Tradition: Dithering Over the Midnight Hour

I refuse to read the pre-release reviews. But I am still on tenterhooks. How can one even think that Harry Potter might die? It destroys the whole hero's journey! But...I'm worried.


And I am dithering about tonight.

Months ago, I reserved three copies at a well known bookstore.
One for N. One for MLC. And one for me.

The plan was to go to the midnight release EVENT as we have since Goblet of Fire came out. I think that was the first release party--at least in our part of the world.
But then we made summer plans and now N. is going to the midnight EVENT at a different well known bookstore in Illinois. I arranged for his "Aunt Madge" (not her real name but everybody in the family calls her that) to pre-order a copy there for him.

So why go to the midnight party? As I told Bruce, who listened patiently and wisely did not tell me what to do, I would have to drive into town at about 9 PM. I'd have to sit around the bookstore until midnight. I would have to wait in line to get my copy. Then I'd have to drive home, arriving around 2 to 3 in the morning, depending on the lines. And by then, it is unlikely that I'd even be able to keep my eyes open to read the first chapter.

So it's probably more sensible to wait until 9 AM tomorrow morning and arrive at the bookstore and get my copy. It's only 6 or 7 hours later and then I'll be fresh for reading. They have coffee at the bookstore or I can go to our local coffee shop to read. Sounds like a plan.

BUT...we have not missed one of the parties. And this is the LAST one! You know what Garrison Keilor says: If you do it certain way twice, it becomes a TRADITION. And I love tradition.

Tradition. Tradition. Tra-DIT-ion! (Humming Fiddler on the Roof. Da-da-da-da! Da-da-DAH!).

"Why without our tradition, our lives would be..."

A lot less tiring.

Whatever I decide, I will not turn to the last chapter first. I would NEVER do that.
And I will not be on the internet again until I have finished the book.
I do not want my pleasure spoiled.

Update Illinois and Thoughts on Gifted/Twice-exceptional Children

Supposedly, N. has been taking a lot of pictures while he is in Illinois, but he has not downloaded very many to send to me so that I can vicariously enjoy his trip.

In fact, he doesn't seem to think about me much at all! Hummmmp!

I have been getting updates about once or twice a week from my sister, however. And he has called a few times, too. On Friday 6 July, I called him. He had not called before that, so I got the ball rolling and wished him Shabbat Shalom via message machine. On Sunday 8 July, I got this e-mail from my younger sister:

Hey Big Sis,
I could tell you were a wee bit worried about your boy when you called this afternoon. Some "mother's intuition" must have been working it's mojo on you because we got your message at the exact moment that N. most needed to hear your comforting voice. If you had seen the way he hovered over the answering machine listening to your message you'd never doubt for the rest of your life that your baby boy loves his mama!
You know that anyway, of course, but sometimes the teenaged versions of our beloved sons go ten miles beyond sunset out of their way to avoid letting us know they still need us.
They say things like, "YEAH, whatever!" and "Mom, I KNOW, okay?!"
They roll their eyes and shrug helplessly at each other, as if having a MOTHER is a unique scourge visited upon their generation as a sort of unavoidable social disease.

Well. They do become an alien species on the way to manhood.

And my sister has some interesting observations about "da boyz" as she calls them. She wrote:

N. and D. were approaching a potential fight about a stupid BB gun they'd basically stuffed up with spit-wads when you called. D. didn't care about it at all anymore, but N. was obsessed and would not let go of the thing, the project, whatever it had become in his mind. N. was all about getting back the glorious joy of shooting NOTHING BUT AIR out of that pump-action toy gun. D. was sick of the whole thing, and probably jealous of N.'s devotion to what he (D) saw as a stupid broken air gun that he'd discarded as no longer useful years ago. It was sort of interesting watching them work this thing out between themselves, these two mildly autistic boys.

D was far less obsessive than N about the BB gun, but he seemed to intuitively understand N's compulsion. D was WAY more patient about it than my 14 year old self would have been in a million years. D sat watching and offering assistance for HOURS while N worked on the useless BB gun. N was obviously aware of D's irritation and he felt guilty about it but couldn't help himself. At one point I heard N say to D, "Hey, you don't have to sit here forever." D replied, "No, that's okay, I gotcha."

My sister caught a difference between the two boys right away. They are both on the Autism Spectrum. And she is right that N.'s obsessiveness can be partly explained by that. But there is another valid explanation as well. N. is twice-exceptional. His intellectual potential is very high, which also can explain his hyper-focus. Despite what some well-meaning people say, this kind of giftedness is not "as common as dirt." And it is a mixed-bag. N. does not have the kind of intellectual giftedness combined with proclivities and talents that would make him the "A" student in school. In fact, D. is probably the better student in the classroom, even with his mild autism. He is more patient and more willing to "go with the flow." N. is not. He thinks visually, and gets from A to Z so fast that the rest of us are often only at B,C, or D. But to translate his process into words is so difficult for him that he generally just gives up. Like Moses, he is "slow of speech." He makes profound associations but gets frustrated to the point of melt-down or shut-down when he tries to communicate them. He has an astonishing visual memory coupled with extreme sensitivites to sensory input. Imagine the difficulties for him and his teachers in a classroom!

A truth about profound intellectual giftedness is this: The majority of profoundly gifted people are not the world's most successful people. They are unlikely to become presidents or prime ministers, or even famous research scientists. They are outliers. And the world of schools, universities and corporations was not set up with them in mind. They are more likely to have learning disabilities*, social difficulties, extreme sensitivities and psychological illnesses. To put it plainly, their nervous systems function differently. The field of the neurosciences is just beginning to investigate these differences and we do not really understand them. But we know they are there. These kids are truly the square peg in the round hole.

*A word on learning disabilities in the gifted: The higher someone scores on the IQ curve, the more likely they will have what we call "learning disabilites." And yet, these kids learn very well-- in the right environment. But that environment is not the public school general education classroom for most of them. Are these kids really learning disabled? Well that depends, I suspect, on how you define your terms. Maybe they are. And maybe our increasingly cookie-cutter standards and curriculum make them appear so. And maybe its a little bit of both. I don't know.

And for N., Asperger's Syndrome complicates matters further. Or maybe it's part and parcel of his profound giftedness. We don't know that, either. What we do know is that N. has an unusual cognitive phenotype. He is an outlier. He has a million-dollar brain. And yet, if most of us could go to the brain shop and if we had a million dollars to spend, we would not choose to buy a brain like his. It is too different. Too difficult. So maybe "gifted" is not the right word. But we have to call it something. The phenomenon of giftedness is real. Intelligence is a continuous trait in human beings. Like height. And weight. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. Some of us fall below average. And some of us above. Some are far below. And some are far above.

For those whose intelligence falls either far below or far above the average, there will be different educational needs. We recognize and provide for this for children with low cognitive abilities. But for many reasons, we often balk at the thought for children who are outliers at the other end of the curve. For a profoundly twice-exceptional child like N., the need for a qualitatively different education is even more pressing. And if the majority of children, those whose intelligence is somewhere near average, are having difficulties with our current educational practice, then gifted and twice-exceptional children certainly will.

Despite all of the talk about "diversity," the public schools have by-and-large abandoned the concept of individualizing educational practices to meet the needs of all of their students. No Child Left Behind has, in practice, been developed as a system of lock-step standards and goals that demand that all children demonstrate the exact same skills at the exact same age in the exact same way. There are many political and ideological "reasons" for this; but reason itself plays almost no role at all in this educational debacle.

So we opted out. By bringing N. home we can deliver to him an education that is truly individual. We can change strategies as we go, keeping what works, getting rid of what doesn't, and developing innovative techniques to meet his needs. We do not have to wait for somebody somewhere to notice that N.'s needs are not being met. We do not have to lose opportunities because "programs don't exist" for a child like N. At home, we can give him what he needs as the needs become apparent.

At home, N. does not cease to be profoundly gifted. He does not cease to have AS. He is still a twice-exceptional child. But he also gets to be something at least as important. Just a Kid. He gets to ponder and look for shapes in the clouds. He gets to tie knots and he gets to go from A to Z without words. At least sometimes. He gets to do what needs doing at his own pace and in his own time. He doesn't have to worry too much about how he differs from the other kids. We don't need to make comparisons on achievement and growth. We are not in competition with anyone. We are simply meeting the unique needs of of one kid. We didn't start out planning to do it this way. We started homeschooling in order to solve a problem. In N.'s case, we couldn't fix the public education system in order to make it work for us. So we had to solve the problem by doing something different. And we discovered that it is also lots of fun!

When we bring twice-exceptional kids home for school, this does not mean that "giftedness" and all that it entails disappears from the earth. The "label" is still useful and the differences are still real. Homeschooling is simply an unconventional way to meet the needs of the gifted or twice-exceptional child. And for us, it has been highly effective.

And what happened with the problem of the useless B.B. gun? "Da boyz," with a little help from my phone call and Aunt Madge, figured it out.

They had just about had it with the whole BB gun thing when we got your message. Luckily I found a bow and arrow set in the garage that caught their fancy and got them focused on something different. After talking to you N was in a much better humor and they both seemed to relax into their evening. They ran around the neighborhood making fools of themselves pretending to be savages and they loved it. They tried to "stalk" me and would have succeeded easily except that I happened to walk past them on my way from the patio...

Sometimes solving a problem takes you in a completely different direction than you planned. The solution sneaks up on you. And you end up having lots of fun.

(The pictures in this post are the few I have received from Illinois. One is from Allerton Park and Mansion. One is from the Prarieland Aviation Museum. The maps and the New Salem picture are from the Illinois Department of Tourism).

Drat! Missed the Deadline...Again: COH 81

The latest Carnival of Homeschooling, The Teacher In-Service Edition is up over at Principled Discovery. There are 55 articles presented this week but mine is not one of them. I missed the deadline.

Well...I have had other things on my mind. But when I need a break, I'll have some good reading ahead.

Stand by Your Geek: Laying the First Planks

It took until this afternoon for Bruce to lay the first planks and glue them down.


Yesterday morning, he finished filing the doorframes so that the floor would fit underneath them. Carpet has some give in it, but the wood floor will not. And Bruce would rather have the floor fit under the doorframes than around the edges. Since wood expands and contracts with changes in humidity, space has to be left between the wood and the wall for that to happen and Bruce'd rather have that space hidden by the doorframe.


While he was at it, Bruce found imperfections in how the contractors put up the doorframes. They are not noticable with the casual glance but he fixed them anyway. "I'll know they're there and it will bother me." Yep. Geek to the core.




Yesterday afternoon, Bruce pieced out the first two rows that extend the length of the hallway. This involved some cutting at an angle because at the end of the hallway where I was standing to take the picture, the hallway expands outward to make a half-hexagon on the side where Zoey is standing. This accomodates N.'s bedroom door (pictured), the bathroom door and my office door. The corner between my office door and the master bedroom comprises an angle the straight line of the planks hit.


In this picture, we are looking down the hallway from the master bedroom door, through the living room and at the 2nd master suite at the end of the hall. It is quite long.



One reason that beginning to lay out the planks took so long was that the pieces in the boxes of wood are of different sizes, so Bruce counted out the number of each size in order to make sure not to come to a point where all he'd have left are small pieces.


I think it would have worked just as well to lay them out randomly. I suspect that is what most people do. But Bruce said: "I don't want to box myself into a corner." Figuratively, of course. He doesn't like surprises!


This morning Bruce did more cutting and piecing, so that he could lay out about 5 rows of the planks straight across the entire hallway from master suite to second master suite.



The glue is spread out using a large trowel with darts cut out on the edges, so that the glue is spread as stripes. These stripes match notches on the bottom of the planks. This provides a better "grab" between the glue and the plank, so that the boards will not shift.

Blue painter's tape is used to tape the planks together while the glue dries. The floor can have "light use" after a few hours, but it will be 24 hours before furniture can be put on it and normal use can resume.

In this picture you can the flooring that has been set on the glue to the right, and the pieces, together like those of a puzzle that are still to be put on the glue to the left.

I have not been much help in this process.

Bruce is in "quality control" mode, and he does not really want anyone else to touch the work, because he knows what he is doing.

So I have been working on my power-point presentation for the New Mexico State Gifted Conference. Lily has been sleeping on the daybed in my office while lending her moral support. Every now and then, she and Zoey will rouse themselves and check out the work Bruce is doing. Then they return to keep me company.

It is frustrating that I can do so little to help. But Bruce's perfectionism will not allow it. And although I am also frustrated by the intensity of some of his methods, I breathe through it--as much as the glue smells allow!

The perfectionism may take a little longer, the results will have a quality that no contractor can duplicate.

You can see the concentration, here.

Look at the intensity of effort!

He is so focused. So intent on getting it absolutely right!

I gotta love my Geek!

Make a Little Blessing, the Monsoon has Come!

It's official!

The afternoon clouds and evening thunderstorms we have been getting are due to "strong daytime heating, monsoonal moisture and orographic uplift" over the southern and central mountain chains. (From Weatherbug Meteorologist Adam Bell). "Orographic uplift" is earth science speak for the heated mountains lofting up the moist monsoonal flow from the south.

The monsoons are here. This is good news because, although our moist spring and early summer dampened the fire season earlier in the summer, our fire danger had been very high lately.



We are not out of the woods, yet, however, as the thunderstorms do produce lighting, which can start fires unless the rain follows. So far, we have been getting local thundershowers with reasonable rain under them, rather than the frontal monsoons we got last year. However, last year was a record monsoon--the most moisture since records have been kept. We cannot expect that again.

What we are hoping to see, though, is a normal monsoon, which will deepen into August, with local thundershowers bringing moisture every few days to an area.

Last week, when MLC and I took the dogs for their evening walk, we were happy to see the clouds gathering over Shadow Mountain Valley. It felt kind of "sticky"--although nothing like what they get in the midwest--and so the breeze on top of Via Sedillo ridge felt really good.
We were sweating as we descended into the Valley, and when we climbed back up, we were rewarded with a little shower right over the ridge. It felt cool and refreshing!


We even saw a rainbow--though I didn't have a got shot for a picture!

As I sang the rainbow blessing, I was struck by the thought that the blessing, which reminds us that the Eternal is faithful to the covenant with all the earth, is as much about not destroying the earth by drought (lack of water) as it is by deluge.

At least, that is how it seems to me, living, as I do, in desert mountains.

In English, the blessing goes something like this:
"Blessed are you, Eternal, our G-d, ruler of the universe,
who remembers the covenant and is faithful to the covenant and keeps his word (with all the living)."


The monsoons also provide a wonderful show in the sky. The clouds formed by the "orographic lifting" of moisture, tend to form in the afternoon. So the sunsets become spectactular, golden, red and orange light on purple and pink and gold clouds.

How pleasant it is to go out on the porch during the long summer twilight, and cooled by the breezes produced by the monsoonal flow, enjoy the beautiful sunsets.

Each part of the season has it's own particular beauty. In June, I enjoy the cool mornings.
In July, I enjoy the evenings, brought to us in technicolor by the North American monsoon.

Geeking Out, R3D3, & Why Prep Takes So Long

Some people geek out on Star Trek, Star Wars, or computers. Some geek-out on Harry Potter, science fiction, or even subway schedules.

But my beloved husband gets the geek-gleam in his eye over tools and DIY equipment.
And he has to have just the right thing to do the right job--perfectly.

Which is why, six days past FLOORING--THE BEGINNING, we are still in the preparation stage. I took the above pictue last night. You can see that in the dining room, the carpet is finally out, and the carpet is rolled up under the window. And why did it take from Sunday until yesterday to get this far? Bruce needed just the right tool to get up the carpet tack-strips. And he was just waiting until he could get to Harbor Freight.

Sigh.

But as you can see in the picture to the left, the carpet is completely out of the hallways as of today. It's amazing what a geek can do with the perfect tool.

Yesterday, I finally moved the dining chairs that were stacked on top of each other from the living room. I also removed the basedboards that had been removed. They were marked with mysterious marking on the back in indelible ink. Markings like: "OFF 2 W" (office, 2 west) and "LR 3 NE." I put them in the garage, in one stack, on the other side of the table in the middle. The one we use to hold all sorts of stuff that would probably be rejected by Good Will. Then I straightened up the living room and vacuumed the only carpeting left in the main areas of the house (other than bedrooms).

I just wanted to have one place to sit where things looked (relatively) normal.

When Bruce got home from work and looked at the living room, a worried furrow appeared in his brow. "Where's the baseboard?"

"I put it in the garage," I said. "Zoey nearly punctured her paw when she stepped on one."

"H-h-how'd you move them?" He asked.
Me: "I carried them into the garage one at a time."
Bruce: "But did you vacuum them first?"
Me: "Huh?"
Bruce, starting to breath rapidly: "Well..where'd you put them?"
Me: "By the table."
Bruce, hyperventilating: "But did you use my system?"
Me, with weary patience: "What system, honey?"
Bruce: "D-d-d-did you stack them according to room and direction and number?"
Me; "Huh?"

You get the picture.

So today I went to town to go to the bakery for Challah--it's too hot to bake. I even had a breakfast burrito for lunch, giving Bruce and much time alone with the prep as possible.


When I got home, Bruce had re-stacked the flooring boxes and removed the carpet in the hallways.

While I put the Challah and groceries away, Bruce swept the halls--twice. Then he re-swept the dining room. With a broom!

While I vacuumed the kitchen and dining room, he re-swept the halls.
I thought I'd be helpful and vacuumed the dining room edges. You know, where the baseboards and floor meet, if the baseboards are on. Which they are not. I looked up to see Bruce looking at me, brow furrowed again.


Bruce: I'll just get R3D3."
Me: "Huh?"
Bruce: "You should use R3D3 to get the job done right."
Me: "Is R3D3 related to R2D2?"
Bruce, pulling the gynormous shop-vac into the house: "...Come on, R3..."

Of course, he re-did the dining room with R3D3.
He is now getting R3D3 to help out with the hallways.

I thought they looked pretty spiffy in the picture above.
But apparently not spiffy enough.

The Beam Central Vac is not the right tool for the job.
To get it perfectly spiffy you need...

[Dum, dum, dum-de da-dum da-dum (Star Wars theme)]

R3D3!

I'll let him get it perfect for at least 30 more minutes. Then I'll tell Bruce "Skywalker" that it's time to have a bath for Shabbat.
Han Solo is coming to dinner. With the Wookie.

High Inquisitor Umbridge: The Cloying Sweetness of Evil

Warning:This is a post that discusses the new Harry Potter movie. If you have read the book, then the post will not spoil the movie. But it might if you haven't.



I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. I did not go to the 12:01 AM showing on Tuesday night-Wednesday morning because I just hate to pay 10 bucks for a movie that I will fall asleep at.
These days I can sleep through the most exciting movies if I am tired enough and if they are late enough.

So Bruce and I went to a reasonably (for us) timed showing at 6:30 PM. That way, I met him near Sandia, we ate and drove to the theater together, and still arrived home by about 10 PM when all was said and done.

The movie was exciting, and I enjoyed it, although I stand by my prejudice that almost no movie can do justice to the written work. Of course, if I were the queen of movie adaptations, there were things that I would have included or made clearer, but IMHO Roger Ebert's review was really off the mark this time. My guess is that he has not read the book and has some clear misunderstandings about the Harry Potter world.


As when I read the book, I was fascinated anew by the character of Dolores Umbridge (played skillfully by Imelda Stauton). J.K. Rowling is very good at introducing us to types of people that are almost archetypes. Dolores Umbridge, the Hogwarts' High Inquisitor, is such a character. As the story opens, she is placed at Hogwarts School for Wizardry and Magic by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, in order to reform (Hermione uses the words "interfere with") the curriculum at the school. As the story unfolds, she finds so much to reform that she succeeds in becoming High Inquisitor, with the power to fire staff and torture students, and finally, temporarily, headmistress.



In her role as an agent for the Ministry of Magic's desire to suppress the reality of approaching evil in the form of the return of the dark wizard, Voldemort, Umbridge manages to disrupt the curriculum that would teach students to defend themselves against the "Dark Arts." It is only through the subterfuge of the students themselves that real lessons in fighting the approaching evil threatened by Voldemort go on.



But the evil represented by Dolores Umbridge is not the dark and powerful evil of Voldemort. It is not bold and immediately frightening. In fact, it is not even immediately apparent. No. The evil that Umbridge represents is that of a mid-level bureaucrat who in her self-righteousness, makes small, incremental choices to do unrighteous acts. Early in the movie, she justifies torturing Harry by saying sweetly, "You know that you really do deserve to be punished," thereby placing responsibility for her evil act on the victim of it. Later, she will justify her attempt to use the illegal and horrible cruciatus curse, by saying that the extraordinary circumstances she is in require it (the ends justify the means), and that she is doing it because she is loyal to the ministry of magic (a deflection of responsibility), and that the powers that be need never know (anything is legal as long as you don't get caught).


Dolores Umbridge's character serves also as a contrast to the developing strength of Harry Potter's character. By his 5th year at Hogwarts, Harry is deep in the existential angst of adolescence. And because he is a deeply moral person, he struggles with his connection with the evil Voldemort, and he worries that he might be evil himself through that connection. As he wrestles with this possibilty, he is counseled by his godfather, Sirius Black, and later by Dumbledore, that this is the lot of all of us, that we all have the inclination toward good and the inclination toward evil within us, and that is our choices that ultimately determine our destiny.






But what differentiates Harry's character from that of Dolores Umbridge is that he knows that he has within him the possibility to do evil and that he must make choices and take responsibility for them. Dolores Umbridge, on the other hand sees herself as the epitome of sweetness and light. She is sure of her own righteousness, and therefore puts the responsibility for her evil acts on others. This "cloying sweetness" is made plain by her dress and her manner and the way she drinks her tea--with 3 heaping teaspoons full of sugar. Her character is a demonstration of the difference between "goodness" and "niceness." We tend to equate the two but they aren't necessarily the same.

At the end of the movie, Harry has the opportunity to inflict the forbidden cruciatus curse on a witch who has just murdered his godfather. And he is tempted to use it by Voldemort. But in the end he chooses not to do so. And in making the choice, he takes responsibility for what he does, which the opposite of what Umbridge does when the opportunity presented itself to her.

I believe that it is this quality of the mythic hero's journey that makes the story of Harry Potter so compelling to so many of us. We can look at the world situation around us and see all of the elements of the story in our reality. We, too, know that there is evil approaching. And we have some leaders who would like to deny that. And we, too, are reluctant to use that label--evil--because we know that we have the same capacity within ourselves.

It's all there. But what really got my attention was how well Rowling understands that most of us confuse "nice" with "good." And so the overdone "sweetness" of Dolores Umbridge is funny and scary at the same time. It is so unexpected. But it shouldn't be.

And then there is our expectation that a "good" woman should be "nice"...but that's a different blog entry.