Bitchy McBitcherson's Blog

Tag: family

Who pays attention to me?

Bart Prince is an architect that I became aware of from some work he had done in California. It caught my eye. One day I day scrolling through the TiVo guide I noticed his name and recorded the show. I was about a home he had designed for his parents in Albuquerque, NM. Because, like all his designs, it was rather distinctive, I was curious if my FIL, who lived in Albuquerque, was aware of this house.

I asked my FIL and not only did he know of the house, but he happened to know Bart Prince. My FIL is a writer, among other things, and he had recently written a magazine article about Bart Prince, and has spent a fair amount of time interviewing him.

A few weeks later a package arrived. It was a book about Bart Prince, signed to me from Bart Prince. It was a very thoughtful gift, showing that my FIL thought of me when I wasn’t directly interacting with him. I appreciated it.

The next time I went to visit Albuquerque my FIL arranged to drop by and visit with Bart. I got to see his home and studio and listen to him talk about his current project in much different tones the soundbites so common on HGTV. It was an interesting afternoon and once again proved that my FIL actually stores little bits of information about me away in his head and tries to do things for me.

We were just in Albuquerque for a couple of days this last unexpected trip, so he had us drive past Bart’s house so I could see the new structure that had been built next door on the second lot he owns. A house annex I guess.

This is the new structure.

This is the home/studio that I visited the last time I was in ABQ. Sorry the photo was so bad, but I parked the car to take a photo of the new space.

Here is a shot showing both. If we hadn’t been in the middle of running errands I would have gotten some decent shots of the sculptures out front. This is just in a standard neighborhood, built on two lots. It is not very large, although most of the homes around it are single story. Obviously it stands out, as the homes nearby are all traditional, but he has been there a long time so everyone is very used to it.

Anyhow, I have people who are related to me by blood who pay less attention to comments I make.

February 27, 2007
Family Movie Night

Last night we watched Jesus Camp. Overall I thought it was a well done documentary. If you watch the trailers available on their website you definitely have a very strong idea of what the film is like, it just goes on much longer. It does give a good opportunity to get to know the kids better than the trailer does. Also quite a bit of Ted Haggard footage is featured, which is of course made more interesting considering his recent history. Apparently he was not pleased with the movie, whereas Pastor Becky Fischer did not feel so negatively toward it.

I am not sure if I think the film would have been more powerful without a dissenting point of view, but since they did choose to portray one, I am glad that they used Mike Papantonio as that voice. He is well spoken, and strong in his own Christian faith.

The subject matter was definitely not one I felt any joy in watching, but it certainly provided the family with a topic of conversation for the evening.

The Families on Fire Summer Camp has shut down temporarily due to vandalism at the location they rent out for the camp. I hope the people involved in that vandalism do not think that they did anybody any favors. The ministry is still active, and has yet another reason to stand strong. The vandalism makes it clear, that as with every issue, there are a great many assholes on every side of it.

The Boys of Baraka is another piece by these filmmakers that has been in my Netflix queue for quite a while. After watching this, it will definitely be staying there, and might even move up a few spots.

February 4, 2007
Kicking Ass and Taking Names
Today the kid got her junior black belt.

We are really proud of her. She has been studying for more than 7 years now, and it is a pretty big day, made even more poignant by the fact she is currently on leave from active workouts on doctors orders. She is in physical therapy and working her way back.

In her art the belts and degrees are:
- white
- yellow
- yellow first degree
- yellow second degree
- green
- green first degree
- green second degree
- green third degree
- brown
- brown first degree
- brown second degree
- brown third degree
- brown fourth degree
- black (then 8 degrees until Master)
Her belt is a junior black belt, but is well deserved. She is the first kid at her school to ever get one, and in general in her art kids are not given black belts. She works out with the adults too, and in that class she is ranked green. In her art nobody under the age of 16 can be given an adult black belt, period.

It was a very special day, as several people she has known a long time also got promotions today. One boy, who is really a young man now, got his black belt. He used to live near us so his parents and I would switch off carpooling to class. Now he drives himself. He has turned into an amazing fighter. I love to watch him kick ass out there. Such far cry from when he was first allowed into the adult class.

Two of our good friends got promotions too. One who we introduced to the school, got his black belt today. The second, that person introduced to the school. He got his green belt. A green belt for the adults is a big deal in the art. It is considered technically a professional, which means legally they are expected to have control over their actions and are responsible for them.

Two guys got their second degree black belts today. These are guys I have known for years and years now. One has become a good friend of the family through the school. It is always so great to see them kicking some serious ass out there. Love it. I wish I could get better shots of the action, but the lighting there is piss poor.

All in all, a big day.

Congratulations to all.

Just a few small pics for fun, more will be available on flickr later.
January 29, 2007
another shitty day in paradise

I am not a fan of Richard Dawkins. This is not to say that I dislike him, I haven’t familiarized myself enough with him to develop an opinion. I am aware of his name and have a general concept of who he is, but I have never read a single one of his books. I’ve never seen him interviewed. He is a shadow in my peripheral vision.

I ran across this shortened transcript of an interview with him. One of the questions was “How do you explain its prevalence?” (it being the belief in a supernatural god). His response has been kicking around in my brain as vaguely interesting.

When you ask a Darwinian like me, how we explain something, we usually take that to mean, “What is the Darwinian survival value of it?”

Quite often, when you ask what is the survival value of “X”, it turns out that you shouldn’t be asking the question about “X” at all, but that “X” is a by-product of something else that does have survival value. In this case, the suggestion I put forward as only one of many possible suggestions, is that religious faith is a by-product of the childhood tendency to believe what your parents tell you.

It’s a very good idea for children to believe what parents tell them. A child who dis-believes what his parents tell him would probably die, by not heeding the parent’s advice not to get into the fire, for example. So child brains, on this theory, are born with a rule of thumb, “believe what your parents tell you.” Now, the problem with that — where the by-product idea comes in — is that it’s not possible to design a brain that believes what its parents tell it, without believing bad things along with good things. Ideally we might like the child brain to filter good advice like, “Don’t jump in the fire,” from bad advice like, “Worship the tribal gods.” But the child-brain has no way of discriminating those two kinds of advice. So, inevitably, a child-brain that is pre-programmed to believe and obey what his parents tell it, is automatically vulnerable to bad advice like, “Worship the tribal juju.”

I think that’s one part of the answer, but then, you need another part of the answer: Why do some kinds of bad advice, like, “Worship the tribal juju,” survive and others not?

Beliefs like “life-after-death” spread because they are appealing. A lot of people don’t like the idea of dying and rather do like the idea that they’ll survive their own death. So the meme, if you like, spreads like a virus because people want to believe it.

It brought to mind the whole Santa Claus thing.

Of course, on days like today, it sure would be easier to pick my sobbing daughter up off the floor and try to cheer her up with an elaborate story of how her bird is now enjoying flying around in heaven and she’ll see it again one day. I don’t think it is just a matter of it sticking and spreading because people want to believe it, I imagine the telling of it is a comfort too, for the speaker. Even if the speaker does not firmly believe it themselves, it is an easier, and on the surface perhaps a seemingly kinder response than “That sucks.“

January 19, 2007
A Stroll Down Memory Lane

Santa Claus

When our daughter was 3 years old, we were out with friends of ours, a boy and his mom. We were walking past a Santa Claus set up, and he wanted to go chat with the santa. While he was up there, I asked her if she wanted to go too. She looked at me like I was nuts. “No,” she told me.

He did his thing and came running back with a big grin, waving about a candy cane that the santa had given him (Come sit in my lap little boy. Do you want some candy?” See? Creepy).

She stared intently at the candy cane and looked back at me. “Now you want to go?” I asked.

“Will you go with me?” she asked.

“No,” I snorted, “but I’ll stand right here and watch.”

She frowned, “Okay.” She approached the santa warily and stopped just out of arms reach. She stood there, unsure how it all worked.

He ho ho ho’d and wanted to know what she wanted for Christmas.

“Actually,” she said “we don’t celebrate Christmas.” (“Actually” was her favorite way to start a sentence from ages 2-4).

The jolly act dropped from the santa’s face and he just looked at her perplexed. They stared at each other for a beat in silence. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You gave my friend a candy cane,” she told the santa matter of factly. “Can I have one?”

He smiled. This he could understand. He handed over a candy cane and she quickly made her way back to us.

“Can I have part of the candy cane and save part for Daddy?” she asked, holding it up triumphantly.

“Ask me after lunch,” I told her.

The Tooth Fairy

When she had her first loose tooth she came to me one day wanting to discuss The Tooth Fairy. I was a bit surprised. What was there to discuss? She wanted to know if The Tooth Fairy was real.

*blink* *blink*

This was not a question I had been expecting. It wasn’t just that we didn’t tell her the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny myth, we had explained to her the nature of it, from the start. Yet here she was coming to me about The Tooth Fairy.

“Well,” I asked, “Do YOU think The Tooth Fairy is real?”

She paused for a moment and finally answered, “Yes.”

Yes?!?!

“Oh, um… why do you think that?” I inquired. I mean, really, why the fuck did she think that?

“When Maiya loses a tooth, she puts it under her pillow and in the morning there is money,” she explained.

“And who do you think put it there?” I asked hopefully.

“The Tooth Fairy.”

Let’s try this another way. “Does Maiya get things from Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny are real?” I asked, pretty certain that to this I’d at least get the response I was expecting.

She laughs. “No!”

“Okay, then who do you think gives her the things from Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny?”

“Grandma.”

“And who do you think leaves money under her pillow when she loses a tooth?” I asked hopefully.

She told me, “The Tooth Fairy.”

This stunning display of non-logic was, well, stunning to me. I was seeing my child in a whole new light, and I did not like it. I was sitting there, no doubt with my mouth hanging open, wondering about the details of the return policy and whether I had kept the receipt for her. I took a deep breath. “What makes you think that?”

She leaned in very close to me and, quietly and slowly, she said something that sounded partialy like she was telling me a secret and a good deal like she was explaining something to a complete idiot, “I. just. think. it. might. be. fun.”

Ah ha. I got it. She wasn’t an idiot. She wanted the fun of pretending, and better yet she wanted money under her pillow. “Oh. Okay.”

So, we did The Tooth Fairy thing. I bought a bunch of books that were tooth related and when she’d lose a tooth and stuck it under her pillow, we’d take the tooth and leave a book and some coins. One time we could not find the tooth, it had slipped beyond reach. That time The Tooth Fairy left a letter explaining that regulation prevented her from leaving something if she could not find the tooth. She would get into trouble. The Tooth Fairy writes backwards, so it can be easily read in a mirror.

She was right. It was sort of fun.

December 25, 2006
[ adjective ] [ noun ] to you too

It is that time of year again. “The Holidays” as if these are the only holidays. It is admittedly not my favorite time of the year, mainly as a matter of convenience. I don’t like how crowded the roads around the stores get. I don’t like how crowded the parking lots get. I don’t like how crowded the stores themselves get. I also don’t care for the vibe I get from inside stores. Because of all of this, I try to stay in my house as much as possible from Thanksgiving through early January, and that can get rather inconvenient. I find the rest of the year plenty inconvenient enough.

Other things I do enjoy. I enjoy the colder weather at this time of the year. I like it when people carol door to door, but I haven’t had anyone do that in years. I like the decorations that many houses put up, especially the big elaborate homemade ones, and things with lots of sparkly lights. I don’t appreciate the vast aisles of decorations for sale in the stores, but that is just because it displaces normal items and I am stuck wandering around a store I already don’t wish to be in, in search of something that I would normally be able to find rapidly.

The ever growing PC greeting crap going on surrounding the holidays is definitely getting on my nerves. Mainly because it leads to questions. People wishing me some sort of holiday nicety is one thing, people asking me directly about my holiday leanings is not nearly so welcome.

Years ago everybody assumed we celebrated Christmas. People would wish us a Merry Christmas and we would smile and wish them one too. It was a honest sentiment, I certainly didn’t wish them an unMerry Christmas. Whatever form of greeting they wanted to offer, I’d offer them one back. If they wanted to say “Happy Holidays” that was fine by me too. It was easy.

This week somebody started out happily with “Merry Christmas!”
“You too.” I responded with a warm smile.
Then she looked concerned and asked “Oh, but do you celebrate Christmas?”
Not liking to lie directly, I inwardly sighed, and told her still with a smile. “No, we don’t.”
“Oh, then I shouldn’t say that!”
“Of course you should, it is a nice thing to wish us.”
“Happy Hanukkah! Should I say that? Do you celebrate Hanukkah?”
This was going exactly they way I did not want it to, but still smiling I told her, once again, that we did not. The look of confusion passed over her face. The look I’ve seen many times before.
“Well, what do you celebrate?” she asked with concern.
“Just the season,” I lied, or at least half lied. I mean, we celebrate New Years.
“I don’t want to be inappropriate!” she called after us.

It isn’t a secret that we don’t celebrate Christmas, but I am not going to have t-shirts printed either. It’s our personal choice. It works for us. It isn’t meant as a judgement on anybody else. It also isn’t something that I want to converse about endlessly with people as they go about their merry business. People are often curious however, so I might as well write it up once and then I can point people to it. Like with many aspects of our lives, there are several reasons behind our choice.

I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I was brought up on Santa Claus. By the age of five I had serious doubts. It didn’t make sense to me, and yet my parents, both of them, had been telling me about Santa Claus. I left out snacks for this guy. Were they making it up? Were my parents the giver of gifts from Santa Claus? Were my parents eating the snacks? I began to question them as Christmas approached the year I was in kindergarten. They decided they were not ready to give up on the Santa Claus myth yet. One night while both parents were in the kitchen with me, Santa Claus gave me a call on the phone to reassure me that he was real, and he’d be leaving me gifts for Christmas. This bought my parents two more years before they were forced to admit the truth. It also had a lasting affect on just how much I believed what they had to tell me.

I also just happen to think it is a creepy idea. I don’t want people breaking into my house, whether they be taking things or leaving things. I don’t like the idea of children sitting on random strangers laps at the mall. I also don’t think milk should be consumed after it has been sitting outside of the fridge for half the night, but that is just a whole other issue I have.

I want my kid to behave because she should damn well behave herself. That is what is good for the family. That is what is good for society. That is what is good for her. It is certainly what is good for me, and that is pretty damn important to me. I do not want her to behave because there is some man watching her all the time who knows if she has been bad or good or naughty or nice or whatever. I don’t want her to behave better because she thinks she might get presents. I just want her to behave because she would be disappointed in herself if she didn’t. Furthermore, why should a guy in some red suit who lives almost half the globe away be determining what behavior is appropriate for her to start with?

I say “I” not because this was a unilateral decision, but because I don’t want to speak for my husband on precisely what his experiences were (especially those before we met) or current beliefs are. We spoke about the issue and made the no Christmas decision as a team. We came into the relationship still celebrating and we did celebrate some together, but we decided to stop. We stopped before our daughter was born.

December 21, 2006
Do you have a frog I can borrow?

I feel like crap.

CRAP

CRAP

CRAP

I woke up feeling bad, sore throat, nose totally dry, but sinus cavities totally stuffed. Just yucky. My apologies to anybody I have breathed on in the last few days. I stumbled downstairs and looked in the cabinet to find something, anything, to make me feel less like crap, and I find this Zicam throat spray stuff.

So, I spray some, and I am like:

<i>huh

that doesn’t taste good</i>

I get my vitamins together and take them with water, and try to keep going about my business – but the not good…

is turning bad…

and getting worse…

and soon I am making faces and twitching…

and feeling gaggy.

Since KFZ doesn’t happen to be blind, deaf, stupid, or comatose, she asks, “WHAT is wrong?! What are you doing?”

Twitching and gagging, I tell her that I used the Zicam and mention that it tastes bad.

<blockquote>bad

bad

bad

BAD

BAD

<b>FOUL</b></blockquote> This cracks her up, and she just keeps saying:

<blockquote>I told you so.

I told you so!

I told you so!!

You just got mad, and said it couldn’t be that bad, but <font size=”+1″>I TOLD YOU SO!</font></blockquote>Now, “I told you so” is not very pleasant to hear out of any mouth, especially if you are not feeling well. It is something I am even less interested in hearing out of my kid’s mouth.

Did I haul off and hit her? Nope.

I just went and got the Zicam out of the cabinet and threw it the fuck away.

Unfortunately, I think everything may taste bad FOREVER.

The thing is, she just said it tasted “bad”. She didn’t say it tasted a special kind of bad, that grew and grew long after the moment you sprayed it, and sent your body into convulsions over the sheer nastiness of it. She just said “bad”.

The child obviously needs to learn some new and improved communication skills.

In the meantime, I am wandering around looking for something to wipe my tongue off on, hoping to make the taste go away. Perhaps some sort of poisonous frog will work.

October 27, 2006