A Spam-folder poem, from our gmail account, August 6, 2009

Rangy milky sty,
cubby rangy petal.

Unhung puzzle rotor.
Unhung glance old squeak!
toot rotor unhung packed!
unapt dine!
Recede,
endup milky spark!

Wroth purl,
thin rangy borax pigmy!
Old quick, old runt, eat eat.
Gutter chaw dhurry frame.
Wroth captor pigmy,
diddle met, diddle toot.

Frame runt.

Unhung spark sty.
Cubby croon, packed unapt.
Eat number,
perk unread,

accede!

a earlier poem from the third week of June:

Time for perfection, Oakery;

Airy mumps tithe

lumpy oared crowd peel,

Aerate glover glover Dr. MaxMan,

the pleasure she only dreamed about.

Elan potboy bounty,

Sniffy fetid pupa,

Act like a hero.

Gooey grouch sap;

Faced, he can be no companion.

Anatomy of a pretty good day.

I slept in until nearly 8 -- so uncharacteristically late in fact that Monica asked me if I wasn't feeling well. But no, I was just feeling well-rested.

After she had left for her last day of camp, I cut slices off a round of durum bread, and made scrambled eggs for Porter. Just toast and black coffee for myself. It was a crisp, clear, cold morning and Porter wore a winter vest at the breakfast table.

I settled down with the laptop to read a few blogs and skim the New York Times. Alberto was on the other computer reading El Colombiano and Nico was navigating on the iBook for some game he was playing. But the internet connection cut in and out, so when Alberto returned from delivering Porter to the horse farm (after his stop at Pete's grocery, where he spent half an hour buying his lottery tickets and chatting with the staff and with the tourists), I drove the five miles down to the coast to a coffeehouse with wifi.

The day was warming up and Route 1 was filling up with summer traffic. I'd already drunk too much coffee at home, so for once I was pleased to see iced coffee that was mostly ice. We had a minor report due out this day. Axel was down in New York scrambling to put it into final form and I was combing the data for support for the propositions we were making about the best ways to talk about the government's role in the economy. (Our original propositions collapsed a few days ago, when the data turned out not to support them -- or more specifically the approach we'd been exploring had turned out to interact in unfortunate ways with the public's current, top-of-mind model of the government's role, namely, all the damned bailouts.

Fortunately, we discovered another promising route from outside our research cul de sac.) It turned out, surprisingly, that integrating the idea of community colleges as an example of the government's role in the economy created all kinds of positive effects in people's thinking, and so we were re-writing and quickly integrating control data that we'd generated the night before. But I also had to launch some internet surveys testing a couple of promising gambits for another project about counter-terrorism, torture, detentions, surveillance and ethnic profiling. We were already deep into the subjects' database on this one, and I needed to wring more male conservatives out of it.

Back home at about 12:15, Nico was still in pajamas, drawing some grand narrative on five feet of old-style perforated computer paper that he'd found somewhere. I hollered at him to get dressed and the three of us soon piled back into the car.

Porter had been at Turning Pointe all week with the horses. Though the place is mostly about "therapeutic riding" for handicapped kids, they offer a camp a couple of weeks out of the summer for local kids to learn about riding and caring for horses.

(Porter first climbed onto a horse in rural Costa Rica, where it's a masculine pursuit, so he's a little perplexed about why here he's the only boy in a universe of girls and women.) Today was the last day and we were invited to come to a horseback play they were putting on.

It's only a couple of miles up the road and Porter handed us a handwritten playbill when we pulled up to the barn.

We met the horses, (Porter's mount, Cinnamon, was licking his lips and drooling a puddle. According to Porter he'd grazed on grass too close to a toad and gotten a mouthful of toad pee.)

Porter played the role of policeman in a short morality play of two girls who forgot about their horses and went off to play. Porter was still wearing his vest decorated with an orange felt badge. I think he felt the vest gave him a more official air. After a second act about moderation (too many apples for the fat pony) there were cookies for the humans and carrots and mint candies for the horses. Porter brushed and groomed the horses with casual competence.

At home the internet connection was working so I cleared a spot on my desk and se

t about checking the new data from the surveys I'd launched earlier. We were trying to get people to acknowledge the dangers of enabling government to combat terrorists in ways that disregard law and constitution. By 3 o'clock, I done what I could do, and the data was pretty good, especially given the challenge. I called Axel, to make sure he didn't need any more help with the report, and then yelled down to the boys to get their swimsuits and their shovels, we were going to the beach.

And the Beach Full signs were up for the town strands, but we slipped into the sand lot at Ninigret, a few minutes past four, when they stop charging to park.

The sea was quiet, with the waves breaking at the shoreline. Porter swam and I helped Nico, who's forgotten how to swim. He has not an ounce of body fat and sinks like a stone. Porter and I did some body surfing in waves that were big enough to ride but no so big as to pound us into the sand. We made a castle that was attacked by every fifth or sixth wave, piling sand until our arms hurt, rescuing the beleaguered tower again and again.

On the way home, Nico asked why his fingers were tingling and I told him we'd moved about 500 pounds of sand -- "And the ocean took back 475 pounds of that!" he said. I told him he'd sandpapered his hands and they'd be more sensitive.

From behind, I felt him touch my shoulder and my matted, wet hair. "It's like I'm learning a new sense," he said. We passed the shop advertising frozen bait, which brought on a long, fantastical conversation about popsic-eels, with chocolate glaze or slug-slime glaze and a dusting of thistle-spines. "Um, my popsic-eels still moving." "Better pop it back into the freezer for a few minutes." Porter was cracking up.

It didn't spoil anyone's appetite though. We stopped by Pelloni's Farm for an apple pie we'd special ordered (with less sugar). At home Alberto had made hot dogs for himself and the boys as promised. Monica had heated up potatoes and spicy leftover bluefish (that she had fished from the Sound just yesterday). So once we had all cycled through the shower and I had vacuumed up the sand from the bathroom floor -- we ate.

In the evening the boys took my computer. They've discovered how to use the Netflix instant viewing to watch TV. It didn't take long for the bad laughtrack of the "Wizards of Waverly" to drive me out of the living room (at least there are no commercials!) I'd been putting off investigating the boys little attic ever since Nico told me that some critter had made a mess in there. I was afraid that it might be the red squirrel that has moved in to the yard.

(In the mornings it sits in one of the trees sending down a cascade of chittering, buzzing red squirrel curses toward the cat Wilbur. Wilbur lays beneath the tree, looking inscrutably up every once in a while as though to say, "Oh, I'm sorry, were you speaking to me?") But there was no sign of the squirrel up there. A mouse had thoroughly chewed up something red and green, and I took the opportunity to clear out a garbage bag full of the boys older clutter, while they were distracted downstairs. At 8:45, when Netflix seized up, they joined me. For two boys so given to pack-rattery, they were pretty cooperative about clearing some things out. Their room had reached an unprecedented lever of clutter and chaos and maybe the idea that critters were going to start living in their stuff gave them food for thought.

But soon enough it was time for lights out and I joined Monica in bed and, eventually, in sleep.

And that was a pretty good day.

After work, the boys and I headed to the CSA to pick up our loot of green beans, fennel, mescaline mix, summer squash, carrots and tomatoes. Monica was off tenting with her campers at Green Falls, so instead of coming home we swung by Ninigret beach to play in the surf. Crushing waves, roiling sand, and tearing rip-currents made for an hour of death-defying family fun. We survived, and returned wearily home, silty, salty and sand-scuffed. While we washed ourselves up, Alberto heated rice with yesterday's pork and potatoes. The boys ate up every bite.

Porter and Nico's friends Jacob and Philip are heading off on Saturday to the Czech Republic for a month to circulate with their two sets of grandparents. But first, they wanted to get together for a sleepover. Monica swept them up on her way back from Nature Camp, came home, and cooked up her famous roast. (This is a roast that has been an epiphany for more than one person and which everyone should taste before giving up on pig-meat.) We all feasted on baked red potatoes, pork and applesauce, then the boys rampaged outside until it was too dark to see. They came in comparing pop-cultural notes about the TV and movies and video games they've managed to cram into their summer so far and then headed to the basement to set up an elaborate Heroscape scenario. I made sure they all had sleeping mats and sleeping bags. Then they pretty much look after themselves and sleep as little as their young bodies will allow.

The levy along the Pawcatuck river where the Grills Reserve trail runs has become a narrow causeway, with only a foot or two of clearance above the water. Vernal pools are over-flowing and parts of the flooded woods look as though gators and anacondas should be slipping between the tree trunks and drowned thickets. Frogs hopped out of my way. As I strode down the trail each backward swing of my arm struck the little mosquito bodies that followed me in a trailing cloud. I walked as far as the old bridge ruins, but there the river had recently spilled over the trail. I might have been able to pick my way through the puddles and pools and rivulets, but not nearly fast enough to keep the mosquitos at my back.

In 1952 my grandmother, Marian Metz Brown, hosted a reunion for all the descendants of her grandfather, Samuel Metz -- that is, her own family and the offspring of her fourteen aunts and uncles. It became an annual event and when her son, my uncle Fred, took over the farm he inherited the reunion as well. Now my cousin acts as host each year on the last weekend of July. And for nearly sixty years the clans have reconvened on the Brown farm in Airydale, Pennsylvania.

This past Saturday, over 220 relatives and friends gathered at Scott and Emily's farm in Big Valley for the great potluck. More would trickle in from around the valley for the barn dance. When I was a kid the two signposts of the year were Christmas and Reunion. And now it's Porter and Nico's turn -- and Lydia and Eric and Jacob and Lauren -- and Bridget, especially once she gets mobile.

You basically catch them on the fly once or twice to make sure they eat something -- otherwise they're off. (It was sad thing this year that Nico had a stomach flu and slept through most of it.)

Around the office we're getting cognitive whiplash. As projects stretch on into the summer, from minute to minute, we're snapping our minds from one issue area to another. Today I had to write about or sift data about or otherwise contemplate the following:

Convincing Alabamians to support licensure of daycare centers;

Inoculating the public against a "lurch to the right" every time there is a terrorist threat with a progressive model of counter-terrorism -- so talking with Americans about torture, detention, profiling and surveillance;

Testing whether the Obama administration is changing people's thinking about government;

Looking for ways to show Ohioans the value of public support of fine arts;

Writing up findings about the best ways for environmental groups to talk about Global Warming;

Getting people to notice economic policy and think about the positive role that the government could play in a well-run economy.

Time for a mental neck brace.

The little red-mulberry tree is a little tattered -- with more than a few branchlets broken and wilting -- and stripped mostly of the berries. I'm sure it was the raccoons. Squirrels are too light to break the branches and what other heavier marauder would claw and clamber around in bent and breaking twigs for a few mouthfuls of mulberries?

I hiked in the woods beyond the back fence -- pushing grasping greenbriar out of the way with my chestnut walking stick.  

I was noticing the ferns and trying to train my eye to distinguish one from the other.  Little white moths rose up around me with each step.  

I fancied myself wizardish -- with my staff, broad brimmed hat and my coterie of half a hundred flickering moths.

The boys and I spent the week leading up to July 4 at Lake Como, while Monica returned to Rhode Island to settle into being a camp counselor.  

I telecommuted to work.  (I was dismayed to find that the new Macbook lacks a modem, so a couple of times a day I had to bike down to the ice cream shop in town to use their wifi.  Usually the boys came along and I bought us a meal or a snack.)  It was a cool, wet week -- not socked-in rainy, but every day there were showers interspersed with sun.  Into the 40's at night and the 60's during the day.  Porter tried fishing a little and we took the canoe out.  They read a lot, played games, biked, built and re-built the Heroscape gameboard, and bided their time until their aunts and grandparents arrived on Friday.

During the week, I noticed how Porter has been growing lately -- becoming more self-sufficient -- more self-contained.  Bicycling off around the Lake; helping out with meals; even going off to the Villa Como by himself for a piece of cheesecake and a game of pinball.  When Chris, Cathie, Mom and Dad came up for the weekend, he and I took turns lighting the fireworks that Chris had brought.

I was proud of the way that both of the boys handled themselves in the canoeing upset.  Neither panicked.  When I saw Porter float away from us in the Delaware, I knew that he was a good swimmer and he would be making for the shore.  And afterwards I could tell that he had added to his own stock of self-confidence -- that he was a little surprised and even impressed at how he had mastered his own fear and panic.  And how he hadn't looked for anyone to rescue him.

My father and sister took the green fiberglass canoe; Porter, Nico and I the battered aluminum one.  The plan was to paddle and float 18 miles down the Delaware River from Buckingham access to Calicoon – or failing that, to quit at Hankins after 12 miles.  It was a gorgeous day and the river was high.  It was the day after the 4^th of July, but the river was running like it was early May.  A bald eagle flew low up along the river as we unloaded the canoes.  It was a misleadingly happy omen for a trip that was going to end in disaster.

The river wends among steep forested ridges.  Cedar waxwings flitted across from both shores.  Kingbirds and cliff swallows swept in after the flies and gnats.  Kingfishers clattered along in the treetops.  A young black bear casually watched us approach before lumbering off into the goldenrod and knotweed.  More eagles cruised above our heads along the river.  Greenly iridescent tree swallows and their gray, clumsy offspring skimmed the rippling river.  A hanging stream poured over the side of a ridge top and cascaded noisily down the gray cliff faces.

We picnicked upon some riverside rocks, and the boys climbed among the roots of pine trees exposed by erosion.

Normally, canoeing the river in July you have to be careful to avoid the rocks, but on this day we struck right for the roughest water because the current would carry us smoothly over rocks to the rapids beyond.  Porter grew more comfortable in the front, paddling and napping.  Nico watched mergansers and eagles and geese with my old Minolta binoculars.

It was the rapids just up from Hankins that did us in, though.  The deeper, right side of the river showed whitewater that was visible from two hundred yards, but we’d begun to take the river lightly.  The three adults didn’t even fasten on their life vests, a stupidity that could have cost a life or two.  The boys and I were a hundred feet behind Dad and Chris.  I watched as they plunged into one of the great pothole rapids and were completely upended, pitching sideways into the foam.  By the time I could see that there were two of them still clinging, sputtering to their capsized craft, Porter was yelling from the bow to stay to the right, and I had to focus on getting ourselves through the crashing water.  They were ahead, riding the rapids as best they could feet first, each with one hand on the canoe and the other still clutching their paddles.  In a long stretch of rapids, we caught up to them and they grabbed the gunwale of our canoe. 

I tried maneuvering us over to the shoreline, but with Chris and the upended canoe on my left side I couldn’t get any purchase with my stroke.  I yelled at them to let go of the green canoe, because I could feel the strength of the pull it exerted on us.  Chris did, but Dad either wouldn’t or couldn’t let it go.  He’d untangled is foot from where it had been trapped under the seat, but he was sinking in his jeans and heavy boots.  Then the swamped canoe was pulled back into the whitewater with Dad along with it.  As his grip broke on our craft our bow ground upon a large rock and our stern was whipped around into the full current.  

Now going swiftly backwards through the rapids I had lost sight of Dad, but saw the green canoe ahead of us.  Gunwales-first, it struck a rock and broke upon it, folding like cardboard with a tearing, crunching creak.  Our own canoe struck as well and was wrenched broadside.  As the canoe tipped I yelled at the boys, “We’re going into the water!”  I was spilled out into the chest deep water expecting the canoe to pivot and take us all with it, but we’d struck dead center and the current pinned it fast – pressing me against it as well.  Nico yelled, “The food bag!” as it was taken away.  Porter clung for a moment, but was swept under the submerged bow.  He bobbed up below in the rapids.   (He told me later, “I felt panic for a second.  But then I thought I’d better not.”) Then Nico was clinging to the uppermost gunwale and looking at me questioningly.  I told him to hang on tight.  Porter had a lifejacket, looked unharmed and could take care of himself.  I could see Dad making his way to shore in the large eddy that formed beyond these last rocks.  Chris had made it to shore upstream.

I told Nico to work his way over to me.  I thought that if I moved the canoe would shift.   He did, but stopped to say his leg was tangled with the stuff still tied in the struts.  And I had time to feel fear for the first time amid the chaos.  I told him to take his time and get untangled and he calmly did.  The canoe buckled, but the keel held creaking against the torrent.  My lifejacket for some reason was still there at hand and I buckled it on.  Dad and Porter both made it to shore.  Porter had even rescued the food bag.  Chris worked her way down to us.  There was only a 15-foot channel between us and the shore, but too much of the current shot through it.  

Despite having lost her shoes, Chris bravely launched across and got to the eddy that the stranded canoes were forming alongside our boulder.  She strapped on the last two flotation devices and Nico worked his way back along to her.  Finally he began to cry.  The two of them let the current take them away, bobbing like corks. (He said later to Chris, “You know I didn’t cry because I was sad.  I was crying from terror.”) 

Another pair of canoeist rode the rapids, choosing the shallower left side, but were swamped as well.  Laughing in relief, the two men swam off after their capsized canoe out in the calmer currents below.

When I moved, I found that I needn’t have worried about the canoe pivoting off the rock.  It was pinned in place by thousands of pounds of force.  I heaved at it as best I could, but failed to budge it.  Kayakers and canoeists from Hankin’s campground had taken notice and come up the shore to help out.  3 men actually launched themselves through the channel to help me shift the craft off the rock.  One was nearly swept away, but I managed to catch his arm and pull him in.  It took the four of us about ten minutes of struggle to get it free. 

We finally walked the canoes down to where the others were waiting.  Nico was shivering. Dad was standing feeling nearly drowned and deathly serious.  Porter was shirtless and hatless and apparently unfazed, though he said he wasn’t going to do any more river canoeing.  The green canoe was torn stem to stern.  The metal canoe was buckled but useable. Both Nico and I laughed to find our hats still on our heads after all that. 

Later, when we’d made our ways back to the cottage, Nico took stock.  “I was the only one who didn’t lose anything.  Porter lost his gloves, Chris lost her shoes, Grandpa lost his glasses, Daddy lost his binoculars.  But I did get one thing,” he added.  “Hypothermia.”  

Good Solstice to Everyone!   

 

* * *

Nico's poem:

* * * * *

flowers, flowers, flowers

pretty flowers

happy flowers

delicate, worldwide infested flowers

living, edible, gloomy flowers

Those are just a few.

comforting flowers

scary flowers

insect eaters, educational, openhearted flowers

lively, yummy, amazing flowers

exotic flowers too!

everyday life flowers

living creatures flowers

And don't forget dangerous flowers.

last of all

Best of all

I like fun flowers!

* * * * * * 

The

Faces 

of 

Nico

When Nico had his long awaited Hayao Miyazaki filmfest-campout-sleepover the other night (I'm under strict gag-order not to blog about it, so don't ask me!) I noticed during the s'mores that the marshmallows were not the enormous blobules that recent evolution had created, but the more petite puffs of days gone by.

Apparently the s'mores had been struck by the ubiquitous grocery shrink-ray.  Commodity prices shot up last year at the same time people began rediscovering frugality, so companies have been disguising inflation by down-sizing portions.

On the one hand, there's something to be said for going back to the days of muffins that you could hold in one hand and marshmallows that fit easily into a human mouth.  I know that when we returned from Ireland in 2004, portion-bloat was one piece of our own reverse culture shock.

On the other hand, companies are shrinking down as sneakily as they can get away with and they certainly deserve a stern and disapproving look.  Here's a nice video from a lady who is not amused.

Three days until summer solstice and we're wearing sweaters and sweatshirts.  Nights in the 40's and cool days has the house temperature slipping toward 60 degrees at night.  The fuel tank's empty and the woodpile's wet, so it's just been easier to leave the down comforters on the beds and keep the sweaters handy.

Monica's getting depressed.

The New York Times had an article that casts doubt upon all the research which supposedly shows moderate drinking to be good for your health.  They finally seem to have noticed the fact that in all the years of breathless reporting on this topic, they've never presented an iota of data to support a causal relationship there.  There a correlation -- it's clear from a hundred studies that moderate drinkers are likely to be healthier than both heavy drinkers and teetotalers -- but not only is there no evidence of cause, there's not much in the way of plausible causal mechanism hypothesized that I've ever heard.

The problem is that the human mind abhors (an unexplained) correlation, and will quickly latch upon whatever plausible causal story presents itself.  Our cognitions lust after causalities and chains of this-then-that's.  (Journalists, of course, professionalize this -- spinning their stories  out of a nest of familiar themes and narratives that arrive to us as 95% soothing confirmation and 5% anxiety-inducing provocation -- but that's a thought for another post.)

When I hear any science report in the news, I'm contrarian enough to immediately run the proffered narrative through a couple of variations.  In this case, could it be that moderate drinking and health both come about from something else?  Of course.  It only takes a moment to imagine various scenarios.  Could it be that the previous reports have had it backwards and good health causes moderate drinking?  Or at least that poor health causes both alcohol abuse and abstinence?  The Times article hints that this might be the case -- that teetotalers may be unhealthy because unhealthy people give up alcohol -- and poor health can also lead to alcohol abuse.

In a great number of science articles and nearly all health articles, a few moments of questioning quickly discredits the original causal claim -- which is usually the main "claim" or message of the article.  What's left in the rubble is evidence for a correlation -- and a best-guess about cause.   Also worth noting is that the choice of explanatory narrative isn't driven by the evidence at hand, but by the writer's and audience's cognitive and cultural needs and desires.  That is, the choice about how to imagine the causality usually has more to do with confirming or less often (as in the case of the original alcohol reports) disconfirming people's pre-existing prejudices.  

But in any case, it's nice to see the Times finally stating the obvious.

Porter the trumpeter with his mates at school.  

Today was "lower school rising", when the kids symbolically cross a bridge from one grade to another.

Nico crossed from second grade to third -- and Porter moved out of the lower school altogether into 6th grade and middle school.

Monica's been the "class coordinator" for the 5th grade and this Wednesday was Beach Day.  She sent her account out to the parents:

"We had a great day at the beach.  We started off with some heavy drizzle but the kids all put on bathing suits and most went running into the water, some voluntarily, others not quite so.  None the less, there was no whining or crying and everyone seemed up for a good time.  A couple here and there would sit apart and discuss life topics.  An interesting segregation of gender took place until a few bold ones broke the barrier.  We were served a hot lunch of hot dogs and burgers (and veggie burgers too) which was welcome in the chill after swimming.  As we ate lunch, the sun struggled to come through and the dampness lessened and temperatures rose.  All were eager to enjoy the ice cream sundae fixings with only a few experiments on new toppings(promptly stopped in order to stop world hunger and waste of course!)  After lunch, gender segregation was no longer an issue and  great games of tag and some sort of capture the flag took place.  Balls, frisbees and a kite where played with. Parents and teachers were well entertained by our attractive lifeguard (We made sure not to distract from his duties of course!) After that, sand in all its glory became the focus.  Interesting digging, burying and building projects started to spring up everywhere with all sorts of collaboration taking place. Dry clothes soon became wet.  Then it was time to go.  I am sure all will sleep well tonight . . . It was a little frightening watching the hints of teenagerness but they are wonderful."