Home schooling

Aaaaaack! It's started! Today was our first day of online school and it was EVEN WORSE than my wildest dreams.

The day began late, because it was a school day. The twins only get up early if it's not a school day. I didn't sleep well and was awake by 5:30, finally got out of bed at 8 am after making sure the iPads were well hidden (I would use them as a bribe -- no iPads until you finish all your classwork). But the twins slept on. At 8:30 I went in to wake them up and they insisted I lay out their clothes. "I don't need to do that," I argued. "You've chosen your own clothes every day for the last two and a half weeks." "But it's a school day!" True, it was a school day. I laid out some clothes. I wonder if I'll still be doing that when they're in high school. Probably.

Kid A demanded scrambled eggs. Kid B refused them and later claimed that he had changed his mind and I just hadn't heard him, so I had to make scrambled eggs twice. We had decided to start school at 9 am, but at 9 am Kid B was just starting to eat his eggs. "It doesn't matter," I said. "Your first class is Check Schoology for daily assignments, make plan. We can start a few minutes late."

So we started a few minutes late. But when we tried to sign on to Schoology (all of us -- them on their Chromebooks, me on my parent account on my laptop), we couldn't get on. We all checked our email and here was one from the BVSD IT department: "Schoology is down." I started laughing.

Schoology, one of BVSD’s main classroom management tools, is currently experiencing a nationwide intermittent issue. The vendor of the product is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it as soon as possible. 

The email recommended that we try refreshing the web page, so we all did that, over and over. Meanwhile, I read some more of my and their email. There was one from Kid B's social studies teacher, saying he was going to hold online classes twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays at 9 am, starting this week. "Ack! Your social studies class is going on right now! You have to sign on immediately!" Signing on involved invoking Zoom, so I had to help, but pretty soon Kid B was on and the formal class was actually just starting then, about 20 minutes late, so we were OK.

"What do I do?" Kid A whined. He and I moved to their bedroom and sat on the loveseat. His first period class (Kid B's too) is Band. The Monday assignment was to sign up for something called SmartMusic. To sign up, Kid A had to provide his email address and then the website would send him a confirmation. But it didn't come. "Wait a minute," I said. "Did you use the right email address?" Of course he hadn't, so we signed up again, but now he needed a new username, since the website insisted there was already an account with that username. Of course there was -- his, with the wrong email address. We made up a new username involving our big white cat.

Kid B's social studies class ended, but for some reason the Zoom call itself didn't, and most of the kids stayed on to talk to each other and introduce their pets. Kid B got into the act and introduced Chester. Finally the Zoom call ended and we got Kid B signed up for SmartMusic (also with a cat-related username).

I was tired already, and it was only second period -- Science! Schoology was behaving better, so we were intermittently able to get on and do assignments. Science was complicated, though, with a video from their teacher to watch, a unit description to review, a website to visit, a YouTube video on the difference between mass and weight to watch, and finally a short quiz to take and submit. We did what we could.

Then it was time for Language Arts (Kid A) and Math (Kid B). I thought this day would never end! Math involved making a little video of yourself saying hi. Kid B took this opportunity to introduce Chester to his math class.

After a break, it was time for P.E. Their assignment was to exercise for at least 20 minutes, so we walked to the park/school, played gaga ball and frisbee, and then walked home. That took us 30 minutes, so we were good there, but after we got home they had two more classes!

When school was over, a little before 2 pm (the scheduled end time), I was a wreck. And, understand, this was the "get acquainted with the new system" day. They didn't really have much in the way of WORK. In subsequent days they'll have to write essays! Take math tests! Do science projects! I really understand why some parents just do their kids' schoolwork for them -- it's so much easier than helping. But I must resist the urge to take over. I must say, "Have you looked at this yet?" "Have you submitted your draft?" "Have you studied for the test?" And they will say, "No. Can I have the iPad?"

Stir crazy

I keep thinking this must be the most luxurious quarantine ever -- a comfortable house, heating and plumbing all working fine, an enormous amount of food, fast internet, phones, lots of books and movies and games, the two cats to play with (and clean up after), the twins to play with (and clean up after), a nice neighborhood to walk in (as long as you don't go near your neighbors), a functioning car to drive to the functioning grocery store (but not too often), nothing I need to be doing and nowhere I need to be going.

So what's the problem? Why am I losing my mind? I'm not that social of a person. I don't think it's that I desperately want to be in a large group or go up to people and hug them.

I think it's the feeling of being stuck in time. The feeling that I can't do anything except wait for it to be over. I mean, there are things I could do. I could work in the garden (on non-snowy days). I could write a novel, or a poem, or my memoirs. I could clean the house from top to bottom (ha ha). I could sew something (the hospitals are saying they don't want hand-sewn masks after all, but I could make a tablecloth or a pillow). I could teach the twins to cook. There are all kinds of things I could be doing, but what I WANT is for time to come unstuck and move forward again.

Actually, time IS moving forward and that's part of the problem. Think of all the high school & college seniors who don't get to go through commencement, or prom (my high school didn't have a prom, but I understand it's important to many people). All the spring festivals and events have been cancelled or postponed. The friggin' Olympics have been postponed by a year. In other words, the year is happening, but we don't get to be part of it. We're just watching it go by.

This past week, the official Spring Break, I tried to get the twins to do things. Each day (Monday through Friday) I announced that we were going to travel somewhere different, and we did so, virtually. Monday we went to two museums online (the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Houston Space Center), Tuesday we used Google Earth to visit beaches around the world, Wednesday we went to Nebraska and learned about sandhill cranes, Thursday we went to San Francisco and learned about cable cars and the Japanese Tea Garden, and Friday we went to Steamboat Springs and Aspen to go skiing. The experience got worse and worse as the week went on, and by Friday I could hardly get them to do anything. Probably the best parts were a Facetime call with Aunt Baba on Thursday and our Corn Crib sundae treat on Wednesday.

We were doing this little exercise partly to have SOMETHING to do other than play video games all day long every day, and partly to have something to enter into a spreadsheet Rocket Boy created to force the twins to do something other than play video games all day long every day. He wants them to be interested in other things besides video games, and I do too, I do too, but I don't have a lot of hope. He still has hope, but his hope requires ME to do things, like force the twins to look at websites and then write down what they learned from them.

It was just not fun.

I'm expecting that things will be different (perhaps worse) starting Monday, because that's when the twins go "back to school," all online of course. Oh, the horror, the horror. I printed out their schedules -- this one is for Monday, when they "attend" all their classes. The other days are "block days," with periods 1, 3, 5, and 7 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and periods 2, 4, and 6 on Wednesdays and Fridays (for 60 minutes each, rather than 30). You know what this is going to mean, right? At least at first? It means I'm going to have to sit with them from 9 am to 2 pm, "encouraging" them to read their daily assignments and then complete them, "encouraging" them not to scream at each other, "encouraging" them not to play video games during Language Arts.

Rocket Boy was saying the other day that it was too bad I didn't apply for a Census job a few months ago, because then I'd have something to do now. "I have something to do," I told him, wondering how husbands can be so clueless. "I have to make the twins go to virtual school! Do you think they'd actually do that if I weren't here???"

I am hoping that they will get used to the routine and I won't have to be so intimately involved the whole time. But I suspect that I will have to be very intimately involved the entire time. My children are not like me -- or their father. Both of us were "that kid," the one who did extra work, the one who couldn't wait for homework to be assigned. I was always reading, and I did math problems for fun. Rocket Boy did science experiments and almost blew (this) house up. Even if there had been TikTok back then, I don't think I would have been on it all the time. But I don't know. It's really hard to compare then with now.

The brightest spot in our quarantined days is our daily, socially-distanced walks to the park/school, the playground of which is now wreathed in caution tape. But they haven't cordoned off the gaga ball pit, nor the basketball hoops, so we always have plenty to do. We found a frisbee on the school grounds one day and brought it home with us because it was such an excellent frisbee that we didn't want to risk losing it. So every day (if the weather's good, unlike yesterday) we walk to the school/park and play frisbee, basketball, and/or gaga ball, usually all three. For the latter two games we use a white soccer ball that just always seems to be somewhere on the grounds. I know it could have germs, but I think most people just kick it around (unlike us). One of these days it will be gone, but so far we've always been able to find it. A small pleasure in these very strange days.

Reading Post: Clotel; or, the President's Daughter

I'm saturated with news about the coronavirus -- sometimes there's something new and interesting, like the bit about how losing one's sense of smell/taste is a strong clue that one has it -- but mostly it's just more deaths, more people infected in more areas, more idiotic remarks from the Prez, more congressional fighting. And I feel depressed and want to help, but I believe the most important thing I can do is stay home. Mostly I just want to sleep. If I sleep during the day, though, I might not sleep at night, and sleeping at night is essential, so I try to stay awake until bedtime.

Reading is a good way to pass the time, when I'm not cooking, cleaning, or trying to get the twins to stop fighting/do something other than play video games. Thus, this post, on the fourth book I've read for the Classics Challenge. This one fits in category #7, "Classic with a Person's Name in the Title." The book is Clotel; or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown, published in 1853.

I had requested this book from the CU library and it was "in transit," according to the library website, when Boulder shut its libraries on March 14th. So I thought I wouldn't be able to make any more progress on the classics challenge unless I read my chosen books out of order, which I don't want to do. But then I made a trip to our local used bookstore, the Bookworm (closed as of today) and in their African-American Studies section I found a copy of Clotel, along with a few other books on my list. I'm still interested in seeing CU's copy, in case it includes some interesting commentary, but I think I've read enough to be able to post a review.

So, Clotel. I'm glad I read it, because of its importance as the first novel by an African-American. But the book is terrible! It's similar to Uncle Tom's Cabin in that it was intended to further abolitionist aims, but it's so much worse. There's no coherent narrative; it's a pastiche of stories that Brown borrowed from various sources, just barely tied together by the story of Clotel, who is supposedly Thomas Jefferson's daughter, and her sister Althesa, who along with their mother Currer are sold into slavery, initiating the story's action. Currer is supposed to be a stand-in for Sally Hemings, though Sally Hemings and her four children by Jefferson were never sold -- two children were freed in Jefferson's will and two children were "allowed to leave" a few years before Jefferson died, as was Sally, after Jefferson died. The children were 7/8 white (Sally was 3/4 white), so some just "passed" into white society and were lost to history.

The characterization in Clotel is weirdly perfunctory. Instead of wringing every last emotion out of his characters' miseries, as Harriet Beecher Stowe does in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Brown often just sticks in a brief mention of a major plot point and then moves on.

The death of Currer, from yellow fever, was a great trial to Mrs. Carlton; for she had not only become much attached to her, but had heard with painful interest the story of her wrongs, and would, in all probability, have restored her to her daughter in New Orleans.

Oh, well, so much for Currer (this is the only mention of her death). Mrs. Carlton, usually referred to as Georgiana, a very positive white character who is 19 when we first meet her and much later is described as "only a little more than eighteen years of age," is suddenly found to be dying from consumption and is gone in a jiffy. Thus she would probably not have been able to restore Currer to her daughter in New Orleans, had Currer lived, but never mind, I'm quibbling.

Althesa is disposed of just as quickly, not even mentioned by name. After a long paragraph describing the scourge of yellow fever in 1831, we get this:

Henry Morton and wife were among the thirteen thousand swept away by the raging disorder that year.

Bye, Althesa. The story moves immediately to the sad fates of Henry and Althesa's daughters.

In the chapter before this one, some characters "in a stage-coach" discuss their choices for President in the 1840 election. According to the notes and the introduction, Brown often appropriated a famous story about slavery and inserted his characters into it, whether it was a good fit or not, and he also seems not to have bothered about chronological coherence.

I could go on complaining about the book, but it's not worth it. William Wells Brown wrote this when he was living in England as an escaped slave (he eventually managed to buy his freedom). He probably wrote it quickly and under difficult circumstances. During his lifetime he also wrote several other books, in a variety of genres. I might try reading his Three Years in Europe, which sounds more interesting. It seems a shame that he is known mainly for Clotel, but life is funny that way.

What a difference...

What a difference a week makes. Or a day, even. Today is Saturday, March 21st, the twins have been out of school for just over a week, Colorado has shut down lots of stuff though we don't have to shelter-in-place (I'm sure that's coming), and last night I cancelled Rocket Boy's reservation to fly here today for Spring Break. He's 65 years old with an underlying health condition. I want him here but I also want him to stay safe, and airports don't seem like very safe places right now. The safest thing seems to be to keep him in St. Louis. He's working from home, interacting with almost no one, and St. Louis has just issued a "stay at home" order, effective Monday. And I'm so sad.

Things have been happening so quickly it's hard for me to remember what happened when, but I don't suppose that matters. We're all undergoing the same things, the social distancing, the school and office closings, the lack of toilet paper in the stores (see photo), though some places are ahead of others. It's weird to have the entire world dealing with this all at once. I've been following the news from California closely, because my family is there, and sometimes I get mixed up about their rules and ours. Our governor, Jared Polis, is being very cautious, so whatever California or New York decrees, we get soon after. Colorado has 363 known cases of the virus right now but only 4 deaths (California has 1200 known cases and 24 deaths; New York has over 10,000 cases and 45 deaths), but of course we all know the numbers are completely different from the official total.

The twins and I are doing OK, helped along by endless hours of computer time. I've all but given up regulating it. This past week I decided that they couldn't get on their iPads/laptops until 10 or 10:30 each day, but this morning they got on at 8 and I remembered it was Saturday, when the rules are usually more lax. As I type this, it's now about 3 pm, so they've been on for about 7 hours so far and probably will stay on until I physically pull them off. And then they'll have a fight about something. We were doing better for a while, going for a walk to the park and their old elementary school every day and playing on the equipment and in the gaga ball pit (see photo at top) and in the creek. That was fun -- many of our neighbors were also out walking around, or riding bikes.

But then on Thursday it snowed all day long, 8.4 inches of heavy, wet snow, and Friday (yesterday) it was 23 degrees all day and cloudy, and the wet snow congealed into ice and no one wanted to set foot outside (I did go out to get the paper, and to put the trash and compost out and then pull the carts back up to the house). A neighbor cleared our walks with his snowblower. Today it's starting to melt, but there's still a lot of white stuff out there and it's so icy. So nobody wants to do anything or go anywhere, and thus we sit in front of our screens, wasting all the time in the world. What are you doing, oh world out there?

So now we have Spring Break -- and I keep thinking how weird it is for this to be the first day of Spring Break and none of us care at all. Dad's not here, we have nothing planned, we have nowhere to go, we haven't done anything school-related for the past week, so what's so special about it? I need to think of some activities for Monday through Friday, a theme for each day perhaps? Something to learn about? We have newly installed fiber internet -- enabling us to all be online at the same time, on all sorts of devices, and for some reason also improving our over-the-air TV reception. So maybe we'll do a virtual tour of a museum or one of the other things that are being recommended by everyone.

On March 30th the kids were expecting to go back to school, but instead we'll be starting online school, which I am not looking forward to at all. They're expected to do school stuff for four hours a day. The principal sent out a bunch of sample schedules, depending on when you want to start in the morning. We get up fairly early, so I think we'll follow the 9 to 2 schedule (which includes two 30-minute breaks). I'm hoping it won't actually take four hours to accomplish the tasks for the day, but knowing my kids, it'll very possibly take longer, and I will lose my mind.

I've already lost my job. I was doing a little work for my niece and her husband, who run an eBay business, but they had to lay me off earlier this week so that they could continue to employ someone who doesn't have a husband with a good government job. I was enjoying the work, but I'm happy to give it up to keep someone else going. We are so lucky that Rocket Boy has his job. I think about that all the time.

That's about all I have to say today. I have, I think, 13 books in my current to-read pile -- some of them very long -- and really, that should be enough. BUT WHAT IF THIS LASTS FOR MONTHS?!?! What will I read then? I desperately want to drive off to our local used bookstore (I spent $40 there earlier in the week), but I think they may already be closed for the day (they have special coronavirus hours) and anyway, 13 books should be plenty for now. I just hope the used bookstore is still there when the virus scare is over.

Birthdays and viruses

This was supposed to be a post about the twins' birthday, but instead I'm afraid it will be hijacked by COVID-19, which is messing up everything.

The twins' 12th birthday was last Monday, and I always like to celebrate on the actual day (years of having to celebrate my July 5th birthday on the 4th are the influence here). When the twins were little, I learned that it was important to have two birthday cakes -- they shouldn't have to share everything. But although I've always tried to do that, the boys thwart me. Both last year and this year Kid A insisted that he didn't want a cake, so I just made one for Kid B (which Kid A then also ate). You just have to figure that whatever you're told is the right thing to do, won't be.

While Kid B was trying to decide what kind of cake to have, I got down some cookbooks to get ideas. "Oh, look, there's a cat cake," I stupidly said. That's how I ended up having to make a cat cake. It wasn't actually very hard (I used a mix), except for frosting the ears and the tail, which didn't want to be frosted -- I probably should have put them in the freezer first or something. Our white cat Chester was of course the model for the cake -- note the chocolate tail and I think you can see a bit of the chocolate ears.

It's really hard to know what to get the kids for their birthdays and Christmas anymore, because all they really want to do is play video games and see their friends. But they still like having stuff to open. So I got them each a book (the new Hilo for Kid B, the new Dog Man for Kid A), a game (Cahoots for Kid A and Go Nuts for Donuts for Kid B), and some candy and gum in a gift bag. Kid A also got a baseball cap and a scorpion Hexbug, and Kid B also got a tattoo and face painting kit. Their aunts sent cards and money, I gave them $12 each, and Rocket Boy said he would bring more gifts when he comes to visit (IF he comes to visit).

It was a subdued birthday -- they had to go to school first, for one thing -- and we missed Dad a lot during the presents and cake. But I guess we're getting used to missing him, so we survived.

Next we had to figure out what to do about parties. Because while they don't care about having two birthday cakes, they definitely want two parties. Kid A decided he wanted to invite a friend he hadn't seen since last summer to go to the trampoline place in Longmont, Get Air. Kid B thought he might like to take some friends to a movie, or maybe to play mini golf. I set up the Get Air outing for Sunday morning and then was going to tell Kid B to talk to his friends about doing something either Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

But then the coronavirus hit.

Or more accurately, the various powers that be decided it was time to do something to keep the coronavirus from hitting so hard. Thursday evening we got a robo-call from the school saying that classes were cancelled until at least March 30th. We have one more week until Spring Break, so it's like getting a two-week plus one day Spring Break. I was sorry they couldn't have gone to school one more day, because on Friday there was going to be a Pi Contest, and Kid B had been memorizing digits of pi in order to compete. But of course many other school things were cancelled as well, most notably for us the boys' band concert next Tuesday.

They kept the school buildings open on Friday so that people could come pick up any stuff they needed. We got the boys' stinky gym suits and Kid A's trombone (which he normally leaves at school -- we have a borrowed trombone for him to practice on at home, but he prefers his regular one, so I figured we should bring it home). We also took the time to clean out their lockers and visit their beloved snack machine (it only has "healthy" snacks but apparently earns a great deal of money for the school). It was weird being in the normally jam-packed halls with only a few other people there. The principal was manning the front desk, buzzing people in and all that.

After we got home, Kid A went off to the library to play video games in the Teen Lounge, and Kid B and I went to Costco. The day before I'd had a moment of clarity regarding this whole food stockpiling thing. I don't believe right now that our food sources are going to dry up. I think they're going to keep the grocery stores open for a long time to come. But one scenario that I should be preparing for is the case where I get sick (but am not hospitalized). What would the twins do then? They know how to make ramen and frozen dinners, but not much else. And these boys eat all day long. I thought maybe I should have some more snack food available. Ergo, Costco, which was crowded and weird, but still had food. We went up and down the aisles, trying to decide what to buy. Kid B wanted teriyaki shrimp, but the box wouldn't have fit in our freezer. We finally ended up with this collection, some of which I had considered buying a few weeks ago when I went to get Pie Bear's insulin, but didn't. Of course, as soon as we got home, Kid B ate three of the Nutella packs. The stuff they like isn't going to last long, but maybe if they're really hungry they'll get into the cereal bars, or even the oatmeal.

After we got back from that trip, I was checking my email when I saw a message from the public library. I had been talking to my sisters and niece online about how awful it would be if the libraries closed, but hopefully they wouldn't... and here was the library closing -- in about 15 minutes! Ack! I raced back to the car, drove as fast as I could to the library, and then was stumped. I stared at the movies, trying to think of something the kids and I could watch together. The titles blurred together and I couldn't pick anything out. All around me people were grabbing books and movies. Finally I just left, maybe two minutes before the library officially closed. Kid A wasn't there -- he had been riding his bike home while I drove there. So now his favorite place to be (the Teen Lounge) is off-limits for the duration.

I tried to stop at the grocery store on my way home (it's right across the street from the library), but there weren't any parking places. At 3 pm on a Friday the place was a total zoo. I saw desperation in some people's eyes and decided I didn't need to be there then.

Later, back home once more, it started to snow. Big wet flakes coming down very fast, very pretty. We weren't supposed to get any accumulation, but we ended up with an inch or two. I lay in bed and read some more of this month's book group book, Rough Beauty by Karen Auvinen, but it wasn't very cheering. (The fact that my book group probably isn't going to meet until this is over may have contributed to my mood.) The bottom line here is that I am TERRIBLE in any kind of crisis. This actually reminds me of when we were flooded, back in 2013. In a disaster I get very depressed and am of no help to anyone. That's what I should be preparing for -- for me to get majorly depressed and be unable to function. I guess that's the same as me being sick but not hospitalized.

Well, here we are. School is closed, libraries are closed, rec centers are closed, museums are closed, there are no sporting events. We're supposed to stay at least six feet away from other people. But we have light and heat and water and internet. We have Rocket Boy's good salary. I have enough unread books to last me a few weeks, and the bookstores are still open, for now. We have food, and the grocery stores are still open. I can't take the kids swimming, but we could go to a park or on a hike (maybe if it warms up a little -- today has been seriously gloomy). You can still go to the Zoo and the Botanic Gardens, with some restrictions (the Botanic Gardens' cafe is closed, so the twins probably won't want to go!). I'm still planning to take Kid A and his friend to the trampoline place -- it's still open for now, but they've reduced the number of people they'll let in at one time. Not sure what I'm going to do about a "party" for Kid B.

And then there's Rocket Boy's visit! He's supposed to fly in on March 21st! Should he or shouldn't he? The coronavirus is busily spreading in both St. Louis and Denver. Fortunately Southwest has a liberal flight-change policy, so we don't have to make up our minds until Saturday. I want him to come, but I don't want him to get sick. I guess we'll wait and see.

So our basic goal for the week (and beyond) is to sit tight and try not to freak out. Probably always a good plan. I'll try, but I'm not promising anything.

Reading Post: Uncle Tom's Cabin and Betsy & Tacy Go Downtown

I've finished my third book for the Classics Challenge and this was my favorite so far -- Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in book form in 1852, which I chose as my "19th Century Classic." The book starts out hard, with a lot of awful things happening -- slaves being sold to cruel masters, families broken apart -- and I wanted to put the book down and choose something else to read. But it got easier. Some good things happened along with the awful things, and the characters became interesting enough that I wanted to know what would happen to them. I ended up reading the 442 pages in about a week, enjoying it thoroughly until the last rather dull chapter, where the author argues openly against slavery. Of course, the entire book is propaganda against slavery, but it's such entertaining propaganda. In the introduction to the edition I read, Amanda Claybaugh talks about the book's immense popularity (in the north), citing "Richard Henry Dana, Jr., noting that four men were reading Uncle Tom in a single railway car," among others. Wikipedia notes that it was the second best-selling book of the 19th century (behind only the Bible). It was the first best-seller in American history.

So why haven't I read this before? Why hasn't anyone I know ever read it? It really is worth reading. Anyone who reads Gone with the Wind (do young girls still read that?) should also read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Well, at last I have.

I read that contemporary readers wept at the death of various characters, but I didn't. The deaths seemed less awful than the scenes where children were torn from their mothers to be sold, that kind of thing. One scene that did bring me to tears, however, was near the end, when George Selby, son of the man who kicks off all the trouble at the start of the book, finally frees his family's enslaved people.

     About a month after this, one morning, all the servants of the Shelby estate were convened together in the great hall that ran through the house, to hear a few words from their young master.
     To the surprise of all, he appeared among them with a bundle of papers in his hand, containing a certificate of freedom to every one on the place, which he read successively, and presented, amid the sobs and tears and shouts of all present.
     Many, however, pressed around him, earnestly begging him not to send them away; and, with anxious faces, tendering back their free papers.
     "We don't want to be no freer than we are. We's allers had all we wanted. We don't want to leave de old place, and Mas'r and Missis, and de rest!"
     "My good friends," said George, as soon as he could get a silence, "there'll be no need for you to leave me. The place wants as many hands to work it as it did before. We need the same about the house that we did before. But, you are now free men and free women. I shall pay you wages for your work, such as we shall agree on. The advantage is, that in case of my getting in debt, or dying,--things that might happen,--you cannot now be taken up and sold..."

It's pure fantasy, I know. Did any slave owner ever actually do this? Did any slaves ever say no to being freed? But it comes at the end of a book in which a lot of terrible things happen, and the scenario of a "good" slave owner who dies, throwing his enslaved people into dire situations, is repeated throughout that book. The idea of George Shelby freeing his slaves and then hiring them back as workers for pay just erases a lot of the anxiety raised in the book, and that's probably what caused my tears.

Some of the ideas in the book would not be acceptable now. For example, Stowe's "solution" to the problem of slavery seems to be to free all slaves -- and then send them to Liberia. The Liberian experiment was drawing to a close by then, but her characters still seem to think it's the best choice for them.

Another thing I noticed was that, as in Dumas's Georges, in the world of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the slaves who are part white are presented as more intelligent and worthy than those who are not. Over and over, major characters are described as being able to "pass" as white, and it is primarily those characters who succeed -- not just because it's easier for them to escape, but because they are somehow "better" than darker, more fully African characters. Eliza is a "quadroon" (one-fourth Black), her husband George Harris is a "mulatto," Emmeline is another "quadroon," as is Cassy. Only Tom is described as being

a large, broad-chested, powerfully-made man, of a fully glossy black, and a face whose truly African features were characterized by an expression of grave and steady good sense, united with much kindliness and benevolence.

The character of Uncle Tom is interesting to me, because I was aware of the term "Uncle Tom" being used as a pejorative, describing African-Americans who debase themselves before whites. But Tom in the novel isn't like that. He is the hero of the tale, a Christ-like figure. He has almost the worst set of experiences of any character, and the experiences get worse as the book progresses, but he stays strong. The root of his strength is his Christian faith -- trying to do what Jesus would have done helps him to be the good person he is. He is polite and helpful to white people, but he is especially kind to Black people who are suffering at the hands of white people. He won't steal from any of his "Mas'rs" and neither will he kill them when given the opportunity. But he will lie to/withhold evidence from a "Mas'r" to save other Black people, even if it means his own death. If there were ever a fictional character in need of rehabilitation among the general public, it is Tom.

So where did the servile version of Uncle Tom come from? According to my book and to Wikipedia, it came from "Tom shows," various plays based (roughly) on the novel, that began almost immediately and "that would remain popular for more than seventy-five years." In other words, until at least 1927? And it's estimated that more than three million people saw a Tom show. The Tom shows, though related to the book, were very different from it -- often very racist, with white actors in blackface playing the white characters, and much of Stowe's message diluted or removed altogether. This is where the negative "Uncle Tom" stereotype came from -- the Uncle Tom of the Tom shows.

Wait a minute, I thought. I know about Tom shows. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib went to one, when Winona got comps from her father, the editor of the Deep Valley Sun. I picked up my old copy of Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace and refreshed my memory. The book is set in 1904 when Betsy and her friends were 12 years old.

...Betsy's gaze wandered to the billboard and clung there fascinated.
     "I've read the book," said Betsy slowly.
     " 'Foremost American drama and the nation's pride,' " Winona read aloud. "Dear to Americans as the Declaration of Independence. Struck the death knell of slavery.' "

After much ado, Winona takes the other three girls to the play. It is the first time they have been in the Deep Valley Opera House and the first time they have seen a play other than the ones they put on themselves for their parents.

     The orchestra started to play. It played sad tunes. Old Kentucky Home. Swanee River, Massa's in de Cold Cold Ground. All over the house the lights went low.

Reading the description of the play, I remembered that I never really understood what the book was talking about. Who was Eliza? Who were St. Clare and Marie and Little Eva? I didn't know that Eliza belonged to Tom's original master and that both Eliza's son and Tom are sold off by that master, but Eliza runs away with her son and escapes to Canada. St. Clare is Tom's second master.

     Presently they were in the elegant St. Clare parlor. The languid Marie lay on the couch. Little Eva ran in, her yellow curls flowing about her.
     "Mamma!" she cried in a sweet piping voice.
     "Take care! Don't make my head ache."
     St. Clare came in, and good old Uncle Tom, and funny Aunt Ophelia with her corkscrew curls, and the comical Topsy.
     The audience laughed uproariously at Topsy.

Good old Uncle Tom -- that gives you a sense of how he must have been portrayed in the Tom show. And in the play, Ophelia is apparently a comic character, as is Topsy. In the book, Miss Ophelia is quite serious, and Topsy is essentially tragic, though she ends well.

I don't think of Maud Hart Lovelace's books as racist. Two of the Betsy-Tacy series deal with local prejudice against immigrants from Lebanon. But Downtown was published in 1943, long before the Civil Rights era. And I realized, after reading about Tom shows and then rereading Downtown, that the actors in the play that Betsy saw were white people in blackface. For whatever reason, Lovelace doesn't make this fully explicit in the book except in her description of the intermission act:

The waits between the acts of the play did not break the spell. A black-faced quartette sang plantation melodies, told jokes, and cakewalked. The girls did not talk very much. They waited for that moment of unfailing rapture when the curtain would go up.

But after the play, they wait outside the stage door to see the actress who plays Little Eva, and they see her leave with a woman "who looked ever so faintly like Eliza" -- presumably hard to recognize because she no longer has dark makeup on her face?

One of the most amazing things about reading out of your comfort zone is the connections you start to find. Books aren't written in a vacuum. Writers read other writers, and "talk" to them by writing their own books on similar subjects and themes. And of course writers write about what's going on at the time they are living. Maud Hart Lovelace was writing historical fiction about her own childhood. It didn't occur to me that anything she wrote would be relevant to what I'm reading this year, but it turns out that it is, because the Tom shows went on for more than 75 years after Uncle Tom's Cabin was written. I don't see Downtown listed as a reference in the Wikipedia article on Tom shows, but the three songs Lovelace mentions the orchestra playing are the three songs Wikipedia lists as examples of songs often played in Tom shows. The reference for this claim is a PBS show on Stephen Foster. Maybe the creators of that show used Downtown as a reference? The links, the connections are never-ending.

Almost birthday

The twins' birthday is tomorrow, and I have been just a barrel of nerves about it, as I always am, every year. Last year I threw out my back the day before their birthday, while trying to put my pants on standing up (i.e., the way everyone puts on their pants). Ever since that day, I have put on my pants while sitting on the bed -- I am so afraid of throwing my back out when there is no Rocket Boy around to take over. I am pretty sure my back wanted to go out again this year, but because I am THWARTING it by putting on my pants sitting down, I instead developed an awful pain in my lower left abdomen. It started last Wednesday, and Thursday I was really in a lot of pain, but by Friday it seemed to be subsiding. Yesterday and today, though, it's back again -- not terrible anymore, but a dull ache, sometimes worse than that. The lower left abdomen is a likely site for diverticulitis, but I have never had that. I do have irritable bowel syndrome, though, and this is probably just IBS flaring.

Anyway, other than my body playing not-fun games with me, it's been a relatively decent week. We got about four inches of snow last Monday, on top of all the snow that was already all over everything, but then it warmed up and melted. We also had some very high winds (excellent for removing snow and ice), on I think Tuesday and Thursday, which blew the tarp on our porch roof out from under the bricks holding it down (fortunately the bricks themselves didn't blow off). For a couple of days the tarp made a very loud obnoxious sound while trying to get out from under its bricks. Then on Thursday morning I was creeped out to get up and see through the kitchen window the tarp hanging down, sort of like a tall blue ghost. We couldn't fix it right away because it was still a little too windy to climb a ladder, so it just hung there, bothering me.

Today, finally, the twins climbed on the roof and put the tarp back up and fixed the bricks to try to keep it in place. Kid A also asked me to give him a broom, and he swept a lot of branches and leaves and dirt off the roof -- onto the patio and the bushes near the patio and the cellar door, but oh well, it'll all blow away soon anyway. Kid B didn't particularly want to go up and help, but I don't want the roof to be only Kid A's territory. I want them both to know how to do the work. So Kid B reluctantly put on his flip flops and went up the ladder, and then had a good time walking to the front of the roof and waving at people out walking their dogs down our street. That used to worry me, when they were small -- I was afraid people would call Social Services and report small children on a roof. But now that they're almost 12, I figure I won't get in trouble. I paid Kid A $2 and Kid B $1 for their efforts.

You can tell by Kid B's lack of outerwear that it was a warm day today -- in the 60s, lovely. Pie Bear went out and ate some grass, then came back in and vomited it onto two different rugs, so that was special. Chester went out just briefly, only onto the patio, and I took the opportunity to brush him, since he's so dreadfully hairy and his hair gets on everything. I got a lot off his butt -- maybe he can't reach back there very well, I don't know. Now it is all over a juniper bush, looking a bit like patches of snow.

Well, I think I'll stop here -- obviously there's much more to write about the birthday, but since it hasn't happened yet, I don't have photos. I've bought some presents, which have yet to be wrapped, but I don't have a cake yet or anything else. By tomorrow night everything (except the parties, sigh) should have happened, and I can report on it all next week, or during the week if I get inspired. Oh, one thing we did do yesterday was go to LaMar's in Louisville to get a dozen doughnuts, their favorite thing to have for a birthday breakfast. Of course, they ate 8 of them yesterday, so there were barely enough for breakfast today, and there will be none for tomorrow. But they were glorious while they lasted.

Made it to March

March is not my favorite month and I know I've written that before. Probably have used this post title before, too. It's a long month, containing first the painful switch to Daylight Saving Time, then the twins' birthday (for which I am entirely unprepared), and then St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring, and Spring Break. By the end of the month, sometimes, it even looks a little like spring in Colorado -- but it often is very snowy around that time, so no guarantees there. I've thought for a while now that, with climate change, February tends to behave more like March used to (very snowy), and March more like April (still snowy, but less so, and the snow is wet).

So, whether March behaves like itself this year, or like April used to, we'll get more snow. In fact, we're due for some tonight, maybe 1-3 inches, but preceded by rain. (The photo shows the storm moving in yesterday.) I need to remember to put the cover on my windshield. Oh, whoops, just went outside to look at something and it's already snowing lightly. It's 33° on our front porch, not really a rain-friendly temperature.

This has been a so-so week, not fabulous but not terrible either. The cats behaved themselves, no major illnesses, etc. The metronidazole formulated with chicken that the vet had prescribed to treat Chester's diarrhea finally arrived and I gave him his first chewy yesterday. He bit off a piece of it, chewed, and then spit it out -- metronidazole has a bitter taste, even mixed with chicken. I encouraged him to try again, but soon realized it was hopeless. He gave me such an unhappy look. So I packed up the container with the 29 additional chewies (cost: $45) and donated it to the Humane Society. The receptionist told me they could probably use it for a small dog, since it's based on weight (Chester weighs 15.5 lbs, the size of many small dogs).

When we were at the vet on Feb. 21st, I was pleased to learn that Chester weighed 15.5 lbs, because that means he's down a full pound since last May. The vet was less impressed. I asked how much he should weigh, and she said about 10 lbs. Ten pounds! I laughed at the thought of trying to get Chester to lose another 5.5 lbs. The vet unbent and laughed too. She said she had two kitties at home who weigh about 7 lbs each, but would really like to weigh 15.5 lbs. Mr. Fluffy would probably like to weigh 30 lbs.

We had more parent-teacher conferences this past week, on Tuesday, and I took Kid B this time. I contributed a gigantic fruit salad to the dinner for the teachers, and we've been dealing with the leftovers ever since. It was a good salad, made with cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, oranges, and bananas. But February (now March) is not really fruit salad time. I would like to eat a cooked vegetable salad, a squash salad perhaps, but not a heaping bowl of cold fruit. I haven't looked at the salad in a few days, but I suspect it isn't very attractive anymore. One website suggested putting old fruit salad into a smoothie, and I think that's a good idea, but who wants a smoothie on March 1st? It's 33 degrees, for heaven's sake. So, I don't know, the salad is probably headed for the compost bin pretty soon. Maybe I'll give it to the squirrels -- they wouldn't be so fussy.

I read an amusing little book this weekend, one for which I was not at all the intended audience (I needed a break from serious stuff). It was called Average is the New Awesome: A Manifesto for the Rest of Us. The book is about 200 pages and could easily be 100 pages -- there's a lot of filler. But I thought the author had some cute ideas. The book is aimed at Millennials struggling with not being able to get good jobs or pay for anything (houses, babies, etc.), after their parents worked so hard to convince them that they were "special." She sings the praises of being ordinary -- for example, you can go to Target and wander around the home decor department (for me, it would be the Barbie department) without anybody noticing you or caring, instead of getting up at 4 am to prepare for a day of being way too exceptional to set foot in Target.

She also works hard to convince her readers not to worry about the portrayal of other people on social media, that absolutely no one is as happy/successful/perfect as they look in their carefully curated online lives. This gave me pause. I try hard to be honest in this blog, while at the same time not being too depressing. But is it possible that I occasionally make other people feel inadequate? For example, if I post a photo of my kids doing cute things, does that make anyone feel like their kids don't measure up?

And what about all the reading I do -- does it make people feel as though they ought to read more? I suspect that it does, because whenever I bring up my reading habits in an actual conversation, the other people in the room say things like "Oh, I should read more," or "I wish I read more, but I just can't find the time," and other apologetic comments, as if I were judging them for not reading. And maybe I am, to my shame. I'm fairly psyched about how much I've been reading. I set myself challenges, and then I'm tickled when (if) I achieve them. Does it make other people feel bad if I write about something I accomplish? Readers, please don't ever feel bad. You have your own interests and hobbies, which may or may not include reading. Reading a lot is a big deal when you're 8, but when you're nearly 60, it's just fun -- if indeed it is fun, and if it isn't, don't do it.

The thought that I could make anyone feel bad by what I post is mind-blowing to me. I hope it isn't true.

The other big thing this week is the coronavirus, about which I still don't know how to feel. There aren't any cases in Colorado yet. Only one person in the US has died so far, compared to 16,000 who have died from the flu (most years it's more). And yet, my kids' school district sent out an email on Friday encouraging people to stockpile food.

Slowly start to stock up on enough non-perishable food to last your household through two weeks of staying at home if there is a wave of transmission in the community.

Yes, it really said that.

There were other, less weird, recommendations in the email, like figure out how you're going to work if your kids have to stay home from school for weeks because their school is closed, and plan how you're going to handle daily life if your kids get sick or you get sick. Also,

Start practicing not touching your face now. This can greatly reduce the frequency of potential spread. (You can even try a buddy system, where you and a friend remind each other when someone scratches their eyelid or rubs their nose.)

I did practice this yesterday, at the pet store, where I had gone to stockpile cat food (the cats eat prescription food twice a day and pet store/grocery store food once a day, so this is about two weeks worth of food). An older man returned his cart to the store and I grabbed it. Then I thought -- what if he's sick? I put my cloth shopping bag on the handle of the cart where his hands had been, which was pointless because it just transferred any viruses to the bag, and then I attempted not to touch my face the whole time I was in the store. It was extremely difficult.

Later, I heard on NPR that most face masks don't filter out viruses, so don't bother with them, and don't stockpile the ones that do, because health providers need them. As I had just remembered that my sister Nancy, who is a nurse, fits into the category of "healthcare provider," I thought, "Oh! Must save face masks for Nu! No stockpiling face masks!"

I honestly don't have the faintest idea what I should buy or do. I looked at a list of what type of food you should buy for your stockpile. The first item was peanut butter. My kids hate peanut butter. Another suggestion was granola bars. I bought a package of eight Nutri Grain cereal bars on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning there was one left in the box (note: I did not eat any of them). That's what will happen if I buy large quantities of anything the kids like: they will eat them until they make themselves sick, and then after that they won't touch them.

I'm thinking I might start with a couple gallons of water. And then we'll see.