New Name, Same Ol' Madrobins

I have taken the time to improve (as the developer-guys say) the look and feel of my of my DW page, and have therefore renamed it. Given it the name of my late, forgotten Blogger page: 100 Percent, Doc. The line comes from a book I adore, called Red Sky at Morning, which is one of the books that bit me early and provided both comfort and amusement at a point in my life when I needed some of both (translation: I was 14. It mirrored certain aspects of my life. I figured if Josh Arnold, the protagonist of RSAM, could emerge from his experiences I would emerge from mine).

The line itself, "100 Percent, Doc" (more properly rendered as "hunnerd percent, doc") comes from a scene involving a U.S. Army training film on the horrors of advanced syphillitic dementia, being shown to a bunch of adolescent boys. Beyond that...well, read the book.

Bubble Go Pop

Tomorrow Sarcasm Girl will be nineteen. We're keeping it low-key: taking her out to dinner at her second choice restaurant (we're not fully recovered after the jobless period, and her first choice was too dear) and getting her small presents, and a little money (her top request).

Some months ago poor Avocado was done out of her thirteenth birthday (by her own reckoning, anyway) because a friend's bar mitzvah fell on the same day. She got presents, we celebrated, but it's only now, four months later, that the full weight of her anger about her birthday and its lack of party has come out. She feels thirteen is a special birthday (well, yes, it is). She should have had a party (well, yes, but she hasn't come up with a plan for one--I'm not averse, God knows). It's not fair. (Well, yes, but it never is.)

Meanwhile, my back is mentioning that it might just possibly decide to go walkabout for a while, so I'm lying on ice, coward that I am, while the Spouse is in there pulling thorns from paws. Poor wight. She's reached the age where she understands that she has a right to her feelings, and to be angry if she is angry; she hasn't yet reached the age where she understands that you can only spread so much of it around before it comes back at you.

My Daughter and Her Friends

I'm listening with about a third of my ear to Avocado, on the phone in the other room. She's on with a friend from camp who lives more or less locally, and with whom she's had an on-again-off-again relationship this year. "We texting and stuff," she told me, last time I checked about the friendship. So her friend just called, and Avocado forgets all the resentments and concerns, and is asking questions about what her friend has been doing, talking about her own friendships, listening (that is, taking actual breaks in her own narrative to listen, then say, "That is so AWESOME!" and ask questions and say "AWESOME!" again--drawing her friend out, in other words). It's a set of skills I learned later than she did--in fact, I think she was born with them. I'm often awed with the way the kid negotiates, brings friends together, enjoys her friendships without keeping score (look! someone likes me!) or using them against each other. She's a basically happy person, and makes the people around her basically happy too.