our missionary role

2005-03-21 - 10:04 a.m.

My email program consistently thinks that "okay" is a misspelling, and that what I really meant was "tokay." I am not sure I have ever used the word "tokay," not have I ever really seen it used except in that Philip Pullman book -- The Golden Compass, where it's what the evil Lord Asriel is drinking. Hmmm.

It was a nice weekend. It was nice to NOT be skiing or away somewhere, and to take care of things like laundry, and the shelves in the kitchen where the liquid wrench was spilled. That was awful -- for weeks I thought one of our appliances -- dishwasher, microwave, computer, refrigerator ??? was somehow burning up something. But I couldn;t figure out which one it was, and then Kevin found a little bottle of liquid wrench tipped over on the shelves. Aha! So we got rid of that, and Nora celebrated St. Patrick's Day at E's house Friday night, and Maddy went to a dance on Friday and then sold earrings on Saturday with M. at her church bazaar and made $120.00. Nora's friend C. (of the suspicious background) came over on Saturday with her friend Jasmine. They ate oranges on the roof and then I sent them out to the Thai restaurant to bring back foods for us, and then they watched American Beauty until it was time to go see the local production of Jesus Christ, Superstar. C. seems okay, actually. She came from Pacifica, and apparently from some kind of bad home environment (all this via E's mother). But she seems nice enough -- and clever enough.

Anyway, then I picked Maddy up from M's grandmother's house, where she was eating dinner, and then I went back to get Nora, E., C., and Jasmine and drive them all home, and we came home and watched half of School of Rock.

Sunday, we went to the garden show, because my brother had an exhibit, which was indeed pretty cool. A lovely fence and an old car, and then some plants. My brother, I must say, is a clever and artistic one.

Anyway -- then we came home and lounged on the couch and I even made dinner, and people ate it!!! Some homework was done, although that was very very painful.

Anyway -- this whole teenager thing is no piece of cake. I read something somewhere that seemed to make some kind of sense. It said -- you can't just tell them they can't do anything, because then they think you don't trust them. You can't just tell them -- yeah, go ahead and do what you want, because then they'll think you don't care about them. (Both of these options will then, naturally, have further disastrous results.) You have to sort of let them do stuff [i.e. go to those shady youth-type clubs], but tell them what you are worrying about and remind them that they have pretty good judgement themselves and that they should use it.

This actually seems quite reasonable to me. I mean -- the truth is that at 15 they are approaching the age where people DO try things out -- or at least start rubbing up against the possibility of trying things out.

Oh -- it's a long process.

Anyway --

It is indeed funny about E. and Nora. They seem to have picked up these friends who are actually smart, but come from odd backgroungs. One, O., told E. that she liked hanging around with Nora and E. because being around them was bringing her back to her old plan of going to college. (!!!) C., too, is probably a smart enough kid but one who also might not go to college or indeed, who might go to college -- depending on the type of kid she's hanging around with.

See -- we are performing a sort of missionary role here.

This is bizarre, but I think in fact we kind of are.

The other thing is that C. seems to be terrified of E.'s mother, but not of me at all.

Hmmm.

Okay -- got to go.

Bye.

out of print - new releases

find me! - 2008-02-12
where I've gone - 2008-02-07
Where I've gone - 2008-02-05
where I've gone - 2008-02-01
New - 2008-02-01