On education

Tonight's pics are of the twins, Basil & Charlie. They are still so kitten-like in their behavior, and that behavior is unique to watch when performed by giant, huge cats! I'm so happy that they've always been together. We are planning to take them over to Dej's to visit their mom, brother and sister. We are curious to see how they will react after not having seen each other for a year.


Last night was unusual Tuesday for us. We watched a family ‘movie’ (not really a movie, but a documentary) together. We started watching it Sunday night with my parents, watched part 2 on Monday, and parts 3 & 4 last night. Now we can pass it to my parents, so they can finish, and then on to Dej, who watched part 4 with us last night and wants to see the rest.

It’s called ‘Faces of America’, and is the second series I’ve watched by Dr. Henry Louis Gates (the first was also excellent—‘African American Lives’). We got it through Netflix. It was awesome! It’s simultaneously intriguing, educational, entertaining and extremely emotional. I don’t think L enjoyed it as much as we did or as much as I thought she would. Maybe we’ll try it again when she’s older.

The fourth part was focused on using science to understand our past, present and future, by analyzing DNA. This allows them to determine your genetic background, ethnicity, etc., via haplogroups. Since Dej already knows, I can mention that her birthday present (next month) is having her DNA mapped and analyzed. She will provide a sample of saliva, using the sterilized equipment they provide (which just arrived in today's mail!), and send it back. She will receive a detailed account of her genetic makeup. We’re all very excited to see it!

After L went to bed and Dej left, M & I watched Sherlock Holmes. This was my Father’s Day gift to M—to watch one of his crappy violent movies with him without complaining. I’m a fan of the real Sherlock Holmes books/movies, but this was not at all like those. It was about 30 minutes worth of plot, intermingled with 90 minutes of ridiculously long, dragged out fights. It seemed like a very long movie. It was late, and we went to bed when it was finished.

M, L, Dej, my parents, and I toured the Tallman House on Sunday. Admission was free for the dads, and it’s been ages since we were there. There’s no air in there, so it was quite warm. It’s gorgeous inside, as always! I love, love, love Victorian homes, furniture, decorating, etc! The girls and I agreed that we’d like to live there, except for the bathroom/kitchen situation. The outside has aged considerably and there is noticeable disrepair. There was some noticeable on the inside of the house as well. The gardens were completely non-existent. It was very sad to see the state that it’s fallen into—another victim of the bad economy.

I just finished reading “Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling”, by John Taylor Gatto. It’s a very short book, but it contains such important information. I wish it were required reading for all adults! He identifies the problem with our schooling and completely nails it. I’ve watched one of my children’s brain and love of learning be completely destroyed in the public school, and that’s exactly why I’m homeschooling L. I realize that I have a luxury that most parents in the U.S. do not, and am still deeply committed to helping improve the public schools in any way possible. I think that while Gatto perfectly lays out the problem, his solution doesn’t seem practical or well-thought out. I’m eager to see if/how he develops his proposed solution (privatization of education) in his other books.

My main concern with privatization, other than the seeming impracticality, is the religious factor. If education were to be privatized, those fucking fundies & catlicks would be all over it, trying to destroy knowledge and education in every way possible, and probably even worse that they currently do in their schools. I am a victim of such a poor educational system, which took place within an abusive environment, full of corruption, lies, greed, and hypocrisy. I wouldn’t wish that on any child, ever, and would be loathe to do anything that would risk allowing them to expand their ignorance any further. They should absolutely not be allowed to spew their hate-filled, fear-filled vile and backwards outlook to any children. It’s flat out abuse (of both the child and the educational system) and should not be legal! The mission of these schools is NOT to educate but to create unquestioning followers who will become the next generation to fund the institution.

I teach college. The American students from both private and public schools are undereducated. Horribly undereducated—and these are the ones who graduated and made it to college. My international students are significantly better off—better educated and with an excellent educational work ethic. It’s like night and day. I’ve been teaching for over ten years, and it makes me so sad to see how our educational system has degraded in just the time I’ve been teaching. We can’t afford to ignore it, even those of us who don’t have children in school. These are the citizens and leaders of the future, and they are increasingly ill-equipped to succeed. We will be living in the world they create and run and absolutely can’t afford to let our educational system degrade any further.

Researching education and the way the brain works/learns is kind of a hobby for me. I got into it when I started teaching, and it has become a passion of mine. I found my knowledge of cognitive-neuro-psychology invaluable in my home schooling, my own learning, and my teaching, and don’t think anyone should be allowed to teach without a solid understanding it. I do have a few ideas, that I fully believe would improve education for our public school kids and are fairly low-cost and practical. They are a far cry from fixing anything, but I feel strongly that we would see a significant improvement.

1. Humane Education as a required component: Teaching compassion and understanding for others, the ways in which every single action we take impacts others, how to be educated and responsible consumers, citizens of a ‘democracy’, emotional intelligence, the importance of community service, etc. One of the brain’s most basic requirements for learning (beyond nutritional factors) is a safe environment, both physically and emotionally. Our public schools are a far cry from safe, especially emotionally, and they seem to be getting worse. Humane Education should be part of the home education since birth, but it doesn’t occur in the majority of American homes. It certainly won’t fix the problem, but it’s a cheap, easy way to realize a big improvement.

2. Brain Management as a required component: Teaching children at a young age how their brains work—how knowledge is best acquired; how neurons are formed; learning about and identifying their own personal learning style(s), strengths, and weaknesses, etc. Learning how to operate and manage their own equipment is empowering and necessary for them to truly be effective learners. Understanding how my brain works is the single-most valuable chunk of knowledge I have ever acquired! If our kids owned this information early in their educational career, think how much easier their job of learning would be, and therefore the teacher’s job as well. Those students whose brains are not well-designed for learning within a traditional school structure would understand that they are not stupid, poor students, nor incapable of learning. They would be able to find ways for their brains to succeed in an incompatible environment. I could write ten more pages, both from a student’s perspective and from a teacher’s on just how helpful and life changing this knowledge could be in the traditional classroom environment.

3. Give students the “big picture” and update it frequently. From very early on in a child’s school career, they should have an overview of where they are currently and where they are going with their education. Why is the material important to them, how and where the material fits within the big picture of the knowledge they are acquiring—this is extremely valuable to the learning process, as the human brain needs to be able to assemble the bits and pieces into a meaningful, logical whole. We give the students the bits and pieces, but don’t make it very clear to them how they fit together and how they are relevant to the student’s life and future. We need to present those bits and pieces in a way that flows naturally and logically and allows a student to place that knowledge in context, so that it can be fully understood and applied. One example of a very specific and simple application of using the contextual placement to improve flow and learning would be history. For the love of Thor, teach it in sequential order! Hopping around in non-chronological, non-geographical order isn’t easy for any brain to follow. Start with the Big Bang and go to the present. Simple, straightforward, and infinitely more effective! Because the students are able to place this knowledge in context and within the ‘big picture’ of their educational map, it’s not at all boring—History becomes exciting and so much more than a bunch of random dates to be memorized.

Gatto has a few other books out, too, and I am going to acquire and read those as soon as possible. I can’t reiterate how good this book is and how vital it is for us to understand! I plan to purchase his books, so I can loan them out to everyone! I am looking for someone to discuss the books with and bounce ideas back and forth.

Tomorrow, I will solve the economic situation and global warming. ;-D

Shampoo free

I'm sharing some garden pictures tonight--lots of lilies! It is wonderful to have lilies again after all these years. It finally feels like my garden again, as I have always had lots of lilies. I keep checking them, but there are no signs of the crappy fungus that forced me to be lily free. I'm hoping it stays that way!

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L & I have been shampoo free for over a year now, and we’re still loving it. I can’t see ever going back to shampoo! I’ve had so many people ask me how to do it, and I keep forgetting to send instructions. I’ll put them here, and then I won’t have to worry about it. When I first researched this, I found there were several ways to go about it, but almost all of these methods rely on the baking soda and apple cider vinegar. This method works very well for us, but you may find that you need to tweak amounts or wash frequency based on your hair and your own personal taste.

You will need an empty bottle or container of some sort to mix your baking soda and water together. The same container can be used for the vinegar/water rinse. I use an empty, clean Pounce container, because it’s just the right size (about 10 oz), and I always have plenty of those around.

STEP 1
Pour 2 Tablespoons of baking soda into the empty container.* Add approximately 8 oz. of hot water (I just fill in the shower with that water), close and shake until the baking soda is dissolved in the water. The container I use is clear, so it’s easy to see when it’s completely dissolved. Pour on your head, trying to distribute equally. Scrub scalp.

* I only measured this out the first time I did it. You can either mark a line or just remember to what point the bottle should be filled.

STEP 2
Pour 2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into the empty container.* Add approximately 8 oz. of hot water (I just fill in the shower with that water), close and shake until the vinegar is dissolved in the water. Pour on your head, trying to distribute equally. Scrub scalp.

* I only measured this out the first time I did it. You can either mark a line or just remember to what point the bottle should be filled.

STEP 3
Rinse scalp well.

STEP 4
Condition as you normally would.

The first two to three weeks your hair will have an adjustment period. Once your follicles catch on that you’re not stripping the natural oils on a regular basis, they will stop producing the excess. I did not find it excessively bothersome. After the adjustment period, we only need to wash our hair with the baking soda/vinegar once a week. You can “wash” your hair with just water or water and conditioner as often as you would like, but it shouldn’t be necessary to “shampoo” it.

I get the biggest box of Arm & Hammer that I can find and a gallon jug of the apple cider vinegar (I haven’t noticed any difference between brands and often just get the store brand). Not only is this method MUCH cheaper than the high-quality, moisturizing, frizz-free shampoos I was using before, but I have also saved a ton on product. I no longer need to spend ridiculous amounts of money trying one high-priced frizz serum after another. I can air dry my long curly hair (which is what I did before, too), do absolutely nothing with it, and still look presentable and frizz free. I could never have done that when I was using shampoo!

Though my hair/scalp is extremely dry, L’s is definitely right smack in the normal range. It works very well for her long, straight hair as well. Even with her having more of a tendency to have oily hair than me, she only needs to “shampoo” once a week.

Buh-bye butter jesus

I'm not well-designed for this world. I really don't like it here. I've again failed my mission and probably caused the death of four ducklings. I was summoned urgently, early this afternoon, while clearning the herbivore room. Our neighbor went out onto her back deck to let her dog out and saw six tiny ducklings and their mommy flying away. She didn't know what to do, so she ran over and got me. By the time we returned, we couldn't find any of the ducklings.

Our neighborhood is absolutely insane today, trying to recover and clean up from last night's horrible storm damage. There were chainsaws running everywhere, big vehicles and cherry pickers for working on power lines, and a very loud and chaotic birthday party at the trashy neighborhood troublemaker's house that was spilling over to the whole neighborhood. After all of us looked for a couple of hours, we managed to find only the two youngest babies--the youngest hatched only yesterday! I ran those two over to the duck rehabber (not Fellow Mortals, with whom I normally work), and don't have a great feeling after leaving them. I never worry when I leave someone at Yvonne's (Fellow Mortals).

We returned to look more, and we failed to find them. We brought each of our three dogs over on a leash, hoping one would pick up a strange scent and track it down. They were only worried about sniffing the neighbor dog's poop. We even followed heroine chick's (another trashy neighbor) cat (who she irresponsibly allows to run the streets) into the yard, hoping he could lead us to the missing ducks. No luck. I will be going back out again shortly, but I don't think there's much hope at this point.

So now that I've covered my failure, I can move on to the disaster that was yesterday.

We were having friends over for a grill out. They are AR people, so they're allowed to come into my house, but they've never been here before. I try to make a decent first impression when people come over, so they don't have to worry that we have our kids or animals in a messy environment. The problem is, with this many animals, the house only looks really clean for a few hours. Knowing that, I saved the herbivore room cleanup and the vaccuming until shortly before they were set to arrive.

L & I left the clinic, where I had just had a disgusting mole-like thing removed from my abdomen. It wasn't a mole, but I can't remember what she called it. Anyway, we walked out of the building into blackness outside. It looked like something really nasty was coming our way. I noticed as I drove down the busy street I took to get home that all of the people were standing outside their houses looking up. I couldn't see what they were looking at, but I didn't thing that was a very good sign. I drove the five minutes back home, got out of the car and noticed in addition to being black, it was beyond windy. I started shoving L toward the door, telling her to get in and go downstairs. I saw a bunch of debris--twigs, leaves, etc., blowing toward us, and the wind was stronger. I shoved her through the door and was relieved to have her out of the wind.

M had just returned from work while we were gone and tried to help out by starting the vaccuming. After about 10 minutes, our power went out. The blackness turned to gray/green, and then the horrible thunderstorm started. My first concern was about the unvaccuumed floor. Then I realized that if the power didn't come back on in the next 10 minutes, the roasted potato side-dish I had planned was not going to be possible. I then realized if the weather didn't clear enough for us to grill and the power didn't return, we weren't going to have any food at all! We also had unvaccuumed floors, but M pointed out that at least it was dark enough that you couldn't tell.

I started pacing back and forth and looking out the doors. I had nothing else to do and was getting very stressed. I looked out the back door and shouted. We had a tree down in the back yard. It had fallen over the 6-ft fence of the dog run, and I couldn't tell if L's treehouse was intact or not. I noticed a female purple finch sitting on our garage light, huddled under the eaves, trying to hang on and stay dry. I started to really worry about nests/babies being in the tree that fell. I tried to crawl around and look to see if I could see any evidence of babies but I didn't. I was still concerned, because I couldn't get to the center of the tree. As soon as the rain let up a bit, the finch flew into our lilacs and found better shelter.

The girls and I noticed that the part of the tree that had broken was bright red inside. It really looked like the heart was ripped out and it was bloody. M assured us that it was totally normal, but it was very disturbing to the three of us. It's not quite as bright or clear in the photo, because of the limited light. Poor tree! We will miss her much, as will all of the beautiful critters who lived in/on her.

So our guests arrived. I was wet. We had no power. It was still raining and dark enough that it was dark inside our house, and we needed candles (at only 5:00 pm!) for light. M had the brilliant idea that he could grill in the garage using our little propane camping stove. Then we realized that we couldn't get into our garage without power. Fortunately we still hadn't gotten around to fixing and replacing the garage window that had to be broken into the last time we couldn't get into our garge, so M crawled in that way and opened the door. We sat out in the garage and ate and visited, as it was cooler and lighter outside than inside. L & S played and ate inside--they were happy doing their own thing and hanging with the animals. We had great company, so it turned out okay, but it was definitely the most disastrous dinner party we've ever had! Our power didn't return until around 9:15 pm!

Dej came over to hang with us, because she didn't have power either. She was bored and has never really like storms, so she didn't want to be home alone. Her power didnt' return until around 11:30, and she returned home around midnight. My parents got their power back earlier than we did, and they sustained some major damage as well.

Today while I worked on the Saturday chores, M went in to work for a while (of course) and came back after lunch with a truck, chainsaws, and some of his guys from work. They all worked on clearing the tree for several hours in the hot sun. They got maybe half of it cleared. My dad came over to help after he got his mess cleared, but the guys had already determined that the remainder of the tree mess was too precarious and dangerous to work with, so they would need to wait until Monday when a tree service can come and take care of it safely.

All day today, you could hear chainsaws in all directions. The neighborhood has been pretty chaotic as there are many, many very large trees and power lines down.

Enough for now, as I have to get back out and do some more duck hunting.

Felis catus

Petey has been on his medication for a couple of weeks now. I don’t see any adverse affects from the meds, so at least that doesn’t seem to be a problem. I haven’t really seen any changes at all in him, but it takes 4-6 weeks, so I wouldn’t expect to see a big difference yet.

I’ve continued to spoil him and baby him with extra treats and private mommy time while he eats his dinner. I haven’t weighed him yet, but I know he is picking up some weight already. That makes me feel SO much better! We are keeping his private litterbox in the basement closet for him. He wasn’t previously allowed into that closet, but since he likes it so much and is now being spoiled, it’s his own private little fort, and he loves it!

I like <-- that photo, because it shows his adorable little black freckle on his bottom lip.

With the box and dinner being downstairs where the twins don’t really like to go, he doesn’t have to come up very often, so he’s not cowering around under furniture. I’m also very happy about that, because it was killing me to see him that way.

The twins continue to be little buttheads and pick on the boys—mostly, Ivan, Jasper, and Petey (when he’s around). Because of Oliver’s sweet unboy-like reaction to the twins, they don’t really pick at him. I wonder if Oliver would have always been that way or if it has something to do with his ‘sex-change’ operation a few years back (his penis had to be amputated and his urethra widened; it basically gave him girl equipment). Last week I came home to find Basil with a scratch on his nose. The next day I came home to find two more scratches on his nose. The day after that, Charlie had a scratch on his nose. Because the twins are declawed, I don’t know who they sparred with.

Even with full claws, though, the other cats are at a huge disadvantage with the twins because they are huge, strong, and work together. I feel really horrible and want to cry when I look at their scratched up little noses. Then I remind myself that they are 100% at fault—they are the instigators and the only ones who can end this crappy war they’ve started. I still clean up their little scratches and give their boo boos a kiss and baby them a little.

poppy

Saturday was, again, a marathon of cleaning/chores. It was also date night, which we kind of wasted yet again. He had worked that day, and I was burned out and tired from minimal sleep and maximum work. We just stayed home and watched a movie (Donnie Darko, which I have to watch again now), hung with the animals and chatted. One of these date nights, we will get enough energy to go do something fun again!

H was picked up on Saturday, shortly before date night, and we did not have him this Sunday. I feel pretty horrible about it, but I really felt that it was only fair to L. I feel so crappy about it, though, that I told him I would get him on Weds. after work, and he could stay until Sunday night if he wanted to. I know now that school is out, he is bored silly and getting depressed. Anyway, L was due to have a fun day with a girlfriend, and the time she gets with girls is so rare. H can sometimes have a hard time with other friends, particularly girls. He’s shy, and often perceives that he is left out when that is not the case. It’s hard for L to balance worrying about him and still have her fun girl time. We just decided we would take one Sunday for her to do her girl thing.

After her dance class, we met with some friends and went to the Green Owl. I’ve been there three times, ordered three different things from the menu, and have enjoyed all of them! lIf I had known they had vegan strawberry shortcake available for dessert, I would have eaten only half of my eggplant meatball sandwich. Our friend, Sorrel, has a daughter who is just a few months older than L. She’s a very smart, serious girl, and they seem to get along surprisingly well for two little girls with such strong personalities. They chattered through the meal.

Once we were all way too full, we left the Green Owl to go to Tropic Jewel on State St. I had some gift certificates for the store from the AFA silent auction last month. L and her friend, S., built their own necklaces there. They both decided to make a necklace, and picked out their beads, clasps, etc. It took them quite a while to pick out all of their supplies, as they each were very particular about every single bead. Once they had everything picked out it didn’t take them long to assemble their creations. They were pretty cute about the whole thing.

By that point in the evening, we were due to get back for critter chores. Everyone was ready for their dinner, the dogs were ready for their potty break, and the herbivores were ready for their cleaning/feeding/social time. We got home a little late to start out, but worked fast and caught up.

Legoland

We went to Legoland (in Schaumburg) Friday morning with my friend O. and her boys. It was interesting to see all of the different things made out of Legos.

There were two rides there--a dragon ride and a bat ride. The kids liked both of them. On the little bat ride, it went around, but in order to go up, you had to peddle. It was a quite a workout for them, but they stayed up most of the ride. They rode each of the rides twice. O & I went on the car behind them for the dragon ride. We even got sprayed with a little water on the dragon ride!

The kids went to a workshop, where they each made a little Lego squirrell. They were pretty cute, but we had to pay $5(!!) to take them home.

We left for lunch and went to the Rainforest Cafe, at the Woodfield mall. The kids loved it, especially the fish aquariums. The food was also pretty good! We went back to Legoland after everyone was full and happy. We got back home a little after 7, and M met us there with Hunter.

I know L was up until around 1 am. Dej was here until almost 2, so I was up until around 3. It was a very long day!

Carrie

Carrie is a very strange cat. She seems to have an inordinate number of quirky behaviors. I know a little bit about her life before she came to live with us at around four years of age. Before she lived with us, she lived with Hunter. Before him, she was bounced around to various members of his family (grandma, an uncle, another uncle?—it gets a little confusing). She had at least one litter of kittens before she was spayed, possibly more. She was declawed by someone before she came to us. Her vocalizations are very unique and none of them sound much like normal cat noises. She has a variety of cute little sounds she makes, though. Hunter told us that she used to be able to purr and meow normally, but something was damaged in one of her surgeries (declawing?, spaying?). I’m guessing something in her throat was damaged by a tube maybe? Instead of a purr, she makes more of a clicking noise, kind of like she’s going to purr, but her little engine won’t quite turn over. I love her strange little clicks and squeaks!

When we first got her, I thought her name was very odd for a cat. She knew her name very well, though, so I wouldn’t change it. I still think it’s a strange cat name, but now I’m happy about the name. Since my friend Carrie died last year, I’ve enjoyed thinking of her several times a day, whenever I say my Carrie-cat’s name. Though the cat wasn’t named after her, it has become a pleasant reminder for me.

She eats very little human food and isn’t as pushy of a beggar as some of the cats are. She will turn down almost any food offered to her. She does have one strange food pleasure. She LOVES to lick empty plates. She waits for me to finish all the food on my plate and then begs to lick the plate. She’s the only cat in the house who does that.

She starts off her night sleeping on either my or M’s chest. She used to then migrate up to her pillow throne (we have a pile of pillows between mine and M’s, and that used to be her sleeping spot. More often than not though lately, she’s been sliding up to my pillow and somehow gradually edges me off of it, so that I wake with her on my pillow and my head scooted of the pillow and onto the mattress.

Carrie has been driving me nuts at night over the last couple of weeks. She wakes me up several times a night, scratching at the blanket right near my face. She loves to go under the covers, but she doesn't like the covers touching her ears. She wants me to lift the covers for her, so she can go under, but I have to hold them up so they don't touch her ears, making a little tent for her. If I get tired and start to fall asleep and drop the blanket, she scratches at me until I lift it up again.

My favorite Carrie quirk, which I haven't yet been lucky enough to catch a picture of, is the way she pees. The litterbox she uses has tall sides but no cover. She goes into her box, puts her front feet up on the tall side of it so she's in a standing position, then she pees. It's not because she's avoiding nasty things in the box--she will do it in a perfectly clean, fresh box. She then turns and scratches to cover it, as most cats do. It makes me laugh every single time I see it! Someday I'll get a picture of it. I'm determined.

A start

The last part of this week and this weekend were a little unusual for us, as we had no additional people there (Hunter was at his grandma’s) and not much scheduled. M worked a ton this week and weekend, so when he was home, he wasn’t worth too much. That left L and I with a lot of time together, which was nice. We had our normal house and animal chores to do but we were able to get a lot of little miscellaneous projects wrapped up. I felt pretty productive. It would have been a great weekend to catch up on weeding, but the weather didn’t cooperate very well.

Dej came over quite a bit to hang with us, and the girls and I all went out shopping on Thursday (or Friday? My days are all confused and running together). Her boyfriend, Luke, works a lot of hours this time of year, leaving her bored a lot. It works for me, since I get more time with her.

I find it entertaining that this boyfriend (as well as her last) is into landscaping. He also seems to be a workaholic, like M. When she was in her obnoxious, mouthy, middle-school years, she used to take great pleasure in bitching about the fact that her dad didn’t have a “normal dad job” (WTF?), but worked with FLOWERS (spat out like it was an epithet—one of the dirtiest). It was pointless to re-iterate to her the education, skill, knowledge, and hard work that went into his horrible flower job (director of horticulture). Time has certainly changed her perspective, and we can now laugh at what a dumbass she was!

Sunday was L’s first dance class with Meenakshi (her regular teacher) being back from her maternity leave. Meenakshi is much stricter than Ramya, and much more demanding. I appreciate that, and am glad to have it back. L realized yesterday that her arms get tired a lot faster in class now, because Meena notices right away if they relax their arms and corrects them. The arm and hand position that must be rigidly and tightly held throughout many of her steps is very hard to maintain. She started working out yesterday with the two-pound dumbbells, working on her arms/shoulders. I showed her some exercises that would help build those muscles, and now she’s hoping to maintain her perfect position tighter and longer.

For the first time since she started dance (almost a year ago), she started learning a real dance with music in class yesterday. Up until now, she’s been learning steps, positions, and theory. She finally knows enough to learn a full dance and perform in the big upcoming performances. She has been saying all along that she wouldn’t perform in front of crowds. She did do a very brief, easy performance at Dassera last year, but it was just illustrating a few easy steps. This is completely different. It’s a choreographed performance.

We hadn’t really discussed performances with her, because there was no point, so early in the game. We figured we would deal with that when we get nearer to that time. So when Meenakshi casually taught them the correct way to enter and exit the stage and take positions, she got a whiff of what was going on. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed the statement, but she did. I anticipated a long discussion on the ride home, with us trying to sell her on performing, or even resorting to bribery (we believe public performances and speaking are very important components of a well-rounded education, and I’m not above a little bribery on occasion). I was wrong, though. Meena’s next statement took care of everything for us. She told the girls that they would get their bells for the performance. Duh-duh-da-duuuhhh BELLS! Bharatanatyam dancers wear bells on their ankles. They wear them on both feet, and they are very fun. They sound cool when you’re walking. They make the dance sound and look much better. They are bells! Hell, I would wear bells on my ankles just for fun, but I think my co-workers might hurt me. That triggered visions in her little head of the beautiful performance costumes, the jewelry, the makeup—all things that make her very happy.

There was no discussion necessary in the car. In fact, as soon as we got home, she started practicing the portion of the dance she had learned in class. They only learned about the first 30 seconds or so, but she has practiced it and shown M and I repeatedly. She is inspired to be the best dancer ever, suddenly.

I know my child, and know that she would ultimately have chosen to perform either way. Arguing for solidarity—“you girls are a team, and your teammates are counting on you being up there with them”—is always effective with her. She’s quite logical and appeals to her logic and her personal honor and integrity almost always work. I was thrilled, though, that we didn’t have to use any of the arguments I’ve been developing for this purpose over the last few months. That will allow me to save them for a future date!

I’m happy about the resolution and even happier that she’s so excited about her future performances. I am trying not to think about how much the clothes, jewelry, bells, and other accessories (shipped from India) will cost. I can worry about that next month.

Poor Petey!

Petey is really struggling to adjust to the twins (Basil & Charlie). I’ve never seen Petey bothered by anything or anyone before, so this was a complete surprise. Since the twins came back, he’s been peeing in inappropriate places, often right in front of us. He’s also lost some weight.

I took him to see the vet on Saturday, and he came back in on Tuesday to have a full gamut of testing run. $400 later, we have found that he’s physically fine. I’m so happy he’s not ill, but this will be a little more difficult to resolve than a straightforward health problem would be.

I added an additional litterbox (because ten of them aren’t quite enough to scoop every day!) in the basement. Petey and Ivan like to hang out down there, but the other cats don’t go down there much at all. I think that may help with the inappropriate peeing. I caught Charlie waiting right outside the litterbox for Petey, so he could smack/chase Petey when he came out of the box. I’m guessing that’s why my poor boy hasn’t been using the boxes as much as he should. I have high hopes for this basement box!

We have been giving him tons of extra attention, affection, and treats, and I think once the enclosure is built, that will help a ton. He loves to be in windows and look outside, and I anticipate him being the first one to go into the enclosure and the one who will use it most often.
The vet also sent us home with a prescription for Prozac-type drug.

I am SO opposed to any pharmaceuticals that alter the brain’s functioning. I won’t take those drugs, and I wouldn’t want my husband or children to take them either. I think I will give it a try, in hopes of just getting Petey through a rough spot so he can resume a normal, drug-free life again soon. I can’t really expect him to work through the root causes and address the problem, rather than the symptom, as I would with humans. I know he’s unhappy right now, which makes me willing to try almost anything to bring his sweet little spark back (even his naughty thuggishness would be a welcome return!) as soon as possible. Even though I feel vomitty when I think about giving him the drugs, I’m going to start him today, because I cannot let him suffer. I still feel kind of dirty for giving him those horrid drugs, though! I'm planning for it to be a very short-term solution.

I’m also working my butt off in trying to work with the twins on being a little nicer and less rough, but I’m not particularly hopeful that it will work. I think the only thing that will change them is the natural mellowing out that will happen as they age. If only my boys could be as easy-going and unflappable as the girls! The girls have no problem with the twins’ behavior at all, but the boys have to get all ego-driven and territorial about everything! They seem to derive great enjoyment from getting any kind of rise out of the boys, so continue to stare and pick. If only cats were trainable!

I know the pictures don't match the post topic tonight, but I'm too lazy to go looking for Petey pics, so I'm sticking with my recent batch of garden photos.