The capacious-bottomed gal's guide to bicycling: Life lessons from the bike path

Just do it.
Beginning with a cliché would seem to bode ill for this post, but trust me: It's as appropriate a starting line as any. Why? Because many of us become so mired in the thinking about, the talking about, the reading about, the Googling about a pursuit that we never actually, well, pursue it.

Yes, of course, a pursuit can (and probably should) begin with thought and research, but it must graduate from that and become action. Sooner rather than later, I would think because...

... not every pursuit must be professionalized.
Really. It doesn't. And even those pursuits that do benefit from a touch of professionalism do not require certification, a power suit, and a briefcase right at the starting line (if you know what I mean). Take a little time to ease into it. Learn the basics. Discover if it's really you.

And you don't need much to start.
Isn't it funny how all of the things that should make our lives easier -- the internet, specialty stores, and all of the varieties of stuff we can buy -- can also terribly complicate a simple pursuit?

To begin watching birds, for example, you need only your eyes, a guide to the birds in your location (which you can borrow from the library), and time. That's it. That's all you need. Yet some folks will not even familiarize themselves with the birds in their neighborhoods until they have acquired the binoculars this expert recommends and the field guides that one extols, taken a course or attended a seminar, acquired the "right" outfit, and registered with this or that birding society.

You know the type, right?

"I'm an avid birder."

"Really? How cool! What are your favorite backyard visitors?"

"Um..."

Awkward, huh?

■ Eyes (or, by extension, your sense and senses).
■ A borrowed guide.
■ Time.

Think about it. That's all you need to get started. On anything! Parenting. Writing. Education. Even cycling. (If you presuppose that the cyclist already has, well, a bike. Heh, heh, heh.)

Naturally, if a pursuit grows into a passion -- or, eventually, a profession -- it will require more: more equipment, more training, more support. But until that time, you can keep it simple. Really.

When appropriate, then, invest in a few key pieces of equipment.
While expert advice is certainly helpful, it is important to know what you want and need -- not just what others say you will want and need, but those things that you have identified as being essential and specific to your goals and interests. (Which is why it's best not to professionalize your pursuit before it has time to be simply a pursuit: How can you possibly know what you want and need before you've even pursued the interest?)

Before we purchased our piano, for example, we discussed what it was we wanted from the instrument. We could clearly express our vision: We are not terribly worried about what the cabinetry looks like. We simply want a clear, rich sound -- like the round, bold sound that a well-tuned school instrument or studio piano can give.

We called a piano dealer who sold both new and used pianos and spoke to the sales manager. When she met us, she said, "You may look at anything you want, of course, and I would be happy to push this or that piano at you. But I think I know exactly which piano is yours." We walked past pianos that cost much more than we eventually paid but were well within the budget we had given her and arrived at the piano that we did, in fact, purchase. "Try it," she said. And it was precisely what we had described, its sound clear, rich, round, bold.

And about one-fourth of the budget we had established.

"Most people look for a piano. You knew to listen for a piano. Good for you."

Similarly, by the time I decided to purchase a bike, I knew: I may want a Mustang or a Charger, but I need an Odyssey or a Sienna. And that's what I got -- a minivan of a bicycle, built to make a capacious-bottomed gal feel confident and safe while she became fit(ter) and fast(er).

A helmet and a pair of padded gloves also gave me confidence and a sense of safety, which is important because...

... you will fall.
Which, if you read it too fast, looks like, "You will fail." Which you will. Fall. Fail. It's all the same. And it happens. To all of us. Don't believe those who tell you that they've never fallen or failed. They are the worst sort of liars.

It -- the fall or, as my kids would say, "the epic fail" -- may not happen in the first days, weeks, or months of a pursuit. In my case, it did not happen until near the end of my second biking season.

But it happened.

And it will likely happen again.

The gloves, which are deeply padded in the lower part of the palm and therefore take a lot of the pressure off my wrists while I ride, protected my hands when I landed in the loose stones, gravel, and debris at the side of path.

The helmet, which was not called into service this fall, protects my head.

Naturally, not all pursuits require safety equipment, but this extended analogy of a post works if you go back to the subhead: You will fall (fail). It helps to be prepared for that eventuality because you need to spend a little time thinking about what you will do when it happens. Will you give up? Try again? Try something else? Take a break? Cry? Complain? Some combination of these?

How will your pursuits -- including the successes, however small or large, and the falls (failures), however small or large -- enliven your sense of self? help you grow and become? make you better, stronger, smarter, and more complete?

While you're pondering that, by the way, you should remember that...

... others will look better doing this.
Sure, some will look worse, but most of us are non-plussed by those who look better -- So. Much. Better. -- pursuing those things that interest us.

Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we torture ourselves with comparisons? After all, I can't be the only person whose father told her, "There will always be someone richer than you and someone poorer; someone smarter, someone dumber; someone prettier, someone uglier. That's why you need to worry about just being you, yourself."

We need to remember that, even on the trail. Swank bikes, swanker outfits, and some hopelessly tight asses fly past me on the bike path, but I can't -- I won't! -- let the achievements and hard work of other cyclists dictate how I feel about my achievements and my hard work.

Right?

Right!

Before I wish that my capacious bottom more closely resembled the buns of steel that have just sped past me (riding a Charger or a Mustang, no less), I must recall the adage about walking a mile in another person's moccasins. Think. Think. Think. Well, I guess the truth is, I don't know anything about that person -- apart from her obvious asset, that is. And I like my own moccasins just fine, thanks.

What an epiphany!

And a relief! Yes, a relief. I can give myself permission to be me, to be proud of me, and even (perhaps, especially) to be impressed by someone else without feeling somehow "less than."

Hey! I want to shout. You look good! Good for you!

Hey, but don't take yourself so seriously!
When you travel the same path regularly, you begin to see some "regulars." This is true of any pursuit. For example, the Misses and I are now taking our fifth art class at the local college, and some of the students -- like us, I suppose -- have become regulars, familiar faces and personalities.

The same has happened on our bike path through the Illinois prairie. Some of the riders -- like us, I suppose -- have become regulars, familiar faces and personalities. You nod to one another. Smile. Lift a hand in greeting. Gesture at the upcoming hill. (And, yes, darn it! There are hills on the prairie!) You miss the regulars when you haven't seen them in a while.

Yes, even her.

One of our biking regulars is a woman who seems to take her biking seriously, very seriously. And I suppose I must mention that she doesn't nod, smile, lift a hand, or gesture. To us. To anyone I've seen her pass. I recognized her first because, well, folks, she, too, is a capacious-bottomed gal. Hey, look at that! I thought on first seeing her. Another fat-ass on a bike. Good work! By jove! Good work! And hello!

But my crisp "'Morning!" and bike-path wave went unanswered. Every. Single. Time. So I stopped greeting her.

The sheer volume of her gear is nearly as noteworthy as her butt's likeness to my own. I swear, if there is a bike gadget that she doesn't have, I will buy it for her. Meters, timers, mirrors, racks, lights, packs, monitors. She has it ALL.

Yes, by all appearances, she has definitely professionalized this pursuit. And though I must caution myself to remember the adage about traveling in another person's moccasins, I think it's all right to observe that this gal just doesn't seem to embody that lightness of spirit I think biking should beget. Why, when all is said and done, why would anyone (athletes aside, obviously) over the age of forty climb astride a bike if not to regain some of that wind-and-sun-in-your-face feeling of being ten and flying down the steep neighborhood hill?

And once you admit that bicycling's great appeal is, in fact, being little for a little while, why the hell wouldn't you smile? Grin, even?

And greet your fellow cyclists?

We're allowed to have fun, folks. Our pursuits should have some element of fun. Tackling something as joyful as biking with a grimace and frowny-faced determination seems rather wrong-headed and soul-deadening, if you ask me.

And speaking of the wind in your face?

Use the hills. It's all right to coast for a while.
Just as it's important to embrace the fun in one's pursuits, it's wise to acknowledge that they also require some work -- even, in the case of learning an instrument or foreign language as an adult, for example, a lot of work.

That's what makes hills so awesome. Sure, they're tough to climb, but once you arrive at the top, you pump, pump, pump, and WHEEEEEE! You're flying! FLYING!

Of course, a ride that's all coasting and no climbing is hardly a ride at all. We actually avoid one section of the bike path because once we were strong enough to climb its sole hill, we were forced to acknowledge that somehow, inexplicably, most of the rest of the ride required very little pedaling.

Sure, it's all right to coast. We all need to rest. But the pedals are there for a reason, you know?

Are you focused? On what?
When I rediscovered biking in April 2009, I found four- and five-mile treks challenging. A hill at about Mile Two and another near home on the return trip about undid me for the first couple of months.

Eventually, though, I grew stronger and more limber (the latter of which proving much more important to my progress than you might first think). These days, we ride nine or twelve miles each time we go out. And hills? They don't get me down. Well, they do get me down, but they don't get me down, if you know what I mean. Heh, heh, heh.

Anyway. Hills. I just focus. Climbing uphill, I usually remain focused on the few feet in front of me, mentally intoning, I can do this! Yes! I! Can!

Pump. Pump. Pump.

Flying down the other side, though, I'm free to go "soft-focus" on the world, being little for a little while, a kid with nothing more on her mind than speed and flying and all of the freedom those imply.

And when the path levels off, I can turn my focus to the path ahead or the woods and fields that flank the path or the many birds and animals that have made those woods and fields their home. I can even turn my focus inward -- not necessarily navel-gazing but roaming the rooms of my imagination, perhaps, singing songs to myself, or simply daydreaming.

You can see how the focus varies according to my place on the path, right?

So just in case you've read this far and still haven't gotten it, bicycling, like any other pursuit, mirrors life, folks: Sometimes laser-like focus is required, and sometimes daydreaming is allowed, even encouraged. We must alternately pay attention and relax, climb and fly, work and rest, focus and dream.

Bring it all home!
We rode twelve miles today. As we were getting ready to leave, Miss M-mv(ii) asked, "How many miles are we up to?"

"Four hundred seventy-six since Memorial Day."

"That's just two twelve-mile rides, then," she announced.

Um, yeah. I had been thinking, Three nine-mile rides, but okay. We can go twelve today. I think.

And we did. Another twelve-mile ride tomorrow will put us at our goal of 500 miles.

Wow. If you had told me last October that between Memorial Day and October 1 of the following year, I would ride 500 miles, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed.

No feckin' way, I might have said between guffaws.

Um, yeah. Way.

Wowie, wow, wow.

I realize, of course, that there may be in my readership some athletes or avid cyclists or others who are prepared to dismiss my achievement as too little or too simple. Two things:

1. Remember that adage about walking in someone else's moccasins before thinking you know a thing about him.

2. Just as our pursuits will vary, so will our progress in them. Some of us are smarter; some not. Some of us faster; some not. Some us more enlightened; some not. Some thinner; some not. Some happier; some not.

And so it goes.

_______________________________________

Winter swim season unofficially begins with a stroke clinic in mid-September. If you had asked me a decade ago, I would have said that my kids wouldn't be doing team sports. Ever. Not my cuppa. But swimming, at least the way our kids have gone about it, has been such a surprisingly wonderful pursuit for them.

Each child has taken something different from it and grown in unique ways because of his or her participation. When Master (now PFC) M-mv began, for example, he was a competent swimmer and a great leader, which led to an award and, eventually, a job coaching. The parents of swimmers faster than he were excited about their children's state-qualifying times, while we celebrated glimpses of the man our son would be.

For the record, I don't think either achievement is better than the other.

Some are faster; some are not. Some are leaders; some, followers. Some win; some don't.

We must each choose the pursuits and views that best speak to our own needs but be wise enough to recognize that other pursuits and views might be valid, valuable, or both.

Happy cycling, folks.
May your bike paths always have friendly regulars
and the right sort of hills.

Adventures, we've had a few.

On Sunday, we headed to the Art Institute with three stops on our minds: the temporary exhibit "Henri Bresson-Cartier: The Modern Century"; Japanese screens; and the Thorne Miniature Rooms.

The visit was, as Miss M-mv(i) declared, "a comedy of disappointments." Spoiled by members-only hours for special exhibits, we were not prepared -- at. all. -- for how crowded "The Modern Century" was. It was difficult to move around, let alone to see, really see, the photographs.

Coming up for air, we headed into the Asian art galleries so that the girls could look at the Institute's collection of Japanese screens, a recent interest of theirs that began with Tosa Mitsuoki's Flowering Cherry and Autumn Maple with Poem Slips. Once there, we discovered that the pieces are off-exhibit! Argh! Well, thank goodness for the wonderful catalogue of last year's temporary exhibit "Beyond Golden Clouds: Japanese Screens from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Saint Louis Art Museum!" (And, yes, three exclamation points.) We're hoping the reinstallation of the screens will be complete by late October, when we will head back to the museum for a member event celebrating the return of Chagall's American Windows.

Marianne Malone's novel The Sixty-Eight Rooms (related entry here), which is set in the Thorne Miniature Rooms of the Art Institute, led to our renewed interest in that permanent exhibit (emphasis on the word permanent -- heh, heh, heh). Our visit ended on a high note, then, as we had the place to ourselves and were able to linger over the rooms featured in story.

Our trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo is what really turned the day around, though: We spent about two hours wandering through the three bird houses, the small mammal and reptile house, and the Swan Pond, which is where the image above was taken.

Let's see. What else has kept the family-centered learning project busy lately? Ah, more art.

Sort of.

Our latest course at the local college will not yield much in the way of "artwork," I'm afraid -- nothing to frame or hang on the fridge or post here.

Still, we're learning a lot about color theory -- tones, tints, hues, color-mixing, etc. -- all of which are invaluable to the Misses' art education. As it turns out, Miss M-mv(i)'s interest in scientific illustration and raptor rehabilitation means degrees in science, not art, though -- according to most of the practitioners in those fields that we've met or read. I know. An interesting turn in events, eh?

And to round out this post, an announcement:

We rode nine miles this morning, bringing our total since Memorial Day to 476, which is just under three rides from our goal of 500 miles before we put the bikes in storage for the winter.

Yeah, we rock.

By the way, I had my first cycling spill this weekend. Heading into an incredibly steep hill (Yes, there are hills on the prairie!), I made a split-second decision to spare my right knee the stress and firmly gripped both hand brakes to ensure I wouldn't roll back while turning around. Like a skittish horse, my bike reared up, pitching me to the side of the road as the front tire reached a sixty degree angle from the path. My right leg is pretty torn up, and I find that at forty-six it's a little harder to just "shake off" that banged up, bruise-ish feeling. Still, I made it home from the ride. (We were at the halfway point when I fell.) And I rode again today. So it's all good... or at least doable.

And we're going to hit that 500-mile milestone. I can feel it.

Think for yourself and let others do the same.

Banned Books Week (ALA):
September 25–October 2, 2008

According to the American Library Association, Banned Books Week

celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

Some banned books:
■ Brave New World
■ To Kill a Mockingbird
■ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
■ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
■ Fahrenheit 451

Banned? Challenged? What's the difference?
The ALA describes the difference between a banned book and a challenged book:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Related reading

From 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova):

The phrase "suppressed on political grounds" casts a shadow of a heavy-handed government blocking its citizens from receiving information, ideas and opinions that it perceives to be critical, embarrassing or threatening. This image, unfortunately, is too often reality. It is not, however, limited to dictatorships such as those of Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's communist Soviet Union and Suharto's Indonesia. The governments of democracies also participate in attempts to censor such critical material in order to protect their own perceived state security.

Further, the impression that censorship for political reasons emanates only from national government is mistaken. The second common source of such activity is at the local community level, generated by school board members or citizens, individually or in groups, who attack textbooks and fiction used in schools or available in school libraries.

Among the books discussed:
■ All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
■ Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo)
■ Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
■ The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

_____________________________

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.
It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
— Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Technorati tags: censorship, banned books

Testament

My post on the 1983 film Testament continues to attract new readers to Mental multivitamin.

Recently, L.C. sent the following note:

This evening I decided to search for information on the movie Testament. I saw this movie, only one time, years and years ago. I was in my early thirties, I think, before either of my children were born. One weekend afternoon I idly flipped on the television, something I rarely did during those years. The plan was to unwind for a few minutes and then turn off the TV and go about my usual non-TV business. Well, at that particular random moment, on that particular random channel, the movie Testament was beginning. Needless to say, I watched the entire thing. It’s like karma, as if I were somehow meant to see it and that’s why I turned on the TV at that moment.

This movie left an indelible mark on me. I have thought of it often as 20+ years have passed, and to this day, when it comes to mind, I am cautious. I feel compelled to think about the story and yet also afraid to think about it, lest I think about it too much and stir up more emotion than I want to handle at the moment. Remembering certain scenes can make me cry on the spot, especially now that I have children of my own.

Interestingly, I didn’t remember the title of the movie until I happened to discuss it with my 17-year-old son a month or so ago. I think I have deliberately avoided remembering the title all these years as a way of avoiding watching the movie again. After all, if I didn’t know the title of the movie, or any cast member names, I couldn’t deliberately go out and find it. So, for weeks now the title has been popping up in my head, but I didn’t actually get over my resistance and Google Testament until tonight.

Well, to make a long story short, I found your blog entry about the movie, and one of the sentences you wrote captured, for me, an important idea. You said:

I remember it now as my first genuine glimpse into the lives of adults, of families. (And this is, of course, the gift of good books, films, artworks, music, etc. -- that they help us understand what is real and true in ways in which what is real and true has not yet done, perhaps cannot do.)

Yes, yes! Good books, films, etc. are GIFTS, in exactly the way you describe: They allow us to vicariously experience essential stories outside of what our own lives can /will / have provide(d). We call a book / film / etc. “good” when we recognize that it tells a story that has impacted our understanding of “what is real and true.”

By the way, in my opinion, your “perhaps cannot do” part is very important. The story It’s a Wonderful Life could never happen in real life, but it helps us understand a lot about real life, nonetheless.

So, thank you for what you wrote. I will remember it.

As it happened, Testament was on my mind this weekend because I finally watched The Road. I concluded that the former is far and away the more emotionally wrenching film, perhaps because quiet horror is more insidious and thought-provoking than graphic depictions of man's inhumanity to man, because the beginning of the end of all things is infinitely sadder and more painful than the near-end of all things. *

Naturally, receiving L.C.'s message and seeing The Road prompted me to reread my post on Testament, and as I did I was reminded of the parallels I had drawn between the film and Thorton Wilder's Our Town:

The film, which was brilliantly cast with gifted actors (Jane Alexander, Devane, the young Luke Haas) who actually look like a typical nuclear family in a California hamlet, opens twenty-four hours before a nuclear attack. In Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Emily cries out in Act III, "I can't. I can't go on. It goes too fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed." This is, of course, the essence of Testament's extended first act: that the father challenges the son to make the hill but pedals ahead, that the youngest would prefer to be a rat in the school production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (a wish denied that serves as heartbreaking foreshadow), that the mother fails to awaken in time to exercise, that the husband and wife make love rather than continue a painful discussion, and so on. Piano practice. Breakfast. Clutter. School. Work. Answering machines. Unfinished projects. Unspoken fears. Unmet expectations. Pain and beauty, the extraordinary and the commonplace. Life. And no one really notices. The rhythms and grace notes that underscore everyday life grow too subtle, pass unmarked, end uncelebrated.

Ah! I realized That ol' synchronicity / serendipity/ synthesis is at work again: "It takes life to love Life."


* That said, I appreciate and highly recommend Cormac McCarthy's novel.

Find the time. Or don't.

Begin with this entry: "Making time" revisited.

Then read this one: Take notes this time, okay?

Now you'll understand the delight I felt on receiving Girl Detective's note:

I think I've sent you links to Scalzi before. His work ethic reminds me of yours, and I thought some of the bits in this reminded me of things you've written. But with more F bombs.

Thought you'd enjoy, even if it's too profane to share.

I must be honest: I'm not at all averse to some salty talk among adults (including, yes, F bombs), so I am sharing the link to John Scalzi's post -- Writing: Find the Time or Don’t -- where he writes, for example:

The answer to the first of these is simple and unsatisfying: I keep inspired to write because if I don’t then the mortgage company will be inspired to foreclose on my house. And I’d prefer not to have that happen. This answer is simple because it’s true — hey, this is my job, I don’t have another — and it’s unsatisfying because writers, and I suppose particularly authors of fiction, are assumed to have some other, more esoteric inspiration.

For six years, I've been offering a similarly pragmatic response:

My writing is my work. Asking me how I find time to write is a bit like asking a barkeep how he finds time to tend bar or an information systems engineer how she makes time to develop projects. It's what I do, and in order to be paid -- well and on time -- I must get the work done.

Who knows? Maybe F bombs are what it will take for some people to get it. Heh, heh, heh.

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

"It takes life to love Life."

The following entry was culled from the March 2004 archives -- "[A]nd never a nervous breakdown." and Spoon River Anthology -- and my reply to one of Donna's posts last month.


In the beginning of Act II of Our Town, the Stage Manager observes:

And there's Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb come down to make breakfast, just as though it were an ordinary day. I don't have to point out to the women in my audience that those ladies they see before them, both of those ladies cooked three meals a day — one of 'em for twenty years, the other for forty — and no summer vacation. They brought up two children apiece, washed, cleaned the house — and never a nervous breakdown. It's like what one of the Middle West poets said: You've got to love life to have life, and you've got to have life to love life.... It's what they call a vicious circle.

That "Middle West poet" was, of course, Edgar Lee Masters, one of the key figures in Chicago's literary renaissance. His masterwork, Spoon River Anthology, comprises realistic, often cynical epitaphs spoken by folks buried in the graveyard of a village in the Middle West. (Anthology was, in turn, inspired by Epigrams from the Greek Anthology.) Wilder's allusion is specifically to Masters' "Lucinda Matlock":

Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

It takes life to love Life. Note the use of lower- and then uppercase. I think that the differentiation is important. One is the destination; the other is the path by which to reach it. And the path -- life (lowercase) -- is sometimes, is awfully... Rote. Quotidian. Chore-like. Dully rhythmic. "[W]hat they call a vicious circle." Wilder bathes it all in light, a response to the more cynical renderings of town life in Anthology and, say, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio -- works that emphasize the darker recesses and shadows of settings similar to those depicted more tenderly in Our Town. Still, however pragmatic and illuminating Wilder's light is, Masters' (and Sherwood's) dark and shadows are more accurate, I think: Life (uppercase) is too strong for us because life (lowercase) is often such hard, difficult work.

Wilder does get to the heart of the thing, though, doesn't he?

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?— every, every minute?

No. [pause] The saints and poets, maybe — they do some.

In the end, I think that it's realizing that Life (uppercase) is too strong for us because life (lowercase) is often such hard, difficult work -- "what they call a vicious circle" -- yet still trying to acknowledge "every every minute" that is the real (and, as Wilder suggests, perhaps near-impossible) achievement.

Still, we try. We look for the joy in the ordinary, the love in the laundry, the celebration in the commonplace.

Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me.

So even on those days when little else seems to have occurred or been accomplished or appeared worth noting, I do this: I look at them as though I saw them, really saw them. And they know it.

I don't always love life, but I do love Life.

They don't understand, do they?

No, dear. They don't understand.

By the numbers

427.5 436.5!
The number of miles we've covered to date since Memorial Day.
Today's ride will put us at 436.5!
As I mentioned here, I can't seem to stop keeping track.

"College is an active experience, not an intellectual amusement park ride where you strap in and see what happens."

From "How One College Student Beat Tuition Costs" (Yahoo! Finance, September 13):

Bissonnette touts some simple concepts, but concepts that might have gone out of style in recent decades. He advocates picking a cheaper state school than an expensive private one; working up to 30 hours a week while you're at school to help pay the freight; and a "no excuses" mentality that stresses hard work, studying and keeping ahead of your academic workload.

The debt questions chiefly rest on two themes: Don't take out a student loan and choose a state school over a private one.

Which is pretty much what I've been saying all along:

■ Paying for college, revisited

■ Community college

■ Paying for college: A rant of modest proportions

■ About college

■ “‘You are in deep doo-doo, little girl.’”

“Domestication was reciprocal.”

From "How animals made us human" (Boston Globe, September 12):

An anthropologist named Pat Shipman believes she’s found the answer: Animals make us human. She means this not in a metaphorical way — that animals teach us about loyalty or nurturing or the fragility of life or anything like that — but that the unique ability to observe and control the behavior of other animals is what allowed one particular set of Pleistocene era primates to evolve into modern man. The hunting of animals and the processing of their corpses drove the creation of tools, and the need to record and relate information about animals was so important that it gave rise to the creation of language and art. Our bond with nonhuman animals has shaped us at the level of our genes, giving us the ability to drink milk into adulthood and even, Shipman argues, promoting the set of finely honed relational antennae that allowed us to create the complex societies most of us live in today. Our love of pets is an artifact of that evolutionary interdependence.

The bike trail is awash in yellow.

Are they really that old already?

Last month, the family-centered learning project (FCLP) embarked on the adventure that is high school.

Again.

Although we know that the high school years fill some homeschooling families with varying degrees of concern, angst, and even dread, we're not too worried.

Why not? Well, to begin with, we've done this before. With no small measure of success.

More, just as we did with Master -- now PFC -- M-mv, we've regularly injected above-grade-level content into the Misses' studies, which just over the last two years, for example, has meant both university texts and courses at the local college. Given their grasp of those materials, to say nothing of their performance in more conventional course work, we're confident of their abilities.

And since I've taught junior and senior high school classes as well as undergraduate courses, graduate seminars, and professional development programs (to say nothing of steering PFC M-mv through his course of study), I'm confident of my ability to teach high school material in the FCLP (or to identify quality alternatives for such subjects as math beyond Algebra I).

So what's our newest high school student up to?

■ English I (including literature, grammar, vocabulary, and composition)
■ Algebra and Geometry A
■ History (including a daily dose of current events)
■ Spanish I
■ Philosophy and Logic (on alternating days)
■ Physical Science and Geography (on alternating days)

She's also taking an art course at the local college (again), swimming on the winter team (four practices per week and two meets per month through March), and continuing her piano studies (which includes 90 minutes or more in daily practice and a weekly one-hour lesson).

She is working through the Teaching Company course Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy and doing the related reading in The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, and she's toying with the idea of tackling the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's home study course in bird biology.

She was recently offered a job teaching in the community swim program but declined because the hours conflicted with her music lesson. We could have arranged for a different lesson time, but declining was probably the best decision: She is fourteen years old and will, no doubt, receive an offer again next year. That seems like just the right time for her to begin a job. In the meantime, she will volunteer three hours per week for the swim team, helping the coaches with the newer swimmers in the early practice.

And that's a pretty complete freshman year, I would think. Of course, it won't take her a year: By late March, for example, she will likely begin English II, Algebra and Geometry B, and Spanish II, with an eye to completing those requirements no later than October. And so on. You see, the family-centered learning project operates year-round and with a high degree of focus and consistency. This coupled with the injection of increasingly more demanding material has enabled our students to complete the required coursework in less time than a traditional program would typically take.

It was neither to boast nor gloat, then, that we announced that our oldest was essentially done with high school at sixteen. It's just the way things were. And the way things will likely be for the Misses. In fact, the Misses will apply for dual enrollment at the local college much sooner than PFC M-mv did, if for no other reason than the fact that we're now savvier about the requirements, procedures, and benefits.

Miss M-mv(i) plans to dual enroll full-time at the local college no later than Spring 2013, but she's aiming for Fall 2012 with the idea of completing her associate degree as she graduates from high school with her class (May 2014). More, if possible, she'd like to take Spanish courses there beginning Fall 2011, which is also when I'd like her to begin taking her math courses there.


And Miss M-mv(ii)? Well, interestingly, she's got the same slate of courses and activities as her sister, sans the job offer. But she's twelve and technically in seventh grade, which may cause me some serious paperwork problems a couple of years down the road. Heh, heh, heh. The thing is, though, she's an "old seventh-grader" (i.e., an October birthday, like her brother), and the dual enrollment program is open to students fourteen years and older, so she will probably just earn her associate degree before her high school class graduates (i.e., 2016) and transfer with her sister.

Both of them are still quite interested in pursuing baccalaureate programs abroad, and both are, in their own ways, interested in science: Miss M-mv(i) is thinking about scientific illustration and raptor rehabilitation, and Miss M-mv(ii) is interested in astronomy and biology, although she has also talked about going into math and science education. She certainly has a knack for math, but don't count Miss M-mv(i) out: Although she is technically behind the typical college-track math sequence by a semester or two, she was, at one point, much further off the mark. In other words, she is finally getting it -- and fast! Before her graduation, I know she will have gained the confidence and skill required for the math work her interests demand.

If I have one worry about the Misses' studies from this point forward, it's a general worry, one that is not at all specific to high school. It is a fear, if you will, of the unknown. The FCLP has always enjoyed the comfort of Mr. M-mv's ongoing success in his work. While I haven't any doubts about his ability to continue to learn, grow, advance, and succeed, I do have grave concerns about (for lack of a better phrase) "The Economy." More, and I know it's gloomy as hell to say this, but, well, Mr. and I are in our late forties. Sure, we're in good health, but one never knows for certain, right? Illness or death or an accident could seriously jeopardize the our plans for the Misses, which is why I have always sculpted their studies with an eye to "What if..." scenarios -- notably, What if they had had to return to school tomorrow? It is important that they are prepared to compete in conventional classrooms with their same-age peers, so I keep abreast of what college-bound students in the local high schools are doing and regularly share that information with the Misses.

But enough bleak reality, eh? Seriously, if you've gotten this far in the post, you're probably (a) a homeschooling parent, (b) my sister, or (c) a regular M-mv reader, which means you know a bit about PFC M-mv and therefore might like to see the following image:

He's doing well; thank you for the many messages inquiring about his progess. He enjoys his training and is looking forward to the additional courses he has recently been assigned. As I've said before, this is not what his father and I would have chosen for him, but it's not up to us, is it? No. No, it is not. And so we send him our love, our good thoughts, our support, encouragement, and unsolicited advice:

■ Take care of your teeth!
■ See the eye doctor!
■ Don't fill up on junk food!
■ Save your money!

and the familiar

■ Just be a good man!

And that is, in the end, just as good a place as any to begin to conclude this entry as any. Sure, so-and-so could argue that my kids won't be able to do this, that, or the other because of their (somewhat) unconventional high school education. Someone else might write to malign the quality of community college courses. Still another might send me a message wondering if their course of study is too simple or, alternately, too demanding.

As I've regularly explained to PFC M-mv and the Misses, their minds are mansions. Beautifully built mansions. The FCLP has been about nothing if it has not been about the business of decorating the many rooms of those mansions -- lining the walls with sturdy bookcases, for example -- bookcases filled with good, really good, and great books; hanging good, really good, and great works of art; loading the assorted electronic media with good, really good, and great films and good, really good, and great music. And so on.

No matter what, I tell them, you can visit those rooms and delight in their furnishings. You will always have a rich interior life. More, you have everything you need to continue to learn and grow: You read well, think well, and write well; therefore, you can always learn more and do more.

But all of that would be meaningless if you weren't also good. And this family has been about nothing if it has not been about the business of being good -- thanking timers and judges; congratulating competitors; extending your hand to friends and strangers; volunteering; modeling the sort of behavior you hope to see in others; serving; rising to challenges; losing gracefully; coaching; teaching; helping one another; accepting; doing more than is required; choosing peaceful solutions over "being right"; sharing; welcoming; working with integrity. And so on.

Be good.

Be a good man! Be a good person! Be good!

Because if you're not, who the hell will care what course of study you used in high school or what college you attended?

Be good.

And, please, oh, please: Take care of your teeth!

By the numbers

373.5
The number of miles we pedaled between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

409.5
The number of miles we've covered to date since Memorial Day. I can't seem to stop keeping track. 'Guess we'll have two milestones: Memorial Day to Labor Day (see above) and Memorial Day to whatever date we realize it's just much too cold to ride anymore.

111
The number of books I read between January 1 and August 31 of this year.

1
The number of books I've finished since August 31. It's been a wonky twelve days, I tell you. I've got active bookmarks tucked in a number of terrific books, though, including The Education of Little Tree (Forrest Carter) and The Wright Three (Blue Balliett). Although I'm having trouble closing the deal on any of them, I'm certain I'll make some (significant) progress in the next eighteen days.

10
The number of items on the supply list for our class in color theory. Now this would not normally represent any inconvenience whatsoever -- we love shopping for supplies -- but we registered for the class weeks and weeks ago. It begins this week. The list, however, arrived on Friday. You do the math.

5
The number of items on the supply list we already owned, leaving us to shop for acrylic paint in the prescribed colors, brushes in the prescribed sizes, Bristol board, palette knives, and disposable palette pads. Oh, yeah, and everything in triplicate. It would have been nice to receive the supply list sooner. I'm just saying.

2
The number of films we watched for family film night... well, late afternoon and then night. We saw Sabrina (1954) and Forbidden Planet (1956), and those familiar with the latter will understand the synchronicity / serendipity/ synthesis at work -- it is, after all, a retelling of The Tempest. (Related entries here and here.) We have All about Eve (1950) for today, if time permits. (Related entry here.)

An aside: Just as young readers need exposure to Great, Very Good, and Good books, they need exposure to Great, Very Good, and Good films. Ty Burr's The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together is an excellent guide for identifying those films. A highly recommended resource.

3
The number of meatballs I like, sliced in half, on my sandwich. Yum.

“Unruley [sic] children will be cooked and eaten.”

The MSNBC article "Restaurant to parents: No screaming kids allowed" (September 9) prompted me to resurrect the post below, which I first published six years ago this month.

An open letter
To the two young mothers who lunched at [insert restaurant name here] today:

Your children disturbed every diner in the room.

You may have chosen stay-at-home-parenthood, but you must now choose to parent your offspring. Yes, we could explore the whole "I need time for me" angle of today's adventure, but it's been done. To death. You will find time for you in the interstices that family life offers. Rise earlier. Turn off the television. Step away from the computer. Put down the phone. Ah, the elusive me-time freed from its shackles.

And now to your parenting.

Put your children in situations in which they can succeed. At their ages, they most certainly cannot succeed in a sit-down restaurant during lunch hour on a business day while their mothers pretend that said children are not (a) bored senseless and (b) too sick to be out in public. You see, you can dress a child up in Nordstrom togs, ladies, but if his or her nose still drips, you should probably choose drive-through. Or. Just. Stay. Home.

Teach the kids to cough, sneeze, and burp into their sleeves, please. My chicken, the pasta salad of the gal in the table behind me, and the entire platter served to the folks at the table next to yours were contaminated when not one, not two, but three of the five small diners in your party spewed their germs and partially chewed hot dogs as they sped past our tables, chasing each other and squealing.

Do not persist in your banal conversation while your children bound out of their seats to "visit" with other patrons. We were not amused when they wiped their noses on the sleeves of their pricey-boutique sweaters, smeared their grimy hands across our tables, knocked into our chairs, and whined (and whined and whined) in a desperate bid to win your attention. Attend to your children, ladies. That's your job. Not ours.

Threats and bribes amount to lazy parenting. If you put the children in situations in which they can succeed, and if you remain focused on the moment that they're in, you need never resort to such flawed and short-sighted techniques. By the way, you thought that your hissed threat to your four-year-old son was discreet, but we all heard it. And in that moment, your coiffed hair, manicured nails, beautiful make-up, and exquisite jewelrey lost any appeal that remained after your children's performance. You were exposed as the woman you really are. And it wasn't attractive.

Give the children some extra Vitamin C tonight and ensure that they get the rest and fluids they need. And once they are well again, take those kids to the park. Or the pool. Or a children's discovery center. Some place in which children can be children. Fit conversation into the spaces between swinging and sliding, running and jumping, singing and laughing. They will only be little for a little while. Don't squander their childhood on your selfish mommy luncheons.

Oh, and you owe me $9.96 for lunch.

Sincerely,

Mental multivitamin

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Fine Art Friday

Les deux soeurs, 1889
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)

When he was younger, one of Master -- now PFC -- M-mv's favorite paintings at the Art Institute was Renoir's Lucie Berard (Child in White) (1883). It reminded him of his sisters, he maintained. And he just liked the way the way the painting looked -- the color in the background and the eyes, for example.

Our tiny guide Treasures of the Art Institute: 19th and 20th Century Painting used to open directly to page 91 because once the Misses learned that this was a favorite of his, it became a favorite of theirs, too. (Related entry here.)

I was reminded of all this today because a Google search for public domain images featuring "sisters in art" yielded the Renoir painting pictured above. Ah, Renoir, I thought. One of Boy-boy's favorites. What a nice bit of synchronicity / serendipity/ synthesis.

You see, I wanted to post an image of the Misses but had no entry in which to embed it and nothing in particular to say about the image beyond this: They have grown into lovely young women whose pale-perfect skin, piano-long fingers, wryly bemused expressions, and complete self-confidence amaze... no, slay me. More, their relationship -- the comfort, ease, and acceptance (all of which, by the way, characterize today's featured painting, Les deux soeurs, 1889) -- absolutely slays me. What a gift they are -- to each other, to me, to everyone they meet.

I toyed with the idea of simply making them the subject of the entry --

-- but decided that might be a little twee.

Then I thought I could simply post the image --

-- and tell you, "They slay me." But this didn't satisfy me content-wise; how could it satisfy you, the readers, thinkers, and autodidacts who continue to visit seven years into this venture?

And then I realized it was Friday, and it had been a long time since I had cobbled together a Fine Art Friday entry. Sisters, I determined. Sisters in art. That will give me a frame for the entry. (No pun intended. Heh, heh, heh.)

And it did.

A little art, a little indulgence. Nicely handled, Veruca.

Net neutrality redux

Related entry here.

From "The web's new walls" (The Economist, September 2):

Its vitriolic net-neutrality debate is a reflection of the lack of competition in broadband access. The best solution would be to require telecoms operators to open their high-speed networks to rivals on a wholesale basis, as is the case almost everywhere in the industrialised world. America’s big network operators have long argued that being forced to share their networks would undermine their incentives to invest in new infrastructure, and thus hamper the roll-out of broadband. But that has not happened in other countries that have mandated such “open access”, and enjoy faster and cheaper broadband than America. Net neutrality is difficult to define and enforce, and efforts to do so merely address the symptom (concern about discrimination) rather than the underlying cause (lack of competition). Rivalry between access providers offers the best protection against the erection of new barriers to the flow of information online.

See the related article, "A virtual counter-revolution," too:

The issue is not as black and white as it seems. The internet has never been as neutral as some would have it. Network providers do not guarantee a certain quality of service, but merely promise to do their best. That may not matter for personal e-mails, but it does for time-sensitive data such as video. What is more, large internet firms like Amazon and Google have long redirected traffic onto private fast lanes that bypass the public internet to speed up access to their websites.

Whether such preferential treatment becomes more widespread, and even extortionary, will probably depend on the market and how it is regulated. It is telling that net neutrality has become far more politically controversial in America than it has elsewhere. This is a reflection of the relative lack of competition in America’s broadband market. In Europe and Japan, “open access” rules require network operators to lease parts of their networks to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition.

Connoisseurs of summer light

The title of today's post comes from the Mary Schmich piece quoted in this entry.

A riot of pink punctuates our backyard because throughout the two-week heat wave that brought August to a close, the Misses dutifully watered our various containers of geraniums, fuchsia, and vinca.

Despite the falling leaves, falling temperatures, and falling light, then, our yard is now wearing its white sneakers after Labor Day, so to speak. Yes, Summer is still welcome in the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie! announce our yards, which may explain why a female ruby-throated hummingbird has been spending so much time here over the last few days, an extended visit before beginning its migration.

Make no mistake: We know it is fall (the event, if not the season). Our fall term is well underway. Winter swim team stroke clinic begins next week, as does our art class at the local college. We need a sweater on the bike trails. We can skywatch without fear of being consumed by mosquitoes. The museum was blissfully free of summer camp participants and checklist ("Field Museum?" "Check." "Art Institute?" "Check." "MSI?" "Check." Etc.) tourists. Heck, the Misses have even dug out some Christmas music to bring to lessons.

And so it goes.

Another summer gone.

___________________________________________

I haven't time for another entry right now, so allow me this unrelated postscript: On Saturday night, we watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and all of us enthusiastically recommend this wry, witty, and original pic. Based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, it certainly takes a few plot liberties, but what a delight!

Butterflies!

We met these and other beauties today at the Brookfield Zoo's seasonal exhibit.

Feeding time at Stingray Bay

We arrived just in time to feed the rays.

I don't get it.

Look. I'm not invested in this show. At. All. But, really: How the hell could the judges choose this performance over hers? Color me puzzled.

The recommended daily allowance

2081 (based on Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"
"Everyone will finally be equal." (Trailer)

Out and about

On Tuesday, we headed to the Field Museum to see "Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age." In the photo above, the Misses are observing Lyuba, the most complete mammoth specimen ever found.

Afterward, we checked out "The Romance of Ants," a temporary exhibit describing Dr. Corrie Moreau's lifelong interest in, well, ants. The exhibit features a graphic novelization of Moreau's career, spectacular photographs of ants, and a colony of live ants. Learn more about Moreau's work at the Field here, and check out the exhibit blog (which includes a downloadable copy of the graphic novel displayed in the actual exhibit) here.

________________________________

Our trip to the beach on Monday, our museum visit, and two nine-mile bike rides (our total is now 364.5 miles since Memorial Day weekend) punctuated the week's more commonplace activities -- studying, practicing music, making art, reading. And we have declared it A Very Good Week, Indeed.

That said, we're all looking forward to a three-day weekend, even if we do plan to treat Monday as a work day of sorts. We've got The Fantastic Mr. Fox for family night and the "BBC Radio Presents" production of Romeo and Juliet for any drive-time. (We have tickets to R&J at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater later this month, so we're revisiting the text.) We've got books and art supplies and two cool science kits. And this cool weather will certainly be appreciated. 'can't tell you how much more enjoyable our biking is when the temps are in the sixties, as opposed to the eighties or nineties.

Yes, I'd say we're ready for the weekend. How 'bout you?