Personal Entry

I just read The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir and it is hilarious and a little sad. I was really worried it would bash Mormons too much but it was too honest for that. No hate here, no prejudice, just honest reality. I liked it a lot. As someone who has actually thought about my faith and grappled with its major questions and problems, but have still chosen to be Mormon, I can really relate to her. But at one point of the book a guy the author dated asks her about cloning. It really throws her and she doesn't have a good answer, except that it's not possible to clone a real thinking person. I can see why she thought this but she is wrong. I wrote a response to her: what I would like to tell her in person. It is below the fold. Continue reading "Cloning and Mormonism"

Just letting everyone know that the girls went back to their birth mother yesterday at 8:00 am. It's kind of sad knowing that we'll never see them again, but I think that we gave them a good experience and I do think their BM deserved to get them back and I'm glad I helped out with that. We'll be taking a year off foster care so the boys have some much-needed stability. Overall it was a great experience for all of us and I'm glad we did it, but I am pretty exhausted and looking forward to a bit of a slower pace.

This morning it is snowing, already four inches or so on the ground, and my two school-age children have been outside romping through the drifts in the front yard for 15 minutes, waiting for their walking buddies to show up. (This means that my previously pristine, smooth front lawn is now a riot of paths and bumps, and the trees have deliberately had all their snow shaken down upon young heads. What will the neighbors think? Gasp!)

I sent them to school by themselves when it became clear that the walking buddies weren't going to show, and not thirty seconds later the very thing I had feared occurred - a neighbor mom in an enormous SUV saw them, pulled over, and offered them a ride.

I am outraged.

First of all, it's five blocks to school. Six if you go the long way. It's not hard for elementary school age kids to walk five blocks - in fact, they burn more than that amount of energy just zipping around getting ready in the morning (colliding, panicking, playing, hysterically laughing, and in the case of Preston RIGHT NOW, cuddling three light sabres and tucking them into bed.)

Secondly, KIDS LIKE SNOW. I know this comes as a surprise to those of us who don't remember childhood. But I can guarantee that my kids, upon looking out the window this morning, did NOT think to themselves, "dammit, now I will be forced to frolic my way to school while pelting my siblings and friends with snowballs and sliding on the sidewalk in my snow boots." They LIKE walking those five blocks in a magically transformed, white-purple world (which has miraculously become wholly edible overnight.)

And thirdly, and most outrageously, does that SUV mom actually think my kids are SAFER in an SUV which will go join a queue of a hundred other cars and SUVs, sliding on the slush with kids dodging before and behind as they unload? My kids are much, much safer walking to school than driving. Period. But most especially, they are safer in crappy weather like this. What to a driver is a harrowing death journey is to a child an enchanted wonderland. And yes, I am aware that my children probably won't be injured because of that sheltered, heated, crowded SUV, but that doesn't change the fact that they would have been better off outside of it.

When did Suburbia become like this? When my grandmother raised her children, she sought out a suburban neighborhood. The kids roamed in packs, playing night games and raiding fruit trees. Now, my children play outside alone unless a neighbor invites them in to watch TV or play video games. And in this lovely, soft snowfall, all the children in my neighborhood can only watch through tinted windows as they join the endless queue to drop them off immediately in front of the school doors. Heaven forbid they have to walk down the school sidewalk. They might have to do something inconvenient, like enjoy themselves.

When I was 18 and in college in Arizona, Sarah and I went to the Renaissance fair. It was cool for a couple of reasons: It was in a little faux town built just for that purpose out in the desert, there were lots of hot guys brandishing pretty weapons (NOT A METAPHOR), and the performers were awesome. My favorite performers were this group of cute juggling guys. They were so funny that I couldn't breathe through most of their act, I was laughing so hard. I sat through their show twice. They were talented too - they balanced on giant balls juggling flaming clubs (ALSO NOT A METAPHOR).

I was curious today and looked them up, and it turns out that not only are they still performing but they are getting gigs outside of Renaissance fairs. (Not that there's anything wrong with performing at Renaissance fairs. I would be caterwauling ballads there RIGHT NOW if they'd have me.) They're still totally cute and one of the guys, Matt, reminds me of Joey if he had dedicated his life to entertaining others and juggling rather than plotting the destruction of others and writing code. Their website is www.thelondonbroilshow.com