Sunday, October 18, 2009

calculators and spread sheets

Yesterday required a calculator and a spread sheet: road race for the oldest boy, soccer for the middle boy, art for the girl, gymnastics for the girl, birthday party for gemelli, one twin out for slumber party, other twin picks up another six year old boy to replace missing sister, oldest boy out for... man birthday party with lots of scotch, extra set of twins in and out for the day, littlest boy being three yikes!!!!!!!!!!

Remarkably by 9:00 pm Rebecca had gone of to her slumber party with sub zero sleeping bag and pink hello kitty hair brush in tow. (Her parting words were, "ok guys you need to hold it together while I’m gone”) Manuel was ensconced in a bar with his man friends and the boys were all asleep having eaten very blue cake and watched the classic Batman meets Scooby doo. The guest refused to sleep in Rebecca’s bed claiming it was too girly for him. My suggestion that his sleeping bag might mitigate the potential gender bending was met with scoff worthy of a teenage girl. The young man was not too manly to agree with Jonathan that soccer games are better than practices because “we can feel the breeze moving freely through our hair....” This warm fuzzy feeling about the breeze suggests that our kid, despite his facility with a Light Saber, does not have the killer instinct on the field. He scored two goals yesterday thanks to a coach who I’ve already decided without meeting that I love. Jonathan explained that his goals were scored “with the assistance of another player, Santiago. Santiago is the coaches son and his Dad told him that if he passed the ball to me and I scored he would get a piece of chocolate”

The shocking smoothness of the evening allowed me to think about my surprise appearance on Friday as part of a series about primary sources. I’m feeling a little ambivalent about primary sources these days since the between the complicated schedules of the offspring, the students, and the committees I don’t actually encounter them frequently enough and am pondering projects centered on google and youtube. Last week’s intimate encounter with one involved a gross misreading. Let’s just say that when you’re really hungry and fantasizing about dinner it’s best not to spend too much time trying to figure out why in the middle of the seventeenth century the Pope would hold up a fish in a procession. No it’s not a bizarre twist on fertility rite which would have been clearer had I not read the word spada as fish instead of sword. To be fair the fact that the stage machines also involved boobs that spit out wine did get me thinking about fertility and my three days of research on such rites in 17th century Rome were certainly interesting—just totally irrelevant for my own project.

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