b.rox

I’ve often thought there was some deep connection between what happened in NYC on Sept. 11th, 2001, and what happened in NOLA on August 29th, 2005. I’m sure the following idea is not original. But I still think it’s important.

After 9/11, Americans made a collective promise to ourselves: to take the safety and security of our citizens seriously. We would be prepared for the worst. The flooding of New Orleans four years later revealed that we had not kept that promise.

I wonder what the next big catastrophe will be, and will we do any better?

My sympathies to all those who lost friends, family, or peace of mind on 9/11.

If you’re looking for another connection, Alan Gerson will be signing the 9-11 Comic Book at Octavia Books this afternoon.

A quick guide to help you out.

If it’s gender-neutral that would be a plus.

It it’s made of plastic that would be a minus.

Mass-manufactured is a minus, but hand-crafted is a plus.

Batteries? Minus.

Noisy? Minus.

Educational? Plus.

Reflecting values antithetical to our own? Minus, minus, minus.

When in doubt, remember: The best gifts are not material.

I called the popo on a neighbor last night. Hated to do it, but he was apparently intoxicated, enraged, and going after his brother with a damn shovel, yelling that he intended to kill him. Three cop cars showed up. Fortunately I don’t think anyone was hurt or arrested.

There is data indicating that “violence against women spikes after the home pro football team suffers an upset.” I don’t think the Packers victory was an upset, and the target here was not a woman, but still I have to wonder whether this would have happened if the Saints had won.

Yes, a month after the fact I’m still recovering from Tales of the Cocktail. Here’s my fourth and final installment.

I learned some fascinating stuff from Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. For example, I didn’t know that the legendary founder of the Tiki Craze, Don the Beachcomber, came from New Orleans. (Wikipedia says otherwise but I have it on good authority.) It was also a treat to see Ian Burrell do his ninja shake.

I also learned the true origin of the Mai Tai cocktail. So that was all highly edifying. No complaints there.

But after this session I had to hurry over to another on the Gin & Tonic. Does the idea of Tiki drinks followed by G&Ts sound appetizing to you? I have no one but myself to blame, of course, as I made my own schedule.

As long as I’m bellyaching, look at this Powerpoint slide.

It’s so bad the presenter even made fun of it. I’m tactfully omitting her name to prevent further embarrassment. I’m sorry to say the gin and tonic seminar was fairly weak. But at least I got to see a bunch of rare and unusual products which I most ardently desire to possess. If you want to get me a special gift (and why wouldn’t you?) anything pictured here will do.

Next up (Saturday morning actually) I was shocked and awed by a seminar on vinegar. This paired nicely with Wayne Curtis‘ seminar on colonial American drinks, because we kicked things off with a Haymaker’s Punch, also known as switchel, a beverage made with vinegar and sweetened water which “originated in the Caribbean, and had become a popular summer drink in the American Colonies in the late 17th century,” according to Wikipedia. I gather switchel was a non-alcoholic drink popular during the temperance movement, but I’m pretty sure they put some rum in this version. Presenter Kelley Slagle called it “the original sportsman’s drink.” All I could say was, “Wow.” I really liked it.

Kelly came to vinegar as a bartender. One of the other panelists, Karl duHoffmann, came at it from a medicinal angle. I’m probably recalling incorrectly but I think his family had connections to homeopathy back in the day. (I found this doubly intriguing because I was reading The End of Mr. Y at time, a science fiction novel in which homeopathic medicine plays a central role. I cannot recommend the book, alas.) Karl cracked me up when he compared volatile acidity in wine to “a woman of great beauty with flaws but no faults.”

Truly, it was astonishing the level of passion these folks brought to the subject of vinegar. They even presented original research, trying to correlate acidity, pH levels and subjective taste. Their results were inconclusive, but I love that they tried.

Then, at last, it was time for “The Journey of Artemesia Absinthium.” Attentive readers may recall that, though I conducted a pre-interview with the presenters, I was not at all sure I’d be able to wangle my way into the seminar itself.

But wangle I did, and a good thing too. This session was my second favorite of the whole conference. We went all the way back to 1552 BC, which is the date of some written references to wormwood, on papyrus no less, and we worked our way forward from there. I’m probably dense, but I never realized why we call it wormwood: It’s a traditional cure for intestinal parasitical worms. We learned why vermouth has a Germanic name despite its Italian origin. We learned how absinthe was invented and why it was really banned. Fascinating stuff, brought to life by Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller.

(By the way, I sure did notice a lot of seersucker at Tales.)

I couldn’t get a good photo of Anistatia. She was far too animated.

I was also suitably impressed by Giuseppe Gallo, who uttered the following quotable: “Our recommendation is to drink responsibly — but drink everything.”

We also learned:

• Génépi is a liqueur similar to absinthe, made with artemesia. Chartreuse is derived from génépi. There are hundreds — perhaps thousands — of génépis made by families in the Alps and Pyrenees each year, which are not widely available on the market, and in most cases probably not available at all.
• Does Campari contain Artemesia absinthium? The precise ingredients are top secret, but in a word: yes. Also gentian.
• Speaking of the bitter mountain herb, gentian liqueur has been known sometimes as the Yellow Fairy.

And there you have it. There were no Sunday seminars this year, so I was effectively finished with Tales on Saturday. I’m sure they curtailed the Sunday activities for any variety of sensible reasons, but a part of me already misses the hangover jokes requisite to an early Sunday morning cocktail seminar.

On a more personal note, I found myself fielding one question from most of the people I met at Tales thus year: “What’s your blog about?” My typical reply was: “It’s all about me!” I’ve been a unabashed and unapologetic self-centered egotistical narcissist for so long that such an answer comes very naturally. But at the same time it’s got me thinking that it may be time to make some changes. More on that later.

What the hell, here’s a “parting shot.”

‘Til next year.

Mix for Lee.

Update: Figured I might as well stick all my related Tropical Storm Lee observations here.

On Friday, as I prepared to ride home through a gentle sprinkle, I was approached by a pair of slightly nervous students. “Are you from around here?” They were not. They wanted to know what to expect from this tropical storm business. I told them it looked like street flooding would be the biggest problem, so prepare to hunker down. You might have some trouble getting from Point A to Point B.

Early Saturday morning we work to wind and rain coming in bands. Persephone was mildly peeved that cartoons were preempted, but I was impressed that the paper arrived. The garbage was collected. The mail was delivered. Our house sprung a couple of minor leaks. But we did not lose power.

By midday we were catching plenty of sunny breaks. I made a run to the grocery. They had wild caught salmon at a great price, but you had to buy the whole fish. I ended up with farm-raised filets. That evening I found myself grilling in a heavy downpour. It’s easy if you lack all common sense.

That night Persephone put on a necklace “because I have to be very pretty for Tropical Lee.” Here’s her forecast:

Today, Sunday, was more of the same. During a break in the weather Persephone and I went for a walk around the ‘hood. We saw lots of downed branches, but they were all very small.

Our street never flooded, and we never lost power, so this whole storm is looking like no big deal for us. (It’s been a very big deal for other people in other places.) That leak in the kitchen is the only real problem. Perhaps insurance will help.

Gin & tonics seem to go pretty well with tropical storms.

As I write this, shortly after sunset Sunday, we’re getting another lashing of rain, but I think the worst has passed.

When I got into work this morning, as I fumbled with the keys to my office, I noticed I was distinctly dry. Not sweaty at all.

Granted, it’s cooler than it has been. It’s only 81ºF right now. Still it’s a wet morning, and the humidity is 84%.

But the key factor here is not climate but route. Now that I’m no longer taking my daughter to daycare in the morning, I have two potential routes to work. There’s a short way and a long way. The long way is more pleasant. I take it when I can. A little extra exercise won’t kill me.

I fully intended to take the long way this morning. But if I’d taken the long way, in this humidity, I’d definitely have broken a sweat.

Searching my mind, I discovered I had no recollection of coming by that longer route. In fact, the only images bouncing around in my head showed the grit and grime of the short ‘n’ ugly route.

I was perplexed. How could I have gone that way? I distinctly remember setting off to go the other way. I’d gotten my keys out of my pocket, but I was still fumbling in the fog of my mind.

After a minute or so it came back to me: I’d stopped to take a photo of a clogged storm drain. Tropical rains a-coming, y’know. Do you enjoy flood water in your home?

If you think the City of New Orleans is going to clean the catch basin in front of your home please rethink that plan. If you don’t clean the catch basin in front of your home it is you who will suffer the consequences.

But I digress.

After taking the photo, I was preoccupied with thoughts of tropical storm warnings and photography and street flooding and who knows what else. I was at the intersection of the two routes and headed off the other way.

The next thing I knew I was on campus.

So apparently I can turn off my brain and my body will still find its way to work. My old dorm buddy Andrew Pelloso describes this as “reverse-zen.”

That’s how it felt, anyhow. Of course, in reality, my brain still gets the credit. My boss, who is a psychologist, tells me I was running on memory. Not declarative memory, which we use for recalling facts and figures, but procedural memory.

When needed, procedural memories are automatically retrieved and utilized for the execution of the integrated procedures involved in both cognitive and motor skills; from tying shoes to flying an airplane to reading.

Riding a bike is another classic example of procedural memory. People often say you never forget how to do that. For my part, I was not only riding a bike, but navigating some fairly complex terrain with virtually no memory of having done so after the fact. Apparently I’ve reached the autonomous phase, the third and final phase of learning a task according to Fitts and Posner’s three stage model of learning. I can now execute this task with a high degree of automaticity.

And here I thought I just had my head stuck up my ass.

Photo credit: Autopilot Engaged by H. Micahel Miley, licensed under Creative Commons

Hot on the heels of my “Streets of New Orleans” mix, I get this e-mail with the subject line, “New Orleans Streets to Avoid During a Storm.” Apparently this was released by the NOPD. I have to say in all my years of living here I’ve never seen such a list.

New Orleans Police Department Public Information Office
Streets in Greater New Orleans Area Prone to Flooding

(September 1, 2011)- The following is a list of streets where residents have reported significant flooding during past storms. Residents are advised to stay at home during the forecasted storm unless an emergency makes it absolutely necessary for them to get on the road.

Calliope @ Claiborne towards Tchoupitoulas St
Calliope & Tchoupitoulas St On-ramps
I-10 and Tulane Exit towards Claiborne
Airline & Tulane Ave intersection
4400 Block of Washington
Washington Ave. near Xavier
All surrounding streets to St. Charles flooded, Gravier/Tulane/S Dupre, S Claiborne/Washington.
Claiborne/Orleans Ave.
S Carrollton/Palmetto
Magazine/St Mary
Broad/Louisiana Ave./S.Claiborne
Josephine/Prytania,
Earhart/Jeff Davis-Carrollton
500 blk of Lake Marina
Canal Blvd/I-10/Navarre
Erato/S Genois/City Park/Carrollton
Washington Ave. near Xavier, Washington
Gravier/Tulane/S Dupre
S Claiborne/Washington
Simon Bolivar & Calliope coming from Loyola Ave under the overpass
Poland Ave from St Claude to N. Claiborne
S. Claiborne at Joseph
Holiday to the Crescent City Connection
Shirley and DeGaulle
DeGaulle under the Westbank Expressway
General Meyer from Pace to Shirley
Richland and General Meyer
MacArthur and Holiday
Tullis
Garden Oaks
Chelsea
Vespasian and Wall

Hmmm. We’re expecting Tropical Depression #13 (to be named a storm any moment now) to dump a bunch of rain on us over the Labor Day weekend, so this is timely information. However, I can think of a couple omissions just off the top of my head: Palmer near Claiborne, Banks near Jesuit.

Twelve tracks about the streets of New Orleans. One song about a street in New York, but the singers are from New Orleans. A field recording of some high school students rehearsing in the street right in front of my house. Including music by Earl King, Montezuma’s Revenge and Johnny Vidacovich.

play on 8tracks

I’d heard there was a marsh fire out east, but we didn’t smell anything until Monday morning. By the time I left for work, I was surprised to see the streets of Mid-City were shrouded in gray smokey haze. It was bad enough that I wore a bandana over my face as I rode to campus.

When I got up to my office on the fifth floor I could see the smoke extended as far as the eye could see.

I guess the wind changed direction or something because it cleared up later in the day. Tuesday morning was also clear, but by mid-day it was smokier than ever.

The smokey haze reminds me of my encounter with Joe Horn last Monday at WWL-TV.

He was cooking up something and the studio was filled with a smokey haze. The difference was, his haze smelled good. The smoke from the marsh fire smells nasty. In fact it’s sending people to the hospital.

In this morning’s paper I read that the area on fire is twice the size of City Park, which is mind-boggling to me. City Park is 1300 acres.

I see NOLA Defender beat me to the obligatory Neville Brothers reference but neglected to post a video, so… enjoy.

I’m actively looking for ways to integrate various aspects of my seemingly disparate interests. Having Rising Tide here on the campus of the university where I work was a major integrative accomplishment for me personally. I don’t mean that it was particularly onerous, because it wasn’t; but it was extremely gratifying. Of course I tend to think it’s also a major benefit to both the University and the conference itself. The participants get a great venue and the University gets a quality educational event. I love to see these things coming together.

That’s my windy way of saying that Rising Tide 6 was a screaming success, thanks to the work of countless volunteers over the last several months.

I was too busy to pay close attention to the actual programmatic content — but through the miracle of video technology and the yeomanlike efforts of Jason Berry, I’ll be able to catch up after the fact. And so can you.

Here’s the panel I helped put together for Rising Tide on “Social Media, Social Justice.”

Sadly Cherri Foytlin was stranded in Charlotte by Hurricane Irene so she does not appear, but thanks to Mary Joyce for filling in on short notice. Kimberly Joy Chandler moderates; other panelists are Jordan Flaherty, James Huck and Stephen Ostertag.

All the videos should be online by week’s end. By the way, over a thousand people tuned in to the webcast live. 1,249 to be exact. As Jason says, that’s “pretty damn good for the first outing and the little advertising we had for it.”

The event was a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

There was a lot of great stuff on stage, but my favorite moment occurred in the hallway, when the police working the detail got into a friendly theological debate with one of our vendors, Grammy-winning soapmaker, William Terry.

Six years ago today I woke up in a hotel room in northern Mississippi with Xy and three cats. We turned on the television and saw Katrina ripping the roof off the Superdome. We decided to keep on trucking, and we headed up to Indiana to bunk with my in-laws for a few days. When I went to bed that night we all thought New Orleans had come through more or less intact. The Lower Ninth Ward was in trouble, but Katrina had jogged east and the core of the city was only lightly bruised. We thought we’d return later that week.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we learned the awful truth. The storm had passed, but the city was slowly filling up with water. How could this happen?

Contrary to the popular vernacular expression, the levees had not failed. The floodwalls along certain drainage canals had collapsed. These canals take water out of the city to the lake; now they were functioning in reverse, allowing high water in Lake Pontchartrain to come into the city. Street by street, block by block, the water came higher.

That’s how our house and pretty near our whole damn neighborhood was flooded. As later came to light, the design flaw in the canals was known but not addressed. Now gates have been built on those canals that are supposed to prevent water from flowing the wrong way. Whether those gates will actually work is open to question.

And so came many days and years of rage and heartache. The experience has been harrowing, but it’s not unfathomable. Have you ever lost a loved one to senseless violence? I think it’s like that, except multiplied across a whole community.

We got through it. I personally have survived, and even thrived, and you might say that we were made whole in an economic sense. But I don’t exist in a vacuum. Xy’s career was upended, as all public school teachers were fired after Katrina. There’s a class action lawsuit on that issue that still awaits a ruling. And how can we ever be whole if our community is fractured and suffering?

And then there is this headline from today’s paper:
New Orleans levees get a near-failing grade in new corps rating system

I read that and sigh. We’ve got to do better.

As much as we like to style ourselves as different and unique, I think the challenges New Orleans faces are emblematic of the nation as whole — indeed, of the human race at this moment in history. Crumbling infrastructure, dysfunctional government, environmental degradation, social inequities, you name it. It’s all here in extreme form, but we’ve hardly cornered the market. These things are ubiquitous. We’re only reflecting and encapsulating the future we all share.

So Friday morning as I was walking to the barbershop, I was thinking about Hurricane Irene. It may sound callous, but my thoughts were something like this: If Irene strikes an urban area, it won’t take long before some jackfool starts sounding off about how his community “handled it” better than New Orleans. But the comparison probably won’t be apt — unless your flood-control infrastructure fails so that 80% of your city is flooded for weeks on end. That’s what happened in New Orleans, after all. Try that on for size and see if your social fabric doesn’t unravel. Yet after every major urban disaster in America these last six years, some swaggering dork makes the comparison, usually with a dose of racial contempt thrown in for good measure.

Such were my thoughts, petty and self-centered as they were. I was aggravated, and I felt like sounding off about it. So I was in a particularly responsive mood when I got contacted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation a few hours later. Would I like to talk on live TV about Irene and Katrina? I sure as hell would.

That evening, I was slightly preoccupied with preparations for Rising Tide 6. (More on that later.) But I cut out of there around 6:30. The CBC had dispatched a driver to chauffeur me to a studio down in the Quarter. The driver’s name was Gregory. I got to talking with him about how it was that I would be called upon by the CBC. I explained how, in the months and years after Katrina, I’d talked to news media from all over the world because of this blog. Canadian radio had taken a special interest because Helen‘s husband was Canadian.

Just to be clear, Gregory isn’t Canadian. He’s a limo driver from St. John the Baptist parish. I just about fell out the car when he said. “I think I know that guy.” Sure enough, his girlfriend used to live next door to Paul and Helen’s Mid-City home. He used to call him “Dr. Pig” — because of Rosie.

And I thought to myself, not for the first time, and not for the last, what a small town New Orleans is.

We arrived at our destination, Talking Head Video. Just a couple doors down from the WWL studio (where I’d been talking up Rising Tide early Monday morning) I guess it’s the only for-hire facility in town with a satellite uplink. A guy with a headset and an accent (German?) greeted me and invited me to sit on a couch. “We’ve got someone before you, you can watch us on the TV.” I was sitting just feet from the open door of the tiny studio space, but I didn’t think to peer inside. The TV was tuned to MSNBC, showing coverage of Hurricane Irene. After about 15 minutes, they said, “We’re going live,” and closed the door to the studio. That’s when the anchor on MSNBC said, “And now we’re going live to New Orleans to talk to former mayor Ray Nagin.”

I just about crapped in my pants.

A few minutes later, he was done in the studio, and next thing I’m shaking hands with the man and we’re having a cordial little conversation. I don’t think he recognized me; I’m clean-shaven now, I have different glasses, my name was not mentioned.

You might think he wouldn’t know me anyhow, but this is smalltown city. People do pay attention to what you say here, and they do remember.

But who’d've thought Irene would bring us back together?

I was still in something of a daze when I appeared on Connect with Mark Kelley. My appearance was incredibly brief, and I didn’t get a chance to mention my aggravations. Which is probably all for the best.

Gregory chauffeured me to the Rising Tide pre-party at Tracey’s. I started all my conversations the same way for the rest of the evening: “You’ll never guess who I just shook hands with.”

Photo credit: Nagin Listens to Editor B by Derek Bridges

During the actual program of the Rising Tide conference (9AM – 6:30PM Central) you can watch live via this player.

Wish you were here with us.

Don’t forget, Rising Tide 6 is tomorrow. If you can’t make it to New Orleans you can watch the live webcast.

Here’s a mix to mark the occasion.

Also it looks like I might be on Canadian TV tonight.

I’ll take this article with a grain of salt, but I did find the parenthetical explanation of the racial politics of capitalization helpful.

Readers frequently write to ask why I capitalize “Black” but not “white”. Often the question comes with racial resentment attached: there is a feeling that the use of the capital letter reveals some sneaky political agenda. The reason is not some kind of bending-over-backwards PC leftie orthodoxy; it is because I think the terms refer to two different kinds of groups. African Americans are an American ethnic group like Irish Americans, Mexican Americans, German Americans or Jewish Americans. We normally capitalize the name of such ethnic groups: Tibetans, Kurds, Jews, Gypsies. White in America is not one ethnic group; it is a larger, less defined group who do not share the kind of strong common identity that smaller groups do. White is an attribute but it is not an identity. I don’t capitalize black when referring to black Africans or Jamaicans; using the capital letter is a way to specify American Blacks, not blacks at large. It’s eccentric, maybe, but it seems logical.

I’ve long used lowercase for both descriptors. Capitalizing “white” felt wrong; I thought I was being egalitarian by not capitalizing “black” either, even though I saw that many writers respected writers did so. The usage guides I’ve read over the years offered unsatisfactory meditations that left me scratching my head. But I find this pretty convincing.

Pistolette is quitting coffee for a couple weeks, so I thought I’d revisit the topic myself.

I noted back in March that I’d started my eighth coffee reduction earlier than usual this year. Normally I wait until the weather gets hot, but this year I discovered the joy of dandelion coffee: roasted dandelion root + roasted chicory root = delicious.

(Thanks to Elana for the recipe.)

I was feeling good, everything was groovy — and then something happened. The Harvard School of Public Health announced the result of a study, which indicated that coffee may reduce risk of lethal prostate cancer in men. Among other things, the study found:

• Men who consumed the most coffee (six or more cups daily) had nearly a 20% lower risk of developing any form of prostate cancer.
• The inverse association with coffee was even stronger for aggressive prostate cancer. Men who drank the most coffee had a 60% lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer.
• The reduction in risk was seen whether the men drank decaffeinated or regular coffee, and does not appear to be due to caffeine.
• Even drinking one to three cups of coffee per day was associated with a 30% lower risk of lethal prostate cancer.

Well, that took the wind out of my coffee-free sails. After all, cancer prompted my dad to have a radical prostatectomy several years ago, so the risk would appear to run in my family. I’d like to avoid that if possible. If gulping gallons of coffee might make a significant difference, well, why not?

So I got back on the bean, and I’ve been swilling java all summer long.

And you know what? It kind of sucks. I’ve enjoyed taking half the year off from coffee.

Hopefully further research will identify the beneficial components of coffee, antioxidants perhaps, and maybe I’ll find another way to ingest them.

Over the past year or two I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea of contemplative pedagogy. This is the notion that we can foster a more thoughtful way of living and learning in our students and in ourselves by cultivating reflective and meditative practices in our teaching.

To this end, I’ve relished the opportunity to engage in a series of discussions on this topic with faculty, and I’ve challenged myself to incorporate contemplative practices into these sessions whenever appropriate.

Most recently I had the opportunity to lead a short discussion with participants in the Faculty Communities of Teaching Scholars. Our theme this year is “Promoting Critical Thinking and Self-Authorship in the First Two Years.” Contemplative practices seem like a perfect fit for developing self-authorship, and so once again I attempted to teach by example. As we were thinking so intensely about our students’ needs and capacities, I decided to conduct a loving-kindness meditation. Also known as Metta Bhavana, this is an ancient practice from the Buddhist tradition. I modified the typical practice to focus specifically on our students.

In some ways, I may have been overreaching. I am not a practicing Buddhist, and more to the point I had never done Metta Bhavana before. Nevertheless, I went forward with it. I even went so far as to rearrange our classroom into a configuration more conducive to the practice.

I was fairly pleased with the results. Certainly I did get some good feedback from the participants, with at least one person saying she repeated the practice later on her own time. That’s wonderful.

All the same, in some ways I consider the exercise at least a partial failure. The problem was not the practice itself, I think, so much as what followed. I was so intent on preparing for the Metta Bhavana itself that I did not attend to the context. I failed to make a strong connection between the meditative practice and the larger conversations that had been emerging in the classroom over the previous days. That left some participants wondering what to make of it all.

But if this was a failure, at least it was an educational and perhaps necessary one. I learned a valuable lesson. Several in fact. Always attend the context. Always make the connection. When trying something new, don’t neglect these important basics.

Cross-posted at CAT Food (for thought)

A couple months ago I expounded on the difficulties of glass recycling. A friend on Facebook suggested selling bottles on Etsy or eBay as craft supplies. That sounded like too much trouble, but it got me thinking. Once I’d accumulated a bin full of marginally interesting empties, I posted to Freecycle New Orleans. Xy was skeptical, but I had four or five people express an interest. It took a few days, but one of these people finally took the bottles off my hands. You can insert your tired cliche about trash and treasure here.

Meanwhile my Freecycle request for a pair of outdoor speakers has sadly gone unanswered.

I was on WWL-TV this morning with Alli deJong, talking up Rising Tide 6.

Don’t forget to register now.

Dear Persephone,

You are three and a half years old today. Last year, on your half-birthday, I cajoled you into giving away two of your toys to Goodwill. I thought we should revisit that concept, so I showed you some photos from back then which I hoped would serve to get you in the spirit. Unfortunately, your immediate reaction was a longing for the stuffed lamb you had given away. You burst into tears. “I want my lamb!” But eventually you came around. Once again I drew pictures for you, showing a girl who had too many toys and a girl who had none. You picked out three toys to give away, and we made a run to the neighborhood Goodwill just before bedtime.

So, now it’s a tradition.

The idea I’m trying to promulgate is not benevolence or philanthropy, fine as those might be. Rather I’m hoping you can learn a bit of detachment from material things. On the way to the Goodwill, we talked about how so many things are more important than physical possessions. You wanted to know, “What is more important?” People, I said. Living things. Beauty. Relationships. Ideas. Love.

I also figured you’re now tall enough to ride the boats at Big Lake in City Park. You’re technically not quite 36″ yet, but with your favorite pink cowgirl boots on, no one can tell. Alas, even though it was my idea to celebrate your half-birthday with a paddle-boat ride, we had Daisy and Lavender along, and there was no room for me in the boat. I stayed on shore. I did catch a nice sunburn though.

Our neighbor Olivia Rose celebrated her first birthday with a big party. All on your own, you picked one of your toys, a plush flower, to give to her — a rose, very appropriate and very sweet.

While we were at that party, you met a woman who admired your name and asked you if you knew about the story behind it. You were very quiet and shy, giving off a distinctly nonverbal babyish vibe, almost like you hadn’t learned to talk. She continued to coax you. “Do you know the story of Persephone?” At last you cocked your head to one side and said, “I have a book of Greek myths.”

Which is true. I’ve been reading myths to you over the last couple weeks, usually before bed. Our nighttime routine hasn’t changed much, but we have made one significant adjustment, at your behest. Instead of book/story/song, the sequence is now book/song/story.

I told you the story of Cinderella one night, substituting you in the title role. I’m not a big fan of the Disney princess phenomenon, but you do love to be “in the story.” However, what with your mother dying and your father disappearing, you found the whole premise rather upsetting, and you burst into tears. Sorry about that.

After your bedtime story, I almost always leave you with a promise to check back in a little bit. You almost always protest, “I’m not tired.” You are usually asleep within the next five minutes. Sometimes you do call me back. One night a few weeks ago, you called me back into your room to say, “Dada, tonight don’t check on me, because I’m asleep now.”

Another night I heard some strange howls coming from your room. When I checked back you told me, “I’m pretending to be an owl. Whoooo! Whooooooooo!” You still like to give a good hoot from time to time.

Owls are cool, but your favorite animals over the past month have been jaguars and opossums. One morning after we got the newspaper, you told me the headline read “Possums Today.” That meant we had to pretend to be an opossum family all day long.

I’ve been baking bread pretty much every Sunday. You like to help and pretend that you’re the Little Red Hen. My first batch of dough on Lammas was a little on the wet side, leading you to exclaim, “My feathers are so sticky!”

I took you to what I believe was your first-ever Sunday morning church service, at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Lakeview. The highlight for you was getting to put a couple quarters in the offering plate.

I occasionally give you my pocket change, which you keep in a little metal box. I think you’ve got about 45 cents in there now. But as you put it, “I have so much money, I’m going to be a princess teacher movie star when I grow up.” A little later you added, “I have to work hard so I can be the world’s bestest girl.”

I think the cutest thing you’ve said all month might be, “You’re going to send me to strawberries!” I believe you meant, “drive me bananas.” But i think I prefer your version.

Let’s see, what else? Oh yes, you also had your first day of school ever. No big deal. Actually you’ve only had two half-days so far, but the transition has been very smooth. Next month I can give you a full report.