Light and Momentary

Fifteen minutes' worth of things rattling around in my head

1. Hi, I'm back. Did you miss me? What a week, huh?
2. There's a tension between "My personal connection to a newsworthy event deepens my sympathy for the people involved" and "Meeeee! Everything is all about meeeee!"
3. So I didn't tell you that I love the Boston Marathon from afar. My uncle placed twelfth there when I was a wee small child. Even though I didn't appreciate for a long long time what a feat that was, I've always enjoyed the buzz about Boston.
4. Except this year. Gotta say, I hope there's never again that much buzz about a Boston marathon.
5. Oh my goodness, did that picture of Martin Richard with his First Communion banner just break your heart? I think of those 8yo smiles, when they haven't quite grown into their new central incisors, as hopeful. My soon-to-be 8yo asked me, "Why are my front teeth so big?" "Because they will chew up your food for you until you are an old old man," I told him. I can't stand to think about Martin Richard's life ending so abruptly, and his smile frozen in time.
6. Note to my future self: don't glue yourself to news coverage of unfolding events. It's just not worth it. You can catch the recap later. It might not be like it was in 2000, when your plan to stay up until the winner in the Bush-Gore race was announced would have meant long weeks of sleep deprivation, but it's not a good idea.
7. I have been reluctant to post silly goings-on from the Gladly house during a week when so many people were facing such un-silly difficulties, but there are a couple of things I want to remember so I will fold them into this post:
8. Stella has an imaginary friend named Sherka-Kerka. He's a boy.
9. She sounds like Bugs Bunny when she tries to say a postvocalic r, so his name is rendered Shoika Koika.
10. This weekend I was alone with the two littles and so I was talking to Pete about what he might especially like to do. Remember, I asked him, when Stella was tiny and we used to go downtown together? I'd pick you up from preschool and then we'd share a bowl of soup at the Irish-ish pub and go to the kids' museum? We haven't done that in forever. (Forever in this context = approximately three years.)
11. He thought this was a great idea. "Oh!" he said, lighting up. "We can revisit olden times!"

Seven Quick Takes: Epistolary Edition

1. Dear October Jamie: Every minute you spend planting bulbs will be repaid tenfold in spring enjoyment. Watching those rumpled little tulip leaves unfurl = MAGIC.

2. Dear Gremlins: I don't really mind that you are visiting my children's dressers by night, and I understand you have families to feed like the rest of us. But why do are the knees of their jeans the choicest tidbits? Do they go into some gremlin delicacy, like shark fin soup for fairy folk?

3. Dear Reviewer 1: The more I read your review, the crazier it makes me. This cover letter is going to require unprecedented levels of tact and diplomacy, because it ought to say "R1 was CLEARLY HIGH while writing his summary."

4. Dear February Jamie: That manuscript revision is actually due April 9, not May 9. Yours helpfully, Very Busy Early April Jamie

5. Dear Gremlins, part 2: I just had an idea! Maybe your gremlin babies don't eat the knees of my kids' jeans. Maybe you are harvesting the bits worn to softness so you can line your nests in preparation for the babies' arrival. That idea so charms me that I won't even complain about the astonishing proliferation of kneeless jeans around here.

6. Dear Kids: Spring break has been over for a week now. Time to get to bed at a normal hour. Time to remember your homework. Time to give it a rest with the video game. Two months until summer.

7. Dear Daffodils: Hello! Hello! Welcome! So nice to see you! Also: it's about time!

WWYP Wednesday, The Return

I didn't do any weeding where I was planted in March, but tonight we return to semi-regular search-and-destroy missions in the everlasting war on entropy. (And you thought these posts were just me complaining about my messy family.) This week's topic: socks.

At the very beginning of my life as a Midwesterner I attempted to deal with the sock problem by not wearing socks. This was a bad strategy for a person living within spitting distance of Lake Michigan, and although I am sometimes tempted to adopt it as a family policy (maybe the children would grow hairy hobbit-like protective ankle coverings if I sent them out sockless in January? a person can always hope), I have not yet succumbed to that temptation.

It was blog commenters who spurred me to streamline my old system, in which I accepted whatever kid-sized socks my MIL found on sale. These days my boys' sock drawers contain Hanes socks (red for the oldest, blue for the middles, red (but obviously different) for the smallest) and handknit socks, and perhaps a pair or two of black dress socks. For about seven years now, any interloper socks have been immediately dispatched to the Goodwill shelf in the basement. We had an unfortunate infiltration of off-brand socks at Christmas, when my MIL must have been really stumped about what to give one of the boys, but I'm working on containment.

Even under the new system, sorting socks always leaves leftovers. I do laundry for six people, and the socks never, but never, come out even. Laundry gets folded in the living room these days, an approach that has dealt a mortal blow to my lfelong habit of putting off the folding until the resulting cordillera of laundry began to sap my will to live. This means, though, that I don't have a good place to stash socks awaiting mates.

I suppose part of the problem is that we have some lurking socks that don't belong. I still feel some guilt about purging intact socks, but OH WELL. Part of the problem is also that Stella doesn't want the leftover socks to be lonely. If they are accessible (in a basket tucked into a corner, say), she will liberate them. Socks strewn across the floor are much uglier than socks waiting quietly in a basket in the corner. For now, hidden (from Stella) but accessible (to me) storage for a few stray socks is what I need. Any ideas? Any WWYPing happening at your house this week?