Is It? Or Isn't It? The North American Monsoon

In the early mornings, moisture has been hugging the tops of the Sandias. And on some mornings, there is a Great-Smokey-like haze above the trees.

Is it? Or isn't it?

The monsoon, I mean.

At this time of the year New Mexicans are eagerly asking the question.

And of great concern is the unspoken question: Will it fail? Being somewhat superstitious, New Mexicans are loath to voice this question lest it reveal to the Coyote Angel, the trickster, that we have no faith. When the monsoon fails, our resevoirs drop, our crops dry out and wild fires abound.

The clouds have been gathering in the mid-to-late afternoons.

We have had thunder and lightning and showers almost every evening this past week. But is it? Or isn't it?

Sometimes, we are wooed by thunderstorms made from gulf-moisture coming in from the east, but the great northerly flow of moist air brought from the Pacific by the summer tradewinds does not take hold.

That happened a lot during the great drought of the 1990's. I remember having "rain parties" in 1996, to celebrate what we thought was the return of the summer monsoons--only to see them fail so that by the next summer, I could walk across the Rio Grande at my field sites without hardly getting my boots wet.

The New Mexican monsoon is a fickle creature.

The monsoon happens thus:

• a steady flow of low-level moist air comes up from the south
• the Colorado Plateau mountains warm up with summer insolation and draw the moist air to us
• the rising warm air lifts the moisture up into the atmosphere, creating the thunderheads that drop the summer rains.

This monsoonal flow mechanism is the same one that causes the torrential summer monsoons in India and also the southern hemispere summer monsoons on Australia's northern provinces. In India, the towering heights of the Hymalayas make for a most spectacular monsoon. Ours is nothing like that. But we count on the moisture we do get, just the same.

So we every afternoon as the thunderheads form, and winds smell moist, and the lightning arcs to ground, we go outside, look up at the sky and ask each other:

Is it? Or isn't it?

It may be building, but the steady flow of moisture from the south has not started--yet.

So it isn't. Yet.

It is the start of the summer thunderstorm season.

And everyday that the clouds build, we'll look hopefully to the south.

Waiting for that happy day when the question becomes: Is it?

And the answer is: Yes.

From our mouths to G-d's ear!

Finally....Chaos: Starting to Lay Flooring

It has been two weeks since we brought our wood flooring home for installation.

The flooring does hace to sit for at least 72 hours, but ours has acclimated for much longer. That's good--I suppose, but it was NOT planned that way. We planned to start laying floor last weekend. But you know how it is--Sh...tuff happens!

We had N. to get home from camp and N. to send off to Illinois. We had the water softener blow a gasket (actually an 'O'-ring seal) and start leaking all over the garage...

So on Friday, we'd said, we'd begin. On Friday, we went about measuring because before you can begin, you have to PLAN. And Bruce is a planner extraordinaire.
And that planning is important so that the boards are centered in the room, and so that any "ripped" (sawed longwise) boards aren't so narrow as to look funny at the edge of a room.
I am really glad Bruce knows about these things, because I...being engineeringly challenged...had no idea how much goes into getting ready for laying a floor.


Then, we had some more supplies to get.
Friday evening, before we began our Shabbat, Bruce spent some time on the phone with Lumber Liquidators. We found out we needed a different trowel than the one we used on the composite flooring we installed at the other house. We also needed solvent to clean off any misplaced Bostik Adhesive.


After Torah study yesterday, we went to get those items. We also needed the MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheets) print-outs, so that we knew how to safely handle the adhesive and the solvents. Then we stopped to get gloves, knee pads and blue painter's tape.

After Havdalah, I emptied the china cabinet, and we moved the furniture out of the dining room--the first room we plan to do. Except---the china cabinet! It is too heavy for Bruce and me to move alone--we need more muscle. So we are working around that until we can get some help. I saw my kitchen become crowded and my dining room emptied.
Bruce disconnected the stove from the stove-pipe because the platform it rests on must be moved, too.

This morning--well, we did not get an early start. I should hide the newspaper! I kept walking out to the kitchen and saying, "Bruce, should we get started?" And he kept saying, "Just let me finish this section."

Maybe I'll cancel the paper for the duration!

But we finally got moving. More measuring, more calculating. Some heated discussion about where to actually start and which way to orient the boards.
Our hallways are orthogonal (at-right-angles-to) the large rooms.

But finally--action! The baseboards came off. More measuring was done to make really, truly sure we would not glue ourselves into an off-center look.

Then the carpets started coming up. We are now committed to trying to actually, really, truly get this done...before the High Holidays, I hope!

I find that as I age--and believe me DIY ages me FAST--I am less and less willing to tolerate chaos for long periods of time. And I am mindful of how long it took to get the tub in! That "weekend project" actually took close to three months. (Holidays and a Bar Mitzvah intervened).

But I have to keep tellling myself that:
1) I was the one that wanted hardwood floors
2) We are saving thousands of dollars by laying the floors ourselves
3) The value of our house will go up by about double the materials cost plus the estimated installation (the part we are not going to pay!), making our installation real sweat equity
4) My husband is a perfectionist--meaning the work will be done beautifully
AND
5) I will enjoy the fruits of our labor for far longer than I will have to live in Chaos.

So--bring on tohu v'bohu (chaos), because the joy of DIY cannot be far behind.

Here At Last! Independence Edition of the COH

Monument on Lexington Green, Lexington, MA (Taken July 2004)

I am even more remiss!

The Independence Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is up at The Homeschool Cafe. In fact, it has been up since yesterday.

Well, I'll need a break while we are laying floors.

Bloggers for Positive Global Change

I have been remiss!

I have been tagged in the last month for several memes and I have not dealt with any of them.


I have some excuses:

1) It's the "lazy, crazy days of summer" in the nothern hemisphere
2) I have had some stuff I really wanted to write about

3) I am working on a presentation I am giving at the New Mexico Javits Grant Gifted Conference


But today I opened my e-mail to find that Megan, of Imaginif and Homeschooling Aspergers has given me a meme that I really can't refuse.

It is the Bloggers for Positive Global Change award.

The meme is from Climate of Our Future, whose mission statement is:

"Our particular mission is no small task — changing the world we live in for the better — but we take great comfort in the fact that we’re not struggling alone to achieve this."

Over at Imagine If, Megan said this about my blog: "....In a single blog, she has taught me about American history and Judaism. Peaceful to her bones, this one woman oozes social understanding, acceptance of diversity and helpful knowledge beyond belief."

Wow! When I looked at the blogs she put me in company with, I am humbled. I mean, I'm just a "homeschool mom" with some things I want to say. I guess the best way to actually deserve this award is to point to blogs that I look to for inspiration and guidance. And I guess I'll have to come out of hiding about global climate change and science as well. Oh, boy!

So here goes--5 Blogs that I turn to for inspiration when I am feeling too small to make a difference:

Life Without School : This unique blog is put together by 13 "featured authors" who have their own blogs as well. They manage Life Without School as a "blogging community" that includes blogs about all aspects of homeschooling by guest authors, as well as pages and pages of information for anyone interested in homeschooling. The featured authors comprise a very diverse group and the blogging community allows for an even greater diversity of voices to be heard. This blog is an inspiration to me in many ways. They are voices for positive change.

Consent of the Governed : Homeschool mom turned activist and researcher, Judy provides a great deal of varied information about the legal issues involving homeschooling, as well as commentary on the educational establishment and government that keeps me thinking. She is also a researcher for National Home Education Legal Defense. Based in Connecticut, this is a non-sectarian alternative for those of us who want to pool our resources to preserve our freedom to educate our children ourselves.

Edie Neurolearning Blog : The Edies are on hiatus right now, due to illness in the family. They might not be posting for a while, but their blog is a magnificent resource for those of us educating children with learning differences. Through timely discussion and reviews of neuroscience papers, the Edies show us the wonderful diversity and potential among our developmentally different children. Posts like Gifted? Autistic? Quirky? - Embracing the Different , give readers a way to imagine each child as an individual with much to offer our world, if only we are willing to appreciate difference and nurture each child. These people are truly out to change the world on behalf of our gifted and neurodiverse children.

Nature Skills Blog : This blog is hosted by The Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, Oregon. Hosted by students in the year-long nature awareness adult program, this blog teaches a variety of wilderness survival skills and links up with the NatureTalk Forum, for students in the various programs of the school. The whole Wilderness Awareness School community is a voice for positive global change in that it seeks to help us re-learn our link with the world of nature. We often act as if we are aliens on our own planet. The Wilderness Awareness School is one of several organizations that seeks to help us remember that we are children of our mother, the earth. For without that awareness, how can we be expected to change our relationship with her?

Junkfood Science : The mission statement of this blog is: "The truth about food, fat and health. Learn the science that mainstream media doesn't report and how to critically think about the junk they do that's not fit to swallow. Plus some food for thought." We live in a world in which one of the accepted prejudices has become intolerance against fat people. The powers that be would have you believe that all of us will be healthy if only we are emaciated as fashion models. at Junkfood Science, Sandy S., BSN, RN, CCP, keeps me up to date about the real science behind the propaganda put out by the diet industry. And she reminds me that human beings come in all shapes and sizes, and that this kind of diversity, like any other rooted in biology, is important for our health, happiness and our future as a species.

So there they are--five blogs that I think are voices for positive change in our world.

Check them out.

And here are the rules for the Bloggers for Positive Global Change Award:

1. When you get tagged, write a post with links to up to 5 blogs that you think are trying to change the world in a positive way.

2. In your post, make sure you link back to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Leave a comment or message for the bloggers you’re tagging, so they know they’re now part of the meme.

4. Optional: Proudly display the “Bloggers For Positive Global Change” award badge with a link to the post that you write up.

The Glorious Fourth!

Old Glory Flies from the mast of the USS Constitution

I took the picture on the Turn-Around Cruise, July 19, 2004.

Have a wonderful 4th!

Long may we remember and exercise Liberty, secured

at so great a cost

by the patriots of the American revolution.

"...Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor

In the summer of 2001, I spent the Glorious Fourth at the Aleph Summer Kallah. A Kallah is a period of Jewish study undertaken traditionally in the summer, after Shavuot.

The 4th of July was on a Thursday that year, and Thursday is a Torah reading day in the synagogue. We had morning services with Rabbi Arthur Waskow in the big tent that is part of Kallah.

I don't remember what Torah portion was read that day, but I will never forget the Haftarah (prophetic reading). Rabbi Waskow stood at the Bimah and chanted to the tune of Haftarah Trop:

"In Congress, July 4, 1776: When in the course of human events..."

He chanted the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. When I was growing up, it was the custom the read the Declaration out loud on the 4th at the park before the fireworks. But to place the Declaration in the canon of prophetic writings was not something that I had ever considered. And yet, Rabbi Waskow was right--it is a prophetic document in a very real sense. The reading sent shivers up my spine.

We discussed the Declaration rather than having a D'var Torah (sermon). I do not remember the particulars of the discussion, but the import was the idea that the Eternal Creator of the Universe delights in human freedom and self-determiniation. There were many important rabbis in the Jewish Renewal movement there that day, so I did not contribute until the end of the discussion.

I suggested that Rabbi Waskow chant also the end of the Declaration for it is a very powerful statement of commitment by the signers of the document. And Rabbi Waskow stood aside and called me for the honor of chanting these words:

"... And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

I have always thought these words are the most powerful in the Declaration. To understand how powerful, we must remember that to sign this document was an act of treason in the eyes of King George. And this was no hollow statement. The penalty for treason is death.

It is easy for us today to forget, as we have our barbeques, and watch the fireworks, that the founders of our Republic did not know the outcome of the revolution that they began. When they got together to "hatch much treason," as Samuel Adams put it, they were taking a very real risk that it might not work out. When George Washington and the Continental Army were starving at Valley Forge, they faced the real possiblity that all could be lost in this desperate gamble, and that tyranny would prevail.

And yet they persisted in their revolution in support of an idea--the idea and ideal that all human beings are created equal and that a nation can be build on the foundation of liberty and self-determination.

Many of those who signed the Declaration did in fact gamble and lose their property; and some their very lives. And even more so, did the ordinary "Americans," who responded to the call of freedom and gave their lives in the monumental struggle to give birth to a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all...are created equal," as Abe Lincoln so simply and eloquently put it 87 years later.

And I wonder, do we, their spiritual descendents, have that kind of dedication? Do we understand the meaning of staking "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" for the ideal of liberty?

I believe that our nation, out of all the nations, has a unique heritage of liberty. We are a people founded not on blood, nor on soil, but on the strength of an idea. Anyone who is willing to pledge life, fortune and honor in the service of this idea is one of us--regardless of birth. Of all of the nations, we have a unique capacity for greatness. But it is up to us to reach for that greatness and pledge everything we are and everything we have, to make it happen. Regardless of the costs.

Our lives. Our fortunes. Our sacred honor.

When we pledge the first two, we create the third.

I am reminded of the poem that is on the Minuteman statue in Concord:

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

His flag to April's breeze unfurled.

Here once the embattled farmer stood,

And fired the shot heard 'round the world."

Will the echo if that shot continue to be heard? Do we understand what "sacred honor" means? Would we be willing to give our lives and our fortunes up to the cause of liberty?

Are we willing to demand this of our leaders?

These questions should be foremost on our minds and hearts this Glorious Fourth.

Returns and Departures

After a very quiet week, I picked N. up in town after his week at Boy Scout Camp in Texas.



The camp was in the Big Bend area, not far from Fort Davis. My boy came home tired and dirty and hot...it was regularly 109 degrees F down there. And very happy about his successful week.

He completed these merit badges while at camp:

• Horsemanship


• Riflery


• Archery


• Swimming

For horsemanship, he had to learn the parts of the horse, the names of the tack, how to groom the horse, muck the stall, feed the horse, and care for and put on the tack, as well as riding. He had to get up at 5 AM and muck and feed before eating his own breakfast. What a great lesson in responsibility for other living things! In swimming he learned water safety, as well as getting advanced instruction in free-style (crawl), backstroke, sidestroke, and breaststroke. For riflery and archery, he had to demonstrate care of the weapon, and safety, as well as marksmanship. He had written tests to complete for each badge, before he rode, got in the water, or used the weapons. He learned that if he was to complete all four badges, he had to use his free time for practicing the skills he was learning. What a great learning experience. And he had great fun and came home with a great sense of accomplishment.

N. will be home all day today and tomorrow, and then he will be flying to Chicago on Tuesday for a three-week visit with my parents, sisters and their children. He is really looking forward to spending a lot of time having fun with his cousins!

And that led me to a frantic search today for his birth certificate! We need to get him a state ID so that he can negotiate the airports and get through security by himself.

And you know how it is...I knew right where all of the legal documents were--in the old house! I ventured into the cave of Bruce's office. Because I knew the documets were in the file cabinet in Bruce's office. No dice. I looked again. Still not there. I found a copy ofour marriage certificate stuck in a very interesting set of documents...but that's a different story.

Then I asked MLC:

Me: "Didn't I give you your birth certificate when you applied for your passport?"

MLC: "Yep. You got it right out of the file cabinet and handed it to me."

Me: "Which file cabinet?"

MLC: "It was about "yea" high (she gestured) and white. You went right to it."

Me: "Where was the file cabinet? Was it in this house?"

MLC: "Yep. You went right to it and handed it to me."

So I went out to the garage. Our garage should park three cars. Our two cars are parked outdoors while all three bays are full of boxes, half-opened containers with the contents leaking out, empty boxes, and the flotsam and jetsam of the move. The one we made last year.

Ahem! Embararrasing, isn't it?

So I went out to the garage--well shod in case I step on a lizard--and climbed over the Christmas lights the previous owner left on the house that we took down because we don't use them; the ones that were deposited between the refrigerator and the stack of astronomy stuff boxes. The file cabinet was next to N.'s old desk, and a stack of boxes of yet-to-be-unpacked books was square in front of the drawers. I moved those boxes, after first clearing away some of the other stuff sitting there to make room--and opened the top drawer of the file cabinet.

EMPTY!

I frantically moved the box in front of the bottom drawer.

EMPTY!

MLC, opening the garage door: "By the way, Mom, you took the file to put it somewhere safe and accessible."

Me: "WONDERFUL! I wonder where THAT would be?"

MLC: "Try your office."

Hmmm. I cleaned my office before Pesach. I looked in the obvious place--the small file box near my desk. I found:

• The expired warranty on my 5-year old Focus


• Pay stubs from my teaching job at Rio Rancho High dated 2000.


• Blank greeting cards for all occasions.


• NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE!

OY! Vey iz mir!

I looked in every notebook on my bookshelf. No dice.

I checked in the desk in the kitchen. Nope.

Then I opened the closet in my office. I had put several boxes of photos and mementos on the shelf. So I got the step-ladder. And brought down the first box. It was full of photographs. I pulled out a few: Counter-clockwise from bottom left: MLC taken 20 years ago, one of N. and his friend Jon-Jon, from 1998. A photo of MLC and N taken in 1995. And one of our cat, Binky, when he could fit into the palm of your hand, taken back in 2002. NO BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

I went through another box that contained my high school diploma, and among other such stuff, my ex's high school diploma. No file!

Finally, I pulled down a box labeled: Hebrew Teaching. And textbooks and my notes for teaching were on top. Then I found files of papers such as "The Lonely Man of Faith" by Soleveitchik. I found copies of Rosh Chodesh Services and Women's Seder Services I had written in the 1990's. And then, toward the bottom, I found my legal papers. Below that were the papers for the purchase of my first house in 1999. And, at the very bottom, a file labeled in red sharpie: IMPORTANT! RE-FILE AT ONCE! THIS MEANS YOU-E! Love, E.

You guessed it. It contains my birth certificate, the children's birth certificates, our original marriage certificate, and all of the other seldom-used-but-very-important-when-needed documents of life.

Later, as Bruce and I were eating some lunch, N. wandered in.

"Did you find it?" he asked.

"N., I am not sure you were actually born," I teased him.

He stuck his tongue out at me. "Where was it?" he asked.

Smart aleck!

O.K. maybe I should follow my own, capitalized, exclaimation-pointed, written -n-red instructions with love to myself.

Bruce is out in the garage now--tidying up a bit. Ya gotta love that guy!

And it's nice to find all-but-forgotten pictures.

I guess I know what I can occupy my lonely days with while N. is in Illinois.

The papers? I've got them somewhere safe and accessible until I need them tomorrow.