Serendipity

We were going to meet my brother's family for dinner yesterday - a birthday dinner for their youngest. We were on the road already when they called to say they were having car problems and were running very late. We were far enough from home not to want to go back there, and not sure how to kill enough time. So we played it by ear, deciding just to drive around the little town where we were meeting. In the back seat our daughter fell asleep.

Then we passed a little outdoor ice cream stand, where there were floodlights, and people dressed as elves, and an enclosure with candy striped stanchions and reindeer. Real live reindeer with enormous antlers. We stopped and woke our daughter up. I wonder what that is like, to wake up to such a magical situation - Santa's reindeer in the parking lot of an ice cream stand.

We had our picture taken in a little red sleigh, with a reindeer and an elf. Then we had an ice cream cone. And then we headed to dinner. What a wonderful way to while away some time.

Sleepless Six Year Old

Here's what it is to have a 6 year old around.

Last night I had just crawled under the covers with a book, when a sleepy, tousled little girl walked into the room and said she was afraid of monsters. I pulled up the quilt to let her climb in and snuggle underneath with me, then turned off the light and tried to quiet her down.

After a little tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable curled up against me, she asked me about "Holy Hells." After a little back and forth, I'm pretty sure she meant "Holy Hill," which is a beautiful Catholic shrine at the top of a big hill, not too far from where we live. We talked about going there this Saturday. It's a beautiful place to visit in Fall.

That got her to wondering why we go to church on Sundays, but Jewish people go on Saturday, and why they're called Jewish, and what they believe. So I explained as best I could, and we drifted into a brief consideration of the triune god.

And then she fell asleep, breathing deeply, her head on my shoulder. In ten minutes, we dealt with make-believe, a misunderstanding, and some very large, important ideas. And that's what it's like having a six-year-old around.

A Romantic Story or Cow, Marriage, Priorities

I heard a good story recently. My friend was telling me about her son Paul, a struggling farmer. When he was young and just starting out, he was seriously dating a girl. After some time, things had proceeded to the point where she was hoping for a ring at Christmas. Instead, Paul spent his money on a tractor. His girlfriend dumped him. She later married and had children, and is living happily ever after as far as anyone knows. Paul, meanwhile, had a good decade of regretting what he'd done. In all that time he dated only sporadically, and had no serious prospects. And it looks as if he learned something from that long ago mistake.

Recently, a wonderful young woman showed up in his life. In short order they became inseparable, and decided to get married. They're scrimping and saving for the wedding, which is coming up in a couple of months. Then a close relative of hers passed away unexpectedly. She was really rocked by the death. She wanted to go to the funeral, but the plane ticket was exorbitant, and they're scrimping and saving for their wedding. But Paul realized how important it was for her to go to the funeral. Without even telling her, he sold one of his cows. Then he told her to go ahead and get her ticket, because they had the money for it.

Looks like he got his priorities straight now.

Nasty Bit of Cattiness

I heard a nasty little story the other day, and I just keep thinking about it. I was talking to my friend, who works in administration at the school I used to work at. A parent called to ask a question. My friend didn't have the answer, so referred her to another staff member. The parent replied, "Oh, is she the one whose husband is cheating on her?"

OK - is that just the coldest, cattiest thing to say? This parent didn't even know my friend, and she didn't know the other woman. Did she really think that was acceptable thing to say in a polite, business conversation? I know it happens on TV, but I guess I didn't really think people were like that in real life.

PMS

I just got to thinking about PMS. I'm wondering if it's really a myth created by men who aren't willing to accept that sometimes they actually do just behave like assholes.

Witches Under the Bed

Last night my daughter had trouble falling asleep. She was afraid of witches. I soothed her and tried to help her over her fears. She's still somewhat pre-logical, at age 6, so I was able to use two contradictory arguments and have them both be fairly convincing. I told her there were no witches. And also, many of them are nice ones.

What finally made the difference was posting a sentry under the bed. We had to find just the right stuffed animal to do the job. She has a bumblebee, who could sting any bad witches. My daughter reminded me that bumblebees can only sting once. But I assured her this was a magic bumblebee who could sting as many times as necessary. So that was OK. And she went to sleep.

Open Source

My early impressions of open source software is that "open source" is synonymous with "buggy." It pains me to say that, because I love the grass roots energy of the open source movement. I like being part of something that feels utopian, or at least populist.

But I'm also comfortably used to software that works, that has thorough, readable documentation, that follows a set of standards, and that has been thoroughly tested and debugged. So this is a new experience - wasting/spending hours on making software work before actually being able to work with it.

And I'm enough of a geek to be enjoying that new experience. (I don't think I ever claimed to be consistent.)

I'm finding that another synonym for "open source" might be "rude." I've been working with an open source content management system that is unbelievably frustrating to use.  The CMS's site has lots of documentation, much of it good, but it's fragmented, incomplete, often referring to older versions than I'm using, much of it containing broken links.

Yet, despite that, people are very ready to scold one another for what they think are stupid questions posed to the forum - and I quote "People should read the code and docs before posting questions." Sheesh. Would it have killed the cranky person who wrote that to mention which of the literally thousands of files of code and which of the thousands of docs?

I wish the populous involved with this system cared enough about it to try to lower, instead of raise, the barriers to entry for us newbies who've inherited large, hacked systems that we now need to master.

Religion Junior

My six-year-old daughter was talking religion with me the other day. She feels sad about the death of my grandmother, whom she knew. My grandmother's death a couple of years ago was my daughter's first and only experience with death. She would like to be able to bring her great-grandmother back to life. And then it got interesting.

She got to wondering whether this was something Santa could do, given that he's magic. Then she was wondering if it was something God could do for her. Then she got to wondering if maybe Santa could talk to God on her behalf, because she figures they probably know each other. The more she got to thinking about it, the more this made sense to her, because Santa delivers presents to all the kids in the world to celebrate the birth of Jesus. So that must mean he believes in God. And maybe that means that the way he figures out if kids are good is to figure out if they believe in God. It was an interesting train of thought.

Job Interview

Well, I had a job interview the other day. I haven't heard anything yet. Good news would be better than no news. But no news is better than bad news.

The morning of the interview I was talking about it with my daughter. She didn't know what an interview is, so I explained how they'd ask me lots of questions about myself to find out if I'd be good in the job. I told her one of the common questions they'd ask is what are 3 strengths that would make me good in the job. She thought about it a while, then said, "You're really good at Computer Science. Hmmm. You really like Computer Science. Hmmm." Then she had to think a while. Then she said, "And you're really nice." So then I told her they'd ask what are 3 weaknesses, things that would make me bad in the job. And she said, with no hesitation at all, "You don't play with me. You're really bossy. And you give me time outs." So there you have it. And now I wait.