CC's son invented a new game:

Lightening Bug Tag

It's like freeze tag except if you have a bug in your hands and you set it free, you get to run again. 

As I sit drinking coffee on my couch this summer morning its 65 degrees outside. Which is 10 degrees cooler than we've set our air conditioner so all the doors are open. I can see corn coming up in my front yard garden, from where I sit. Which cracks me up because I made a half-hearted attempt to erase the garden with thick mats of mulch this spring. And that is the only attention the garden has had. So we have kale, carrots, corn, squash, tomatoes, mint, and oregano coming up. All volunteer or left over from last year. I don't expect to harvest much, if anything. But still, its pretty funny, given how hard I've worked in the garden on previous years.

The lightening bugs have been Amazing this year.

Noticing my love of stripes put me in mind of "one, two, two little dolls in a little doll house." Except now its: one, two, two old people with two pain the ass cats drinking coffee while teenagers sleep.

Spent the afternoon organizing a workshop for the kids this summer. This is going to be fun:

Just in time to prepare for Halloween, Eric Singdahlsen will be leading a workshop for TAFFY teens in moulage, the art of creating realistic looking wounds. The workshop will be messy, hands on, and lots of fun. Prepare to be fascinated and possibly a little bit grossed out as he teaches you how to make anyone look seriously hurt. 

Aside from being a super funny person, a Transactor, an artist, and a Dad, Eric is a Medical Simulation Case Developer for the Val G. Hemming Medical Simulation Center. Which is a simulation center for the use of medical students from the Uniformed Services University. (Med school for the military.) He has worked there for ten years, has given several public presentations and has taught moulage to military personnel. He's also a really nice guy.

Eric says to let you all know that adults have passed out while having moulage put on them because it looks really REALLY real. Cool, huh?!

"Most people do not perform virtuous actions, they take refuge in reasoning about them and they imagine they are doing philosophy and becoming good in this way," Aristotle wrote.

~ "A Dog Walks Into A Nursing Home" by S. Halpern

Interesting in terms of mandatory reporting laws and it terms of defining love, which is a verb.

Life is ephemeral art. I love these wacky guys. I love that they're made of paper, been there for years.

 It was a cool dusky evening with nothing to do after basketball but hang for a while, eating ice cream sandwiches and taking in the local air. Everyone is getting so grownup around here. And not just in the ephemeral way. The kids are so steady and smart and they say such wise reasonable things. They have always surprised me, in this way, because wise and reasonable haven't been the norm for me.

stolen from:                                      Humans Of New York

"His grandmother and I are raising him. I worry about putting him into the public school system. I was a teacher for many years. I've seen so much confidence destroyed by the standardized system. Every human is born with natural curiosity. I've never seen a child who wasn't inspired. But once you force someone to do anything, the inspired person is killed. I dropped out of school myself in 7th grade. So I know. I taught a GED course for years, so I've seen the end results over and over. I've seen so many kids who have complexes and insecurities because they were forced to do something they weren't ready to do, and then they were blamed when they weren't able to do it. What we call 'education' today is not organic. You can't take something as complex as the human mind, compartmentalize it, and regiment its development so strictly."