Nora or Devereaux Cannon

... also known as a way to step aside from the particulars of the
Eminem discussion and share a thought that occurred to me while
ya'll were metadiscussing or solipsizing or whatever.

First, there is a big difference between "pop" culture at it's
roughest when it is experienced in the context of a family,
rather than in the context of a mini society defined solely by
age equality. To put the cookies on a low shelf, a kid who has
to "become" Eminem/2 Live Crew/Elvis in order to fit into the
society he spends his waking hours inhabiting is very different
from a kid who can listen, take what he wants and back out when
it isn't what he wants. For a while we had to put kids into day
care - and I had to be much more limiting about choices, simply
because the competition even at young ages to sound and look like
Brittany was more than was healthy for a developing individual -
now I try to know what they are 'into" but it is more so that I
can stay a half a thought ahead of what will come next rather
than trying to "undo" damage.

Second, folks, go outside! We christened the 7 week old Sunday,
involving all the kith and kin coming up to visit and a grand
brunch. The 6 asked me as we were driving to town how big a germ
was. Now she had asked me before and I had promised to look it
up with her, when "Teeny tiny, too small to see" was not a
sufficient answer. Caught with my research down, I suggested she
ask her Papaw, who is a doctor. We got to their hotel room and
away she went asking. His answer was prompt - "about 2 microns
or 1/4th the size of a red blood cell." That of course begged
the question of how big a micron is; he obligingly held out his
arms "about" 39 inches apart and said 1 millionth of this. Now
she has the vocabulary of numbers to know what a million is, but
very few of us can really get our minds around all those zero's.

So after the party, I was pondering this issue and went outside.
Have I mentioned, "Go outside"? We have a property line that is
about 1,000 feet long - wander around where you are, you can find
a good long line like that somewhere. Now I needed to know what
was 1/1000th of a foot - so I calculated it up and put that
number into Google as the only search term - turns out that we
had some sheet copper around that was pretty darn close. So we
took a meter stick and the copper mask (the sheet copper had been
used, LOL) and went out on an adventure - a micron is to this
meter stick as this piece of copper is to that property line.
Kinesthetic Kate has walked the line a couple of times in the
last two days and has tried laying the edge of the mask down into
the dirt to count how many times to make even an inch.

That micron exploration has been broken up mainly by the fact
that we had a fruit salad in a watermelon bowl carved to look
like a baby cradle for the Christening. Far too pretty according
to the kidlets to just compost. So the 2 got his first hammering
project. The woodpile is in the process of being shifted for the
winter's fuel, moving the last year leftovers to the side mainly
to become mulching, but some are still burnable. I found a
couple of pieces that were still solid and that had a good flat
side, then handed him a fist full of finishing nails and a
hammer. With a little help, he got a bunch of the nails into the
wood far enough for our purposes. We cut the watermelon cradle
into chunks (about 4 inches square) and stuck them on the nails
yummy side up, then set the whole she-bang on the deck rail
outside the dining room bay window (that's the window with the
telescopes and binoculars). We had a constant parade of
butterflies and hummers, leading to a constant parade to the
field guides to identify then. By dark, all of the red had been
eaten away and we brought the contraption back in for refilling
this morning with more of the Christening cradle become butterfly
feeder activity... and somewhere along about 2:30 today, that
same lovely 6 asked me if we had any math workbooks laying around
she could play with.