Three in armor

Though I'm missing it (by choice), today for the first time Keith, Kirby and Marty are all in armor at the same time, off at a "war practice" in preparation for the Estrella War which is near Phoenix in February. I sent the camera with Marty and will try to link to some photos soon or eventually. When they're armored up they're not Keith/Kirby/Marty, they're Jarl Gunwaldt, Lord Magnus and Bardolf. For most of my adult life I really cared, and now that I'm not doing SCA myself but just being the supply officer back at the barracks, as it were, I still know a landmark moment when it comes, and today is one of those. There's a photo of Kirby in his armor which can be seen by those with myspace accounts http://myspace.com/kirbydodd (click "view more photos" under his main photo) and there are photos of both of them in costume, when they were much younger, here: http://sandradodd.com/duckford/children Fifteen years ago This week (Larger images are at flickr.com/photos/sandradodd)

Teenagers

Marty applied for some jobs using online forms at the beginning of December. One was for the grocery store that's out our back gate and a few hundred yards up the alley.

I wrote a letter for the manager, saying he's homeschooled so flexibly that any 180 days can be schooldays, per the state, and so he could work any kinds of days. That's to the store's advantage because of child labor laws. If there IS "a schoolday" they can't schedule him past a certain time the night before, or before a certain time on the day. So real years being what they are, that leaves 185 days that aren't school days.

So Marty went in with this mom-letter to introduce himself to the manager and see what he would need to do to get an interview. He had waited a few days after we learned that the manager was off for a week. So Tuesday the 6th he went in and was informed by someone in the office that in order to be considered he needed "a green" on each section, and he had one red and one yellow. She advised him to do the online application again, but instead of agreeing, to always STRONGly agree. (Sometimes that was going to be "strongly disagree.")

How frustrating. But he came home and did it right away, and then went back up to say he had done so.

He came back about twenty minutes later saying "I got my interview!"

"When?"

"Just now." They were done. He starts next Wednesday or maybe sooner. He said they were already looking at the online report on him as he walked into the office.

The sooner had to do with a drug test and physical (not much of a physical). We did that Wednesday, got him the right pants and some new black boots and he's ready when they are. They're talking about 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., weekdays. It will be the first time (not counting the one week of junior police academy) that he will live on something resembling a school schedule. Also, you might note that it's a fulltime job. He had applied for parttime. But in the swirl of it all, he didn't object and we'll see how it goes.

Holly, meanwhile, is in a more quiet phase than she's been for a while. She's doing a lot of drawing with a big set of gel pens she got for her fourteenth birthday in November. She's fourteen now, and already has reminded me a few times that she can start driver's ed just before she's fifteen but that she'll probably want to wait until she's fifteen. She's ready to drive.

Kirby is working five days a week at Dion's pizza, and learned yesterday that they are going to start training him in pies, meaning he'll be making pizzas, probably, before long. I asked if it paid more, and he said no but it's more prestigious. So in the culture of large-crew pizzerias, he's moving up a notch.

They all three saw Chronicles of Narnia last night at the midnight showing, but didn't all go together. Marty left here about 8:00 for the pre-movie hanging around. Holly went with Kirby and his group an hour or so later. They found each other there, and several other friends. Marty says it was good, three hours, everything was fine.

Meanwhile, back at home, Keith and I had gone in the hot tub with the air outside below freezing, but it was still and the hot tub builds its own steam room. We had heated it from 42 degrees to 106, over four or five hours. We got two cords of firewood yesterday too, and were tired from moving that around. We're wood-rich and happy-kid rich. When they were little we paid tons of attention to them, and now that they're older they're able to pay attention to one another sometimes while we have the night off.

Very nice.

HOME and the book's done

We're home safely with few problems, after driving straight through from St. Louis on Monday. After seven days of intense activity (counting the travel time) it was quietly and wonderfully peaceful to just be home. That's me and Holly, anyway. Keith went back to work Wednesday, as did Kirby. Marty worked a couple of half days.

This book is finished and for sale at this site: sandradodd.com/puddlebook



Tadaa!!

Fifteen moonflowers, leaving town

The moonflowers aren't leaving town; we are. Soon. Driving to St. Louis (which is easier to say and remember than "Driving to a place in Illinois that's basically in St. Louis").

Fifteen moonflowers, which is very exciting, and now we'll miss them for seven or eight nights. Friends of ours will see them, though; part of the benefit of housesitting. (Small but unusual benefit.) And barring any freak early-October freeze, we'll see lots of moonflowers when we come home.

It's fall!

Leaves are actually falling, as though calendars mattered to my yard. There will be hundreds of moonflowers. I'm kinda stunned. There have been thousands of morning glories and that didn't surprise me. They're in eight different places, and a couple of those places pretty extensive.

We have ten days before we leave for the Live and Learn Conference. I've been doing pretty well this time about being ready early, but by "ready" I mean keeping my last-minute list to a manageable level.

For me, it's easier than for Keith who has to take time off during a pressing project at work. Kirby and Marty have arranged to take off too. That's a lot of people's days off. And we're having two housesitters to share the load here, and they might subcontract to other friends in that group. Sometimes I wish for the ease of just locking up a one-bedroom pet-free apartment and getting a ride to the airport, rather than all the whole-family, four-pet, yard-watering planning. Six pets--forgot the rats for a moment. But in the "at least..." department, at least we're not on the Gulf coast and we don't have milk goats.

The conference details are here, and I'm speaking or leading games or music seven times. Nothing really difficult, just a lot of it.

http://www.liveandlearnconference.org/

Next year it will probably be in Albuquerque! Much less prep if so!

Moonflowers! (and a mystery flower)

Yes, a moonflower bloomed, and dozens more are building up blooming. This one's about ten feet up, so we couldn't get a clear shot (and it's not quite fully open at 9:30, either, but I have hot tub and sleeping-like-a-rock plans because I have a cold).

And then there's a mystery flower came up yesterday and bloomed today. It might be a bulb, but it came up pretty suddenly and without any blades or leaves, just the stalk (about ten inches high) and a freakish, elaborate bloom like the tails of five exotic cartoon birds. Does anyone know what this is!?

Book, French and more flowers

I've spent many (many) hours lately working on a book. Keith spent many hours too. Had it not been for my respect for tradition, I'd be long done. Seems to me, though, that each chapter (in this case, each essay) should start on a right-hand, odd-numbered page. Seems simple enough. Only thing is the essays keep coming out to three pages long. Or worse, two and a half. So they need filler. Photos of the kids seemed like good filler. Forty-eight essays. Some don't need photos. Some need more than one.

Luckily, Keith knew some good formatting tricks, and that's good.

And for more international credits, Sylvie Martin-Rodriguez has translated three of my essays into French and you can get there from here: SandraDodd.com/french

My moonflowers are going to bloom. They haven't yet, but when they do I'll bring a photo. And that's the news of August 31. Thanks for reading!