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Violet in the hot-seat

My daughter will be turning 4 years old in a little over a week.  Now that she's big enough to actually stay focused on something for more than about 5 minutes at a time, I thought it would be fun to conduct an interview with her.  Dee was sitting on the couch nearby while I asked the questions, and I don't know which of us laughed more at the interview answers.  The questions were shamelessly cribbed from Beth at So The Fish Said, but the answers are all genuine creations of Violet:

1. What is something daddy always says to you?
I love you.

2. What makes daddy happy?
When I say I love you.

3. What makes daddy sad?
When I don't want to drink milk.

4. How does your daddy make you laugh?
By being silly.

5. What did your daddy like to do when he was a child?
Play with me. [She still doesn't quite get the concept that Mommy and Daddy were once kids her size.]

6. How old is your daddy?
I don't know.

7. How tall is your daddy?
Big…Bigger.

8. What is his favorite thing to watch on TV?
The commercial show. [There was a commercial on TV when I asked this question.  I do everything in my power to avoid watching commercials, so I'm assuming this was a prop-inspired answer.]

9. What does your daddy do when you're not around?
Go around in circles round and round and round. [Pretty accurate description of my workday, actually.]

10. If your daddy becomes famous, what will it be for?
When I get sad at you. [Definitely didn't understand the question.]

11. What is your daddy really good at?
Cleaning up. [At this point Dee both laughed and "hmphed" simultaneously.  It's obvious to anyone older than 4 who in our household is really good at cleaning up, and it's NOT me.]

12. What is your daddy not very good at?
Not good at playing with the balloon. [It's true, I fail at playing with balloons.  Especially if they're tied to Violet's wrist and she is trying to keep me from getting them.]

13. What does your daddy do for his job?
Draw some special things on his paper. [Again, a fairly accurate representation of my regular workday.]

14. What is your daddy 's favorite food?
Taquitos. [If my 4-yr old notices, maybe it's time to cut back on them a bit?]

15. What makes you proud of your daddy?
I love you.

16. If your daddy were a cartoon character, who would he be?
I don't know.

17. What do you and your daddy do together?
Play, turn on fans, fix things. [So spending hours putting together a bookcase with your daughter is equivalent in value to flicking a light switch to turn on the ceiling fan.]

18. How are you and your daddy the same?
We're both girls. [News to me!  But the answer to the next question makes me think she was still trying to work something out on this question...]

19. How are you and your daddy different?
I'm a girl and you're a boy. [THERE we go!]

20. How do you know your daddy loves you?
He gives me kisses. [Glad I'm doing something right!]

21. What does your daddy like most about your mommy?
That she loves him. [She's so astute!]

22. Where is your daddy's favorite place to go?
On an airplane. [Definitely not my favorite place to go, but since I've had to do a bit of traveling lately for work, I can see where she gets this idea.]

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Doomsday Book

Connie Willis

I stayed up late last night to read almost the last 100 pages of this book to finish it off.  Doomsday Book is a very entertaining read, but it started off so SLOW that it took me almost 6 months of reading in fits and starts to get through it.  It wasn't until about halfway through the novel that I found myself drawn back into the book with a desire to put off doing other things to finish the novel.  This is the only reason I gave it 3/5 stars instead of a higher 4/5 stars rating.

In one sense, Doomsday Book could be described as the cousin of Michael Crichton's well-known thriller Timeline, but with less overt action and a far more introspective and thought-provoking study of human nature and emotion.

A historical researcher named Kivrin is sent back through time from 2048 to the Middle Ages, circa 1320.  An influenza epidemic sweeps through "present-day" Oxford, stranding her in the past just as she discovers that an error in the transport has dropped her into 1348, right before the Black Plague had started to kill approximately half the entire population of Europe.  The book jumps back and forth between Kivrin's struggles to survive and care for the family who took her into their home, and her colleagues in 2048 who are struggling with their own version of the plague while still trying to figure out how to rescue Kivrin.

Willis has a talent for imbuing her characters with a three-dimensionality and emotionally investing the reader in their lives.  The descriptions of the Middle Ages were fantastic, and it was interesting to see not only the range of wealth and poverty that existed even within a single village, but how Kivrin interacted with these people who had never been exposed to almost anything that denizens of the 21st century take for granted.  Willis holds up a mirror of human nature to contrast the behaviors and beliefs of present-day people with those of the past, with thought-provoking and sometimes surprising insights about ourselves and others around us.

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You may have seen some of these before – they just came over the email transom and they made me laugh.

Easter

War Face

Dirty Mind

Ok, so the grammar on that last one is atrocious, but the sentiment is funny.

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I was sent a link to the article below from a high school friend of mine.  This is real. This is a nightmare.

Island Family Wiped Out by Meth House Nightmare

When newlyweds Jessie and John Bates bought their first home a year ago, they were the model of responsibility. They found a freshly remodeled manufactured home in Suquamish at an affordable $235,000, made a good down payment, and got into a reasonable mortgage. They paid for a standard home inspection before closing. When they moved into their new home, they had one car payment, no debt and a growing savings account. 

Today, their savings are gone and they have $10,000 in credit card debt. They and their 8-year-old son, Tyler, live with Jessie’s mother on Bainbridge Island. They’re still paying the mortgage on the Suquamish house, along with rent on the storage unit where they keep most of their possessions. The family has endured serious health problems.

The Bates’s did not discover until too late that their dream home was once a meth lab.

(read the rest of the article over at Althea Paulson's website)

While people around the country are losing their houses because of reckless home buying behavior, here's a family who did everything right and is suffering anyway.  They don't get bailout money, but still have to pay a mortgage on a house they can't live in.  Their homeowners' insurance won't cover the damage to their house because it is drug-related (even though it is of no fault of theirs).  Hell, they can't even let the house go into foreclosure or John will lose his security clearance and his job!

These are the kind of folks the federal government should be bailing out.  I don't understand how the Bates family can be hung out to dry in this situation with no aid from anyone but their family.  If a regular home inspection by a licensed and certified inspector won't catch the drug activity that will void homeowners' insurance coverage, there should be some sort of rules or regulations governing this kind of thing.  At the very least, it should be required to be listed as an optional test the home buyer has to decline to pay to test for, so the buyer is aware of the potential for this kind of situation.  I have NEVER heard of a real-estate agent recommending that this kind of testing be done when my wife and I were looking at houses, yet we heard recommendations on radon testing, mold testing, etc.  We would never even have considered doing a drug-activity test before I heard about this from Jessie.

For now, Jessie wants to convey a simple message: Buyers beware, especially as foreclosures increase.  ”If you don’t know the history of the house, have it tested.” She says a standard home inspection will not detect drug activity. The test for drug-making chemicals is only $283, well worth the savings in money, worry and heartache.

Jessie, I'm so sorry that you and your family are going through this horrible experience.  My heart goes out to you all.

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