My son Drake will turn five late next August, which makes him eligible to start kindergarten at our local, public schools. A few years ago, I read Beth Hawkins’s excellent article on her challenges with the Minneapolis school choice process. I thought, oh, I’m glad I don’t have to think about that for a while. Well, time’s up, and the choices, they are myriad.

Choice: home school or school-school. I briefly considered teaching my boys at home, for three main reasons. One, I had a terrible experience in public schools, and felt I got a crappy education. I’m skeptical that my boys, already demonstrating brilliance, (I’m sure I’m the ONLY mom who thinks this about her kids) will have a much better experience. Two, most schools start super early, which isn’t good for kids. Three, my admittedly non-comprehensive research shows that early education favors the attention and learning styles of girls, not boys. (The tables turn at adolescence, though, when the boys get the advantage.)

Decision: school-school. After some soul searching, I had to admit that I’m too anxious and irritable to school my kids myself. Perhaps when they’re older, and less about the screaming and crying. (My psychotherapist didn’t hide her relief when I came to this decision. She’d known before I did that I’d benefit from help in schooling my young kids.)

Choice: now or later. Because of Drake’s early birthday, he can start kindergarten just after he turns five. Whether this is a good thing is a subject of hot debate among parents. Do I start him early, because he’s smart, or wait a year, so his social and emotional skills catch up? Also, half day or full day?

Decision: not final, but leaning to later. Other mothers whom I trust are nearly unanimous in their advice to wait a year with a boy. Our pediatrician thought it was a no-brainer–if Drake had been born two weeks later it wouldn’t even be an option. If he does start next year, I’ll do half day. If we wait, I’ll probably do full day.

Choice: School A: K through 8, “open” philosophy, arts focus, start time 8:40am. Bus stop at end of block, then short ride. Most families we know choose this school for their kids.
School B: 5 blocks away. K through 6. Math and science focus. Pretty conventional public school. 7:30am start time. A few people I know choose this school.
School C: 9 blocks away. No specialty. K through 6. 9:10am start time. No one I know has chosen this school.

Decision: On the advice of a friend, I did school tours rather than a fair. I liked A best and B least, even aside from the absurdly early start time. C is a good backup, I think, especially given the later start time, but it was unremarkable in many ways, and I think I’d prefer a K-8.

#80 in my 2007 movie challenge was Will Ferrell’s Blades of Glory. It had enough laugh-out-loud moments to make it worthwhile, though it often dragged. I think the Will Ferrell spoofs are getting less funny each time around, and I wish he’d abandon the sports-spoof formula for something else. I found Amy Poehler and Will Arnett disappointingly not that funny. Jon Heder really stole the show as the pretty young male skater who teams up with his rival to become the first male-male figure skating pair. Scott Hamilton is quite good as an announcer. In the extras, skip the gag reel but check out the feature on how the stars learned to skate. Everyone but Arnett, who played hockey when he was younger, was a newbie on the ice.

No, you may not take that as a title for a children’s book; it’s mine.

Yesterday, nearly-two Guppy demonstrated some of the oppositional behavior he’s learned from his big brother Drake. I did something that displeased him (oh, like trying to get him out of an overly wet diaper, or picking him up when he wanted to be down or vice versa, or some other heinous crime) and he smacked me in the face. With a hippo. So hard that he knocked one of my eyeglass lenses out. And they’re my old eyeglasses, because he already damaged my best, most attractive, very expensive, pre-kid pair.

To add further insult to the pile of injury, that hippo used to be worth a lot of money, and yet I chose to give it to him to chew on and snuggle instead of selling it on Ebay.

It’s incidents like this that come to mind when people gush romantically over how joyful motherhood is. Rubbish. It’s hard work, frequently irritating, often menial, yet periodically rewarding. Like I said: work.

Everything I did today spawned three more tasks. I put something away, but found three things in the wrong place that had to be put elsewhere. Lather, rinse, repeat. I put away clothes, but had to organize drawers so they could fit. I tried to put things in my closet, but had to organize it to find room.

I hate housekeeping; I would rather be reading or writing. Yet I cherish simplicity and order. It’s the domestic Catch-22. Argh.

#56 in my 2007 book challenge is Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together. Get it together he does. This hilarious indie series of graphic novels gets funny again after the relative disappointment of, Volume 3, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness. Several times reading this book I had to close it and put it down to laugh. This was great fun, and yet another example of a good young adult graphic novel, with fun and funny characters. It doesn’t try to be realistic or serious, and it succeeds spectacularly. Scott Pilgrim, the well-meaning but uncomplicated protagonist, is dating Ramona Flowers, and has to defeat each of her seven evil ex-boyfriends in video-game style fights. Oops, make that “exes.” Scott is also being followed by a mysterious ninja, and about to be evicted from the apartment he shares with gay friend Wallace Wells. Seventeen-year-old Knives Chau claims she’s over Scott, but is she? A girl from Scott’s past arrives to complicate things between him and Ramona. Oh, and Scott tries to get a job. This is only part of what goes on, but the chaos is entertaining and well depicted in O’Malley’s utterly engaging art. I feared for this series after the last book since I loved #s 1 and 2 so much, but I’m happy and sad once again. Happy that Scott Pilgrim got his funny back, but sad because I know it’s going to be a long time till #5.

From “Listening to Film” at The Chronicle of Higher Education (link from Arts and Letters Daily)

If the first rule of film criticism is to watch the movie, the second is to listen to it. Prick up your ears to the aural atmospherics and sonic undertones laid down on the soundtrack – dialogue, background noise, and the most bewitching element in the mix, music.

The author reviews books about John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, and their musical/directorial choices, and the review alone makes me want to watch and listen to their movies right away.

Last night’s “What’s the Skinny?” was a great challenge, I thought. The “models” are all women who have lost a lot of weight; take their former favorite garment and make something new and chic for them to wear. In the meantime, add a splash of drama when poor Jack gets sick and has to quit to seek medical treatment. This seems awfully harsh–couldn’t PR spring to bring a doc in for him? And to up the contrivance, last week’s eliminee, Chris March is brought back on short notice, just so he can round out the losing trio on the runway. Unkind, but not as unkind as some of the things the judges said in front of the women. “50’s Paris hooker, totally.” Oh, Michael Kors, you are the king of the cutting phrase, but you were referring to this women’s former favorite outfit. Ouch! “Like a french maid, going to a funeral.” That comment, though, on loser Steven’s design, was deserved by him, and vindicated the poor woman whose wedding dress he snubbed. Nina correctly called him on the carpet for the huge opportunity he missed. Again, as I noted last week, Steve’s snark seemed much more honed than his design skills, and he deserved to be off. Now if only one of the other, better, nicer designers would take a crack at the wedding dress, we could all have a happy ending.

In my opinion, Jillian should have been chided, not lauded for not using her raw material. I thought both Rami’s and Ricky’s outfits were better within the confines of the challenge.

I am fervently wishing for fewer tears. Since Jack is ostensibly gone, and I think Ricky is likely to go soon, perhaps things will dry up in the next few weeks.

#78 in my movie challenge for the year was Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited. The reviews have been mixed, but I enjoyed it a lot. I found it quieter and less ostentatiously clever than Anderson’s early films like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. I found a lot of sadness and sweetness in the brothers, played by Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody. There was a tremendous amount of pathos about their relationships with their parents, and with each other. As with Anderson’s other films, the music is deliberately chosen and exquisitely interwoven with the story.

#79 in my 2007 movie challenge was Talk to Her by Pedro Almodovar. It has been sitting on our Tivo hard drive for two and a half years. It’s an odd, quiet movie. While I expect the former from Almodovar, I was surprised by the latter. The film centers around a friendship that develops between two men, who get to know each other as they’re caring for comatose women they love. It’s a bizarre premise, but it’s handled with amazing empathy, and a great deal of tenderness. This is in spite of the often huge swings in tone the movie takes, from funny to creepy, from ethical to personal. There’s much to appreciate here about love, relationships, and loneliness. The fake silent movie in the middle, though, I found too strange and off-putting.

#55 in my 2007 book challenge was the Marvel graphic novel Runaways Vol. 1. It’s a hefty hardcover, with a faux-leather cover, good paper stock, and it includes the first 18 issues of the series. Now _this_ is a good book for young adults. A group of California kids learn that their parents are up to something more sinister than an investment group. The kids run away together. They try to come to terms with their own abilities, while plotting what to do about their super villain parents. The group of kids is likable. The parents are more interesting and complex than they at first appear. The dialog, look, and relationships among the kids is also realistic. There’s some funny stuff, and some dark stuff, and almost all of it’s good stuff. This book was a lot of fun, and I look forward to reading the next volume, which has been sitting on my shelf far too long.

I have a few observations after watching the December 6 episode of Top Chef’s holiday special this year. CJ is really funny and charming. Sandee seems great, but I suspect her early elimination from Season 3 was no accident. Marcel is so weaselly and strangely bearded that he looks like a Marvel comics villain to me. Tiffany is a force of nature, and it was fun to watch her cook. I want to try to make that butterscotch pudding. Finally, I was glad to see Tre cook well, and he lost with aplomb. His comment that coming in second to such a talented chef is a huge honor showed a lot of class, I thought. Best wishes to Tre, Tiffany, and the rest of the chefs.

#54 in my 2007 book challenge was Good as Lily, the final book I’m going to read from the DC graphic novel imprint, Minx. Here’s why.

List of Young Adult Novel Cliches:

Smart, decent looking heroine: check
geeky boy with crush on her: check
gorgeous guy that she has crush on: check
good looking but not-too-bright mean girl as nemesis: check
diminishment of hostility between heroine and mean girl when they have moment of empathy: check

To its credit, Good as Lily had some nice detail about Korean-American kids, as well as a magical realism premise that might have been interesting had it been able to be explored in more depth. As it is, though, I found Good as Lily is about as good as the other books in the Minx line: OK. Kim, Hamm, and the other creators who work on Minx books are clearly talented, yet I think they’re being constrained by the short length and YA conventions. The books might be OK for younger girls, but I haven’t found the complexity or depth for them to engage older readers.

Shepherd’s Way is one of our favorite local cheesemakers. They suffered a tragedy earlier this year and are still struggling to stay afloat. For $100, you can adopt and name one of their sheep. If that’s too expensive, seek out their Friesago, Friesago Reserva, Big Woods Blue, and Shepherd’s Hope cheeses at Twin Cities area grocery stores and coops. I hope we’ll all be buying the cheese from their sheep for a long time.

I made dinner last night, and was rewarded twice. First, it was very good. Since it was a casserole made out of the previous night’s quite unpleasant lamb and cabbage stew, my husband and I were relieved that we didn’t have to choke down bad leftovers. Second, when 4yo Drake sat down, he looked at it and announced, “I don’t like it.” A little while later, he took a bite, then exclaimed, “Mom, you were right! I _do_ like shepherd’s pie!”

I was toy shopping for the boys when I discovered that what seemed like a basic box of Legos costs $100. WTF?

Of late, I rarely have time to read the long articles that my favored blogs link to. Today, though, I took the time and was glad of it. Three disparate articles wove together in provocative ways.

From Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant (link from Mental Multivitamin), a critique of Sherry Shepherd’s statement that “Jesus came first” on The View:

Sherri Shepherd of The View has uttered, in all seriousness, that “Jesus came first.” Shepherd seems to believe that, in the great collective whole of human existence, there was no religion before Christianity….

when presented with the facts by her peers, Shepherd is incapable of even confessing that her co-hosts may be right.

Philip Pullman, interviewed at More Intelligent Life (link from Arts and Letters Daily), is the author of the “His Dark Materials” series, which I wrote about here, here, and here. The first book, titled The Golden Compass in the USA and Northern Lights elsewhere, has been adapted into a film. Both his film and the books are being criticized and boycotted by religious groups:

Pullman says that people who are tempted to take offence should first see the film or read the books. “They’ll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence. It’s very hard to disagree with those. But people will”….

Pullman clearly enjoys an argument; Bernard Shaw, after all, is one of his favourite authors. He draws the line at discussing issues with fundamentalists. “You can’t communicate with people who know they’ve got all the answers.”

Also in the interview, Pullman places the focus on story, not writing:

I’m fundamentally a storyteller, not a literary person, if I can make that distinction. If I wrote a story that had enough vigour and life to pass into common currency and be recounted by people who had no idea that I was the author, nothing would give me greater pleasure.

In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech (link from Pages Turned), Doris Lessing also venerates storytelling, and its creative, shifting nature, so unlike the rigid, uninformed arguments of Shepherd and Pullman’s denouncers.

The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.

Spring has sprung
Autumn has fell
It’s winter now
And it’s colder than….

Minus 3 is what our thermometer said this morning, which reminds me that we’re past due to put together an emergency car kit. About 4 years past due, since the last time we did it we had no kids.

Road and Travel has a good, brief list, via AAA:

* flashlight
* flares or reflective triangle
* distress sign
* telephone change
* first aid supplies
* basic tools
* a fully charged cell phone

Other recommended items are:

* boots
* hat
* coat
* gloves
* jumper cables
* carpet strips, sand or kitty litter for traction
* ice scraper and brush
* blanket
* chocolate candy (my favorite part)

Might I suggest a bag of Dark Chocolate M & Ms?

#53 in my 2007 book challenge was Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. This was a long,uncomfortable read for me. It reminded me of my experience reading Confederacy of Dunces. I didn’t like it. I knew it was supposed to be funny but I didn’t find it so. Yet I also could see why it was important, well done, and in the case of IM, a classic.

An unnamed black everyman careers through a series of circumstances that are often excruciating. Slowly, he learns about society, race, and the pressures of history. It’s frustrating to read because of the main character’s naivete and frequent inaction. Also unpleasant are the many injustices done unto him. But his journey to the end and his transformation make this a kind of bildungsroman. Interestingly, my use of a German term isn’t as incongruous as it might be. Ellison was clearly influenced by the philosophy of Hegel, as well as many other dead, white, males. He took a great deal of criticism for this in the wake of the book’s publication and subsequent success–it won the National Book Award, among other plaudits. He notes in the 1981 introduction, though, that he was trying to have an intellectual black main character, something he found lacking in most other literature.

I noticed several writing themes throughout the book. Ellison used terms for light and black deliberately and with positive and negative connotations, respectively. He rarely, if ever, identified characters by their race, and left it to the reader to piece together whether they were white or black through other details. And his prose was influenced by the musical style of the blues. It often had a dreaming, wandering quality that nevertheless carried the narrative through with strength.

I did not enjoy reading this book, but race is always an uncomfortable subject. As an example, I’ve used “black” in this review rather than the more modern and PC “African American”. This book is well worth reading, and I’m glad I did.

Think you’ve got a well-developed vocabulary? Check out Free Rice. Link from Bookslut. (I got a 42).

Your Score: PORTLAND!

You scored 42% Style, 18% Climate, and 56% Culture!

You are Portland, Oregon! Portland, the largest city in Oregon and seat of Multnomah County, is located in the northwest part of the state on the Willamette River. Portland has a diverse economy with a broad base of manufacturing, distribution, wholesale and retail trade, regional government, and business services. Major manufacturing industries include machinery, electronics, metals, transportation equipment, and lumber and wood products. Technology is a thriving part of Portland’s economy, with over 1,700 high-tech companies located in the metropolitan area. Tourism is also important to Portland’s economy, drawing more than 7 million visitors annually.

You are a nicely cultured individual, appreciating a good play, book, movie, or fine dining. You also appreciate some diversity, lest things get too boring. Not one for sitting and relaxing for long periods at a time nor dressing up the nines, you take interest in getting outside and being out in nature, enjoying the cool, crisp air…maybe even playing a sport or taking a hike. Portland is a good place to be, my friend.

Link: The Which Major U.S. City Are You? Test written by weeredII on OkCupid

Yes, I know I profess to hate quizzes, but sometimes when I’m stressed they’re better than other unhealthy behaviors.

When I visited Portland a few years back, I thought, “I could live here.” But there’s too little sun, and it’s too far away from our immediate families. So while we do have many friends and relatives in the Portland area, and it’s cool, I’m sticking to my no-Portland stance.