Guest Post: Soul Singularity

Today I welcome to the blog Youngest Daughter.  The opportunity to post here is one of two rewards she earned today by writing a page of math work neatly and correctly.  The other reward involved chocolate.

¡Hola! Mi con mucho gracias! I don’t know what I just said, but I would like to let you know that the name that I will be using from now on, Ailsa Roovene, is not a real name, but a pseudonym for another identity. Anyways, I have come onto this blog today to speak of an important topic: The Singularity of the Soul. The singularity of the soul is a very interesting thing to speak of, and also can be very confusing to write about. So, please, bear with me as I tell you all about it.

The singularity of the soul is a person’s self-awareness, and the non-anyone-else-awareness. This may not be common among you grown-ups, but it is certainly common among my fellow children. We of this age do not understand the problems of the outside world, (at least, most of us don’t) and don’t recognize others’ positions until they are described to us. And even then, we may not be entirely clear on the topic. For instance, I, until a moment ago, didn’t understand the difficulty of the teacher when grading 300 test papers. And even now, I still don’t fully grasp the enormity of the task set to those poor teachers. This generation doesn’t think of life beyond their scope of experience, and doesn’t grasp the difficulty of those in other positions that we have not experienced ourselves.

In my opinion, this is because of the protected lifestyles that most American children now lead. We don’t understand the situation of starvation, because we have no idea how that could be in the perfect world that we know. (Of course, some children actually do understand the difficulty of these people, and the problems of the world. These children are called “those who have the ability to step in to others’ shoes”.) Ahem. Anyways. We don’t understand how the world could have evil in it that isn’t pure evil, or good that isn’t pure good. Our life is centered around ourselves and our friends, not caring for those, say, in Africa or India. Even if we are told, we don’t care, since it isn’t important to the lives that we lead currently. The only evil we are experienced with is the evil in movies and video games, and we know that these aren’t real. We can’t care about the difficulty of others in other places, even if we are told about it, because we don’t have the scope of experience to understand their pain.

I hope you enjoyed my talk about: The Singularity of the Soul. ¡Adios! 

Carpe Snowem!

What’s a girl to do when there is a scant 2 inches of snow on the ground?  Go sledding anyway!

Despite being in the final stages of planning the church women’s retreat, I decided to brave the cold with Youngest Daughter yesterday.  

We had a grand time. Playing outside eased the emptiness caused by Oldest Daughter’s departure back to college.  Trudging up the short hill kept at bay my frustrating uselessness in the face of my Dad’s illness and my Mom’s frantic caregiving.  The snowfall may have messed up somebody’s day, but it was right on time for me.

Common Household Mom engaging in her favorite winter sport

Youngest Daughter goes down backwards

Then today, Youngest Daughter was all, “I’m calling my friends to invite them over!”  She rarely has this idea on her own, so I was all for it.  Soon we had four girls running around in the snow.

Enough energy to RUN up the hill.

Snowball fight!

Another creature had been out there in the night or early morning.  Rabbit? Deer? Dog? Cat?

The girls stayed out there for a long time.  Good thing, because it is forecast to rain tomorrow.  This snow will be GONE.

The Tenth Commandment

X:  “Thou shalt not covet thy sibling’s outing, nor the restaurant meal she will eat.”

On Friday night, we had our Sabbath dinner.  Oldest Daughter is home from college until next week, which makes the table feel complete.  As part of the Sabbath celebration, we light the candles, say the blessing over the bread and the juice.  The kids have juice and my husband and I have a glass of wine.

Near the end of our dinner, the conversation went something like this:

Me, to Youngest Daughter:  There are some leftover spinach enchiladas, so you can have one for breakfast tomorrow.

Youngest Daughter:  Actually, tomorrow I’m just going to wake up in time for lunch!

Me:  Oh, yeah, that’s right. Tomorrow afternoon Youngest Daughter and I are going out for lunch and a movie about a horse.

Oldest Daughter:  Why are you going to that movie?

Me:  It’s by Stephen Spielberg.

Youngest Daughter: We’re related to him!  (We are, distantly.  At least 5 degrees of separation.  Mr. Spielberg has never heard of us.)

Husband:  Where are you going for lunch?

Me:  Probably “Casual Italian Chain Restaurant.”

Son:  Can I go?

Me:  No, it’s a Mother-Daughter event.

Son:  What?! How come whenever I go out to a restaurant with you, you force me to go to a Chinese restaurant, but when you’re going to an Italian restaurant I can’t go?!

(We went to a Chinese restaurant on Dec 21^st.  Yes, during Hanukkah.  Son ordered a mammoth portion of Honey Chicken, which he devoured completely.  He did not appear to be suffering as he consumed his meal.)

Husband:  Yes, Son, it’s a terrible injustice in your life.  You have no idea what kind of injustice I experienced as a boy.

Son: Dad. We all know that you had to walk 3 miles to school, with snow up to here, even though you were only this tall...

Husband: First of all, we hardly ever went out to a restaurant.  When we did go to a restaurant I had to go with my Dad and my grandmother.  She always ate off of my plate, instead of ordering her own meal.  And if I ordered something and didn’t finish it, I got yelled at.

(At our house this line of discussion usually deteriorates into the Monty Python skit “You were lucky!” but not this time.  There was too much coveting of YD’s outing going on.)

Oldest Daughter: Can I go to lunch with you at the Casual Italian Chain Restaurant?

Me:  No.  It’s a Mother-Daughter event with some of YD’s friends.

Oldest Daughter:  But I want to go to an Italian restaurant.

Son:  So do I.

Me:  You can arrange a Father-Son event, and a Father-Oldest Daughter event, and get Dad to take you to Casual Italian Chain Restaurant.

(It was about now that Oldest Daughter, aged 18, grabbed the bottle of wine, poured it into her plastic cup, and drank it down.  I had little time to realize what she was doing before she had swallowed.)

Me:  What are you doing?!

Oldest Daughter:  I was thirsty, and I didn’t feel like getting up to get some water, and there wasn’t anything else to drink on the table.

So our attention turned to other things, such as what the legal age for drinking is.  

It turns out that we didn’t see Spielberg’s movie about the horse.  Instead we saw “We Bought A Zoo” in which, for me, the major feature is that Scarlett Johansson gets to kiss Matt Damon.  But since this is a post about not coveting, I will have to stop here.

Subtle Hint

Monday night was the night before school resumed after the winter break.  At bedtime, we discovered that the weather was doing this:

So I left this helpful hint by the front door, hoping that at least the front walk would be shoveled before I got up. 

When I got up in the morning I saw this:

My hint was not taken.  Admittedly there was little snow accumulation overnight.  It piled up a bit more during the day.  In the afternoon, Oldest Daughter went and shoveled the neighbor’s entire driveway, refusing my payment for her kindness.  The Son shoveled our driveway, but demanded payment. 

Which leads me to the crucial question.  What is your method of snow removal?

a) shovel it yourself

b) get your spouse to shovel

c) get your kids to shovel for free

d) pay your kids to shovel

e) pay a professional

f) hope the snow fairy shows up at your house

g) we don’t get no snow!  

Searching the past

It seems to be the time for reviewing the past.  So here’s a brief review of this blog’s historic past.

Oddly, quite a number of people come here seeking information about chipmunks.  The most-clicked-on post is Perils in Suburbia from two summers ago. 

 

A few of the search terms that have led people to this blog:

Subcategory: chipmunks

- chipmunk facts

- angry christmas chipmunk

- a questionable chipmunk

Subcategory: Momentous things I wrote about

- passover ham

- round earth birthday cake

- home made calorimeter

- deep thoughts, clean bathroom

Subcategory: Things I don’t remember writing about

- women wearing men's clothes in the bible

- are pumpkin spiders poisonous

- easy right triangle solving slogans (I did mention this, but offered no solutions and no slogans)

- cleverbot jesus of suburbia

In the Year 2512

A writing challenge:  How will people celebrate New Years 500 Years in the future?

The Common Household’s responses are below.  Feel free to participate with your own ideas. 

Maybe you will have a more cheerful outlook than our expectations, which include the obesity epidemic normalized, nuclear war as celebration, and global warming bringing on new traditions.  What can I say? New Year’s is not my favorite holiday.  At least the United Federation of Planets plans on having a good time 500 years from now.

Happy New Year!

Oldest Daughter wrote:

“You excited to jump into the Giant Pudding Cup?” Blobby asked his friend, Fat Jones.

“Yeah, dude. I can’t believe we finally get to go this year!”

“I know.” Blobby belched and wiped a greasy hand on his mouth. “Where’s the rest of the pizzas?”

“We only ordered 39,” Fat Jones said. “That’s 13 for you, 13 for me, and 13 for Burrita.”

As if on cue, a harsh voice called from the other room “Don’t you go eating my pizzas! I’m saving a few for New Years!”

Blobby rolled his eyes. “Did you find the New Years Butter Balls?”

“Yeah, they’re all loaded into the cannon.”

“I call shooting them!”

“As long as you actually aim for my mouth this time.”

“You boys can’t shoot cannons until we go over to the neighbors and finish off their Root Beer Pool!” Burrita screeched.

Blobby and Fat Jones smiled at each other.

“I just love New Years Eve,” they said together.

Youngest Daughter wrote:

They will launch two huge nuclear bombs into the sky, send them onto their enemies, and then ooh and aah as their enemies are destroyed. Then, they’ll AAAAAH! as the nuclear radiation takes effect.  Then, they’ll go underground until the 4th of July.

Son wrote:

“Captain Picard, we need you at engineering.  And bring Data!  It’s an emergency, sir.”  

Captain Picard tapped his communicator and replied, “Very well.  Data, come with me.”

In the elevator, Picard wondered what the problem could be.  “It’d better not be that metal-eating slime again,” he thought.  He stepped out of the elevator and approached the doors with trepidation. As they slid open, he heard a great clatter of pots and pans, and then the entire crew shouted, “Happy New Year, Captain!”

Common Household Mom wrote:

“Optimus!  Come down here!  It’s time to get ready for the New Year’s celebration.”

“Aw, Ma, do I have to?”

“Yes, you do, young man.  Put on your jet pack right now.”

“But Ma, I hate jetting south to Newfoundland for New Year’s.  It’s so hot and swampy there.”

“Now, Optimus, you know it is the tradition to jet to the swamps, find 3-legged frogs, and throw them in the air for New Year’s.  There is no better way to celebrate the arbitrary passage of time.”

“But why does it have to be frogs?  Why can’t we throw something interesting like nuclear grenades?”

“Optimus, stop arguing and eat your recycled food pellet or we’ll be late.”

“Ma, who cares about the year 2512 anyway?  We might as well do something really bizarre, like bang a steel rod on one of those ancient cooking vessels, drink copious amounts of stupor-inducing substances, and sing schmaltzy songs at the top of our lungs.  At least that would be something new for a New Year’s celebration.”

Jesus' Middle Name

Everyone knows that Jesus’ middle name begins with the letter H.  As in, “Jesus H. Christ, you tracked mud all over the house, and I’m having company over this afternoon!”  Or “Jesus H. Christ, why can’t Congress get something done?!”

I don’t know what that ‘H’ would stand for.   Holy?  Handsome? Heliotrope? 

I’ve been taught that “Jesus” is English for the Greek for the Hebrew (Aramaic?) Yeshua, meaning “God saves us.”  But right now I’m thanking God that Jesus’ other name (although it seems no one actually called him by this name) is “Immanuel” = “God with us.”  It’s certainly more satisfying, in one’s anger, to say “Jesus H. Christ” than “Jesus I. Christ,” so maybe that’s why Immanuel never caught on. 

This Advent I’m finding it very comforting to consider God with us.  Maybe that’s because I see that God does not save us from unpleasantness and difficulty, such as the decline in a loved one’s health, the stubbornness of a child getting bad grades because she refuses to take responsibility, or the machinations of Congress.  (The only thing that can be said about Congress is “Oy vey” with a sad shake of the head.)  Listing these difficulties that I face makes them seem petty, as I know that there are far greater difficulties in life than these.  I’m so grateful that God is with us as we struggle through these parts of life.   The idea that God is with me makes these things bearable.

It’s a good thing that God being with us doesn’t depend on

- how much or how well you have decorated your house

- doing your homework

- whether or not you stayed for the entire aerobics class

- obeying the speed limit

- buying the perfect gift

- Congress

- a whole host of other things

Thanks, God, for Immanuel, God-with-us.