"O Wretched State!"

 The world is full of many delightful blog entries. Just yesterday, for example, I was reading a blog about how to make cantucci. Cantucci are little Italian cookies that one might dip in coffee while overlooking a serene lake in Tuscany or surreptitiously avoiding the pursuit of armed thugs while pretending to read a newspaper in a Venetian cafe. 

The blog that I read about cantucci started with a long anecdote about a walk in the woods in autumn and then gave a simple recipe and instructions for how to bake cantucci in one's very own kitchen. I would encourage you to search for a blog about cantucci making and, if you have a sufficient number of almonds, to make these delicious cookies yourself. 

Or perhaps you could look over a blog that I saw last week about the preparation of Fischeintopf. Fischeintopf is a hearty German fish stew with potatoes, vermouth, and cod that one might sip rosy-cheeked after a day of Alpine skiing or of rescuing small children from abandoned wells. The blog that I read last week, after describing another autumnal walk in the woods, lists a simple recipe for Fischeintopf that I ate with great satisfaction.

But if you are not in the mood for delicious anise-flavored cookies or for a savory stew, you might continue to read this blog. I warn you that you will be neither comforted nor fed by the end of it. Indeed, you will not have even heard about an ambling walk through the autumnal woods. 

This is because the subject of this blog is the Smith children.

The Smith children, ages 13, 10, and 7, are three of the most unfortunate children that have ever lived. Indeed, if ever three children did deserve a plate of Italian cookies or a bowl of German fish-stew it would be these three. But, as you will discover if you keep on reading, their only lot was suffering and woe.

The oldest of the three children was James, who was tall and polite and could build marvelous works of architecture out of empty seltzer cans. Indeed, James was never happier than when he was alone in his room creating colorful seltzer-can replicas of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and the Eiffel Tower. 

His younger brother, Owen, was extraordinarily gifted in volume of noise. Whether humming, whistling, beatboxing, (a word which hear means "making rhythmic percussive noises with one's tongue, lips, and teeth while simultaneously humming a vigorous dance rhythm") playing the piano, tipping objects down the staircase, or (his favorite activity) shouting, Owen was constantly exploring the limits of how much noise a single 10-year old child could make.

The youngest of the brothers was Felix, who was 7 years old. Felix was extraordinary in many ways, but most impressively and most obviously in the size of his head. Felix did not even need to practice having an enormous head. It was a skill that he was born with, and he'd excelled at it ever since he was first brought home from the hospital.

You might correctly suppose that these boys sound like charming and interesting children, and undeserving of such a wretched fate as will find them in this blog. You might ask, "Wouldn't such interesting and talented children be politely treated and encouraged to happiness by any adults they met?" 

The answer, unfortunately, is "no." Because the Smith children were homeschooled, a word which here means "subjected to hours of tedious medieval subjects instead of getting their own personal iPad at the elementary school across the road."

And the children's chief persecutor was their father, a hirsute man ("hirsute" is a word which here means that he needed to shave every day and that he looked like he was wrapped in a blanket whenever he took off his shirt to get in a swimming pool) who made them work all day on Latin, grammar, and history, and theoretical math.

"Quickly, children!" he would shout "what is the 2nd person plural ending in the passive subjunctive imperfect?"

James, who had been thinking of building the Taj Mahal with seltzer cans, tried to concentrate on his Latin conjugation tables?

"Is it '-tis?'"

His Father snarled and slammed his book shut. "That's wrong!" he shouted, "And you need to memorize every word of your Latin book. Start memorizing right now and you can't have any lunch until you can recite it all from heart. Owen, come over here!"

Owen looked up. "What is the square root of the product of quotients whose inverse is congruent with a trapezoid's height?"

Owen paused a moment and tried to think through the question

"Hurry up!" shouted his Father, "I'm a very important person who has lots of other important things to do and you clearly didn't learn your lesson correctly. As a consequence you'll need to write out all the numbers from one to one million, four hundred ninety thousand and twenty six. Hand it into me before lunch and make it be in perfect handwriting or I'll make you do it all over again!"

Felix, who had been looking through some library books and trying not to be noticed by his tyrannical father, tried to turn a page as quietly as he could.

Father stalked over and looked at the comic book he was reading. 

"Still looking at this garbage, I see. Well, no more fun reading for you unless you can diagram this sentence for me. Look where I'm pointing--where this character says, "The glumpfoozles were orange and tangy," what kind of a bojbicular hurdywoot is the word "orange?"

Felix frowned in puzzlement and asked what a bojbicular hurdywoot was.

"You never remember anything!" roared Father "I told you what a bojbicular hurdywoot was on the first day we brought you home from the hospital, and I just knew that you weren't listening. No more comic books for you, from now on I want to you to only read this list of industrial cleaning supplies. This is your fun reading from now on, so make sure you are enjoying it."

Father turned to face all three of them. "I'm going to practice my trumpet in the basement now and to play the loudest fanfares in the world. But don't make any noise or disturb me, you should all concentrate on your homeschool."

So Father went down and played the trumpet very loudly, and all three boys tried to work on their homeschool. At one point Owen tried to practice his piano assignment, but Father stalked up and shouted that he was making too much noise, so Owen went back to his math work.

It is difficult to work on dry, dusty homework under any circumstances, but it is even harder when someone is blasting a trumpet at jackhammer volume directly beneath you, and it is even harder still when you are a growing boy and you haven't had anything to eat for a number of hours. And it is even harder yet when you begin to notice that delicious smells are coming from the kitchen.

It was in the kitchen that the unfortunate Smith children found their Mother. She was frosting a magnificent three-layer cake in light blue buttercream frosting, but this was not the source of the heavenly smell. The smell that that enticed the Smith boys into the kitchen was the aroma of fresh-baked oatmeal cookies that had just come out of the oven.

"Mother," said Felix, "we are so hungry and tired of doing school! Could we please, please have one of your delicious smelling cookies? We know it is almost lunchtime!"

Felix's Mother smiled sweetly at her youngest son and at each of his brothers. 

"My dear children," she began "I KNOW that it is almost your lunchtime. But no, you may not have one of these cookies."

"What about a piece of that spectacular looking cake?" asked Owen.

"No, eating sugar would be horrible for your health!" exclaimed Mother "I'm going to take these baked treats and give them away to other people. But I haven't forgotten about you. Why don't you all have a seat at the table?"

The boys, disappointed that they wouldn't get to eat either the cookies or the cake, sat at the kitchen table. Their mother carried out a dish and placed it in front of them. 

"Here are some slimy Brussel sprouts. They are already nice and cold, and I've mixed them in with raw onions and fish bones. If you're still hungry after that I'd be happy to let you finish some of the old spinach from the bottom of the fridge that got slimy."

The door opened and Father reappeared from the basement. 

"There you are, Dear!" exclaimed Mother. "Have a cookie! And maybe you can enjoy a piece of cake while I'm cooking up the steaks that you and I will have for our lunch."

"Mmm, mmm!" said Father, as he took bites of cookies that he was holding in both hands, "You'll have to tell me about the recipe for these amazing cookies!"

"I'd love to," said Mother, "But first let me tell you about a walk I took in the woods last autumn..."

"No matter in the phrase that might indict the author"

 Writing With Skill, Level 2

Final Essay

James Smith

"Neil Armstrong"

On August 5, 1930, Neil Armstrong was born at home. No one could have guessed at the time that Neil would grow up to be world-famous. 

Neil first flew when he was four years old on a small airplane called The Tin Goose. (It was not actually made of tin.) This was before huge jetliners had taken over travel, so the flight was more like an amusement park ride. Neil loved it, and from then on his childhood hobby was building (and sometimes crashing) homemade model airplanes. He saved his pennies so he could get a pilot's license, which he got before he learned how to drive. 

Neil flew fighter planes in the Korean War as well. However, this delayed the start of his college career. Neil became an experimental test pilot and moved to California with his new wife, Jan, to take up his new job. 

This was the time of the Cold War, a battle of minds between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A., the two most powerful countries in the world at the time. Both countries had the technology to send rockets into space. In 1951, the Soviets launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite, into space. Then the Sputnik II, which contained a dog named Taika. 

The U.S. tried to launch something of their own, but without success. Then the Soviets launched the first human into space, Yuri A. Gagarin. Several weeks after Gagarin's flight America got a human into space, Alan Shepherd, who piloted his rocket, something Gagarin had not done. The world watched and wondered, "Which country would be the first to get a man on the moon?"

The Russians continued to embarrass the Americans, like having a Soviet cosmonaut "walk" in space while NASA, the space program for America, picks a team of astronauts, Neil Armstrong among them. 

Following Neil's application, the Armstrongs moved to Texas, since NASA's headquarters were in Houston. An astronaut's job was very demanding, and Neil's daughter Karen had sadly died before the move. But still, the Armstrongs lived happily. After several years of training, Neil was made commander of the Gemini 8 mission. He would fly into space with other astronauts and dock a space capsule with another rocket. 

At first the mission went smoothly, but after the docking the astronauts' capsule started spinning. Thanks to his piloting skills, Neil managed to regain control and bring the capsule back to Earth. Despite the failed mission, there was good news for America--the Soviets were struggling with their space plans. They were building a giant N-1 rocket, but it was possible to crash. 

Meanwhile, Neil flew in the Apollo 8 mission, which was a couple orbits around the moon, and looked for good landing spots. The landing capsule would not be able to lift off from the moon if it landed on an uneven space. Neil was named commander of Apollo 11, which if all went well would be the first manned mission to the moon.

The Soviet N-1 exploded during takeoff, so the Americans were now in full control to get to the moon first. Apollo 11 took off, connected with another rocket, and took off for the moon. After several days of travel they entered lunar orbit, Neil and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin got into their landing capsule nicknamed "The Eagle." 

The Eagle was set adrift from the main capsule, which was piloted by Michael Collins, who would pick them up after their moon walk. Neil and Buzz flew over the moon, and with a little turbulence found their landing spot and landed the Eagle. 

Neil and Buzz could not spend much time on the moon, because they only had two and a half hours of air in their tanks. (There is no air on the moon.) But they planted an American flag, collected rocks, and performed experiments. Their stay was brief, but was an important scientific achievement. When time was up, they took off, rejoined Michael, and flew home.

After Apollo 11, Neil retired and turned to farming. It was a peaceful rest of his life, which hopefully suited Neil, being a person who never had liked attention. 

Edwards, Roberta, "Who Was Neil Armstrong?" New York, Penguin Group, 2012

Barbee, Jax, "Neil Armstrong, A Life of Flight" New York, St. Martin's Press, 2014

"Would the night were come! Till then, sit still my soul!"

 I'm getting more efficient at the taxes, which means that on the annual long-double day that I set up shop to take care of our tax returns "all day" between a morning rehearsal and an evening concert I am finding myself with more hours vacant than occupied as each year passes.

I had both returns submitted before 3:00 this year, which means that I've spent the last two hours involuntarily overhearing the proselytizing of two clean-cut Mormon boys in black suits and puffer jackets to an elderly janitor who is attempting to argue back against their slick prefabricated set pieces about his own Sinfulness and how Joseph Smith is really less important than Jesus.

It's depressing.

It's too cold and snowy for a walk (I came in my dress clothes today), my kindle is charging, and my earbuds haven't recharged enough to play the "Continuous White Noise--Rain on the River" track that I put it while I attempt to put my head down.

The place where I'm sitting is a riot of smells. I am directly across from a Jamaican food bar (smelling of curries, jerk chicken on the grill, and fruits) and kitty-corner from an Ethiopian place where they are grilling naan and braising meat in berbere spices. 

When the concert finally arrives it will be a relief to have something meaningful to do again, but then after the concert will follow a creeping multi-hour drive back through the blizzard that has finally arrived in Central New York after teasing with false forecasts for the last several days.

Doing the taxes was a sobering snapshot of the year that was. I added up all of the miles driven, counted the thruway tolls, parsed out the parking fees, subtracted "office" expenses, looked up the date the dates I acquired new assets (mouthpieces and trumpets) and then weighed it all up against the final number that was my W-2 income.

But it isn't all snow and gloom. I received an email just now from the U.S Office of Consular affairs that my passport renewal has been successful--which means that J and I are officially good to go on our trip to Greece this summer. We might be working hard in the snow right now, but we'll be lying on a beach in Naxos this August.

And if any IRS agents happen to be reading this blog, that journey to Greece is a business trip for musical purposes that is entirely tax-deductible for 2025.

"Swear!"

 Content Warning: The following passage contains explicit language. It is a reimagining of a beloved literary character who reminds us all of Felix...along with another literary character who reminds us all of Felix.

"Ow!" said Tigger.

He sat down and put his paw in his mouth.

"What's the matter?" asked Pooh.

"Hot!" mumbled Tigger.

"Your friend," said Eeyore, "appears to have bitten on a bee."

Pooh's friend stopped shaking his head to get the prickles out, and explained that Tiggers didn't like thistles. 

"They why bend a perfectly good one?" asked Eeyore.

"But you said," began Pooh--"you said that Tiggers like everything except honey and haycorns."

"And thistles," said Tigger, who was now running round in circles with his tongue hanging out.

Pooh looked at him sadly.

"What are we going to do?" he asked Piglet.

Piglet knew the answer to that, and he said at once that they must go and see Christopher Robin.

"You'll find him with Kanga," said Eeyore.

Tigger had been bouncing in front of them all this time, turning round every now and then to ask, "Is this the way?--and now at last they came in sight of Kanga's house, and there at last was Christopher Robin.

He was slumped in a low chair, sipping from a plastic cup that he he balanced precariously on two fingers. His lank, blonde hair hung limp, and he sprawled back with his belly out upon seeing the approach of Pooh and his friends. 

"I've been finding things in the Forest," said Tigger importantly. "I've found a pooh and a piglet and an eeyore, but I can't find any breakfast."

Christopher Robin rolled his eyes and took a long sip of whatever he was drinking from the plastic cup. 

"Well that's no surprise. I'd only ask you for help finding something if I wanted it to stay hidden. Christ on a bike, you're all up early." 

He gave a leering look at Pooh. "I thought I left you stuck in a hole somewhere."

"But Christopher Robin, you pulled me out!"

"Well, see if you can get stuck again. And make sure that Rabbit's trapped inside when you do."

Piglet tried to explain what had been happening with the search for Tigger's breakfast.

"Don't you know what Tiggers like?" asked Pooh.

"I expect that this one likes the little baggies of cocaine he thinks he's buying on the sly from Owl's cousin. Tell him that if he does another line of that it'll take the edge off of his appetite, but if he does it around me I'm going to turn him into a fucking tiger-skin rug."

Christopher Robin belched and conjured up a sucker apparently from nowhere that he put in his mouth, then began inspecting his nails.

"I know what I like," said Tigger. "Everything there is in the world except honey and haycorns and--what were those hot things called?"

"Thistles."

"Yes, and those."

"Jesus," murmured Christopher Robin, and tucked the sucker behind one ear. Without turning around he raised his voice.

"Kanga! Kanga, you useless bloody Aussie, get out here and give Tigger some breakfast."

So Kanga and Roo came out, and when Roo had said "Hallo, Pooh" and "Hallo, Piglet" once, and "Hallo, Tigger" twice, because he had never said it before and it sounded funny, they told Kanga what they wanted, and Kanga said very kindly, "Well, look in my cupboard Tigger dear, and see what you'd like." Because she knew at once that, however big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.

"I can tell you that all the biscuits, crips, and whiskey is gone from that cupboard," said Christopher Robin, "There's just a bunch of useless shit like flour and salt."

"Shall I look, too?" said Pooh, who was beginning to feel a little eleven o'clockish. 

"The last thing you need is another meal." said Christopher Robin pointedly to Pooh Bear. "Honestly, when was the last time that you could actually fit into a pair of trousers?" That seemed to remind him of something, and Christopher Robin unbuttoned the top of his own. "Ah, that's better."

Pooh found a small tin of condensed milk, and something seemed to tell him that Tiggers didn't like this, so he took it into a corner by itself, and went with it to see that nobody interrupted it. 

But the more Tigger put his nose into this and his paw into that, the more he found things which Tiggers didn't like. And when he had found everything in the cupboard, and couldn't eat any of it, he said to Kanga, "What happens now?"

But Kanga and Christopher Robin were all standing around Roo, watching him have his Extract of Malt. And Roo was saying, "Must I?" and Kanga was saying "Now, Roo dear, you remember what you promised."

"What is it?" whispered Tigger to Piglet.

"His Strengthening Medicine," said Piglet. "He hates it. Christopher Robin, can you make Roo take it?"

Christopher Robin looked thoughtful for a moment, glanced at Piglet, and farted.

"Oh, Christopher Robin! Christopher Robin, what did you EAT?" cried Piglet.

Christopher Robin grinned evilly. "Bacon sandwich."

Tigger, trying to escape the smell, but his noise in the Extract of Malt. He sniffed, tasted, and jumped back in surprise.

Kanga said "Oh!" and then clutched at the spoon again just as it was disappearing, and pulled it safely back out of Tigger's mouth. But the Extract of Malt had gone. 

"Tigger dear!" said Kanga.

"He's taken my medicine, he's taken my medicine, he's taken my medicine!" sang Roo happily, thinking it was a tremendous joke. 

"What you lot need," said Christopher Robin, shuffling out, "Is some Brain Strengthening medicine."

Then Tigger looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes, and his tongue went round and round his chops, in case he had left any outside, and a peaceful smile came over his face as he said, "So that's what Tiggers like!"

"Nor shall you do my ear that violence To make it truster of your own report Against yourself. I know you are no truant."

 J and I have been learning the hard way for at least the past seven years that being the youngest of the family is a completely different world than the one that we grew up in. People prize your cuteness and babyhood over your wisdom and maturity. No one takes you seriously. You have the least amount of physical and moral force in any disagreement with your older brothers.

And, for Felix, it's been uncomfortable and unsettling to watch him internalize the abuse (intentional or otherwise) that he gets from his older brothers. We've sat on the sofa after bedtime puzzling over the things we hear him saying, wondering whether we are going to need some extra help with him. And where we're going to get it. And whether it's fair to the other two. Or whether we're just imagining it.

But there certainly is no doubt that he pours out a stream of abuse about himself: "I'm dumb, I'm stupid, I can't read, I'm a dork..."

The child is an enigma to us, and I suspect that he is an enigma to himself. He has no context by which he can understand who he is. Why is he slower, shorter, and and apparently less clever than the two people he spends every day with? 

I don't know if we would have had the energy to even attempt homeschooling if we'd known at the outset that we'd be answering these sorts of questions.

We had a week of very light book-work this week and spent most of our school time taking a standardized test online. The state requires each of our boys to be formally evaluated at least once a year, and in the past we've used a teacher friend to administer a reading test. These tests are great, but the scoring is very complicated and doesn't mean much to the boys. (What does a 4F mean?)

Two years ago the school district got persnickety about the type of testing that James was doing, so we switched to a standardized cross-discipline multiple question test. The great thing about this test, we discovered afterwards, was that it gave you a comparison to the level of each boy relative to his peers. (Supposedly)

Do I really believe the levels that James and Owen scored at? Not particularly.

But they did very well, and they took great encouragement from the news that they are well above grade level in almost everything that they are doing.

Felix, who has struggled through every stage of learning to read for the past three years, did not want to take this test. He didn't like the mouse, he didn't like the computer, and he didn't like sitting through 50 questions per section.

But when we called him into the kitchen and told him that he was doing the work of a third grader in some subjects and scoring like a fifth grader in some others he absolutely BEAMED. He couldn't wait to tell the babysitter. He looked like he was floating with pride and delight.

J was quick to assure him that we would still love him and be proud of him even if he didn't do well at all on his test. He is (apparently) a little behind in Spelling, so we'll need to do some catch-up work with him on that.

But I think that on Monday morning it might be marginally less hard to convince him to start in on his schoolwork. And maybe, just maybe, he won't spend so much of the morning arguing that he's a dumb kid.

"Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed"

 For people who enjoy fresh herbs and garden vegetables as much as J and I do we are pretty terrible at gardening. 

Some of it is not our fault. For one thing, we are both really busy. It's hard to weed the garden on days when you are out of the house to go to work before 8 AM and won't get back from your concert until close to 11.

It's also really hard to summon the desire to go weed your garden when you get back from a Sunday morning of church rehearsals and services. You don't need to go work in the garden, you need a nap.

There are some other factors as well. We have very sandy soil in the backyard and not a whole lot of direct sunlight in places that are convenient for a garden. There are bunnies and birds and rodents that live in our backyard and help themselves to whatever does grow up. Our hoses all leak and our sillcocks are temperamental. 

But maybe we just both have brown thumbs.

I put in our first attempt at a garden before Felix was born. James, Owen, and I made a trip to Lowe's and picked up seeds and topsoil. We excavated a little rectangle of earth on the western side of the house and made a crude mound that was enclosed by old bits of baseboard that we'd pulled out of one of the bedrooms.

Unsurprisingly, nothing but mint and one sad, anemic-looking carrot every grew there.

Last year J's mom gave her a fancy spinning planter pyramid. I filled it with topsoil, planted herbs, peppers, and salad greens, and watered it every day when I got back from my run. But I also never thinned any of the shoots or did any weeding. We had a few useable basil leaves that came out of the top and might have pulled out a handful of thyme once.

What we really need, I think, is to get a child interested in gardening. Like Owen with his typewriter, James with his smoothie-making, or Felix with his lying around and ordering other people to pour him drinks, we need a child that will become fascinated with the art of gardening for its own sake and look after it on their own without any prompting or reminding. 

This is the year that we're putting the pergola in the backyard. Maybe, since we'll all be out there anyway, this will be the year when we finally get around to doing the weeding.

"Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge"

 J and I are going to the game this Sunday. 

It wasn't even remotely on my radar until yesterday. I had only been concerned about when the game would be held. (I couldn't watch the wild card round because I was stuck playing a concert.)

I was relieved when the schedule came out and the Bills weren't in the Saturday night slot, but didn't think anything of the fact that I could not only watch the game, but I might actually even be able to attend. 

Pax was the one who put the idea into my head. He asked if I'd like to go with him, and that turned into a flurry of seeing how many tickets were available and affordable.

Some of you may know that we promised the boys that if we read 500 books as a family over the past year that we would take everyone to a Bills game. 

We were over that mark before the season even started, and Owen probably read 500 just on his own. But then we looked at the schedule (we could only make the Chiefs game happen with work schedules) and the prices (I used to be able to get tickets for $7 each when the Bills were bad) and had to walk back the promise. 

And we really couldn't afford five tickets for Sunday...but we could swing two.

I delivered the news as gently as I could to the boys. Owen had a good sulk in his room. It really is unfair.

In our very slight defense, it could be out to be the worst night ever if we end up staying out in the dark in single digit temperatures only to have the Bills lose. (And, as J pointed out, the Inauguration as the thing we're waking up to on the following day.)

But I think this team is different. I think this year is different. And, crucially, J and I are going to help. We're going to help incite some false starts from all the way up in the 300 section.

Go Bills.

"How is it that the clouds still hang on you?"

I've never appreciated what a cloudy place Rochester, NY is in the winter until I've had a telescope.

We just got back from Pennsylvania. I could've at least brought my small telescope down but opted not to because I didn't want to be crammed to the gills with baggage and Christmas presents. (As J later pointed out, I would've had all of the room that her suitcases were taking off since we dropped her off at Dulles before returning.)

The sky in Hanover was incredible. There was immediately less light pollution, the temperature felt positively balmy, and there were two perfectly clear nights without even any moonlight obscuring the stars. I showed Jupiter and Saturn to two of my little nephews and wished that I'd brought a telescope down with me.

Even on the drive back to Rochester I was aware of how clear the skies were as it began to get dark. It was dark and clear at the border, dark and clear in Corning, and dark and clear in Geneseo. And it was dark and cloudy in Rochester. And cold.

Last night I had a late afternoon rehearsal, and it was, as ever, cloudy. I actually fell asleep in the backseat of my carpool. I awoke just as we were pulling into the Victor park and ride. Just above some fir trees, gloriously, was Venus right next to a waxing crescent moon. All else was obscured by clouds, but just for one patch of sky there was a glorious sight. I drove home planning on getting out as soon as possible. By the time I got back it had all clouded over again.

Part of this is on me. If I really wanted to see some stars I could go out with a mug of tea and wait for cloud breaks. I'm out running at about 6 AM most mornings, and I can usually find a patch of sky somewhere with at least a little visibility.

But it's hard to want to go stand outside in the cold and to just get colder and colder. I'll do it, eventually.

But it would help if Rochester wasn't so cloudy. (And cold.)