4 posts tagged “kids”
What's the strongest association you have between a scent and a memory?
Right now it's the stream of diarrhea running like a river from the homeless man who was parked on the sidewalk two blocks away from Rael's office. The smell was like nothing I've smelled before, and I've had two small children who like dried fruit. It was a Niagara of effluvia, a smell that travelled with you even as you looked away, gagging, and thought "well, there's nothing I could do" while awkwardly making your middle-class excuses as you strode onward checking to make sure that smell that stuck in your nose, the smell that wouldn't go away even when the man and his predicament were blocks away, the smell that was making your psyche ache, wasn't coming from a drip of homeless shit on your clean new limited-edition Puma sneakers.
I agree strongly with David agreeing with Mena (that last post is friends-only) about privacy being essential around kids. I'm a laid-back guy who doesn't like formalities and who is naturally distrustful of extreme emotion whether adoration or paranoia. I didn't used to believe those who were concerned about kid privacy, until Jenine did an artsy photo shoot with our kids. Black and white film, white sheet, light spilling in through the window, chubby kids ... naked. Not porn, just the occasional cute baby buttcheek.
Naked was the problem. We keep our family photos in Gallery, which helpfully shows how many times each picture has been viewed. The art photos had >100 views, compared to the 7 to 10 for the hundreds of other photos we took that month of the kids fully dressed at the playground, friends' houses, and riding their bikes. Only possible explanation: preverts. And that was enough to creep me out.
The first two of these books are the dessicated husks of read books, books whose knowledge and delight have been sucked out. The last two books are sucks in progress, so to speak.
Suck is the right word to use when talking about Heinlein, too. I mistakenly thought the book was good. Obviously I need to eat more Omega-3 or smoke less crack or whatever, because it is teh suck. Bigtime. I think I wrote more in my notes on the book.
The parenting book was awesome, recommended in every respect except the bits around sex and alcohol. I'm not as Texan.
Atheism is fantastic, but slow going. It's very reminiscent of my first philosophy class, only without the "brain in a vat" and with a lot more of "if they say this, then they're logically inconsistent because ...".
Cities is also good. It's a 1984 economics book. She starts by pointing out how stagflation goes against every economic theory, then offers her own (that cities are the centerpieces of economies in ways that nations are not). It's interesting to learn about economics from (the first chapter is a summary of the other theories and it's VERY readable) and also just to explore this idea of cities central to economies. She's got another book where she goes into it in more detail, but I'm enjoying this one plenty.
Some boys are notorious for being savage with pets. Not my boy. He just rushed over to my chair, all in a panic. "Dad! Dad!" he said.
"What's up, mate?" I asked.
"The cat's following me!" He cast a frightened look back over his shoulder. The fat family cat wandered slowly past the kitchen island and walked into the laundry where its food was.
"Ah." I gave him a hug. He was trembling. I thought I'd use a bit of Socratic method to help him realize the cat wasn't out to get him. "What do you think the cat wanted?"
"I don't know. My toes?"
"Why would Bob want your toes?"
"They look like mice. Cats eat mice. Maybe Bob wanted to eat my toes."
I stifled a laugh. "I don't think cats get to be as fat as Bob by confusing toes with mice."
"Whatever, Dad. I was scared."
