I haven’t looked at my xiebob dashboard in a while, but I just wandered over to see that one of the searches for finding my blog of late has been “how to eat a tranchla whole(no bites)”. Awesome.
Jessica, holding a tarantula
February 24, 2009
We finally managed to get up a post announcing the birth of our child, who arrived on February 12. For more, see the Morula Logs – http://morulalogs.wordpress.com/.
February 7, 2009
Dawkins claims that his target audience for this book is the religious and and the agnostic. His goal for this audience is to make them realize that they have the option of rejecting religion. Unfortunately, I think it’s highly unlikely that anybody who is actually religious would make it more than a few chapters into this book.
Dawkins lays out great arguments for why he refuses to walk on eggshells around religious belief, for why faith shouldn’t be the only thing we exempt from the free discussion and disagreement we insist upon in every other area of our lives. However, our cultural conventions are such that we ARE used to people tiptoeing around belief, and if you’re trying specifically to get religious people to listen to your arguments for why atheism makes sense, it might not be the best time to treat their beliefs with scorn.
While I’m not Dawkins’ target audience, I found this book quiet valuable. As a prominent atheist, Dawkins has had exposure to every possible argument for God’s existence, and he is able to lay each of them out in turn and explain why he thinks they don’t work. Having thought hard about religion all my life, there was little that I hadn’t considered before reading the book, but having everything laid out in an organized, point-by-point fashion was certainly nothing I had seen before.
I found the book deteriorated a bit into random complaining at the end. Despite that, I think it’s well worth reading for anybody who can stomach Dawkins’ highly irreverent attitude about belief. Even those who can’t make it through the entire thing might want to read the section about WHY we shouldn’t have to treat faith so specially. The argument against holding faith in a place of respect is at least as important an idae to come from this book as the actual arguments for why it doesn’t make sense for God to exist.
December 22, 2008
We have gotten a ton of snow in the last week. It’s been hard to get around in but beautiful nonetheless. There was about a foot of snow when we woke up this morning. These pictures are from earlier, before another 4 inches or so of snow fell!
Yesterday, we went out skiing around the neighborhood, and it didn’t even feel like fake skiing. I was extremely careful not to fall, as I have been instructed not to by my midwives :). This made it kind of not as fun, but it was still awesome to be out there on skis in our own neighborhood.
December 5, 2008
For those who don’t know, Colin and I got married… a few months ago (uh, I don’t think I wrote down the date).
Marriage has never been something we’ve felt as emotionally important to us, and we already felt totally committed to each other (especially with a baby on the way!). But we decided to get married for a number of practical reasons. Basically, since Colin started his business in January and hasn’t been bringing in any income, it will make sense for us to file taxes jointly with me as the bread-winner this year. Secondly, we want the maximum protection we can have for our family now that little Calix will be joining us. Getting married makes things incredibly easy. Nobody will ever question what will happen if something were to happen to one or the other of us. Also, our finances are automatically jointly owned, so we don’t have to try to keep track of out of whose bank account we’re spending which expenses out or what will happen to the house I bought if something happens to me. And, it’s nice in some ways to think of ourselves as married.
This is all very convenient! And here is what we had to do. We had to go to a King County office near us on a Saturday and wait in a line with a bunch of other couples to get a marriage license. Then we had to not get married during the 3-day waiting period. Then we had to have a friend who had authority to perform marriages (by becoming a minister on the internet) and two witnesses around. We had to say “I take you to be my husband or wife.” Then we all had to sign a piece of paper and send it to King County by the United States Postal Service.
That’s it! That’s all there was to it. Colin and I have been together for over 6 years, but we could have done the same thing if we had just met. Our lives have become easier and safer in a lot of ways with that piece of paper.
But if anything, the ease with which we were able to execute the whole thing has made me even more seethingly upset about my sister’s situation. Here’s her story.
My sister and her partner have been together for about the same amount of time as Colin and I have been. On October 7, 2006, they had a beautiful wedding ceremony surrounded by a very fun wedding weekend. The whole family and many friends flew in to attend the festivities. My sister wore a gorgeous embroidered flowing white dress. A professional photographer took pictures. There was a fancy dinner and a big cake. It was a wedding.
Two years later, my sister and her partner have four-month-old twins! They balanced finances, planned the timing, and went through many getting-pregnant anxieties, just as Colin and I did. But the security and conveniences Colin and I got from a 5-minute signing and dropping of a piece of paper in the mail, my sister cannot have.
Everything is a comparatively huge struggle.
To use each other’s health insurance, they have to be lucky enough to be working for an employer who happens to offer domestic partnership benefits, or they have to have enough clout with their employer to convince them to do so.
In order for her partner to be considered a parent to their children, my sister has to give up parental rights to them, and then they both have to adopt the children. This involves a months-long engagement of a lawyer to deal with all of the paperwork. They hope to have this completed sometime next year. Lots of time and money.
Then there are all of the other papers and fees for having power of attorney and wills, and I don’t know what all else. And no matter how much money and time they pour into it all, they still will never have the situation that Colin and I do. Certainly, for example, they have no rights to any federal benefits such as filing taxes together now that my sister is staying home with the babies.
And as for security, they are always at risk of laws changing out from under them or homophobic family members challenging in court what they have set up for themselves.
Colin and I paid $64 to get married – the cost of the license. Everything is taken care of. Oh yeah, and $0.42 for the stamp.
I think the contrast between my sister’s situation and my own is a deplorable injustice in our country. I can only think that in future generations, our grandchildren will look back on this aspect of our times with shock and scorn. Until then, I suppose all we can do is to fight unfair ballot measures and bills and the people that support them, and to keep telling the stories of people like my sister, which point out this terrible inequality in our system.
November 2, 2008
Colin and I always take a weekend trip for our anniversary. This year, we almost ruled it out due to my back problems. But instead we decided to take a weekend at a cabin close to home.
We had an awesome time at the cozy little cabin in the woods north of Mount Rainier. The fall colors were beautiful.
On Saturday, we took a couple of short hikes to look at and photograph the tons and tons of mushrooms that were out. Then we spent pretty much the rest of the weekend just sitting around in the cabin cooking, playing games, feeling the baby kick, reading about Week 23, identifying mushrooms, and taking several hours to vote. And Colin brought us two fancy boxes of delicious chocolates, which we’ve been slowly savoring. It was just nice to be away from our normal routines and having a whole weekend dedicated to enjoying time together. Undoubtedly our last such trip without baby :).
Mammals
- Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) (hopefully we didn’t run one of them over)
Birds
- House wren (Troglodytes aedon)
- Raven
Mushrooms
- Agaricus sp.
- Chrysomphalina aurantiaca (aka Omphalina luteicolor)
- Clavulina cristata
- Clitocybe subsquamosa (now Infundibulicybe squamosa. who knew?)
- Clitocybe spp.
- Coprinus comatus
- Cortinarius spp.
- Crepidotus sp.
- Cystoderma fallax
- Cystoderma sp.
- Floccularia albolanaripes
- Galerina sp.
- Gomphidius subroseus
- Gymnopilus sapineus grp.
- Gyromitra infula
- Hygrocybe conica
- Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca
- Hygrophorus bakerensis
- Inocybe albadisca
- Inocybe lilacina
- Inocybe pudica
- Inocybe spp.
- Laccaria bicolor
- Laccaria lacata
- Laccaria sp. (probably a very faded amethysteo-occidentalis)
- Lactarius deliciosus
- Lactarius luculentus
- Lactarius pseudomucidus
- Lepiota magnispora
- Lepista nuda
- Mitrula abietis
- Mycena adonis
- Mycena aurantiidisca
- Mycena pura
- Mycena spp.
- Oligoporus caesius
- Pholiota astragalina
- Pholiota sp.
- Pseudohydnum gelatinosum
- Russula bicolor
- Russula brevipes
- Russula laurocerasi
- Russula nigricans grp.
- Russula rosacea
- Russula spp.
- Stropharia ambigua
- Suillus caerulescens
- Xerocomus zelleri (aka Boletus zelleri)
Plants
- Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata)
- Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
- Hemlock
- Cottonwood
- Alder
- Vine maple
- Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa)
- Sword Fern
October 6, 2008
7-week-old Robert and Elizabeth came to visit us for 4 days last week/end, bringing with them their mom, Jenni, and their grandma, Mom. Mom and Jenni had made elaborate re-arrangements to be able to come out and visit us, after Colin and I had to cancel our week-long visit to Ohio, due to my fragile back. For a while, we thought we weren’t going to get to meet the twins until they were toddlers!
We all had a great time. As we had suspected, you don’t do much with two 7-week-old babies around. Or rather, you do a bunch of small things, and days just go by. We:
- fed babies
- burped babies
- watched babies sleep
- prepared bottles
- did dishwasher loads
- did laundry loads
- cooked
- ate and snacked
- talked
- coo’d at babies
- watched babies have tummy time, admiring their neck strength
- soothed upset babies by bouncing and rocking and using a bouncy chair and a swinging chair kindly provided by Sue and Michael (very helpful!)
- admired babies
And that was about the gist of most of it!
On Saturday, Anne and the Flynn family came over, which was great fun. Most fun was watching Flynn with the twins. Amazingly, he totally got that he had to be careful with them. At first he was a little upset that he had to wash his hands before handling them, but he got used to that. He pet Elizabeth’s soft hair so gently, and at one point hugged her. I thought he was trying to pick her up, so I told him he had to sit down if he wanted to hold her. He got all excited about this. I wondered what I’d gotten myself and Elizabeth into, but Flynn was wonderful. When I put Elizabeth on his lap, he looked very serious and held onto her very carefully. He touched her only very very gently, and if anybody looked suspiciously like they might take her away, he’d say “NO! I’m holding the baby!”
We had a picnic out in the backyard, enjoying the last of the summer weather (which persisted for Jenni etc’s entire visit!). Flynn swung on the swing in our backyard and climbed on the monkey bars. Our swingset came with the house, and it definitely looks old and weather-beaten, but it seem to be pretty stable after all!
We all went for a beautiful walk at Kubota garden, where Flynn of course enjoyed all of the ponds and bridges.
On Sunday, Jenni, mom, the twins and I we went blackberry picking in our neighborhood. It’s the end of the blackberry season, but between 3 blackberry patches, we managed to collect enough to make a yummy blackberry cobbler.
I think the only other time we left the house was to go grocery shopping and to go get the ultrasound for the twins’ cousin. :)
Mostly, it was all about getting to know the twins. It’s very interesting to see how different they are from each other, even though they are the exact same age. They’re both very sweet and totally cute.
Elizabeth is more easily smily and will seem to imitate some of your facial expressions, such as pursed lips when you blow on her face.
Robert is stronger and can lift his head up high during tummy time. He has a much more serious expression, which I found adorable and which I think may be part of why he reminds us all of grandpa.
Anyway, I’m so glad to have been able to meet the twins! Now when I see pictures of them, it’s totally different, because I feel like I know them.
October 5, 2008
Many of you know that we’re hard at work on making a baby!
Now that we’re well along and baby is doing well, we’re publishing our pregnancy blogs. If you’re interested in following our pregnancy, check out The Morula Logs.
September 24, 2008
Knowing so many kids of around the same age, it’s really easy to watch common developmental phenomena as they come and go. One thing that seems to be a favorite talent to two-year-olds is the ability to give two word commands in the form of “<person>, <action>!”, where action is something that the person is supposed to do with said two-year-old. If the action is not soon performed, the two-year-old follows up by a grabbing of the adult’s hand and dragging them toward desired action.
Verl’s desired action is definitely “sit”, as in “Mommy, sit!” and “Daddy, sit!”, which means, “I am playing with this toy, and you should sit down and play with the toy with me.
It’s interesting that they have learned to clearly desire the participation of others in their activities, and to request it.
Flynn’s favorite action is “outside”. When we were over there a couple of weeks ago to babysit, he kept saying “Fishy outside! Fishy outside!”, more and more insistently, and then grabbing my hand to drag me outside, since it was dusk, and the adults were hanging out inside for a while before mom and dad took off for their date. As I’ve mentioned, Flynn loves anything to do with water, including fish, so I figured there must be some kind of a toy fish or something outside that he wanted to play with. I was saying, “You have a fish out there, Flynn?” Finally, Owen chimed in, “No, I think that’s you.” Of course, the standard formulation! “Mommy, outside!”, “Colin, outside!”, and “Fishy, outside!”
So, yeah, I’m “Fishy” :). And very flattered to be so, given Flynn’s love of fish.
September 14, 2008
Fun things we’ve been up to lately while I haven’t been posting.
- Colin’s Mum turned 60, and we had a birthday bash for her out at Glenn and Glenda’s beautiful house and garden.
- Sue, Michael and Verl came to visit us in Seattle, and they brought us a truckload of awesome baby stuff! It was very fun watching Verl and Flynn play together and to see how quickly they picked things up from each other. Flynn’s been asking people for “cheers” clinking cups ever since.
- We went to visit Sue, Michael, and Verl in Portland, with special guest stars David and Megan in attendance. Lots of great food and fun companionship.
All this fun stuff happened before my latest back incident. More fun stuff to come now that I’m back on my feet.
