Maybe some of you can help me out with this. 

I like the book A Wrinkle In Time, and I appreciate how the movie is a little inescapeable right now. I think this is a good thing. I will take Ted to see it when we can swing it and showings are less crowded. 

Spoilers for A Wrinkle In Time (the book, not the movie) follow. 

There is an obstacle in my heart about this story. The first time I read it (I might have been seven or so), I had to stop when they described Calvin O'Keefe's mother. It made me so upset that I cried uncontrollably, and I couldn't finish the book for years. Calvin's mother is described early on. She's described as a miserable woman with a messy house. The point of having her this way is that Calvin wouldn't be missed if he takes off on an adventure with the Murry family. Right? She's too busy and unhappy to show up banging on the door, saying, "My son wasn't home in time for dinner, where is he?" One more kid in that house wouldn't be missed, right? I felt so sorry for her, so angry that she was left alone, forgotten, that it distracted me from everything else. 

I don't have a copy of A Wrinkle In Time around to refer to, only my shoddy memory of the book. The first time I read it, I knew that there was a very sad mom in the book, it upset me, and I moved on to something else. The second time I read it, I grudgingly finished the book, liking many aspects of the story, but not fully understanding or cherishing it. I think I moved back to the Narnia series, and then there were too many paperbacks lying around that weren't going to read themselves, so Stephen King was up next, and then John Lennon had a date with destiny, so I was obsessing about music for a while. 

What bothered me was, "why should I try to wrap my head around all of these heavy duty scientific concepts when you can't seem to balance the fact that you're chasing after a poor imprisoned daddy, but nobody seems to care about a poor imprisoned mommy, staring sadly into a sink full of dirty dishes?" 

I wish I could remember the wording of the passage describing Calvin O'Keefe's mother. All I remember was that it was extremely clear to me that this was a woman with a strong and serious mental illness characterized by depression. I'm shedding tears right now, just thinking about it. I mentioned it to other people who love that book, and they've said, "well, yeah, she's kind of a throwaway character." 

a) there is no such thing as a throwaway character. everything in your story is part of its foundation, otherwise get rid of it. if it's still there when it's published, it's important.

b) HAVE YOU NOT READ THIS DESCRIPTION???

I haven't read any of the other books in the series, because I have no proof that Calvin's Mother is saved, or that her imprisonment is justified. It's just that she's a "bad person," and Calvin should totally leave her to go play Shining Time Station with the Murrys. Did anything ever happen with her? 

The last time I read this, I was babysitting. There was a thunderstorm, and a power failure. I picked through the bookshelves with a flashlight, and then sat in my young charge's bedroom, reading A Wrinkle In Time by candlelight, accompanied by rain on the windows and the susurration of the child's breathing as he slept. It was the perfect way to read it. However, I had to take a deep breath, swallow my pride, read the passage about Calvin's mom, and store it for later, knowing that I would deal with those feelings and maybe write something about her in the future. 

I guess I'm going to have to deal with this. I'm really worried about Calvin's mother. On the other hand, maybe she and Calvin's stuffed tiger escaped and went sledding. 

EDITED TO ADD:

Editing editing editing editing editing editing editing Jarnsaxa Rising. 

Last night, some nice people said some nice things to me about the mermaid nightgown. So this morning I was inspired to spend time on a skirt made from the remaining mermaid print fabric.

I can't really finish the hemlin until the kid is around again next week.

Someday I will have to get me a serger.

Can't sleep, monkeys will eat me.

It's 3:25am, I'm six days out from back surgery, tired of taking pills, tired of apple juice and crackers, tired of sleeping on my back, and yet not actually tired enough to sleep. Ha!

Okay, back at it. xoxo

Well over a year ago I bought some mermaid print fabric with intention of making my daughter a nightgown. Today, I finally made it.

I goofed the pattern some, but it's a nightgown, so there is a lot of room for slop. (actually, I didn't so much goof the pattern as pick the wrong pattern, then tried to correct for this after the first few parts were already cut out.)

Anywhoo, she's sleeping in it tonight. Warms the cockles, it does :-) 

Any of my One Post Wonder people down with projecteuler.net?

if response == yes:
     1183867_IMS0sWktfxXi9wYmDmPGoLWGtiz71nXV

Edited to add: Got home, didn't have to break in-- power's on. One section of the fence is a shredded mess.  Go go gadget home insurance!  That fence needed replacing in 2008, so I'm happy in a way-- this will get me off my ass to get it done finally. 

The Philly airport was a shiiiiiiit-shooooow... I've never seen it like that. Granted, when we fly home we normally land around midnight so maybe we're just not used to the usual 9:45pm crowd? But I suspect it has more to do with the Philly airport being closed for 24-ish hours and being filled with stranded, grumpy passengers.  The baggage carousel had so much luggage on it that it couldn't spin anymore because it was gridlocked... and there was only one poor lady working at baggage claim... and she was trying to juggle 24+ hours of lost/rerouted bags and angry passengers so she couldn't unclog the bag carousel... so I did.  (Everyone else was just standing around like idiots. Ugh. So yeah, let the 110-pound anemic lady with a wooden leg* do it.)

Ok, bedtime.

*I do not actually have a wooden leg.

I am in a slump, creativity wise. Slogging along. I had the flu 2 weeks ago. Still coughing from that. And the mid-winter blahs doesn't help. And, oh joy, I strained my back 2 days ago so I'm gimpy and grumpy.

Anywhoooo, I saw an ad with silhouettes. And decided I should make some silhouettes on my underused laser cutter in the basement. But first, I needed some silhouettes. So I dug up some photos, and taught myself how to make silhouettes in Gimp (=freeware photoshop).  Source photos for the first 2 below.

The third silhouette is of the 8 campers in my camp last month at LoveBurn. Created from a number of camp photos. . . . next up cutting cardstock with these files. As soon as my back can handle walking down to the basement.

Ursula Le Guin passed away a few weeks ago. She was my favorite author.

To Mark her passing  I read The Daughter of Odren. Set in the same world of Earthsea as her early fantasy novels.

In her later career Le Guin wrote two additional novels extending the Earthsea Trilogy that you may be familiar with. Both of these, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to fix the world she created in her early books back when she was writing as - in her own words - "an imitation man. A pretty good imitation man."

A novel to fix the afterlife, a novel to fix the patriarchy. Well... the second one wasn't quite that tidy. And it was the better for being complicated.

The Daughter of Odren is a short story, rounded up to a novella for Amazon. But I like it much better than either of the late novels. It concerns the daughter of Lord Odren, a landholder in Earthsea who is forced to go to sea to fight Pirates who are destroying the economic life of the island. During his absence, his wife takes up with a sorcerer... or is bewitched by him. The sorcerer engineers the father's demise on his return.

A traumatized son and daughter flee to the house of a nearby farmer. The son leaves to master Wizardry and seek revenge. The daughter becomes the wife of the farmer and plots revenge on the sorcerer as well.

But when her brother returns, the wizards of Roke have convinced him that his mother was the real source of the evil, controlling the sorcerer and killing their father. It is easier for them to blame a witch than imagine that one of their own has gone bad. Of course, it is patronizing to assume she was not a willing co conspirator. Or even, perhaps, a witch...

What begins as a simple family story turns into a clever commentary on the patriarchy, and the daughter's choices are real choices: limited and personal, but meaningful. I could say more, but I hate reviewers who ruin the story.

I will miss her new words. I look forward to reading more of the old ones.

Never underestimate the power of a hot bath. 

I have Joni Mitchell's "California" in my head, and that makes me happy. We are sitting in the Long Beach Airport, waiting to board our plane to Phoenix, where we will likely get stuck because of the snowstorm hitting Philly tonight.  We scored first class tix, and this canceled-flight crap only ever seems to impact us on these rare occasions when we are flying on a non-Southwest flight and also managed to score first class seats. (So it's gotta be our fault somehow.)

We were in California for about 36 hours, for Uncle Greg's funeral services. They had a very short viewing just for close family, and good LORD, Greg looked AWFUL. Like, we all joked that maybe they brought the wrong guy to the funeral parlor, because seriously-- no resemblance whatsoever. 

It's fascinating watching people from different families playing these familar roles... mourning wife, mourning sister, mourning children. No matter whether they're from my family, Matt's family, or a friend's family... there are these motions everyone has culturally agreed to go through, clothes you wear, things you say, body gestures you make... and we all have more or less agreed to play these roles when they are foisted upon us. 

We gathered in a Catholic church in the middle of a breezy beach town in California, yet it smelled like a Catholic church, it had all of the symbols that I recognize... and I admit it brought me comfort somehow... being thousands of miles away from the church I grew up in, yet got comfort in the familiarity of the smells, sounds, and symbols that I assume are in every Catholic church. 

But I also knew very deeply that these traditions didn't really *mean* anything to me other than simply tradition. And it made me think: When I die, I don't want this stuff. 

At times I found myself imagining being in that front-row of the church, playing the role of the person closest to the departed, accepting the condolences and watching all of these gathered people playing their parts.

I know we will go through all of these motions/play these roles for when my Mom passes, because these things are very meaningful to her. And I imagine as my brother and I bury my Mom (and I guess my Dad; I've never really asked him what he wants), these rituals will be comforting to me and Jeff (my brother) because it's what would be expected of us.  And in some weird way, it would be a symbol that we are the "family elders" now. 

But when I die, I don't want a church service. I don't want a viewing (unless you can stuff my body so I'm standing up and making some totally silly expression, with my hands positioned into finger-guns so people can take tacky selfies). But seriously-- I don't want any of this formal Catholic stuff... but because what I want lacks the formality of these generations of practicing these roles, I kinda accept that when I kick off, there won't be any kind of "official farewell." Because without the formality, it also loses importance somehow. 

Anyway.

Been thinkin' a lot today. 

And with that, our plane just arrived, so it's time for us to fly to Phoenix so we can get stranded there. Yay. 

[Edited to add: Flight from Phoenix to Philly took off right on schedule. Not sure what the weather sitch will be when we land, but I'll find out in 90 mins when our flight touches down. In the meantime, this has been a very pleasant flight so far.]