuinely bothered about for me to waste negative energy at the people in my house. We're all on the same team. And now I'll get off of that soap box.

By the way, if Mal ever folds the towels, I'll put them away however he manages to stack them. I don't care. You can't see them when the cabinet is closed. Done and done.

Finally, somethnig... uh, interesting. James' co-worker brought these and thought I might appreciate them. Because I'm a moo-cow, you see? *sigh*

If you think that looks dirty, you're not alone. From this page: "Thought it was a certain action of the boys, and later learned that only 'milking'." Oh, those boys.

And speaking of boys, the same co-worker who brought this in for me is the one who drew a "cool/weird" scale about me and put me way higher on the "weird" side than the "cool" side.

Anyway, I'm going to have these for breakfast in the morning, so wish me luck.

Dribs and Drabs from My Scattered Brain

I don't know whether it's the heat or the fact that I'm used to exorcising itty bitty mental grenades as Facebook statuses, but I find that the stupidest things are ricocheting around in my brain as I make my way through the day.

Here's a dumb one: Mal watches a lot of kiddie music videos: Little Baby Bum, Dave and Ava - more on that one in a minute - and Super Simple Songs. And he has a lot of books with nursery rhymes in them. It drives me bonkers and every single time he hears or reads "Humpty Dumpty," I feel the need to verbalize the caveat, "He's not an egg. It never says he's an egg."

I feel like creators are being lazy. Just because he was depicted as an egg somewhere back in the 19th Century doesn't mean he's an egg. The whole thing makes no sense. Why would the king give a rat's patootie about a broken egg?

See? I need to be somewhere where I can get outside and enjoy nature and not have these idiotic obsessions.

The second thing is that I think Americans need to get with the times and pick a different name for what we call "football." It ISN'T football anymore, and it makes so much more sense to use that name for soccer (or futbol, if you will). Mal has a lot of balls, including a so-called "football," so, yeah. I am confronted with this a lot.

Oh! So going back to the videos: I think my favorite "channel" is Super Simple Songs. Mal started with Little Baby Bum, and those are cute. I like how they reboot "Rock-a-Bye Baby" and make it less death-y. And their "Twinkle Twinkle" videos are beautiful (and ubiquitous; Mal calls stars "twinkle"). The Super Simple Songs are cute enough for Mal without being overly obnoxious to me. There is a set of videos called "Do You Like...?" that makes the unschooler in me chafe, but you'll see about that in a week or two when I have completed a fun project and blog about it. 

We discovered "Dave and Ava" when James' mom was here, and they caught Mal's attention immediately. Well, they're a little precious, but tolerable... EXCEPT for this. The main characters are two little kids who wear animal pajamas all of the time, and apparently live with a father (figure?), a dog, a cat, and a mouse, on a farm. Some of the animals are anthropomorphized a bit, especially seen dancing or walking upright. A few wear some clothes if the "story" of the song calls for it. BUT... There is a "family" in several videos. A family of monkeys. Fully dressed, except with no shoes, and with hairstyles that are overtly black. This is unmistakably a black family, represented as monkeys. It *might* be innocent, but how could the creative team not know? 

In all of the videos, the kids are mischievous, jumping on the bed in this song, rolling over and causing problems and being ornery in "There Were Ten in the Bed," stealing apples and bananas and making rude faces in "I Like Apples and Bananas." I mean, it literally makes me uncomfortable. I have looked around on the internets to see if anyone has called them out on this, and found exactly two instances on Facebook or YouTube where someone asked about what the heck they were thinking. The creators haven't responded. I know they're not absent, because they DID respond (in good humor, I think) to something I wrote pretty snarkily on their Facebook page.

The "cast" of Super Simple Songs is diverse almost to a technical precision; it was obviously intentional. I prefer that to this, which almost seems like a way to catch kids' attention, then subtly teach them to be racist. Mal loves their videos, though. So, again, I talk a lot while he's watching.

Okay, I don't remember where I was going with this post. I started it days ago and had a laundry list of things I was planning to "discuss," but have lost them all and keep not writing because I'm too tired to try to remember.

I'll end with this thing that Mal found this morning that is truly awful. It's the Videogyan YouTube channel and it's truly insufferable. They have about 14,000 versions of "Five Little Monkeys--" ahem, "Babies" and by the time it got to the eighth one in the compilation Mal was trying to watch, I had to stop it. They're written awfully, with lyrics like, "Five little babies playing with the toys. One tossed it up and it got broke. Mamma called the Daddy and the Daddy said, 'No more babies playing with the toy.'" Or, "Five little babies opening the eggs. One got a dino and it got scared. Mamma called the Daddy and the Daddy said, 'There are no dinos living in our house." Yeah. So if you hate yourself, watch a few. You're welcome.