Look Away and They're Gone

It is nearly ten o'clock, andfrom my chair I can hear pages turning crisply, slowly in another room.

Thinking I am the only one still awake, I walk the house until I find a canted box of light painting the hallway in front of my daughter's room.

I stand in the doorway with an elbow against the jamb, fist to my temple.

She's contorted in her bed, angling a book toward the lamp. One sweep of her finger reveals an ear.

She turns one page, then another. How long until she is just a snapshot on the fridge?

On Living Somewhere

My job isn't perfect. Most aren't. I'd like more money. Most people do. I'd like a lighter teaching load. That goes without saying. But I decided a while ago that I didn't want my primary identity to be through my job.

The photo above is a simple shot of the world through my front window. I'm not sure there are many jobs for which I am trained and suited that can outstrip having that view available. There are plenty of other reasons for wanting to live in a place, and the job should be in support of living in a place that makes everyone in your family feel right. So, that said. I'm really happy here. Who knows what that'll mean in the future, but for now, we're very happy.

Some Projects

I'm off to another conference (sigh). This makes three out-of-towns in October, which is really high on the "¡Aye Carumba!" scale. So high, it's actually prompting a change in behavior on my part: I'm planning to back off outward expressions of my creative life, at least for the moment. Rift is out, and there's a certain amount of work to be done there with readings and events and promotion, but other than that, I'm itching to make new things and finish old projects. This means I'm not necessarily going to say no to new projects and appearances, but I'm going to start selecting things that fit into the "create mode" rather than the "present mode." There is a time and a place for present, but I feel like I've been presenting myself into a place where my store of created material is becoming depleted pretty fast. The tank isn't on empty, but it's not on full either.

I want to finish a collection of interlocking stories I've been working on for a really long time. It's called Small World, and there will be six long stories of about 25-30 pages each. In each story a character and/or situation from a preceding story will take center stage. In fact, each successive story will add to the plot and subtext of the earlier stories. Yes, it is a little bit like LOST in story format.

I want to throw myself into the blog a bit more. I am working on short memoir posts. On my trip to DC this week, I'm going to be sketching these things out. I'm also working on some ideas about how a creative life and family life spark when they bump into each other. I'll have a long first post out this Sunday.

And finally I want to work on my retelling of the old folktale "The Little Red Hen." In my version, the hen asks for help from a pig, a cat, a goose, and a coldwar-era Soviet tactical robot.

Crossbones Valentine

I found this little watercolor painting lying around in the house this weekend. While I was scanning it Ike came up and told me he painted it. Then Zoë appeared, crying that she had painted a heart and Ike ruined it with all the "Halloween stuff." Ike did not deny it but agreed, saying, "I put in the bones and the scary parts." Zoë harumphed and stomped off. I don't like to side with one kid or the other, but the Halloween parts are really the most amazing thing. It's pretty great blown up, too. We might print it and frame it.

Proud Parenting

The other day my kids were having breakfast in the kitchen, perched on stools at the counter. My youngest looked at his sister, swallowed a bite of his cereal, and said, "It's duck season."

Zoë, without a pause, said, "Rabbit season."

Just as quick, Ike said, "Duck season."

Back and forth they went until Ike said suddenly, "Wait, stop. Okay, Zoë now it's rabbit season. Boom!" Then they both collapsed into fits of laughter. It was a pleasure to watch.

I was beaming. This meant that my labors had been successful, at least partially so. You see, this is a triumph in parenting for me. I have been trying to give my kids what could be called a classical education in cartoons. I started them with Steamboat Willie and moved them on to Felix the Cat and Fleisher Brothers Superman serials. They are well acquainted with the more contemporary Pixar and Miyazaki. Thanks to YouTube and Netflix, I have been able to widen the survey to include Warner Brothers.

I had no idea if any of this was working until that morning. I am so proud of these kids. Nothing shows me a literate mind more than getting a joke. And, did they ever get it. Bravo, kids. Bravo. You make your old man proud.

Old School/New School

We try to have simple rules around my house, real simple principles that can govern a lot of situations. The baby/toddler principles were this:

1. You can't say no to parents.
2. No throwing unless it's a game, and the other person wants to play.
3. No one can remember rule #3.
4. No one can remember this one either.

The new principles are coming out like this:

1. You are responsible for your own mess.
2. The dining room table is not a storage unit.
3. If it's not yours, ask.

We are also working on one kind of additional practice with the kids. They are getting frustrated a lot these days. So, when frustration mounts, particularly with something we are helping them with, my wife and I are trying to train them to say, "Thanks, but that's not how I want it."

We want them to say this instead of screaming.

It might be too much to ask, but if we don't start now, it'll just be terrible for the next 15 years of our lives.

First Loaf of the Season

Because of the heat of summer and the business of the beginning of the Fall semester is so busy, I haven't started up the weekly ritual of baking bread. My bread baking passion started in graduate school. I lived in a town without a good bakery, and I was really interested in learning how to make the kinds of breads that I devour whenever I get to a town of a certain size (bigger than the one I'm currently living in.

When my wife and I married and moved to our first apartment in Utah, I started a French levain, which is a kind of mild sourdough. With just a dash of yeast and a bunch of smashed grapes and flour, I nurtured a colony of local yeast, which I have kept actively going for just about seven years (just about the length of time I have been working on my novel).

During the summers, when I'm not actively baking, I keep the levain active by changing it out at regular intervals.

I make one large boule, like this one, and two small baguettes. The first one we usually devour with butter and jam, which we did yesterday. The other baguette made it until today, when my most excellent wife handed me a turkey and blue cheese sandwich on the rest of the second baguette. I ate it slowly, and that is the treatment it deserved.

The big boy, pictured above will accompany the butternut squash soup, which is on the menu for the evening. Match that with some fresh made apple cider mixed with sparkling mineral water and an apple pie (apples from the backyard) and you have the best kind of meal, simple, fresh, homemade.

He Ain't Heavy...

Today Zoë was wrapped up in a blanket and lying on the couch. She likes to get cozy like that and wait for people to say, "Where's Zoë?" Anyway, this time, Ike found her and climbed up on top of her and sat his eighteen-month-old bottom on her and drank his bottle.

Zoë was outraged and started calling for help. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "Ikey's sitting on me."

I said, "But he has a little bottom."

She said, "But he's very, very heavy."

To which I replied: "He ain't heavy, he's your brother."

I was the only one smiling, but I was really, really pleased with myself.

That's What I'm Talking About

It's finally getting to be autumn, and that means that there are some pretty amazing things waiting to be eaten in my house. In the summer, no one really wants the oven on, so we don't have much in the way of pie.

But the cold snap that's been getting us here in Southern Utah has motivated my wife to get pie-crazy, which is fine with me.

This pie was absolutely amazing, but our history with pie has not always been so good. When Alisa and I first got married and first started having pie in the house, we found them less than appealing. The crust was either too dry or grainy or mushy. The filling was almost always runny, though the taste was often wonderful. This led Alisa to spend a lot of time with her mother and with other members of her family trying to find all the input she could get on the making of pie -- inside and out.

A Quick List

Here's a list of some things that have been happening around my house over the last few months...

1. Zoë nicknamed one of her orange crayons "Seventy-six Thousand." She was just moving through the house calling for it.
2. Ike has become fond of (and quite good at) spitting his food in a fine spray. One blast can coat an adult's entire head and face.
3. Zoë was sitting on the potty the other day, saying "Gross, gross, gross, gross" for close to five minutes.
4. I've been jonesing for American cheese for the past few weeks. Why? Wasn't I brought up better than that?
5. I've been getting very good at making accurate predictions using mathematics, and I have always been ham fisted when it comes to math. Always. So this is a curiosity.
6. A few weeks ago, I was teasing Zoë, told her that if she kept eating her yogurt with a fork she'd turn into a blueberry. She looked at me right in the eyes, her lips coated in creaminess, and she said, "Dad, you know that's not a fact."
7. I've been getting up at 5 in the morning, so I'll have some quiet in the house. The other morning Ike got up at four. He's going to be a gambling addict.
8. On September 26th at 9:00 p.m. Zoë asked the following question: "How are people made?"
9. I have come close to perfecting a barbecue version of pizza.
10. Zoë reiterated the "how are people made" question on October 6th at 11:00 a.m. My guess is that the answer given in September was insufficient.
11. Earlier in November we harvested apples from the trees in our backyard, but I should amend that statement: we harvested the best apples I have ever tasted from the trees in our backyard.
12. Zoë has decided to name her children Ted and Lilly.