It’s underway, I’ve started! My novel’s first 2000 words have been strung together, sometimes sliding into one another like a ten year old on a sheet of wet plastic slides into the muddy, barren streak of lawn that was murdered by the likes of a Slip-N-Slide, and other times hopping together, like little wet toads along a wooded trail.

No matter, the words are coming and so far, they are coming without too much pain or nail biting, or other forms of misery. I am creating my first two (three, if you count the dog, and maybe you should) characters, making them up out of, well, nowhere. It’s pure invention, and I’m enjoying the novelty of it (if you’ll please pardon the pun.)

If I am to make it to my goal of writing 50,000 words by the end of the month, I’ll need to plunk down an average of 1666 words per day. So today, a quiet Saturday, I’m hoping that maybe I can ride the excitement of Beginning to Write and really go with it. Momentum, baby, momentum!

And now, a completely unrelated photograph of Annie (the black cat) with her friends on Halloween. (The tall witch next to her is NOT Carla. She’s another cute blonde girl that even I sometimes mistake for my own daughter.)

“What price to pay for bad wisdom?” asks Suzanne Vega in her song “Bad Wisdom” on the album 99.9 F. Like many songs of hers, this one is giving me goosebumps.

“Mother you’ve taught me the laws are so fine
If I’m good that I will be protected
I’ve fallen through the crack and there’s no getting back
And I’ll never trust whoever gets elected”

I don’t really know this song, as I just heard it for the first time today. But it is chilling me somehow. I think it’s the mother-daughter theme, and the idea that what we’re taught isn’t always enough, or right, or soon enough. The wrong decisions for all the right reasons.

Five more days til I start to write my novel. (!) I’ve been having epic dreams, and who knows what I’ll put in that novel. My plan is just to start writing and see where it takes me. I’m not going to assume that the pages will come in order, or follow the right path. I am just going to write.

One of my goofiest dreams was one in which I was actually deciding what to write about for the novel. I thought it was absolutely brilliant to make my main character a panda.

And not only a panda, but a giant, plush, Littlest Pet Shop panda. That talks.

Yeah… I don’t think I am actually going to go with that one.

In preparation for my first ever novel, I am asking your input!

Tell me what to write about by leaving a comment, and then head over to this site and complete my goofy survey about what to write about:

Click Here to take survey.

Fun! Thrills! Adventure!

I really would love to hear your suggestions.

I feel as though I haven’t posted in ages. It has been a wonderful week, and I just keep thinking about all the different things I’d like to write about. A little glimpse into my life, courtesy of these conversations between my conscience angel and my real self devil’s advocate:

Angel:  Well, good thing it’s a snow day! I can now get right to tidying up the living room and dining room, putting away the laundry and cleaning the cat boxes!

Devil: Sure, but there’s plenty of time to do all that boring stuff! Play with the kids in the snow! Blog about it! Take a nap! Drink hot cocoa! Read the rest of Midwives.

Angel: Um, sure, playing with the kids is good. They do need a mom who attends to them, rather than hyperfocusing on a clean house.

Devil (snortling with laughter): Yeah, this looks like a house that’s run by someone hyperfocused on cleanliness. NOT!

Angel: Oh shut it. We’re going out to play. I will do all this housework later. Plus I’ll plan next week’s after school program, update the website to reflect these plans, plan meals and shopping, and more. But first we do need to play. Before the stuff melts, ya know.

* * * Later on * * *

Angel: Well, that sure was fun. The girls can have their lunches now, and we all sure enjoyed the hot cocoa. Time to get to the living room mess. These wet clothes need to be dealt with, after all.

Devil: Sure, but don’t you think it would be good to blog a little about this?

Angel. Um… I should really not get sucked into the computer vortex. There is too much to do.

Devil: Yeah, but life is too rich to not examine it closely. Or so I’ve heard.

Angel: Riiiiiight…. just one little blog post then.

In case you’re not familiar with winter driving in Philadelphia, let me just tell you this: it is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, our city doesn’t get a lot of horrible winter weather, but when we do, it’s not often a big snowfall. No, what we get is ICE – ice falling from the sky, rain that turns to ice upon hitting the windshield, ice that forms along the wet streets, and snow that starts out as slush and then melts and freezes, and becomes ice once again.

And because this only happens once or twice a year, it seems that drivers around here are completely CLUELESS about what to do about icy roads.

Last night, after about an inch of powdery snow accumulated, a steady pelting of ice began around 4 PM. This ice continued to fall, mixed with rain, until about 7, at which point it was mostly rain. Rain on top of snow, on top of ice.

Where was I from 4 to 8 PM, last night, gentle readers? Why, in my car, of course! Cammy’s plane was scheduled to arrive in Philadelphia at 4:48 PM though of course it was delayed due to the icy weather.  She got to fly around and around Philadelphia in a holding pattern for about an hour or so while we inched along the evil Schuylkill Expressway  (har, har, expressway to fender benders).

Long story short? Read the title of this post.

Long story long? Well, my kids and I got to play “count the car accidents” while thanking our lucky stars that we were not #13 in the 12 car pile up that we witnessed directly in front of us.  After we got to drive around the bus full of weeping girls from Liverpool who just wanted to get to the airport to fly home, and all the others who were delayed by crashing on the bridge to I-95, we counted another 11 vehicles, including a school bus that all had slid on the ice and crash into guardrails and one another.

We didn’t crash.

I credit my dad with having taught me well how to use the gears of the car to navigate snow and ice without using the brakes. A single touch to the brakes on that bridge and I’d be blogging today about how we crashed on the bridge on our way to I-95.

When the weather is icy, I usually stay home. I was not happy to be taking my kids on such a harrowing journey, but I didn’t want them to be nervous so I made light of all the accidents. Luckily, the accidents really were all just fender benders– we did not see anyone who was seriously injured. Good thing for seatbelts, huh!

All the way to the airport, and while we sat idleing (illegally!) in the should near the airport (just under the huge flashing sign that said, NO P RK NG ON SHOULD R)  waiting for Cammy’s plane to come down, I clumsily (but excitingly!) recounted the story of Abdullah and the Magic Castle, hastily stolen from the book Castle in the Air. It kept the kids happy, as did the snacks I had brought.

Today is my first day of work – and I am exhausted.

In spite of all the ICE of yesterday, today it’s mostly soupy slushy mush, and not as dangerous. Although this morning a SEPTA bus crashed on our block. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either: school is OPEN today. And that means AFTER SCHOOL is open, too.

And that means I have to work, too! But I don’t mind too much – because Cammy is here and all is well. I kept Annie home from pre-school  so that Cammy won’t have to try to navigate an unfamiliar neighborhood in the ice. And because it’s freaking INSANE that school is not closed today, in my opinion.

Then again, I am just kind of traumatized. I’ll get over it soon.

Now, for a hot a shower and another cup of coffee!

A while back, I started a series about my work life (that hunk of my life that does not involve hanging out with C and A) and followed that up with another component of what I do. Now that I have another job starting in just two weeks, I feel it’s time to finish up this series and simultaneously consider how my current work schedule will shift to help offset my budding career as a teacher.

In addition to the web hosting and email services that my business offers, I manage to squeeze out a few new websites each year.  I’ve done website re-designs for various individuals and small organizations: a playwright, a  photographer, a glass-work artist, a school for Chinese arts and language (in NYC, in Chinatown!), as well as for a union… to name a few examples without um, actually naming them.

Since I accepted the job offer to teach in the after school program at C’s school, I’ve turned down two new clients. I have decided to not take on any new web design projects until at least the fall, and not any then either if I continue to teach.

Web design is a time consuming art. I find that it generally is rewarding, but frustrating for me, because I like to finish things up quickly, sit back and admire them, and more on to the next thing. With web design, I’ve found that I am always trying to hit a moving target. The client wants XYZ done, so you put up XYZ as closely as you know how. Then, looking at it, the client will usually say, OH, I meant I wanted it to be more of a “peppy” feeling… so can you try for XYZzzz? The vagueness of such requests leaves me trying out this and that, poking the design here, adding a graphic there.

Developing cute graphics is something I enjoy doing, but again, it’s a big time drain. I spent about 3 hours yesterday developing an ADORABLE guitar pick for a folk singer’s website that I am developing. The pick is meant to be a button that catches the visitor’s eye, and on the pick it says “Join Mailing List”.  I love the pick. Alas, I have to face the fact that it doesn’t really work with the other graphics on the page, and I might not even get to use it.

Why, you might ask, am I still developing a site for someone when I just wrote that I was turning down new work? Well the reason is that I committed to doing this prior to even applying for the job. I didn’t think I’d be hired, and this is a pretty famous client.

So here I am, working with an artist who’s pretty famous, trying to make his website less “square.”

Oh boy! It’s pretty neat, though, and I do enjoy the creative aspects of laying out a page, and manipulating CSS and graphics.  I have a little book I use constantly, it’s Eric A. Meyer’s CSS Pocket Reference. This little gem is like a bible to me, though some parts of it are as inscrutable as the Old Testament itself.

One of my favorite sections of this book deals with Layout. Laying out a page is the most important part of what I do. I like webpages that are clear, uncrowded, and with good navigation. So laying out the page is really important.

I have read the section entitled “Layout of Absolutely Positioned Elements” over and over and over. You’ll love it, too. The sub-section titles alone titillate me. For example:
“Horizontal layout of nonreplaced absolutely positioned elements”

I read that and shudder. The complex equations that follow it make me drool and stare  vacant-eyed. Each time I re-read this section, I’m that closer to knowing what the hell I’m doing.

Then, I go muck around with my stylesheets and just see what happens.

Hah! So I’m very professional, you see.  I do try very hard to put together something that works consistently, doesn’t set off any “bad code” alarms in any browsers, and I try to avoid ugliness at all times.

The other painful part of doing web design is when a client specifically requests something that I think should be avoided at all times.  “Can this headline blink?” Uh, no. ” Can’t we just have all the text be done as graphics?”  No, that would be really a bad idea. “I think the background should be this clip art snowflake pattern over and over again.” Gee…

When all is said and done, good web design takes time, patience, and negotiation skills. As for me, I no longer have much time, or patience. I’m saving up my negotiation skills for when it’s time to do A’s hair and she doesn’t want the brush to come within two feet of her head.

In spite of these frustrations, I’d better hurry up and make this folk singer’s website less “square.”
All in good time, you know. But the snowflakes? Have. To. Go.

It is hard to wait for the results of anything important, isn’t it? Elections, primaries, pregnancy tests, adoption referrals, job interviews…. ( my recent visitor from Option Adoption will agree, as will the expectant mom over at The Creamery–  two interesting blogs I’ve just started following.) I don’t even know when the staff will decide on who the next American Idol After School Teacher will be.
So let’s just talk about my recent visit to Manatee Park, shall we?

I was so lucky to have these two to assist me at all times. 

My girls and I saw so many manatees, and so close up. We rented a double kayak, and with Carla in the seat behind me, and Annie sitting in front of me, I paddled us around the Orange River somehow managing to steer the kayak, not capsize, and also take a bunch of pictures.

The red and black mangroves are a fascinating part of the ecosystem. 

Though manatees are very hard to photograph, I managed to capture a few bits and pieces. It was a beautiful experience.

Above: Can you spot the manatee’s nose poking up just to the side of the kayak?

And here’s the tail, just under our kayak. Curious little thing! 

I captured this tail flapping up out of the water using the zoom lens. 

While we were at the park, I was able to sit and listen to a park employee discuss facts about manatees, their habits and their ecosystem.  Manatees, also called sea cows, eat lots of different kinds of underwater grasses.  Like cows on the land, they have a specialized digestive system that is designed to break down the grasses.  Their digestive system works by employing a particular bacteria that can only break down the grasses at 68 degrees farenheit or warmer; if the manatee is in water that is colder than that, it will starve, even if its rumen is full of grass. These creatures have truly specific habitat requirements.

Annie, kickin’ back and enjoying the ride. 

I have been thinking a lot about cows and a farm’s ecosystem, because I’m still working my way through Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. 

There are quite a few words devoted to describing a way of farming that is sometimes known as “grass farming.”  Polyface Farm is described in detail as an example of this.  The grass takes in energy from the sun, and that is what fuels this kind of farm — grass which is then the food for the cows.  Chickens are the cleanup crew for the cows, as they wander the cow patty-studded grass eating up bugs that would otherwise be harmful.  The chickens leave just enough poop on the grasses to help fertilize the grass. The cows, who graze the grass in a careful pattern that does not chew it down so far that the grass dies, actually HELP the grass be healthy rather than harm it.

Photo credit: my very own seven year old. Thanks, C! 

There’s much more to the this farm’s careful use of the land, and there are many more animals that contribute to the farm’s fertility.  What kept coming back to my mind as I considered the graceful sea cows was how the grass farmers are trying to mimic nature and its cycles.  I thought about this as I listened to the naturalist speak of the sea cows and how they have no natural predators, and how man was the their only threat to survival. Nature doesn’t just place an animal into a system without making it pay its way.

Cute little lizards are all over the place in Florida. 

I was certain that the sea cows must be serving some purpose there in the waters.  They are mowing the sea grass, keeping it healthy. But if humans continue to limit their habitat, I imagine that the manatees are in danger of over-grazing the grasses that they need to survive on.  In fact, much of the rivers where the manatee would graze no longer have healthy grasses for the manatee to enjoy, even as watercraft make those waters perilous for these gentle and slow mammals of the sea.

Humans have also messed up farmlands, using energy from fossil fuels to buy fertility and then use it up at a rate much faster than can be replenished.  Even natural grasslands get overgrazed and turned into deadlands.

Who are our natural predators? I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that we share something in common with the manatee: our biggest enemy is mankind, ourselves as we seem to be making our own habitat increasingly unsustainable. This makes me unbelievably sad.

Tonight I was supposed to hop on a train to center city, meet up with D, and attend his company’s annual holiday party.  Each year they throw a nice bash for their employees, with good food, an open bar, and loud music.  Usually D and I find this once-a-year event a nice outlet for juvenile behaviors that we otherwise have generally left behind.

The babysitter was lined up, no problems there. We even arranged that Grandma could have the kids stay over at her house overnight, leaving us free to stay out very late and act foolish and irresponsible indeed.

But the truth is, I sure didn’t feel like doing any of that.  I was not in the mood for crowds, making social chit chat, drinking mojitos (and I love mojitos usually, especially free ones, I mean really!) and carrying on and all that.  I think I remember last year there was a spontaneous rap war breaking out among the geeks in the IT department. Ah, the hilarity of the company party plus open bar.

Yes, usually that’s good old fashioned silly-headed fun. Suitable for a once a year event, a spirited good time indeed. But not tonight.

I canceled my date with my own husband! And you know what? He completely understood. Thanks, D.

But I didn’t cancel my babysitter who was coming from 8 to 10:30 – nope – I went out anyway, just not to the holiday party.  Instead, I went to a bookstore and shopped and bought a couple of christmas presents and acted like a normal holiday shopper for a while.  It was very pleasant.

And I don’t think I’ll wake up with a hangover, either.

The holiday season has officially begun; last night was our first night to light the menorah, and my girls were extremely excited by the prospect of eight nights of gifts. D was able to get home early last night, and I was delighted to have a nice family dinner.

For your amusement, here’s our holiday merriment in a fourteen second nutshell:

Hanukkah is not something I celebrated as a kid. I am not Jewish, and actually neither is D. However, D’s father is a Jew, though a non-observant one. His father might just be a better atheist than I am, though that’s not saying much. (I may be a little atheistic, but I’m not devout about it.) D’s mother is not religious, but comes from a family who were Christian.

They raised D with the traditions of Hanukkah and Passover, as well as Christmas, in a fairly secular way. That’s basically what D and I are doing with our kids, too. We want them to be tolerant of people’s different religions, and to understand that while we aren’t a religious family, there are many families who feel very strongly about religion. I don’t want C or A to end up offending people with insensitive comments about church-going, or whatever.

But I digress. Back to Hanukkah.
Because I never celebrated this holiday as a child, I have no negative emotional associations to overcome about it. I also have no obligations to travel, telephone, visit or otherwise engage with my parents just because it’s Hanukkah. Imagine if I had to call my mom every night for eight nights, or visit her and stay for eight nights? It would be too much, it would be stressful.

So it’s good that Hanukkah is our little family’s fun tradition. To celebrate the first night, I made a special dinner featuring plenty of oil. I fried meatballs, and latkes (potato pancakes) and we also had fresh steamed green beans for our vegetable. The meatballs were a big hit, so I’ll share my easy and tasty recipe* with you.

In my valiant effort to get non-toxic toys as presents, I am doing pretty well so far. But not getting things from China? Gee, it’s almost impossible. Especially not on my budget. I decided to hit the dollar store but be a little discriminating about what I bought.

Before checking out, I reviewed the things in my shopping cart and I asked myself: Does this seem like a soft plastic thing that might have phthalates in it? Does this look like it might have lead paint in it? Does this look like crap that will be clutter after the two seconds of joyful playing have ended and it’s thrown into a heap in the corner? If the answer to any of these questions was ‘yes’ then I put it back on the shelf.

Here’s what got put back: a set of 10 little plastic food containers, a stretchy koosh ball kind of thing, and a set of metallic colored gel pens, and a package of hanukkah stickers. Here’s what I bought: two cardboard 100 piece puzzles, two ‘littlest pet shop’ coloring books, two blank doodle pads, and four bingo markers (which were made in Canada and said ‘non-toxic’).

Aside from the bingo markers, it was all from China, of course.

I also bought them each a couple of Scholastic books, from a book fair at the younger one’s school: it’s a fund raiser to help the school, but the books also weren’t very pricey. (Naturally, the books were printed in China.)

* Pann-Fried Hanukkah Meatballs

1) Mix the following ingredients up thoroughly in a mixing bowl (just with a spoon or a fork. You don’t need to use an electric mixer):

1 pound ground turkey meat (raw)
3 Tablespoons Parmasan or Romano grated cheese
1 egg
2 teaspoons dried basil
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons finely ground flax seed or flax meal (optional)
Salt & Pepper (as you like it – can add later rather than mixing in)

2) Heat a griddle, or cast iron frying pan, with a mixture of oils. For example, about:
3 T olive oil
1/2 cup Vegetable oil – enough to keep your pan good and oily

Your heat should be a bit higher than your middle heating. You don’t want the oil so hot that it smokes, but you want it nice and hot, such that there’s a sizzling sound when you drop the first meatball onto the pan.

Make your meatballs about the size of a walnut, and place them in the pan, letting them sizzle and brown. Turn them, gently and brown all over. Because the meatballs are small, they will cook pretty quickly.

Let them drain on a paper towel some before you eat them, unless you really love oil.

Reading a chapter or part of one each night is fast becoming a very popular nightly ritual; most nights we read some of a chapter book and then A and I head to her room for a quick picture book before turning out the light.  (I don’t want her to miss out on the joy of reading picture books just because her big sister is a chapter book junkie.) Here are a few samples of what we’ve read to the kids lately.

Danny Champion of the World — by Roald Dahl. What would it be like to live in a little caravan with the best Dad ever? This is a quaint children’s novel about one boy and his dad, and the adventures they have in their little town. I love how Roald Dahl’s stories have a raw honesty to them.  It is so outside of our current “sanitized readings” that one gets nowaday.  His stories don’t hide the dark sides of life.

In spite of my enthusiasm for children’s books from other eras, D and I both have a hard time reading bits of stories to our kids that depict severe punishment.  I sometimes have  to soften stories a little, though I am loathe to do it.

In Danny, there is a description of the boy being hit very severely by his teacher.  I included this part because I felt like it made for interesting reading and it makes you feel in awe of  the boy’s dad, who wants to go beat the living daylights out of the teacher. That’s just one anecdote in the story, not a main plot point or anything. Like in James and the Giant Peach: it’s twisted and dark how James’ parents get killed by a rampaging rhino escaped from London Zoo. And his awful aunts get killed when the peach rolls over them and flattens them. Twisted ! Dark! Funny!  Not this watered down crap you see now a days, where hardly anything happens. And yet there’s an other worldliness to much of it, so it’s not horrific–  unlike watching the evening news (something which I avoid).

Now we’re working our way through Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I could not bring myself to read the words on the page where it said that Laura’s Pa got the strap from the wall and whipped her with it (this was punishment for Laura having slapped her sister in the face).  I just said something like, “So Laura’s Pa had to spank her.” Less vivid, less upsetting that way, and it didn’t interfere with the plot of the book.

I confess I also played down the brown hair / blond hair jealousy subplot. My daughters, we noticed, have the same hair as Mary and Laura in the book! The big one with blond, the little one kind of mousy brown.  I did NOT want to introduce into my little one’s mind the idea that blond hair is prettier than brown! Instead of reading that Mary had beautiful golden curls, while Laura had plain, ugly brown hair, I said that Laura had beautiful brown curls. This played out poorly with the plot, but I felt it was worth it.

I love Little House for its descriptions of life in a much simpler time, when there was much physical work to be done, and how little the children had and yet how happy they were. It’s something I want my kids to think about as we prepare for Havemoreakah and Consumermas, the big winter holidays. What if I just get them a pig’s bladder and a rag doll, and get rid of everything else in the house. Then they could really be happy!

I’ve also read them the first two books of the Harry Potter series.  These are fun, but so much less rich than these older books that I just discussed. I wonder how well the Potter series will read, in a hundred years?