Sick, busy, and expectant
As Elizabeth wrote (see below), we're all either recovering from influenza or fighting it off. Vincent's mostly recovered and has started trying to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's [sic] Stone (I dislike the American publisher's decision to change the title from ...Philosopher's Stone). Kathryn spent most of yesterday in bed, and it'll probably be the same today.
We sometimes reap what we sow. The chiles in our backyard are doing great. My student quizzes are not as thriving, but the chiles have a selective bias (since we removed the ones who died). I'm looking forward to having more chiles and more fruit (from plants that are generally less than a year old, including a litchee with more than 20 small fruit right now).
Today is also my father's sixty-ninth birthday. The end of the Civil War is now closer to his birth than the present. Wow! We called him up this morning, and he's looking forward to watching the basketball playoffs today. He converted Vincent and Kathryn to Lakers fans during last year's playoffs when he visited.
posted by Sherman Dorn 11:49 AM
Today Vincent is better, although he is finishing up his antibiotics and still coughing a bit. The cough may just be allergies - welcome to the family, Vincent! Kathryn is truly sick now. Sherman and I are fighting off the virus (tired and achy, but not really ill). But today is a good day, or at least should be. debra and Pam plan to come visit. That will be fun.
Elizabeth
posted by Elizabeth Margareta Griffith 10:20 AM
Friday, April 27, 2001
my mom and dad are mene .
posted by Vincent Griffith 6:05 PM
Saturday, April 21, 2001
I like to play baskit ball . I beat dad most of the time .
posted by Vincent Griffith 7:19 PM
Thursday, April 19, 2001
Plays
At almost-nine, Kathryn and her friends are heavily into "plays," which look an awful lot like Doctor Who episodes from the Patrick Troughton era (when the Doctor would run around and around and around and ... you get the idea). Today, when Vincent was not feeling well, Kathryn recruited me to "put on a play" for her brother. Kathryn's a good sister, in essence. She devised the plot in a way that she could say it in three sentences, we agreed each sentence would turn into about one minute of play, and off we went as the Vincent Sicktime Players.
Then Kathryn and Vincent decided to perform for me. (Vincent was, evidently, feeling much better.) They caught their space shuttles' tails and traveled to the moon and back. It was, all in all, a successful "mission."
Then they, of course, took a bow for the audience. My favorite line from the play: "That's not an alien. That's our audience!" Well, they didn't exactly know that fact positively.
That a space shuttle lifted off today (the same one we saw on launch pad 39B Sunday) was exciting to the children, but I think in an abstract way. The precise mission (fitting the Canadarm2 and another module to the International Space Station) was less important than the shuttle's being in orbit, I suspect.
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:45 PM
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Big Ideas
One of the most impressive parts of the Kennedy Space Center is the hangar with one of the remaining Saturn V rocket shells. (The Saturn V was the rocket that thrust Apollo missions to the moon.) You see a short movie/launch simulation with old launch consoles and then move through doors into the hangar where the rocket is suspended overhead. You're literally underneath the bottom of the rocket, with its huge engines.
Since we came back, the children have (once again) been immersed in imaginative games about space. They each bought small plush versions of the space shuttles, which they named, and have been on "missions" except for Kathryn's playing with her friend Caley yesterday.
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:07 AM
Sunday, April 15, 2001
A Nice Story
At the Kennedy Space Center visitor's center, the children got to hear a presentation by Story Musgrave, an astronaut on several shuttle missions. The visitor center recruits astronauts (or maybe they're assigned—this layperson doesn't know) to talk to visitors three or four times in each day. Both of our children were able to ask questions, though they were too shy to talk to him afterwards. My rough impression: he seems fairly nice, and I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of one of his practical jokes.
Vincent and Kathryn had a wonderful time this weekend, going from chess tournament to swimming pool to beach to Kennedy Space Center. The last time I took them (Dec. 24, 1999), I drove all the way there and back (3 hours each way, that day) and stayed 8 hours at the center. They were on a "space kick" for months afterwards. Kathryn had been talking about how she would be too old to go into the playground with equipment modeled after spacecraft after her next birthday, so this time, Elizabeth and I both went, stayed overnight in a motel near the Atlantic Ocean, and the trip was much easier on my body, as a result. Kathryn played on the equipment one more time.
posted by Sherman Dorn 7:41 PM
Saturday, April 14, 2001
Children meet chess tournament ...
And both Kathryn and Vincent are smiling, win or lose. As a parent, I am delighted with those who run this tournament (see http://wflachess.w3site.com). It's friendly, and they make everyone feel welcome. This is also a day with two tournaments (one in the morning, one in the afternoon), and so it accommodates families who want to do something in addition to a chess tournament.
posted by Sherman Dorn 11:49 AM
tooday i went to a ches tornement . And lost tow gams.
posted by Vincent Griffith 11:15 AM
Friday, April 13, 2001
Spaceward, ho!
Tomorrow, after a chess tournament at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, we head across the Florida peninsula to a Cocoa motel and, sometime while we're there, both a beach and the Kennedy Space Center. Yes, we're taking the camera, so expect space pictures when we get back. Well, children enjoying the KSC, anyway.
Kathryn has unearthed her harmonica, along with a few other items while cleaning out her room, which is still messier than her parents would like but cleaner than she would probably like. Life is full of compromises.
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:09 PM
Thursday, April 12, 2001
Exhausted
I suppose I shouldn't be writing in the weblog if I'm so tired, but I think we've set up one of those vacations-we'll-need-a-vacation-to-recover-from. Tomorrow, friends of Kathryn's and Vincent's come over for 4 hours of play in the afternoon. Saturday morning, the kids are at a chess tournament. Saturday afternoon, we drive to Cocoa, Florida, and maybe spend a bit of time at Cocoa Beach before the sun goes down (if we're lucky). Sunday, we split some time between beach, probably, and Kennedy Space Center, and then return. And next week I have a batch of papers coming in. Aaarrrggghhh!
Our house is now decorated in Early Childhood Post-Expressionism. On the right there is a picture of some artwork from Halloween (okay, we're slow on changing art) and a painting of Kathryn's of a turkey. Well, she says it's a turkey, so it's a turkey! Their art has come a long way since producing those, and if I can get them to take a picture (or let me), it'll appear here.
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:48 PM
Watches winding down
My momentum watch—purchased 23 years ago by my parents in Hong
Kong— is choosing this week to slow down. It needs servicing (can
I find a place to service it properly, when so few watches are momentum
watches?). But it also suggests that the world is speeding up, and I
need to resist. I agree.
We've moved our birdfeeder. When my mother sent it for Elizabeth's
birthday in December, we hung it under a corner of our porch. The
squirrels came. My mother sent a baffle. The squirrels came no longer,
but no birds came. So we've slung it in a corner of our yard underneath
a bamboo pole. No birds to eat, but at least one bluejay landed on the
pole, curious about the human activity.
posted by Sherman Dorn 1:55 PM
Sunday, April 08, 2001
yester,day i went footon shopng . and had no desert .
posted by Vincent Griffith 9:11 AM
Shopping for a Futon
Yesterday morning, the children and I went to South Tampa to the only futon store I could find that can get us twin longs. Why twin longs? Because we have a 13-year-old king-sized futon mattress, and I'm tired of trying to manhandle it. In our first move together, Elizabeth and I lugged it down three flights of stairs and down half a block to a different apartment, and it was backbreaking work for 20-somethings as we were then. Now, it needs replacement (I wonder what the population of dust mites is), and even though there may be differences in the levels of the two futons, I want the ability to flip the mattress(es) (which we should occasionally) without killing myself.
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:50 AM
Saturday, April 07, 2001
This was the first truly summer-like day in Tampa. I felt, cooking dinner that did NOT involve using the oven, that the kitchen was too hot. The walk to the library and Bearss farm was pleasant, but hot. The anoles are frolicking, the air is full of butterflies and the scent of Confederate Jasmine. It is a good time to be in Tampa. The problem is a real dose of spring fever - aside from the walk/shopping, which I also counted as exercise, putting laundry in the machine and on the line (Sherman took it down) and cooking and very lkittle bit of course work - I didn't do much. So I guess I'd better do a bit more reading for class now
Elizabeth
posted by Elizabeth Margareta Griffith 8:23 PM
Friday, April 06, 2001
Dad bote a digitel kamra . I went to scool today .
i toke this bsket . toke ppikshrs of dads baskets .
posted by Vincent Griffith 7:47 PM
New Toys
The relatively inexpensive digital camera came by FedEx (from Overstock.com) yesterday, and I've been figuring out how to work with it.
Vincent and I had fun this afternoon, and to the right here somewhere should be a picture of his dribbling on the driveway in front of our house. He's in motion, the ball's in the air, and now he wants me to finish so he can type.
posted by Sherman Dorn 7:39 PM
Tuesday, April 03, 2001
Balance
Kathryn had a Girl Scout troop meeting this afternoon, and after I came home from work and Elizabeth left for her class this evening, Vincent and I went to pick Kathryn up. Elizabeth is taking three classes this semester, as she did last semetsr, Tuesday through Thursday, and it's a bit hard on the children (as well as on us). Last semester, I had a class Monday evening. So that semester, only one parent was home four nights in a week. I've also been running around a bit like a chicken with its head cut off this semester, so I can't talk. But this weekend, I did nothing work-related except grade student quizzes from one section. The kids and I played basketball, went to parks—and got out of the house so Elizabeth could do some schoolwork in peace.
We also need to replace our futon mattress. I've called a few places, and I don't think we can get another king-sized futon mattress. It's okay, as there are twin longs (cut a king-size in half and you get a twin long), and they're easier to maneuver, anyways. We also need to get allergen-proof mattress coverings. First the mattresses, then the covers.
posted by Sherman Dorn 7:57 PM
