wingardium leviosa!

Dutch got a tooth pulled yesterday, the prologue to an orthodontic adventure coming up in September. I offered her a bribe if she could make it through without freaking out, and she earned it. (She really did, too. I was impressed.) She decided in advance that she wanted her bribe to be a Harry Potter spin-off book that she had seen at a bookstore earlier this summer. When we got to the bookstore, though, she saw this. I said she had to pay the extra money, and she did. And now she has a wand. And she thinks she can use it to make magic. She has been threatening Skipper with it - not threatening to hit her with it or anything Muggle-y like that, but threatening to cast a spell on her. This is Dutch attempting (unsuccessfully, in case you're wondering) to levitate me.

Summer photos

This is Dutch and Skipper at the zoo.

This is Skipper contemplating animals at the zoo.

This is what Dutch looked like after her last day at day camp.

This is what Dutch looks like to me most of the time.

We are all one!

I've been reading the George Martin "Song of Ice and Fire" series, and totally enjoying it. It's trashy and substantial and great escapist reading. I was reading the most recently published book at a bus stop the other day, and this scruffy-looking guy rode up on a scruffy-looking bike, got off, asked me if the #4 had come recently, and then stood waiting for a while near me. He didn't look at all like me or anybody I regularly spend time with, and I would have said, if asked, that we had absolutely nothing in common except for the fact that we were waiting for the same bus. Then he said "Hey, is that the latest George Martin book?" and we had a nice chat about dragons and our anxiety that George Martin might die before telling us how it all works out.

Isn't public transit great? Aren't trashy, substantial fantasy series great?

So a bike with a box on it is called a bakfiets, or sometimes a Dutch cargo bike, or a box bike. They're really cool, but kind of heavy and cumbersome on hills. There are quite a few in Portland, usually full of kids. Actually, there are many really cool cargo bike options out there - mostly super-expensive, but much cheaper than a car. I covet some of them.

Today I took Skipper* to a bike shop downtown to buy some gear** and I got her a new helmet. It's awesome. This video doesn't do it justice (and it mostly features me being annoying), but check it out! Also, notice the awesome pants, which I made her back up to show off for the camera.

And this is a video from last night. Skipper had a long day and a short nap. After dinner, she wanted me and Cook to come play with her, and we ignored her for too long.

* Dutch is off on a four-day camping trip with my aunt and uncle, an event to which she's been looking forward all summer. Cook said to her just before she left, "I'm going to miss you!" and she said cheerfully "I'm not going to miss YOU guys!"

** My boss got hit (pretty damn hard) by a car last week while biking to work (and he really wasn't doing anything wrong - the driver just didn't look for bikes before turning left in front of him at high speed). And it's getting darker earlier and earlier, and the rains are coming, so I decided it was time to invest in some more lights and reflective gear for all of us. I intend to wrap the trailer in reflective tape.

It's happened.

Goddamnit, I said I wasn't going to be a bike proselytizer. But I am. I still don't care about bikes as bikes. But I have been completely won over by bikes as transportation. Here, as final proof that I have gone over to bike evangelism, I will now present to you, embedded in my blog, a video about biking. Because I kind of love it. Jet packs!

Also, the BTA is good. I've even been a member for a whole year!

Roll On, Oregon from Bicycle Transportation Alliance on Vimeo.

Tin, aluminum, and diamonds

Cook and I are approaching our tenth anniversary. Last night, while Cook was trying to fall asleep, I recounted half an episode of the Daily Show (an OLD episode) while wearing my nightguard. "And den he was prutehding to be Johje Boosh and he was like 'heh heh heh deh room has to smell like ciddamon!'"And Cook, good person that he is,* said nothing until I finally noticed that I was being insane, and then he gently confirmed that yes, I was.

Cook and I are very different, and he is a very private person,** so all I'm going to say about this whole married-for-a-decade thing is that it's been good, and it's been bad, and here we are!

*Also being mostly asleep.

** You can imagine how he feels about having stories about him posted on the internet. He's pretty gracious about that, too.

Making space, staying safe, and talking about death.

This is Skipper, building a "house" this afternoon.

Unexpectedly, the conversation veered toward the morbid. Listen to me attempting to be honest yet comforting about death, and ending up just being confusing.

I can't figure out if this is funny or depressing.

You decide: sad white guys in silly outfits.

Swimming upstream

Dutch just finished up her swim lessons for the summer. She does a fabulous back crawl, a serviceable backstroke, and a terrible front crawl. We're pushing her to improve enough to do the parks and rec "swim team" next summer, and she seems to be on board with the agenda. She's been really persevering through an epic struggle with learning to do effective side breathing. (She can do it the whole length of the pool, but only with great effort, and it's ugly and exhausting.) As a proven quit-when-the-going-gets-tough person myself, and having assigned Dutch the same tendency, I'm delighted and impressed by the mental toughness she's showing on this tough going.

The kids get to go down the slide at the end of their last swim session. They like that.

When you're only six, there's still a possibility that you MIGHT get your invitation to Hogwarts.

Dutch is in the middle of reading the final Harry Potter book. (She decided to keep reading in spite of the increasing scariness.) She disappears for long periods and then walks up to you, looking very concerned, and says things like "Mom, Hagrid is DRUNK!" as if you've been reading along with her, care deeply about it, and think of fictional characters in the present tense.

Tonight she watched part of the first Harry Potter movie, and Cook and I watched her watch it. The first part of the first book (and the first movie) is the most enjoyable part of the whole series, in my opinion, and it's definitely the most widely appealing. Who hasn't wished to be informed that he/she is very special and thus specially invited to a secret magical society?* It was an unmitigated pleasure watching with Dutch, because she was so deeply involved with it. If you want to watch four not-very-action-filled minutes of Dutch watching a movie, please be my guest:

(Why yes, that is Cook in the background, drinking a beer.)

*Okay, probably a lot of people. And that does sound kind of like Skull and Bones, or Scientology. But you know what I mean, right?

Covetous

The house behind ours was recently sold and renovated (it was already pretty nice), and the new owners held a birthday party for a child this afternoon. I noticed the decorations earlier, and then when Cook and I were out in the backyard wrassling with the grape arbor,* we realized that they had a full-on inflatable bouncy house set up. Dutch didn't notice it for a few hours, but when she saw it, she cried "No fair! They have a bouncy house!" That's a classic Dutch response - anything anybody else that she wishes she had is automatically NO FAIR. I gave her a mini-version of the Not Fair/Vincent Test lecture she's heard a billion times before.**

Later, she and Skipper and I were out in the yard watering the plants with the water from the wading pool, and listening to the really-fun-sounding party on the other side of the fence. We worked quietly for a few minutes, and then Dutch said firmly "Well, we have a better life than theirs."

I laughed, because I had just been thinking along very similar lines. Their house is very nice, you see. And I've been feeling really covetous of all sorts of things lately, and very poor. My response to other people's enjoyment of their Stuff is to grumpily scramble to inventory the ways in which I can still feel superior to them. I am completely ungenerous and don't in any way celebrate their pleasure of their Stuff that I wish was MY Stuff.

We talked about it a little, and the conversation wound up with Dutch happily listing all the things SHE has that she's pleased to have. "And I have LOTS of books! And... I have LOTS of BLOCKS! And... I have THREE swimsuits!" - I tried to redirect her into a more zen state, but it was hopeless, probably because of my notable lack of zen-itude. Dutch and I are maybe not very good people. No matter how much we do the Vincent Test, or remind ourselves of how unbelievably fortunate we are, we still want your Stuff for ourselves.

* Cook and I both thought that grapes were sort of delicate and finicky plants. Turns out they're really, really not. Cook is worried the grape vines on the north side of the house might break the next-door neighbors' bedroom windows and strangle them to death.

**Vincent is a kid featured in one of the excellent, earnest DK books she owns - he lives in rural Rwanda, is an orphan, and is raising his brothers and sisters. Is it fair that Vincent has such a hard life and other people have such easy lives? Is your Not Fair problem as substantial as Vincent's? If it is, then it has passed the Vincent Test, and you're allowed to complain.