plotting

The kids headed out to school this morning, one by bike and one on foot, with stop #1 being the Metro bus at the bottom of our street. From there they go to the Metro and on to Vienna. The last step is catching the school’s bus that runs them from the metro station to the school’s front door. It was at the ultimate step that some confusion rained down; the two got separated at the end and L. wasn’t sure where the bus picked up the kids. She gave me a quick call and eventually made it to the bus safely but this is more a story about me than about her (or them).

There’s a small bus circuit the runs around Fairfax City (The CUE bus) and it’ll take you from the Metro to the school’s driveway; as long as you know its schedule and map. What I’d forgotten to do – unbelievably – was package up my normal, and overly detailed, guide material containing the bus map, time tables, a map of the bus shelter parking lot, and spare change for L. before the first day of school. (Yes, each item is highlighted and annotated.) X can vouch for my over-planning when it comes to journeys; but it’s good over-planning. The best example was when we met in Barcelona for a week and I showed up with a selection of restaurants, city maps, transit maps, country maps, transit maps, and other assorted items. One impressive bit – if I do say so myself – was our regional train ride from Barcelona to La Garriga for our night at Termes spa. We were catching our train from Placa Catalunya to La Garriga and I’d mapped out the line and times for departure…in laminated form. The stations in Spain – as with most of Europe – don’t necessarily have loads of English instructions laying about the place so you use your experience and trust the timetables even if you’re not sure what the train, or the announcements, say. Our train was leaving from track Red 3 at 3:41pm and arriving in La Garriga about 40 minutes later. We got to the track about five minutes early and when a train pulled in at 3:41, we boarded. I still remember us wondering if we’d done the right thing – what if we ended up Lisbon? – but we both knew it’d work out in the end; that's sort of our travel M.O. The next day we reversed the process from the small, single-track station in the country and simply boarded whatever train was passing through at our appointed time.

The reason I haven't told you this before is because it's not really a story.

white flag

"In the age of computers, I just tell the children, what if we are on an island and don't have electricity? One of the ways we communicate is through writing," she said.

Listen here, if I’m a deserted island then I have greater issues than handwriting. Really? If The Eleven is on the island together we'll just chat – no need to write. What? Am I going to mail her a card? If I’m by myself on the island who exactly am I leaving a sticky note for? That quote is funny on many levels.

The article, hat tip to Dan, does reveal a few things about society and our conservative desire to maintain our days of yore. Do you know why we wrote more when we were in school back in 1972? There wasn’t another option – amazing! Don’t get me wrong, kids need to know how to write, and read writing, in order to get through day-to-day operations but cursive is a joke. This actually came up last fall when G.’s grandmother sent him a very beautifully (hand)-written birthday card. I was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner and pointed out the hand-addressed envelope sitting on the counter (which he didn’t know was for him even though he’d already seen it – you’ll now why in a second). He tore it open reluctantly – can you tear and be reluctant? – threw the savings bond certificate on the floor in disgust (it’s not actual cash or a Pokemon card), looked at the card as if a pig staring at a stopwatch, and said to me, “What is this?” I told him a story about olden folks and how they all have this lovely handwriting skill – my mother has impeccable cursive – and that’s how they write notes to grandchildren. I told him to give it a go and we’d see how far along he could get in her message; this little test began and ended with him uttering “Ddddurrr Ssssssle….I can’t read any of this.” He handed me the card which I read directly to him as if he were blind and I his home aide; “Dear G., wishing you a Happy Birthday….etc.” – all perfectly formed and quite beautiful. Being that he was in fifth grade at the time, and in one of the better school districts in America, I assumed they weren’t teaching cursive anymore. (I actually think they do make the kids learn it but it’s not like my days with Ms. Ferrarini at Rockbrook in Omaha.) I realized at that moment that ‘knowledge’ of cursive in this day and age is only needed so you can read the words, not write them. In fact, I never stuck to cursive much after elementary school and have always done my writing via the man-loved method of printing. As we were wrapping up this little lesson I told him as much, as far as I am concerned: you need to be able to write legibly but whether that’s in cursive or print is up to you. I also told him that he might want to try to remember how to read cursive letters, just in case, but I don’t think either input stuck. There’s nothing left specifically for cursive. I’d like to see schools focus on legibility but even that might be too much to ask for these days.

This also ties into my (former) worry about mapreading skills. I happen to love maps and they’re quite useful for some grand overview needs – don’t even ask us about the geekfest that Dan and I had with maps last weekend. It helps to know where countries or cities are on a map but beyond that, actual map reading is about dead and gone. There won’t be any more trips where my Dad tells me to unfurl the map of the Vancouver city centre and sort out which one-way street northbound is nearest our location. It’s sad, really. I broke down this week and bought a TomTom Go 740 Live GPS for the rig. I’m probably a bit behind the curve on getting a portable for a few reasons: first, I like maps. Second, I felt that all these things were really accomplishing was turning everyone into mouthbreathers. (Oops.) I just feel like I’m pointing the arrow and turning the roundy-wheel thingy and the magic box will take me to my house or the nearest snack. No actual skills involved aside from typing. I know; I shouldn’t make fun of a club I’ve just joined. “I’m hungry, press some letters on the wizard box, find me sandwich, point my car…”

Of course, the problem with the portable GPS and our lack of map reading skills is, “what if we are on an island and don't have electricity?” How will we be able to read the map we happened to have brought along? How will we find the other side of the island?

I’ll stop.

T

p.s. I’m off to Dallas this evening for a quick weekend visit for my father’s 75th. Do they have the Internets in Texas?

map to market

I’m attaching a map of the craziness that is the Northern Virginia street and traffic pattern. I’m only using this as a representative example of jackassery that goes on about here. The reason I can finally put fingers to keys is a visit the Eleven had with a landlord/homeowner a few weeks ago (we were eyeing a bigger place at the time). He’d grown up in the area and commented, after I’d laughed at trying to figure out exactly how to get from A to B, that there is rhyme or reason to the labeling of streets and one of the ‘well known’ items was this…don’t laugh. The word streets go in alphabetical order. That’s not all. When they ran out of letters (years and years ago) they started over with A but then named all the streets with words that have…two syllables! There is an entire alphabet even further west from the river that has three syllables. In my imagination I can see a tree-lined street further west that’s nom d’boulevard is Arugula. I have no five-syllable words to even contemplate.

Here are the maps....enlarge and zoom into the blue areas for a good view; if you're a geek.

Here's the switch from one to two syllable streets:

View Larger Map

Here's the switch from two to three, note how the letters don't actually align - and how some still slip through, and how some crazy streets that are a part of nothing show from the abyss...

View Larger Map

I made my first trip to the Eastern Market this afternoon. Last spring or winter it caught fire and it’s in the process of being rebuild and restored. The actual building is sturdy of brick and I think it’s mostly the inside that needs refurbishing. As it is, they’ve set-up temporary spaces outside on the city blocks and the food market, a separate building across the street, is operating as normal. I asked the boys if they wanted to come along but they decided against – unawares that street and open markets tend to have huge crepe stands with gigantic piles of goodness. Oh well. It was an absolutely gorgeous day in the District and I was in a very holiday mood. I’ve sorted Laurel’s stuff, snagged some jewels, two Swiss peelers (yes!), a few knickknacks, and some stocking stuffers. It was a day well spent. P.S. X was at the Arlington Central Library studying law all day.

I’ve bribed the boys with Pokemon cards in order to get them to clean their room tonight. I know, precedent. I think it’s easier right now to get the room cleaned, and further groundings averted, than it is to consider future “I want something in order to do something” arguments. Their mother will be more at ease…it’s for her, not me! I’m taking them to see the Golden Compass in the morning before I settle in for a day of cleaning and Sunday Times reading.

I know…a rare weekend post. Read this.