Periodically.org

(draft written 2015_12) I don't think there is an appliance in my kitchen that terrify me more than the microwave. Oh, no big deal, just a personalized family RADIATION MACHINE to shoot ENERGY BEAMS at food. Everything else in the kitchen is understandable, and doesn't toe the line of magic and doom. Spinning things with blades, large things that turn electricity into heat. Other heaty things. Sure, they might burn the house down, sure I might sever a lesser used digit. But I'm not going to end up with a laser hole in my torso or a curiously growing tumour. So it was with some consternation that our microwave/oven vent blew. Just stopped working. My buddy helped me take it down, then even suggested I open it up and look for a fuse. My comfort with hardware never goes beyond assembling components to make a computer. I don't own a solder, for instance. I know OF fuses. I know they have to be replaced when they blow, and that's it. The idea that they'd be in the...

Both my kids are of the age where they are in actual SCHOOL school as opposed to School Kinda But Actually Just Fingerpainting and Light Story Reading. The daunted 1-12 years of, for them, public* school. I know I'm an adult because I seriously think about metamucil and have a considered opinion about mortgage insurance. But a startling reality hits me when the teacher, with all seriousness, asks me if I have any questions. I would only have questions if either of my kids were having a particular problem. I don't have an opinion about the curriculum, for example, or their didatic style. I do feel guilty for this. On the other hand, isn't it much worse, I tell myself, to be a helicopter parent? To be micromanaging their education and their interactions? 'Yes', answers what I hope is just not the extremely lazy part of me. I mean, we are all on this planet chaotically, wandering and blundering about and we try and achieve what we can and what we want but to attemp ...