May Day!

My 13 year old daughter, code named Ocelot, joined a Morris dance team, Banbury Cross Morris and Sword last fall. Since Morris dance traditionally welcomes summer, the big performance season is mid to late spring. May Day is traditionally the day Morris teams "dance up the dawn", dancing in downtown Cambridge, MA, USA, at ... yup, dawn.

Last week, Banbury Cross danced at NEFFA, and next weekend they have two gigs: Ginger Ale in downtown Boston and Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum. If you are in the Boston area, come watch!

Here are some videos of the team from this year's NEFFA.

Let's Try This Again

Long time, no blog. Is anyone still here? [Was anyone ever reading this? Oh, well.]

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but if I did, keeping this blog would be one. So with that, let me do a recap on what's been going on lately, neatly compartmentalized.

1. House Remodel For the past year, we've been working on (and off) with an architect, the goal being to make our too small 1950s "colonial" house work for us. After the first bids, for the shell and mechanicals only, were coming in at 30% over our entire budget, we re-thought the plan. So now we'll be doing our own contracting, with the architect assisting us by finding workers.

2. Odyssey of the Mind I'm coach of my son's team. I've coached OotM / DI teams before, so while this is a time sink, it's not much mental stress.

3. SF Fan This is the local con season. Arisia was last weekend; after a snafu I got Programming to reduce my workload to only 10 panels. Half were with kids — would have been more, if the head of the kid's program had asked me to work more instead of just changing my schedule without telling me.
Boskone is next month, as usual my husband-creature and I are running the Registration Desk. This is our third year of doing this, we have it down to a science and have enough trustworthy volunteers that we can enjoy the con too.

4. Knitting The shawl I was starting at my last blog post is still unfinished, but the end is near. I also just finished a Moebius scarf for my math-loving son, and am beginning a matching hat. I have a few little things on needles too. Taught knitting to kids and adults at Arisia (and taught my helpers how to teach).

5. Gifted Education First, a public call-out to my son's teacher this year. He's wonderful. Last year's teachers worked to put the brightest kids together in one classroom, and my boy now has both a teacher who gives hm challenging work and fellow students to learn with. It's a wonderful year. My daughter is having a tougher time, but mostly socially, as her good friends are in different schools this year.

6. Woodworking My new obsession. I've wanted to make furniture for decades, but never had the time, space, or money to set up a shop. I was also scared of tablesaws ... but the house remodel will demand my skills to do finish trim and built-in furniture. This past fall, I took a basic woodworking class at our local vo-tech school, and realized:
- I had more book learning than anyone but the teacher
- I'm enough of a perfectionist to do good work, even for a beginner
- There's a wealth of woodworking information on the Internet.
So I began "drinking from a fire hose", as I call my obsessive study of new material. And I learned even more:
- I prefer working with hand tools
- A tablesaur, as Alf the Cornish Woodworker calls it, is not essential.

So, I've been buying some hand tools, and learning to sharpen them. I'm also almost done with my first project, a hanging Shaker shelf with a drawer and coat hooks, in clear-finished maple. So far, it looks great.

Enough for now ... time to begin my morning chores with a brisk walk to my son's school to deliver him, then a contemplative walk home.

Apocolypse Job

I've always been interested in disaster planning, and what would happen to me if our civilization collapsed. Well, I think I've found my true calling, one I could do after the world fell apart — professional nit picker.

I got "The Call" Wednesday — my 7 year old son was found scratching his head in class. Yup, the school nurse gave me a 15 minute lecture on what to buy and how to pick nits. We dashed home, grabbed my daughter, drove her to an emergency orthodontist visit (yet another popped bracket) and went to the pharmacy while she was in the chair.

When we got home, I sat my son down, took out my contacts, and started my new job. My, those eggs are small!

Fortunately, my son seems to have gotten off lightly. We've been doing picking 2-3 times every day, and this morning I had to hunt long and hard to find only 3 nits. It looks like he'll be back in school tomorrow.

But I realized ... this is a job I'm suited for. If the world fell apart, my gas-perm contacts would only last a few years, then I'd be semi-blind. [I'm very, very myopic.] What use could I be to a small community of survivors? Sure I can design and teach knitting, am learning to spin, have made a weaving loom (and would travel with loom plans), and can sew, but none of this is that unique. I can do lots of other things as long as I can care for my lenses, but after that I would be dead weight.

Except ... I can pick nits. And see them, and do a thorough job. And in a low-tech community, without modern sanitation, lice are likely to be a much worse problem. I know they don't spread disease now, but can they? A talented nit picker would be an asset to a small post-apocalypse community.

So, I will add to my polymathic list of skills ... nit picker.

Opening Friday — The Splash Inn

I've been avoiding cleaning the house this week, in preparation for Splash.

For those who don't know, Splash is a weekend full of short classes for middle and high school students, put together by MIT undergraduates. Lots of fun, and this will be our third year going. My daughter has taken classes in cookie baking, duct tape design, manga, and the odd math or science class.

We're having another family staying with us, stacked like cordwood in our already too small house. I'm expecting lots of chaotic fun ... at least I don't have to cook!

It's not too late to register for Splash, if you are in the Greater Cambridge, Massachusetts area.

Splash Home Page

Where I've Been

It's been a busy fall ... and my blog has suffered for it. Apologies to the few readers I have so far.

What have I been doing?

- 2 kid birthdays, one a preteen sleep over
- Halloween
- Sewing: my quest to make a t-shirt pattern that fits is stalled at the paper alterations stage
- beginning of religious school. Since my kids attend on different days, this means my half-hour drives have doubled.
- jujitsu continues
- knitting projects continue. Time to make sure my family has enough warm woolies
- we are in the beginning stages of a house remodel
- we will be having house guests for Splash in less than 2 weeks

I'm tired. Can I go to bed now?

Haiku

Kids' first day at school
Mom enjoys new-found freedom
Only ... Dad home sick

Vacation Time

Last week my family went on vacation.

We spent 2 days at Old Sturbridge village in Massachusetts. This is a living history park, showing New England life in the 1830s. The staff dresses in historical garb, do work typical of the period, and answer endless questions. We like giving them tougher questions than they usually get ...

My 11 year old daughter had the chance to do some blacksmithing — she forged an iron wall hook. [With a little help from the blacksmith.] My 6 year old son made a tin candle holder. They both enjoyed their crafts very much, and would have stayed at the smithy for hours.

I had a teaching moment myself. OSV has a water-powered wool carding mill, where people would take sheep fleece to prepare it for spinning. The fellow demonstrating knew a lot about the water works, but had no understanding of wool preparation. I'm a self-taight spinner, so I gave him a quick lesson on hand-carding. The woman with the plant dyes knew her stuff, though.

I was surprised at the number of ignorant kids and parents I saw. 1830 wasn't that long ago, yes, people could get goods from all over the world, kids learned to read, and some houses eve had indoor plumbing! [Well, a well pump indoors and a latrine connected to the woodshed.] 1830 was the beginning of the Industrial Age, and people had more in common with us than with Dark Age serfs.

After our trip to Sturbridge, we took a one day expedition to L.L. Bean in Freeport, to buy a shocking but necessary amount of clothing. My husband has very short legs, and Bean is one of the few places left that will do custom hemming on regular pants.

School starts this week ... the kids and I can't wait.