THE MYSTERY ABOUT MYSTERIES…

I am beginning to wonder if there exists out in the world, a mystery novel that is clean (like, rated G or PG at the worst) that doesn’t involve sex or dead bodies. Although I am an Agatha Christie fan, as well as Lillian Jackson Braun, still there is the dead person (Lillian is nice enough not to pretend that only really hateful people are ever killed). I’d like to read some mysteries (you know, the NON predictable kind) where no one has to die, and no one has to sleep with someone they aren’t married to, and the vocabulary is decent enough to let my kids read.

One thing I tend to get frustrated with in television and movie mysteries is that I can almost always figure out who done it and why before the first hour is up (sometimes in the first few minutes), I suppose that is why I never liked Columbo much. But I always liked Perry Mason (he appealed to my adolescent idea of a REAL man) even though he almost always pulled someone out of the crowd that you didn’t even know existed and pinned the murder on them. But he wasn’t predictable, and you had to search the crowd with him.

Meanwhile I search through books and wish I could find Something! Granted, Agatha knew her stuff and you never were quite sure until she finished, and Lillian makes it possible for you to figure it out with Qwill if you just pay enough attention to Koko. And they are both rather clean, except for the sex (implied) and the body (sometimes graphic). But I’ve read all Lillian’s stuff, and I am kind of bored with Agatha’s, sometimes hers seem like a Hardy Boys formula mystery. I guess I’m ready for something “modern”, but afraid of what I’ll come across because I really don’t know the authors. I suppose I could ask the Librarian…

In consideration of the Child Labor Act

I often laugh at my children when they complain about the amount of slave labor I force them into. “Why else did I have children!” is my favored reply. Granted these kids hardly do anything around here, but they assume that is how it should be. They didn’t witness our childhood years, where work was called play, and so we enjoyed it. I don’t quite know how my mother managed that… but then again, I would have to admit that as the youngest and only daughter, I was spoiled and hardly did any work either.

On the other hand. I often wonder what would happen if they were to experience true child labor (not that I would want them to, but it sure would stop the complaining!). All over the world today, little ones over the age of four work 12-16 hour days, rolling cigarettes, toiling in fields, as sex slaves. It is a terrible, horrible reality. And when I think of it, I give in to the complaining and let my kids play all day. I truly want them to have a CHILDHOOD. But I also want them to grow up to be responsible, hard working adults. My dilemma…

Yesterday they played, today they work, ad infinitum! Maybe someday they will realize that if they worked for someone else they’d get a paycheck!!!

Learning Disabilities and School

LD programs. In our school system, the LD (learning disabled) programs really don’t start doing your child any good until he/she is in 8th grade. Up till that point all the LD teachers do is go over homework for a half hour every day. At least that has been our experience. My eldest son has learning disabilities in the areas of math and writing. But if you were to take those two items out of his IQ test, he’d be a genius! Unfortunately school is all about writing and math… So, we had him tested in second grade while he was in a private school. They expected that he was ADD (I disagreed, he was an eight year old on 7 different medications for asthma and allergies and drugged into a stupor, no need for Ritalin!) So they tested him, he couldn’t write (form sentences, spell, capitalize, or even form his letters correctly),and he had trouble in math (understanding processes and juxtaposing numbers), and he had organizational problems (he didn’t start at the top left hand corner of a page and work his way to the right and then down one line and to the right and so on, he would bounce all over a page of information and get lost). So by the time he was in fourth grade (due to financial troubles I home schooled him third grade), they set him up with the most incredible LD teacher I had ever met and she was able in one year to bring up three grade levels (from 1st grade stuff all the way back up to fourth grade stuff), then our finances collapsed and we had to send him to public school, (we couldn’t even home school), where he was given an IEP (individual education plan) and ignored until I rose a stink in 7th grade. In early September of 7th grade I requested an Occupational Evaluation with special emphasis on Language arts and Math, then I got an independent OE done in the local children’s hospital. We were told he needed to relearn how to write, learn to type, and begin again with remedial math including number formation. They recommended a reduced load of writing assignments, calculator with math and a few other things. Around January of 7th grade, after I called and called and called, after he spent every evening crying over six hours of homework, they finally got around to the OE, but they didn’t test Language arts, only math… They admitted that they saw he had a problem with hand writing but they couldn’t really address that. I rose a stink. SIX HOURS OF HOMEWORK EVERY NIGHT IS NUTS!!!! So, in May they finally pulled him out of the regular classes, put him in LD classes and suddenly school was possible. He was given reduced handwriting assignments, no longer graded on spelling (except in spelling courses), put in special ed math, given a highlighter to highlight notes on the teachers lectures instead of trying to take notes himself. And even allowed by some of his teachers to give them a lecture on a topic instead of a report. Then school was over. 8th grade, they forgot everything and put him back like he was at the beginning of 7th grade. I rose a stink. And in a week we had him back to the types of classes he had in may of 7th grade. The LD teachers are ok, wonderful ladies really, but what they are allowed to do with the students is VERY limited. They don’t have the latitude that his first LD teacher had, and so they do what they can and teach them to enjoy learning and sometimes how to work around their disabilities. He is in the high school now and getting more opportunities to plan what he wants to be when he grows up and how to get there. That’s hard… He wants to be a missionary pilot, but how do you get a kid with a 1.75 grade point average into a missionary flight program? So I am doing everything I can to get his pilots license, instrument ratings, and flight hours while he is in school (If I can get a job this year, he will get to start pilot lessons). And hopefully then I can get him into a commercial flight school, and when he isn’t flying for Southwest airlines, he can transport terminally ill children to specialists around the world or something…. He has gotten to the place where he can dream about what he wants to be… thanks to some LD teachers who have done everything they can to make learning possible.

Raising Teens~ Passing the Baton

Ah the joys of teens! I love having them, I love being around them, and especially I LOVE embarrassing them!

I am, however, a little too self respecting to get the extreme joys of teen embarrassment. My husband has that down! It all starts with shorts, sandals, and tie dye socks...("papa! please, oh please, don't wear the socks!!!")

I am simply a proponent of embarrassing little tricks, for instance, my eldest daughter (14 3/4) has inherited my chronic giggle... if I "tee hee" at her, she will break out in uncontrolable giggles. So I walk nonchalantly by and "tee hee" in her ear.

I have four teens... ok, so one is almost 12, but she really wants to be 18! ages you ask? 15 3/4, 14 3/4, 13 and almost 12... boy/girl/boy/girl...

girls are much easier to tease than boys, boys take creativity and timing while girls are embarrassed before you embarrass them... and so I find more satisfaction in getting the guys (poor guys), but more opportunity for the girls (poor girls).

I think my best for the guys was when I told my 13 year old that the kissing was done in the midst of a passionate kiss on t.v.(he always hides his eyes... the 15 year old peeks and denies the peeking! the 12 year old giggles, and the 14 year old says "oh my goodness!")I think we paused the kisses for the rest of the movie...

I am not, however, a proponent of painful embarrassing. I don't mess with friendships, crushes, or hateful body functions (among others that are on some mental list somewhere but I can't think of them all right now).

I just want my kids to be able to laugh at themselves and relax about life a little. And so I have to be ready for the embarrassing moments they get me with (don't give if you can't take) like my son not wearing underwear to a doctors appointment ("I couldn't find any...")

I have to admit though, I don't take it nearly as well as I give it... I need more practice, not that I really want it, I mean after all, didn't I have a mother who embarrassed me terribly? We can start with going to the grocery store in bathrobe and curlers all the way to boogying down the aisle at K-Mart cause she liked the song!

And so I pass the baton to the next generation. May they learn the joys of gentle teasing and have lots of laughter in their lives!

Important thoughts on James Bond

I'd like to think that people will read what I have to write because it is interesting or important. But the likelihood of anyone ever noticing that this little blog is out here is pretty slim... I hate the idea of telling everyone that I know that I have yet another blog out there in the ether world, and so I won't. This little spot will be dedicated to my most excellent and important thoughts on whatever I happen to be thinking about when I post! And if anyone out there reads it... cool.

So today I am thinking about James Bond and why we have thought he is so totally wonderful all these years. And in particular why it is we women have been convinced that Sean Connery (or Roger Moore, or Peirce Bronson, or whats his name...) have such tremendous appeal? The more I think about it the more I realize that we have seen them hop into bed with every female they come across and so we believe there must be something to that. That somehow casual sex equals appeal, that lust equals manliness, and that if we could look that good in a bikini (or our underwear) then we'd find the manly men bashing down our doors and sweeping us off our feet.

But if you stop to think of it, James killed half the women he slept with, and abandoned half of the ones he didn't kill, and the quarter that was left were either killed by the enemy or kept with him till the credits rolled, only to never be seen again. Only the best of the bad guys got to come back for another movie, and Moneypenny. And did the faithfullness of Moneypenny ever pay off in the end? I don't think so. I think she ended up thinking "If only I looked that good in a bikini...". Certainly James never noticed.

Sure he had cool gadgets! (that the other guy made) and he was quick on his feet and seemed to know everything about everything. I won't deny that. James Bond is cool. Definately. He's just not all that AND the bag of chips, too. I suppose my main point is that he never was totally wonderful like I grew up believing. The man all us girls wanted. So ROMANTIC!(yuck!) Reguardless of how cool he was, I'd never date a guy like that if you paid me! So ends this days thoughts on James Bond!
thanks for reading.