The last fire

I took this photo in October, 2016, and called it "first fire 2016," but what I didn't know is that we would need to stop using the fireplace so it was one of the last fires.

This fall was hot, and after that cold spell in October, we didn't need a fire. When the fireplace was cleaned in November, serious cracks were found inside the chimney, so we will be getting a wood-burning insert in January.

I felt deep sorrow at first, for losing the use of such a familiar and wonderful fireplace we've had for nearly twenty years. I'm sure I'll get used to the stove, when we get it, but for right now I'm sadly without a fire.

Drive-through

I wrote this in 2013 and have thought about it quite a bit since:

Within half a mile of my house I have a drive-through ATM machine (not a bank, just the machine, in the corner of a gas station lot), car wash, charity-shop donations (they come and take it out of the back of the car for me, and if you don't want a receipt for tax donation credit, they'll offer a bottle of cold water), and a drive-through full service bank window. Oh! and Pizza, or burgers. And a dry-cleaner's, where they will walk out and hand you the stuff. If I go as far as a mile and a quarter, there are drive-through drug stores. Starbucks drive-through. Jiffy-Lube will change your oil, but you do have to get out of the car. Three miles, I drove into the Dodge dealership and got a car repair without getting out of the car.

There are places in the U.S. where none of those things are true, I'm sure. Either too rural or too urban. There are neighborhoods in Albuquerque without so many things in one place to drive through, but right here at Candelaria and Juan Tabo, we are drive-through wealthy.

____________________________________

It was a response to a list of things foreigners were shocked about, in the U.S. These drive-throughs being so common in some places are a shock to some Americans, even.

Since I wrote that, though, I've thought of making a list of all the drive-throughs (current and former) very near me. I might add photos here.

This summer, a drive-through Dunkin' Donuts appeare a few blocks south on Juan Tabo.

At Golden Pride on Juan Tabo near Comanche, when it's busy, they run three drive-through lines—the regular around-the-building, and two through bays of a former self-service car wash next door.

There is still a boarded up former drive-through window which afterwards for a while was a drive-through barbecue window.
There is a plastered-over former frozen yogurt drive-through. The two posts to keep cars from hitting the building are still there.

There's a drive-by post office box, and near there is a drive-through title-loan place (which used to be a drive-through one-hour photo booth).

I should bring pictures. I should mark them all on a map of the neighborhood and name them. I might.

Slowing down

This is going to build up to a "how many hours" post.

It has been 25 years and a few months since we started unschooling Kirby. It was a solid start, philosophically, but Keith and I expected and were willing to see Marty and Holly go to school if they wanted to. It has been 20 years since Holly decided she didn't want to go to school, either.

With two discussions, a large webpage (SandraDodd.com), a daily blog (Just Add Light and Stir), and a speaking sometimes (including a request I'm considering that would involve another trip to England next year, and I'm hesitant)... should I feel guilty when I want to watch Korean dramas or take a nap? I think about that a few times a week, now.

Keith retired early last year. Soon after, Kirby brought his family from Texas. He, Destiny and her daughter, Devyn—lived with us for several months and then moved into a house they're buying a third of a mile away. They had a crazy-fun wedding last month. Devyn stays with us sometimes. Keith's retirement helped things to slow down at our house. I like it.

There is a new forum for discussing unschooling that I need to get set up and open. I'm hestiating. I'm procrastinating, and I'm wondering why. There are many unfinished projects in my unschooling life (and other parts involving music, sewing, organizing, storing important things...). There are things to start and things to clean up after.

Twenty five years is 9,000+ days. 9,125, today. But that count started when school would have begun for Kirby, in 1991, so adding the time from then, about three months, 90 more days... Round it to 9200 days. Let's say I took some days totally off. I didn't, but it makes the math easier. Some days I probably only spent one hour answering someone's questions or writing about unschooling, or defending it somehow. I'm not going to count the time I spent DOING it, or thinking about doing it better. I'm only counting time spent communicating it to and with other people. So sometimes one hour. Sometimes two. Some days it was twelve hours or more—either at a conference, or when there was some embroilment in a forum or a discussion I was running or deeply involved with. Sometimes I prepared for, and then hosted, and then edited the trancript of a two hour online chat. And then published it. Five to eight hours. Most days, three or four hours spent answering questions online, or writing essays for publication, or preparing or summarizing or publishing talks. 1 (few), 3 (many), 5, 12 (not as many). I'll call it four hours a day in later years, three in earlier years, average. 3.5. I'm probably estimating low. I usually do.

So IF 3.5 times 9200, that's 32,200 hours.

Perhaps it's enough. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to open that new forum soon. But I'm not going to feel guilty if I "only" work two hours some days now that I'm older and my kids are grown.
NOTE in early 2021: I never did launch the bulletin board/forum.
I'm also going to be surprised if I only work two hours in a day, but it is likely that morally and ethically I have done enough, and the rest is bonus round.

The daily thing: https://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com
The feedback: https://sandradodd.com/feedback/ (some of it)

Some of the recent posts at Just Add Light have had beautiful photos. I didn't even count time taking, collecting, sorting, storing and retrieving photos, but I do that. There have been over 2,220 Just Add Light posts, each with a photo.

Little Shop of Horrors

Last night we saw Little Shop of Horrors at the Albuquerque Little Theatre. It was fun! We had four seats in the middle of the first row. That was Destiny, Kirby, Devyn and me. Five behind in the second row: Keith was behind me and then Ashlee, Marty, Noor and Brie. Noor and Brie have been here for nearly a week, checking out New Mexico for a probable move.

When "Somewhere that's Green" started, Devyn said "The music is like Book of Mormon." She is So Right! "Sal-ta-lay-ka-city" (however it's written out begins with the same intro music, and is a bit of a parallel to "Somewhere That's Green." I was so happy that she noticed. :-)

At the end, though, she was really sad that Audrey at Audrey's fate, and was nearly crying. Some cast members were out, and the voice of Audrey II was easily accessible (though he did have a little crowd). I asked if he knew where the one who had done Audrey was and told him Devyn was a little upset and might like to see her. I thought he would just point a direction, but she was still back stage, and he went to get her, but she was just coming out. Emily Melville. She apologized for having her costume off already, but talked to Devyn for a good little while, said "You were in the front row, right? You were really paying attention, too..." so she told her it wasn't real, and that if she wanted to see the movie it had a happier ending. They talked a little more, about how to be in plays, I think—I walked away but Kirby and Destiny heard more. It was cheering and calming for Devyn, and I appreciated it.

The sets were great, the plant-puppets (rented) were especially great, the singing was good (some parts great). Costumes good. Staging good! We all had fun.

"Suddenly Seymour" was especially good. We've seen it twice before, but not lately. I either hadn't heard or didn't remember the song they did with four phones, when the store has become really successful, and that was fun.

Nicholas Handley did the dentist, a store customer, and all three people who came to offer Seymour contracts near the end. Quick costume changes, and fun voices. He did a great job. The program said nothing about his other experience, but I poked around a bit and he plays violin, is in a mariachi band, was Tony in West Side Story (which we saw because Emma played Anybodys).

I didn't take any photos (of course) but here's the preview video:

A Day with Sandra Dodd—18 Sept 2016, Long Ditton, Surrey

Years pass, and people forget, and I don't want to forget this big, wonderful, exhausting day.

I didn't have any notes on this in my blog, so I've brought what Janine, one of the organizers put on facebook. I'm adding it on September 20, 2018 and backdating. When she wrote "we" she tagged to credit:
Julie Daniel
Marta Venturini
Serah Daya
Parvine Shahid
Rippy Saran Dusseldorp
Polly Griffiths would've been tagged but she's not facebooky.

But as you will see in the photos, some of them had male counterparts, also helping. And one of the dads took a batch of kids off and away to do fun things, which was also helpful. Thank you James, Arif, Karl, and Graham. Thank you, Bruno, for making it possible for Marta to be there.

There were people there from Canada (Serah's family), Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Portugal, and other places I can't remember. I'm still tired from that day. Just thinking of it reminds me of exhaustion. :-) I was elated, too, though, because it went well.

---

September 20, 2016 at 7:25 AM · West Molesey, United Kingdom.

We did it!

Julie Daniel and myself, and a team of the loveliest people you could wish for, created 'A DAY WITH SANDRA DODD' and it was a HUGE success!
The biggest shout out of all, is of course to Sandra. Her enthusiasm, energy, strength, humour, intellect, experience and warmth filled the room, and then some!

And I really could keep going, adding more and more words to describe Sandra, and her wonderfully engaging and enlightening words and stories. All from and about her experiences, thoughts and ideas, of living and learning this incredible way with her own 3 children, (now adults).

A very special lady indeed, and it was a privilege to have her speak for us more experienced Unschoolers, and touch on things most of us had never heard or seen written by her before, and that has truly deepened our knowledge and confidence, and was inspiring beyond measure.
She also spoke for a mammoth amount of time! She deserved an Olympic gold for sure!

THANK YOU SO MUCH Sandra ❤️
And to everyone who helped the day run so smoothly and successfully ☺️

(Some random pics from the day)

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Click Memories of speaking in England two years ago for more photos!

Oddities, England

The antlers were in all the mirrors. If anyone wants large mirrors, the antique shop in Ashford, Surry, has Many. It was hard to see the mirrors, for all the odd treasures.

The building used to be a pub. The largest room has two skylights, which enabled Jesus to fit up among the chandeliers (and to have a nice lighting effect on his head, too):


A mystery I'm pondering, rather than looking up.


James says "cabbage" is not a term for the operation of a taxi service, but it does look like a gear-shift knob. And another of them seems to have a door knob as handle. I'll look it up when there's a lull, someday, maybe.

This seemed to be Indian workmanship, on thin metal attached to/around a wooden horse. Pretty wonderful, but impractical to own outside of the local area.


This was interesting:


In the left breast pocket of that Levi jacket were two little bullets. I didn't photograph them, or some of my friends could surely have named them. I did look up the organization on that upper patch, and write to the editor of their magazine, saying that if there's someone near, they might want to go there and get it (with some directions about where in the shop, and where the shop is). Said maybe don't mention the bullets, when purchasing. So he wrote right back and invited me to a round-up in a couple of weeks. I will be RIGHT NEAR THERE, three days before. It's a group of people interested in U.S. history from 1700 on, mostly Western history. It would have been fun to be there, but the round-up is near The Wash (which I had never heard of it until playing "Articulate" with Adam, Meredith and Julie a few nights ago), and I will be in Brighton.
British Westerners' Association
Shops like this one are as good as museums for me. I can take photos, touch things, ask questions, and if something is really wonderful, I could potentially take it home—at least as far as Julie's house, if not to Albuquerque.

Outside was a beautiful old pump, and these are not all the cool things, but they're a representative sample of a thousand things. Carved chests and wooden buckets might get their own post.

The problem with "being supportive"

I'm moving this here so I can find it again, and so it might be read in a more leisurely way than people tend to read on facebook. I wrote it July 4, 2016:

Bad advice.
Sometimes "support" is the same as very bad advice.

Come on people, we are all doing the best that we can.
You—stressed parent—are doing a great job no matter what, and this is why:

1. No one knows your child better than you
. . . .
You are the perfect parent for your child. You are the expert. Trust yourself.
2. Our kids are going to survive.
. . . .
They are going to be okay—and so are you.
3. We’re all supposed to be doing it differently.

That's from a longer blog post called "3 Things all Parents Need to Hear."

But those things aren't helpful, and they're not true in all cases. Let's not share scare stories, but each of you could think of a scare story—just one, don't inventory all the sad things you know—about a child who didn't survive, about a parent who wasn't ANY kind of expert, who should NOT be trusted.

Anyone who soothes an irresponsible, neglectful, or abusive parent is contributing to that neglect and abuse.
ARE all kids eventually okay? No.

Is it okay to soothe the parents of kids who were neglected and abused?
The author of that blog post thinks so. The 144 people who shared it thought so.

I don't think so.

I'm NOT saying everyone should become unschoolers. Many people should not even consider unschooling. Unschooling's not easy.

What I'm saying is that it's better to encourage other parents to be conscious and careful, patient and kind, than to spread nonsense like everything's the same and no one else can say you could possibly do better.

The writing wasn't considering the kids' point of view. If a child thinks a parent could do better, shouldn't that matter? But this was just parents assuring parents that there is no such thing as half-assed, no such thing as bad parenting. All parenting is equal and all children will survive and be fine.

People who would prefer that message to actual ideas that could help should probably leave this group and find "support" for just whatever, because it is definitely out there.

---

End of the quote.
I have a couple of pages on my website about "support." One (the second link below) is a random generator of more and more worthless support. The other has those messages in a different format, with commentary following.

http://sandradodd.com/support.html

http://sandradodd.com/support

Please don't coo and soothe another adult who is harming a child.

With Erika, visiting Holly

Blue Heron Brewery in Rinconada. Those three doors face East, South and West—so not such a large room as the panorama makes it seem. It was nice to see Holly working. Right after this, other people started coming in.

Amanda's cat Simon

Yesterday we were with Holly in Taos and gave her a ride to Pilar, to her friend Amanda's house, where she had left her truck.

I went down the side of the house Amanda is renting, to photograph the wheelbarrow, and when I turned back, I saw the cat, on on a viga. I took several photos, but THIS one was one of those shots that, looked at later, seems more wonderful than I could have expected or planned. It's not cropped, it was just like this:


I like the hills showing in the lower left, and the sun through the clouds through the trees in two places above that. But at the time, I was only looking at Simon and at the end of that viga.


The cat in greater context:

Serendipity and that

These days Joyce Fetteroll has a small group of witnesses and perhaps assistants, for a book she and Danny are working on. She's bringing (alphabetically) a word and we make up definitions, and when she tells us the real one, we use it in a sentence. There's art involved, and humor, too.

Today she had defined "latrinalia"


I wrote:

Just the other day Holly quoted me the traditional "If you sprinkle while you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie."

I asked if she knew of the equivalent one for men's rooms. She did not.

We aim to please.
You aim too, please.

At a roadside candle outlet in North Carolina or Virginia, on a road trip with a friend of mine many years ago, I chose one of several toilet stalls. While sitting, I read "I love Keith Dodd" in someone else's handwriting. Someone else's Keith Dodd, no doubt. Quite a great coincidence.

Including Joyce's deposit of a word meaning bathroom writings just a few days after Holly and I talked about that a bit, I've had three of them this week.

Because I bought some things from China and Holly was here when they arrived, I told her about the government-subsidized postage and China's 20 years or so of moving toward capitalism. She and Keith brought a bottle of mead they bought because a friend's brother owns the company. It was good. I couldn't remember his name and when I did, I googled and found his dad, who was an atomic researcher and I didn't know so much cool stuff about him. In an interview about early atomic research in Los Alamos, he was asked about a co-worker who had moved to China. He said she was disappointed about China's eventual movement away from communism and toward capitalism.

Yesterday at lunch, Keith was asking what I knew about labyrinths in churches. I did know some, and a friend of ours designed and oversaw installation of an outdoors one at a church not far from us. Later that day I turned on the Sherlock Holmes audible book I'm listening to, and the word labyrinth popped up. 　

There's a word for that—words or factoids popping up—but I don't remember it. It's one of the many magically fun things in life.

And I posted that somewhere and someone gave me the word, and then...
I can't remember where it was provided, or who.

Gargoyle and an airplane

June 29, 2011, I put this on facebook. So it will be a race between whether this blog platform will last longer than facebook's photos do.




Water spout—not a fancy gargoyle. Look up above in the sky, though. This I caught on purpose, but I've had some accidental catches nearly as cool as this. This is the roof parapet at Henbury Parish Church, in Bristol, where I also got to play the pipe organ. The caretaker pressed me to do that. I played it as though it were a piano, because my feet don't play organ and I couldn't figure out how to turn on the lower keyboard, but I did it! I played something I didn't know, in 6/8, with only two harmony lines at any one time. Coool.

Same place, same day, Alison's boys showed me the "King of the Castle" song/game, which I have on video somewhere and should add here.

Throw-away views

This photo isn't new. Summer, 2013. I was looking for a photo of a chain of office for a discussion about the word "Whiffler," and ended up looking through photos I took in Chichester when I was there with Joyce Fetteroll, Julie Daniel and Adam Daniel. It's always hard for me to say what I love about England, but this is an example of it. This was the view from the window of the women's room in a restaurant, in Chichester.



The roof lines, the building materials, things added, clues to things having been chopped off, or repaired, or modernized, different kinds of roof tiles and panels and treatments... Candid, "back stage," not spruced up for tourists. :-)

Inside the room:

Nice description of the David Bowie letter

A Sean Kelley in London sweetly informed me about a post today at BBC.co.uk that describes the letter David Bowie sent me very nicely:

Great tales of David Bowie's good nature flooded out after his death too, but we've known about his letter to his first American fan since 2009, after it appeared on the excellent Letters of Note site.

It's a wonderful thing - a measured, charming, excited and poignant response, written in 1967, to a 14-year-old called Sandra Dodd from New Mexico, whose uncle had given her a promotional copy of Bowie's first album (he worked at a radio station).

"When I called in this, my manager's office, a few moments ago I was handed my very first American fan letter - and it was from you. I was so pleased that I had to sit down and type an immediate reply," Bowie begins, before answering questions Sandra had asked about his real name, birthday, height, and whether he'll ever visit America.

"Thank you for being so kind as to write to me and do please write again and let me know some more about yourself," the letter ends.

I love this: "measured, charming, excited and poignant."
It's the second item here, but I will point out again that he was not yet a famous musician when the letter was written.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/ec553f4f-cf1b-4912-b9b5-a98ddfe8d6c6#

The letter and notes on my site: http://sandradodd.com/bowieletter/

Out the window

Joyce Fetteroll was doing a words game in April and May 2016 (for a project she and Danny were doing), and the word was "defenestration." It means to throw something or someone out of a window.

I recorded this for that group, but I don't think those posts will be around forever, so here it is for me to find later.



May 4, 2016

Egyptian Onions, 2016

I took these photos in May 2016 of onions I still have from some my sister gave me fifteen years or more ago. We use some, and they keep reproducing and planting themselves. They're beautiful when their new sets are popping out the top from what look like paper lanterns, at first.

Tiny houses (rejection of)

I'm saving some things from facebook, from a discussion of a funny, well-written article on tiny houses. In case facebook is archived forever, here: blah blah Tiny Houses


It's my writing below:

I think what makes tiny living possible is MacBooks and iPads (or their equivalents). And cellphones and internet.

The reason our kids didn't fit better into the house we had before (where Marty is now) with its 1200+slightly more sq ft is because before they were born, Keith and I already had lots of music, books, projects.

Picture a 1990's computer and printer and telephone in a tiny house. And a VCR and some tapes and a 1990's TV. Where y'gonna sleep?

Camera, photos, albums, negative storage?

But these days my projects are on my website and blogs. Photos don't take space. Music is on the phone and the computer. Even letters from relatives aren't taking space.

So a tiny house can work beause people can read, watch movies, take photos, do research, communicate with relatives without owning books, magazines, videos or DVDs, photo-storage boxes/books/binders, dictionaries or other reference books, stationery, pens and stamps.

But what about sewing and woodworking? Keith and I still need a big house.

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I keep my computer's back-up drive in an old VCR rental box, wrapped in a green linen napkin. There's some artsy/practical mixing of eras. smile emoticon I stick it on the shelf like a book, in my office, and it's safe to throw into a suitcase.

I've had a computer broken and one stolen when I was out of the country, so I keep the backup current, and never keep it in the same bag as the computer.

Oh, and when I visited India, in the Phoenix airport on the way home, the computer started dying. The next day it was gone. I did lose some notes, names and addresses, but I had been backing up the photos. So back up your computer whether your house is tiny or huge.

With a hot knife, I took out the post that held the video tape in place.

We live near where there was a large video rental store, and used to find boxes in the dumpster. I've used them to ship Thinking Sticks and other small things in the mail, and am nearly out of them now. I should have picked up hundreds of them; they're so strong and solid.

Where, in a tiny house, would one store valuable dumpster-diving finds?