One of the nice things about the house where we live is our yard. It’s just over a half-acre. It’s a wonderful yard.

The problem is that we have this wonderful yard that we can almost never use. It is constantly being watered.

Last summer, it started around 3 or 4 in the morning and was done by the time I got up, unless I was getting up early to make the drive to Redstone for substitute teaching. But they went in and made some changes, and the result is that while it’s not literally on all the time, it’s on far more than it’s off.

It works in rotation. This part of the lawn is being watered. Then that part. The rotations don’t last all that long, so it’s not like from 7-9 it’s here, 9-11 it’s there. Instead it seems to go on 15 or maybe 30 minute intervals. So this means, even if you are in a part of the yard that is not being watered, it’s liable to go off and any point.

I’ve gotten nailed twice, smoking by the side of the house.

It does make the lawn look fabulous. It’s far greener this year than it was last year. But last year, at least, I was able to go out onto the yard.

If I have any daughters, there are a lot of things where I just don’t know how it’s going to work out. Partially because I was raised in a male family (even my mother had a tomboy streak).

There’s also, of course, the nail polish issue. Longtime Hit Coffee readers will recall that I have an unusual aversion to nail polish. So of course I would never want any daughter of mine wearing it. Ever.

But as my wife continually points out, in the greater scheme of things, that’s a pretty poor battle to pick. All too true. But still. Gah!

Well, I think I’ve come up with a solution. The same one that Clancy came up with and boys with long hair. You’re free to do it, so long as you take care of it. So with boys and long hair, they can have it but they have to keep it well-groomed. Otherwise, they have to get it cut off.

Well, the same would be true of nail polish. I’m not going to object, unless they do a half-arsed job with it. I don’t like nail polish in any context, but I particularly hate it when it’s half peeled off and not maintained. So if I could avoid that, I would be coming out ahead. AND, perhaps more importantly, it would make having (and maintaining) nail polish a pain in the ass. A disincentive.

So I think that will be my solution.

Now, if they want a nose ring, that’s the part where I suspect Clancy objects and I take the opposite tact.

“We need to choose our battles, sweety, at least it’s not nail polish.”

Among other things, being a Truman means accepting a degree of criticism. Sometimes spoken, sometimes not. The only real way to avoid it is to set your entire life up around avoiding it, doing things that don’t make sense on any level but that the folks think it should be so.

When Clancy and I fly down, my parents like to pay their air-fare. Clancy doesn’t particularly care for accepting help from either of our parents. So what to do? This is only one layer of the problem, though, because even if we do let them pay, it doesn’t end there.

Clancy and I both have long legs. We suffered our knees at the hands of small airline seats for some time. Now, we can afford the extra leg room. If we’re paying. Mom and Dad can afford the extra leg room, too, for us or for themselves. But they view it as an extravagance.

Now, we could say “Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, we’ll take care of the extra leg room.” But then it sounds like the seats they would have bought us is just not good enough for our spoiled little selves. So no, no, they will take care of it. But they will be a little bit surprised at the decision we made with their money.

So the main way to please them is to spend the entirety of the flight in pain and be appreciative that they supplied us with what we didn’t exactly want.

Another example is when it comes to going out to eat. The only time I can visit Happy Burger is when I am back in the south (or southwest). And I am appreciative when Dad takes me. It’s an old custom that he and I go to Happy Burger together and order from their great breakfast menu or whatnot. We used to do this every Saturday. It was bonding.

Periodically, Dad would have coupons for something in particular. When he did, I would usually get whatever the coupon was for. Since Happy Burgers were everywhere around, I could always get what I want next time.

It’s a little more complicated now, though, becuase there are only a limited number of “next times” before I return to the northwest where HB isn’t available. And, since I am gone so much, they could have a coupon for every day of the week. So I want to make every visit count. I’ll pay the $4 on my own to get what I want. That, of course, would disappoint them for not being as appropriately accepting of his generosity (and breaking tradition).

So the main solution is to squander half of my visits to Happy Burger eating foot I don’t want in order to save money that I would be more than happy to spend.

There are other solutions to each predicament. In the past, I’ve ordered the plane tickets and then sent Dad an edited bill that eliminates the extra-legroom surcharge. Last time we went to Happy Burger, I simply stole the coupon that he was going to use, so we could “wing it” (aka ordering what we were in the mood for).

UPDATE: Brandon Berg points out that a link to my Dinner With The Trumans post is an appropriate linkage here. I agree.

Clancy and I had long considered it a tragedy that any children we had would not have any cousins. My brother Oliver seemed to be too jaded by his first marriage to want to try again and have a family. My brother Mitch’s wife declared that she did not want children. Clancy’s sisters declared that they did not want to have children.

Truth be told, we had our doubts about Clancy’s youngest sister, Zoey, who we did believe would settle down and have kids if she could just find the right guy. And Ollie found the right woman shortly after it appeared that he was never going to marry again and they now have two kids. Ellie’s second husband has a couple of kids and she has become a step-mother who is taking the role seriously.

What’s strange, though, is that it’s becoming entirely possible - if not probable that every one of our siblings will end up having kids. Zoey was recently devestated when her long-distance relationship with a guy stateside was terminated as she arrived home. To hear her talk of it, it sounded like he might have been the one. And, as she rapidly approaches thirty, the subject is weighing differently on her mind as it did when she was twenty. That was the easy one.

When Ellie first posed a hypothetical “If I have a child” I was rather shocked, because she never struck us as the type of person that would consider it ebven hypothetically. I passed it on to Clancy with a “There’s hope?” header. She dismissed it. I figured she was right. But when she recently visited us in Arapaho, she made it explicit: she’d like to give her husband another child. I’d honestly thought that she’d had a tubal ligation on her 25th birthday.

Then there’s my sister-in-law Brynne. The Truman family’s relationship with Brynne remains somewhat complicated, in large part because of the children question. Mitch is a natural born father and it flummoxed us that he would marry someone who discounted the notion of children. But not only did Brynne do so, but we also kinda-sorta determined that it was probably for the best. She, like Ellie, didn’t really seem motherhood material.

And yet, she’s apparently been talking to some members of the Charles Clan (the group we go to Shell Beach with), saying that she is considering it. She also used those words… “if… I… have…”

And perhaps more shockingly still, it’s appearing that she might not be a bad mother after all. One of the little Charles girls has absolutely latched on to her, and she’s really good with her. Now, being an “aunt” is not the same as being a mother, but that she actually has the warmth with kids came as a surprise. Mom and I are both thinking that she would do it — if she was sure that she would get a daughter.

These are all varying degrees of possible. Zoey likely will have kids. Ellie is somewhat less likely, and Brynne less likely still.

Even so, it’s all quite heartening. One of the things that Clancy and I have wondered about is who we would leave our future kids with if something were to happen with us. Even if Ellie and Brynne decide the other way, we now have little or no doubt that they would take our children in in a pinch. Prior to all of this, we were honestly considering cousins and non-relatives.

It’s all a weird unfolding of the maxims about biological clocks come true. Wheter they change their minds or not, that they are considering it, all approaching thirty or in their early thirties, is just not what I expected. Clancy has always wanted kids, though it’s become a more urgent matter in recent years. Not just for logistical reasons, but also because of the way that she melts when she sees little ones. There’s been a pronounced change.

We live in a retty ratty side of town. Whenever Clancy meets a new patient who lives within proximity to us, she internally groans. We have a really nice house, but it’s on a quadruple lot. A couple blocks down are trailer parks and houses that were smaller than I thought they made houses that weren’t trailers. Most of our neighbors seem to either be older folks, young folks who inherited property they couldn’t otherwise afford to buy, or groups of young people living together.

The houses to our south have a more suburban and family sort of atmosphere, though. But our house faces north and is on the north side of the yard. So they’re mostly people we just see through the back window.

It’s a shame because the location is pretty handy. We’re catacorner to the elementary and middle schools. We’re less than a five minute walk to the high school. Maybe a ten minute walk to downtown. On the west side is a neighborhood of large and expensive houses, a little bit closer to downtown though farther from the schools. It seems likely that if we were to stay in Callie, that’s where we would end up. If I got my way, anyway. If Clancy gets hers, we’d end up on some vast stretch of land outside of town.

Strangely enough, three of the four people who lived adjacently to us do not live adjacently to us anymore.

Across the street was a family that just seemed to disappear one night, leaving their dog behind. The dog would howl up a storm. I would have been worried, but someone was stopping by to take care of him. So I was more annoyed. I wondered if it might be a vacation, but who vacations in March in a place where there’s no Spring Break? They finally came back and started moving stuff. They were replaced, very briefly, by a couple of military guys. They didn’t stay. I don’t think they were meant to, as there was a “For Sale” sign up a day or two after they arrived. Now it’s a vacancy.

Next to us on the west is a college professor who is part of a really, really small gay community. Possibly a gay community of one. He drove a Cooper Mini, which is not a common car in these parts. We got along with him pretty well, though we didn’t have a whole lot in common with him. He’s retiring and moving to New England after having lived here for a whopping twenty years. Interestingly enough, Buck Branson lives next door to him. Buck was until recently a right-wing city councilman (and the reason we have a 15-mph speed limit on our road). Buck and Gayprof actually got along, though. The new occupants are a couple of young twenty-somethings that I have almost never seen.

On the other side was, until recently, an elderly woman. She and I have talked on occasion. She’s told me some about Callie’s history, her family, and so on. She’s also talked about our health care system, intimated that doctors these days are a lazy bunch (yes, she knew my wife is a doctor), and was in general someone who has determined that, at age 93, too old to keep any of her opinions to herself. Which made talking with her difficult, if informative about the town’s history (which, of course, includes a mysterious murder). Her house was invaded by her extended family that were picking the place clean and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her in a while. Sure enough, she died. The turnaround on the house was very quick. The new owner is apparently going to divide-and-rent it. It honestly seems like a pretty small place to try to do that.

Clancy and I took a trip to Alexandria last week for some health care related issues. Her coworker, Sharon Alvarez, and her husband Jack, were in California taking care of their injured (adult) kid and couldn’t sit the dog. Fortunately, I knew of another neighbor, Buck Branson, who was able to check in and let Lisby out during the day and back in at night. After we got back, Buck stopped by to return the key with cigarette in hand. That latter part is a bit of an issue because we have an enclosed sun-room and the smell lingered throughout the house for a while. Buck has seen me outside smoking and probably thought it was a non-issue. Given the smell of the Branson house (smoke+pets) he has simply lost his sense of smell. Or possibly, it’s that he is of a different generation and has not updated his social convention.

That last one wouldn’t surprise me as a key component. It’s not just that he’s elderly, but he’s rather old school. A right-wing former marine with a door mat espousing his patriotism and contempt for anyone that doesn’t share it. Until recently he was a city councilman and a strong supporter of a far-right candidate for the state house in the last election. But he’s not a bad guy. Very friendly towards me. Even friendly to the guy who lives in the house between us, a gay fellow with alternating colors of dyed hair and ear rings. But he has his people, and if he knew more about me he would probably know that I, like our mutual neighbor, am not really one of them.

Which seems to be how it goes in Callie. I’ve met some pretty great people out here. I’ve met very few rude people. There’s very little to be concerned about. It’s really not a question of whether or not the people here are nice. They are. And I don’t care about the junk in the front yards as such. But they’re emblematic of a background that I was raised apart from. They’re nice, but we’re not their people. They seem to be people that have been in Arapaho for generations. Or people that specifically moved to Callie for things that don’t interest me all that much, like this whole “outdoors” business.

A year has passed since we’ve moved to Callie and I’ve been trying to think of ways to meet people with whom this problem does not exist. Perhaps if we relocate within town (Callie actually has a lot of college grads as a portion of the population) we’ll have neighbors we are more in sync with. I’m still thinking that they exist, if I could only find them. As it stands, I feel like we’re on the losing side of homogeny.

I was counting on the bowling alley. Really counting on it. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on it until I found it out closed about six months before we got here. I was thinking, join a bowling league, get randomly assigned, meet some people. Easy enough! If only there were a bowling alley.

I’ve thought about going to church again. I actually mean to. But Sundays come and go and I end up sleeping in. I am also a bit anxious about joining a church and not liking it there. It’s a small enough town that I would be seeing many perishoners around town, wondering why I haven’t been coming to church lately. I feel like it’s just as well that we sold the car that had the Episcopal shield on it, because I was afraid that I might get recruited.

I thought about Toastmasters once, and even drove to the bank where they hold their meetings, but they didn’t have it that week. I went to a couple of high school football games last year. Had fun, but it was more something to do rather than a social event.

It could be that my social network will end up in Redstone. There are more people and, I would think, clubs that can be joined. Or… something. Redstone is pretty similar, though, that the people that live there are from there. They’re the people that couldn’t leave there, even. Almost everybody our age is married and has kids. And though I’m married, Clancy doesn’t really have time to do couple’s things. And since I’m married, there are a lot of single young male things that I can’t do. And others that I won’t do because I’m not 20 anymore in any event.

It seems increasingly unlikely that we’re going to be staying in Callie. Partially for all of the reasons above, but also due to the job demanding more of Clancy than she’s going to want to be giving once there are kids in the picture.

Of course, the kids might change everything. Social isolation no matter where we are, so less in the way of opportunity costs. Or actually improvement, by being a family in such a family-oriented place. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing since the town is safe and the schools are good. It’s a good community, if we can manage to find our place within it.

One of the things that has struck me since getting back to Colosse is how strong the economy is down here. All of the headlines and statistics about the lack of jobs out there did not leave me thinking that I would get down here and see what I’ve seen. There’s a huge billboard, saying “Know Linux? We want to talk to you?” The “Now Hiring” signs for retail jobs and the like, that I figured may have disappeared with the recession, are still there. Those are crummy jobs, to be sure, but still jobs. My friend in the pacific northwest struggled to find even retail work. And such jobs are not well publicized in Arapaho. A part of me thought Colosse might be different, and to some extent it actually is.

Granted, a lot of what I see is in the IT sector, which in Colosse and elsewhere is doing better than a lot of other sectors. But what I have seen has been pretty astonishing. And it keeps coming up. The Colosse office of Commodus, my sorta-employer, is apparently hemorrhaging employees. There are some reasons why the employees are dissatisfied, but even so, I figure in this American economy, you hold on to what you have for dear life. But they’re either finding jobs elsewhere or confident that they can. My brother Ollie changed jobs to shorten his commute. I thought quality-of-life job changes were a thing of the past.

On Saturday night I went to a party and struck up a conversation with a guy who was very interested in my professional background when he found out I was in IT. His employer is desperately looking for people. He gave me his card and told me to give him a call if I moved back to Colosse. I told him that was unlikely, but that I knew people. He hoped that I would let them know about his company so that they would send their resumes in. They have unfilled positions across the board, and those new employees they have gotten, they’ve picked off from other employers. Which, if they are able to do that, means that the problem isn’t that they are offering uncompetitive wages.

On Sunday I spent a few hours with my friend and former roommate Hubert. Hubert is part of recruiting as his (IT) employer, and the problem they’re seeing is not being deluged with applicants, as I would have guessed, but rather that the people they interview are apparently comfortable asking for astonishingly high wages (wages that I would be uncomfortable asking for despite a much better background than they seem to have). Things seem here like they felt in the mid-naughts. Far less spectacular than the nineties, but not like they are in most places.

I still get emails asking me about various contract positions in the Pacific Northwest, so I know it’s not limited to Colosse. When I get down too hard on myself for not being able to find work in Arapaho, I realize that I am not excuse-making when I talk about the local economy. There might not be many places that are hiring, but there are at least some.

Of course, critics of Colosse and the south have rejoinders. The main reason they’re having trouble staffing people is that the south doesn’t educate their population worth anything. This is a pretty crude and inaccurate generalization, though it makes me less dismissive of Richard Florida than I was a couple weeks ago. Given the state of the national economy, people should be flocking to Colosse for the jobs out here. And maybe Colosse’s unswippled nature is making it harder for employers to find people than might be the case in certain Creative Class cities (or places that aren’t so scorching hot).

As someone that has struggled to find work, it’s nice to know that my talents could be of use somewhere, if not a place I am likely to move. It was the emails from Cascadia (as well as the knowledge that Mindstorm has a great file on me if I ever wanted to work there again) that kept me going there for a while.

Megan McArdle wrote a poignant post a little while back about the psychology of unemployment. I want to write a complete post on it, but realize that I probably won’t, so I’ll just link to it here. For people, and men in particular, the inability to find work is one of the most dispiriting things there is. It’s one of the main reasons why I was not nearly as down on the naughts as a lot of people. Yes, wages may have been stagnant, but as long as there are at least jobs, you have a place that you can build from. The lost human capital that comes from chronic unemployment, particularly when employers are free to discriminate against the unemployed, is immense. The hopelessness of realizing that “No, you are not qualified for a better job than one in the service industry” is particularly devastating for people who have much more to offer if given the chance.

We don’t even need the money, at the moment, but it’s still something I’ve felt pretty keenly in my unemployment. Even though my work for Commodus isn’t full-time, and my substitute teaching job is/was… well… substitute teaching, it was at least something. I think back to the people I knew at the dilapidated Belle Rieve apartment complex in Deseret. In some ways, far more pernicious than the… chem lab… and crime was the inability of the people there to find and keep work. Maybe we need to give them bus tickets to Colosse.

I tend to like my showers hot. Very hot. As with so many other things, I rarely go halfway and if I’m not red when I get out of the shower, I’m disappointed. It’s a bit different when it’s 100 degrees outside, though. Whereas I usually cannot get the water hot enough, tonight I couldn’t get it cold enough. And one of the unfortunate things about the humid south in general is that when you get out of the shower, you never really dry off. And I don’t try off that much to begin with. I have no trouble putting clothes on when I’m still damp. It’ll dry off eventually. Except down here I won’t, necessarily. Especially when Dad keeps the thermostat at 80.

I did finally get a shave. I kind of made a quick job of it, on account of the very hot water (I shave in the shower), and have some razorburn on my side.

But it’s good to be clean. I had gone a couple days without a shower, which is socially dangerous in this weather. I also, much to Mom’s amazement, did laundry. I’m much more hawkish about it when my clothes all smell of sweat.

One thing I’ve forgotten about the south is how loud it is outside. The accumulation of bugs make a lot of noise. And there are a lot of furry creatures making noise. Last night I saw a family of racoons. A mother, a father, and six little ones. Actually, I don’t think that racoons are monogamous so it probably wasn’t the father. But there were two large ones and six cubs (or whatever baby racoons are called). Maybe one of the cubs just grew really, really fast. Tonight I saw two possums.

Oh, and there is a bigkillermobile. It’s a truck that makes its way through town periodically, spraying something around. Very noisily.

I’m not particularly sound-sensitive, since I’m hard-of-hearing, but it’s still just weird and requiring some getting used to.

The Corrigan Compound is a series of properties owned by the Corrigan family, which is Clancy’s mom’s side of the family, in Genesis. A rural town in eastern Delosa. Every July 4th they have a family get-together there where cousins and the like all make the trip.

I picked up Clancy at the airport and we headed straight out, arriving to Genesis at two in the morning. Just before I left, I twirked some muscle in my back. The result was that my neck was extremely stiff and I couldn’t easily look behind me. Navigating through Colossean traffic in this condition is not much fun at all. It also meant no croquet (which was fine on account of the heat) and that I was of limited help when it came to moving things (an upside, though not worth the pain).

Probably due in part to the lack of croquet, but no chigger bites this time around, despite the fact that I didn’t use much sulfur.

I’ve found myself getting quieter and quieter at these get-togethers. This time I actually had more things I could talk about, from the job opportunity at Commodus to the substitute teaching, but still often kept to myself. Some of it is because with the Corrigan clans you have to be aggressive to be a part of the conversation. Some of it, though, is an increasing slide into introversion on my part. I think I need to start drinking more.

I did get into a conversation deep into the AM with Hiram and his family. That worked out well because it became a philosophical discussion touching on subjects that I have thought a lot about. It’s easier for me to talk about ideas than me. Except here, of course, with posts like this.

Any time I think of staying there for an extended period of time, I remember… no Internet access. That’s a bitter pill. This time I had to drive a half an hour to the nearest town to be able to get on the Internet. The connection was lousy. I need to figure out tethering, though the 3G on my phone cuts in and out. Also, being out there absolutely kills the battery life on my phone as it continually looks for a better signal. I brought a separate charger and two spare batteries, but even that wasn’t really enough.

Though there is no Internet, there’s finally satellite TV. But there’s no DVR, which makes TV almost unwatchable for me.

Despite my various successes in the dieting arena, I still don’t do moderation very well. I keep telling myself every time I go down to Delosa that I am going to take it easier on the stomach, but it never seems to work out that way. Everyone, from my parents to her extended family, keeps throwing food at me. Not to mention all of the good restaurants I rarely have access to.

The heat has been good for my smoking. Or bad for it, depending on how you look at it. I’m smoking less because while there is pleasure in lighting something on fire and breathing the smoke, doing so when it’s 100 degrees outside and humid just seems… stupid. If I take a soft drink with me, it’s warm within minutes.

I could have told them this for free:

A sample of 477 commercials featuring domestic chores that aired in a week of primetime television programming on all of the broadcast networks was analyzed. Among the key findings: Male characters’ performance of chores was often humorously inept as measured by negative responses from others, lack of success, and unsatisfactory outcomes.

It makes a good point that the result of these ads, other than to elicit a laugh and poke fun at men, is to reinforce stereotypes. I’ve mentioned this before in the past, but there are reasons that women should be wary of this sort of thing as well as men. Men do not like doing things we are not good at. The notion that we will fail, that our wives will roll their eyes at us, and so on, discourages us from trying.

Of course, it works out for me. I score major points with Clancy for my willingness to try to do the household chores. And I told her early on - and she completely understood - that while pointing out how I might do better is welcome, being critical in any sort of harsh way is a good way to get me to give up and stop doing it. And Clancy is great about this. I think that sometimes women forget this.

In the comments of my post about dishwasher detergents (which mentioned low-flow toilets), Maria and Peter made an observation I’ve heard (and probably said, once upon a time): Low-flow toilets don’t save water because it just requires repeated flushes. Once upon a time I thought this was true, but when I thought about it more it overlooked the obvious counterargument: double-flushes are rare because solid deposits are (comparatively speaking) rare. Generally, I BM maybe two of every three days, but I constantly urinate. Okay, not constantly, but once every hour or two. On the other hand, I know that this is abnormal, so I figured I could be wrong.

Today I was reminded that I said that it was something I would look into. It looks like the lost water from multi-flushing does not actually overcome the amount saved from liquid deposits:

In the old days residential-use toilets in the U.S. were designed to unleash anywhere from 3.5 to 7 gallons per flush (GPF); the low-flow movement took off in 1994, when a federal statute kicked in requiring that new units employ no more than 1.6 GPF. How often do people use their toilets? Here we face the thrilling diversity of human experience: some pee four times a day, some ten, while anything upward of three bowel movements a week is considered normal. The bottom line is that for practically everyone the daily ratio of (shall we say) liquid-only events (LOEs) to solid events (SEs) is greater than 1:1, and for some may be 6:1 or more. For argument’s sake let’s say a typical day on the toilet involves five LOEs and one SE. Using a 3.5 GPF unit that consistently gets the job done in a single flush, that’s six events, six flushes, for a total of 21 gallons. But the puniest low-flow model should have little problem handling the LOEs, so even if five flushes were required to bring the SE to a satisfactory conclusion, the ten flushes would use only 16 gallons. In this scenario, as long as you’re flushing fewer than eight times per SE, the low-flow toilet is saving water.

I was hoping for an actual study by professionals or academics, but instead found a science fair project:

Results of my experiment revealed that the low-flow toilet required the same number of flushings with “Liquid Matter” and twice the number of flushings on average with “Solid Matter”. The toilet plugged with “Solid Matter” 40% of the time and required plunging. Converting the number of flushings to volume of water used revealed on average high-flow toilets used 9.3 liters more water with “Liquid Matter” and 3.13 liters more water with “Solid Matter” than low-flow.

The solid matter was ho-hos. That’s science.

-{Scene: Trumwill is taking his dog out to go potty take care of business. Grade Schooler walking along back yard, presumably walking home from school.}-

Lisby: ARF! ARF! ARF! {running towards Grade Schooler}

Grade Schooler: Cute Puppy! {puts hand through chain-link fence to mildly pet Lisby}

Lisby: {tail wagging furiously}

Grade Schooler: You sure have a cute dog, Mister!

Trumwill: Thank you! Yes, I do!

Grade Schooler: She is kind of funny.

Trumwill: Very!

Grade Schooler: {walks home}

Trumwill: {thinking he should have told Grade Schooler that he could open the back gate and pet her}

Since moving to Arapaho, one of the things that has plagued us is the dishwasher. Some loads, about a third of the silverware and a couple of the dishes have to go back through. Sometimes they will come out more dirty than they went in. Clancy said she had marginal success adding vinegar, which I’ve been meaning to try in lieu of current rewashing. It was a relatively minor issue in Cascadia, but has become a much larger one here. We blamed the hard water. It turns out, there is another factor, and we are not alone:

A couple of months ago, Sandra Young from Vernon, Fla., started to notice that something was seriously amiss with her dishes.

“The pots and pans were gray, the aluminum was starting to turn black, the glasses had fingerprints and lip prints still on them, and they were starting to get this powdery look to them,” Vernon says. “I’m like, oh, my goodness, my dishwasher must be dying; I better get a new dishwasher.”

Young’s not alone. Many people across the country are tearing out their hair over stained flatware, filmy glasses and ruined dishes.

Sue Wright from Austin, Texas, says for months her cups and glasses have been coming out of her year-old dishwasher covered with black specks. She called three repairmen to her kitchen, but her dishes were still dirty.

“I looked at a plumber’s rear end for about two months this summer sticking out from under my sink,” Wright says. “I was just totally frustrated. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong.”

Finally, after months of aggravation and expense, Wright found out the real reason for her speckled cups: This summer, detergent makers took phosphates out of their detergents.

And so it goes. NPR having the consumer that it does, there are a lot of objections in the comment section. The basic response is that phosphate-free detergent is no worse than regular, it’s the consumer’s fault for getting the “cheap stuff”, use such-and-such product and the phosphate-free stuff will work just as good, fishes are more important than your damn dishes, and are we really so lazy that we can’t hand wash?

These responses are varying degrees of helpful. The notion that “there is no difference” is belied by the fact that, well, people notice a difference. And they notice it before they even know about the phosphate thing. Now, for those saying that they haven’t noticed any difference, maybe they haven’t. Maybe they live in a place with nice soft water. Really, we didn’t notice much of a difference in Cascadia despite the fact that we were most assuredly using phosphate-free products because Cascadia banned phosphates some time ago. We had softer water there than here (we have a softener now, and that helped, but only so much when it comes to the dishes).

I’ve made a mental note of the products that people have suggested. Clancy has mentioned using vinegar a couple of times. I may try one of those consumer products. Or maybe now we will need to find a new detergent. It may well be the case that now that a cheap and easy cleanser has been removed from the market that brand name matters a heck of a lot more than it used to. And maybe it will just take a little time for the rest to catch up and find the right phosphate-free solutions.

Even so, it’s rather worthy of note that these sorts of environmental regulations really have trade-offs. This sort of thing gets overlooked when people make comments like Kevin Drum’s:

Phosphates really are a danger, creating runoff that kills fish and plants. And Spokane has a uniquely bad problem with phosphates. And apparently it’s entirely possible to create phosphate-free detergents. The industry just didn’t feel like doing it.

But now their hands are being forced. And guess what? It turns out they can do it after all. Imagine that.

Except that now good detergent has gotten more expensive. Or requires additional products to preserve their basic function. Or people need to more thoroughly handwash before putting their dishes into the dishwasher (reminiscent of how mom would make me clean my room for the maid’s weekly appearance). These aren’t huge inconveniences, but it’s pretty clearly not a matter of the detergent folks’ not doing it just because (or because they hate the environment). They want us to buy their detergent and people aren’t going to buy detergent that doesn’t work as well as the next brand.

Regarding the hand washing, that’s something I actually do. I have to because there is no dish washer or detergent in the world that can clean some of the stuff our kitchen produces. Okay, maybe some industrial dish washer somewhere, but nothing I’ve ever seen. Which is fine, as far as that goes. I don’t mind hand washing dishes. Before meeting Clancy, that’s all I ever did. However, it’s worth noting that the more you hand wash, the more water you end up using. Either it gets doused again in the dishwasher or because, even if you forgo the dishwasher, hand washing ultimately uses water less efficiently and, therefore, more water.

Meanwhile, our toilets and showers have become less effective because… they were using too much water. Again, it’s the sort of thing where at least some manufacturers have figured out how to to make good, low-flow toilets and showers. And so if you revamp the plumbing or buy the higher-end stuff, you’re good (or, ahem, you can simply remove the filter). We have to remember that it’s the consumers that get stuck with the bill in the end. I am reminded of the toilet thing because they may have to replace out downstairs toilet. I’ve offered the landlord that I will go to Canada and bring back a real toilet, if he wants, though maybe they’ve bought their regulations in line with ours.

I say all this, though, with the knowledge that these regulations may be entirely worth it! The toilet that we’re replacing is an old school one, so even a half-competent low-flower will be an improvement. And fish are not entirely unimportant. I’m kind of ignorant on a lot of matters of ecology, but I’m certainly not opposed to ecology. We’re certainly at the point in our lives where we can afford a nicer shower head and more expensive detergent. Jon Last doubts the ecological impact. But his argument is that the benefits exist but are countered by the fact that the products don’t work. It becomes something of a moot issue if detergent-makers find a good substitute. Maybe they won’t, but they certainly wouldn’t have without the regulation.

Remember how above I said that dishwashers use less water than hand washing? That appears to be the result of environmental regulation. Maybe that has, as Last says, simply made them more reliant on detergent. Maybe the new detergent would work better with the older dishwashers. Maybe the choice is between preserving water or preserving the cleanliness of the water. And, of course, maybe the result is that phosphates will be replaced by chemicals that prove to be harmful, necessitating once again that the government step in to protect us from the evil detergent companies that act against our interest. Or maybe it will work perfectly! Or maybe we will get used to our dishes being less clean.

I wish I knew. On the one hand, it’s not as though the detergent-makers haven’t tried to make a good phosphate-free or low-phosphate detergent. On the other, it does actually kind of seem like the toilets don’t suck nearly as much as they used to.

Megan McArdle has a worthwhile piece on money management. I do take mild issue with this, though:

Like most couples, we have one person who oversees the money (me), though unlike most couples, a different person keeps track of the physical paper, and we each have a set of bills in our names–I take care of mortgage and cell phones, while Peter manages the other utilities. I watch all of our bank accounts in Mint, transfer money between them when one gets low, and carefully categorize all of our transactions–necessary because for journalists, many ordinary expenses are tax deductible. All of the money is part of a common pot; it just lives in different places.

I am a great advocate of money pooling for married people–single people, and gays who are emotionally married but are denied the right to legally married in their state, should indeed keep finances separate, because there’s no good legal way to disentangle them. (Of course I hope for gay couples that the law catches up to their situation soon) I understand that there are a few special situations: people with children from a previous marriage, or great personal fortunes of their own. But in general, I think that the benefits of splitting off money are greatly overstated, while the drawbacks are real.

I can hardly point to what Clancy and I do as a model of economic efficiency. We had a model in mind, but we haven’t really gotten around to setting it up. It basically involved two personal accounts and a joint (as well as a savings account). And we sort of have that, but in the way McArdle means (a common pot living in different places). Basically, they’re grandfathered in. Clancy hasn’t had time to close her Deseret account. When we moved here the people at Wells Fargo told us it was essential for some reason or another to have an Arapaho account. We haven’t closed the Estacado account in part because there is so much financial history attached to it. Once I store that information elsewhere, we’ll likely close that one, too. I’m not sure we’ll ever have the model we had in our mind, in large part because so far it has never seemed necessary.

Regardless of our mish-mash setup, I do feel the need to defend the model that we had decided on but have not yet used. I agree with her, to some degree, that separating your bank accounts is not frequently going to resolve large money matters. If someone is irresponsible with a common pot they’re likely to be irresponsible other ways, too. Sometimes, but not always. As one of her commenters pointed out, for some people having that common pot with more digits in the account is not unlike keeping some Jack Daniels around with an alcoholic. While it may be the case that someone who would fall off the wagon for simple matter of having booze around was never really on the wagon to begin with, this is not always the case. Likewise, there is likely some in-between group of fiscally irresponsible persons that can manage their money better when all that is available is available on a single account.

McArdle advocates using cash for this. I’ve heard this recommended frequently. However, it is often impractical. It is what you resort to if separate accounts does not work. And for some people it doesn’t work. I actually spend more with cash than a credit card. I know that study after study indicates that people spend less with cash, but that’s in the aggregate and there are exceptions. I suppose it’s something old school about me that I hate, hate, hate using a card for any purchase under $10. It just doesn’t seem right to do it. It’s unfair to the retailer. It’s inefficient. So if I have a card and no cash, I am less likely to stop by the convenience store for a $2 soft drink. Most people, though, could care less about how retailers get stiffed when you credit-purchase a small-ticket item. So for those people, cash is better. For me, it is not. I may be in the minority, but I am not alone.

But more importantly, there are a lot of purchases that you can’t make with cash. Maybe I feel this more acutely since I live in a place where getting stuff online makes a lot more sense. Give this person access to an account with four digits in it, and they can lose perspective over how much of that is discretionary. Give them an account that they can spend on whatever they want, and it is a much easier ball to keep their eye on.

There’s also the matter of privacy. Even if you are good at staying within your means, there is sometimes something to be said for being able to spend money on something your spouse doesn’t see. Now, if you’re spending $30 on yourself maybe it shouldn’t matter to your spouse that you spent it on something that the other person completely does not understand, but sometimes it does. Sometimes the spouse knows this. Sometimes it’s best for all involved if both partners do not know where every penny is going. Sometimes having that modicum degree of separation is a good thing.

McArdle is big into budgeting, which frankly I am not. That’s another area where she is likely to look disapprovingly on to me. I think it’s great that she is able to maintain a budget. I’ve never been able to. I’ve never had to, even when I was living on $10/hr. I could get all unctious and say “if you need a budget, obviously you are too inclined to spend too much and the budget probably won’t help.” Except that it’s not true. Some people need a budget. I get by without one by generally being pretty thrifty. My wife is the same way. We’ve started to spend more since she got her first real doctor salary, but not all that much more. Even with the money in the bank, we still dither endlessly with a lot of new purchases and - I think because we’ve both lived on meager paychecks in the past - we have an acute sense of what we need and what we don’t.

That being said, I am soon to be working on something that is going to give us a good idea of where exactly our money is going. Maybe I’ll make a database or maybe we’ll use Mint (harder to do when you’re paying cash, btw). The make-do spreadsheet didn’t prove to be very helpful, though it did prove to be interesting. Such a large portion of our expenses seem to be one-time (new car, housing deposit, one-time major student loan payment, a huge one-month spike in the power bill) that it seems to be hard to account for in any sort of budget. For a lot of people, it’s the ongoing expenses that are killers. For us, it’s the one-time, big-ticket items. Or the recurring things that we may not like spending money on (like plane tickets back home) but we’re not about to forgo because it was part of the deal we made with ourselves when we decided to live so far from home.

McArdle has found a budget helpful and, to an extent, liberating. Whenever I’ve tried it, it’s had the opposite effect. It’s like trying to diet. You start thinking so much about your limitations that you’re just miserable. Or I do. Whereas when I keep it in the abstract, I can just keep an eye on the bottom line. How much did we put away this paycheck? Good. How much on this one? Bad. Why? Oh, not much we can do about that. I’ll just put off some of those things I was wanting to get. The result is that there are some purchases I’ve put off for years. Some people can’t do that. I can. Some people can budget effectively. I can’t.

In summary, I guess what I am trying to say is that everybody should go with what works for them. If it works. If it doesn’t work, try something else. Don’t decide that something is not going to work until you try it. But when it doesn’t work, stop doing it.

For the sake of this post, I am going to drop the fiction as far as my former employers go because the precise industry matters.

You know when you go into a drug store and there is a kiosk where you put in the little card with all of your digital pictures and you can select images and print them out? One of my former employers makes those. My job at said company was to test the software and the printers. Among other printing (testing for color, alignment, and so on) I did stress testing. Better yet, what I printed didn’t really matter. This meant, in a nutshell, that I could print as many of my personal photographs as I cared to. There was technically a policy forbidding using the tests for our own sake, but absolutely nobody (not even the most uptight supervisors and many were very uptight) enforced it. So long as it was part of a legitimate test, it didn’t cost the company anything at all to print pictures we would actually want to keep. It was even better for the environment!

The end result is that I have an 8x10″ glossy picture of every single one of the 300 wedding pictures from the official photographer (and two of many of them). I have 8x10″ prints of hundreds of scenic mountain west and urban scenery photographs. I would have thousands and thousands, but up until the end I threw most of them out. When I knew I was leaving, I just started printing and keeping pictures that were remotely relevant. A couple thousand in all, I would guess. For the most part, they’ve been in a box until recently. I didn’t know what, if anything, I wanted to do with them, but free is free, right?

Now that we’ve moved into a house, we suddenly have a whole lot of wall space and a whole lot of nails sticking out where photographs used to hang. The original owners left some behind, but they’re not exactly our type. So every time I’ve gone to Redstone, I have been stopping by the Walmart up there and picking up 8x10 frames. Actually, those frames that are matted to 5x7 and taking the mattes out because they’re cheaper that way. And one by one, I’ve been putting up pictures on the wall. I am buying around 10 frames at a time, putting them up, and plan to continue doing so until I run out of space for them. Three trips and counting and it still hasn’t happened yet.

We have other things on the wall. There was a photographer whose gallery Clancy and I stumbled on when we were on our honeymoon. Several years later when I was struggling to come up with an anniversary present, I tracked down the photographer and ordered a set of ten (relatively inexpensive) poster prints. My first trip to Walmart included frames for the rest of those. I’ve also been keeping an eye out for posters of interest and have a couple of Colosse’s skyline. I also got a bunch of really cheap posters from the Watchman movie, except the odd dimensions (12x18″) make them less convenient for framing. With the exception of a couple, most of the anime scrolls are relegated to the basement, which they dominate in my little man-cave down there (which, as soon as we buy a space heater, should be inhabitable the other 8 months of the year).

The walls are still a little bare. In addition to using the nails already there I have added a few. I’m not exactly sure what things looked like before, but there doesn’t seem to be much pattern to where they had stuff posted. I had originally thought I would pull theirs out and go completely with our own, but I’ve become sort of attacked to the randomness of the placings on the wall. Well, not randomness, but they’re not as neatly lined up as Mom and Dad have them at home.

Anyhow, the lynchpin of all of this involves the photographs from my old job that I sort of felt silly for stocking up on. Right now they’re a godsend. Having had exposure to all of those prints before, the thought of actually going to a drug store and paying for them is alien to me. I may have to do so because there are some good pictures that I inexplicably did not get a good 8x10″ of, but I should be able to keep it to a minimum. So, a toast to my former employer for being so instrumental in decorating our walls.

According to one study, divorce hits sons harder than daughters:

A new study reports that men whose parents divorced before they were 18 are two to three times as likely to seriously consider taking their own lives as men whose parents were not divorced by that age.

Women whose parents divorced by age 18 were not affected as significantly. They, too, thought about suicide more often than other women, but the thoughts were explained by other traumatic experiences they’d had, like childhood abuse. {…}

Earlier studies that looked at the impact of divorce on suicidal tendencies have yielded somewhat conflicting results. One 2006 study found that men of divorced parents were 10 times as likely to attempt suicide compared with men whose parents were not divorced, and that women were not at elevated risk at all. Other studies have found an increased risk only for women.

But Dr. Fuller-Thomson, who studies how early childhood factors influence health, said it’s important to isolate the effects of divorce from the effects of other problems that children may experience at the same time. Such stressors include abuse, a parent’s unemployment or drug use, poor physical or mental health, and difficulties in school that can lead to lower earning potential in adulthood. Children of divorce also tend to have lower rates of marriage and higher divorce rates as adults than others, which could also play a role.

There are a few reasons as to why this might be. The study’s author suggests that it may be a product of the lack of a male figure. That could be, but you would need to see if the same holds true of children whose father died. Some in the comment section are playing the reverse-causation card. The kids are depressed because of whatever was happening in the marriage and not because of the divorce. There could be something to this to, but the fact that it seems to apply to sons and not daughters suggests that there is something else at play, here. The two possibilities that come to mind are that troubled sons cause divorce in a way that troubled daughters do not or that daughters deal with turbulent parental marriages (whether they end in divorce or not) better.

The first argument is belied by the fact that sons prevent divorce:

Economists Gordon Dahl (at the University of Rochester) and Enrico Moretti (at UCLA) discovered the following facts in 2003: In the United States, the parents of a girl are nearly 5 percent more likely to divorce than the parents of a boy. The parents of three girls are close to 10 percent more likely to divorce than the parents of three boys.

Not only do parents of daughters divorce more, but divorced women with daughters are substantially less likely to remarry than divorced women with sons. Landsburg suggested that “daughters are a liability in the market for a husband. Not only do daughters lower the probability of remarriage; they also lower the probability that a second marriage, if it does occur, will succeed.”

The author that article proceeds to bend over backwards to explain that this is because girls are strong and awesome and boys are… well, a pain. Her theory is that women with daughters are more likely to have the confidence to leave and that mothers of sons don’t remarry because boys are so much harder to parent. Truth be told, there may be something to this insofar as her source is correct that boys add to the workload and girls (over time) lessen it. I would add to that, though, it’s also more likely than not that single women parenting girls have an easier time of it because they know how to parent girls. I know that I would have a much, much, much easier time raising a son by myself than raising a daughter. The prospect of such being less daunting, may convince women on the fence that she can make it on her own. I also think there is a case to be made, though, that whether it’s true or not women are much more likely to believe that their sons need a father.

Mamapundit raises objection to a proposed Florida law grading parents as well as the kids. She comments thusly:

Parental involvement in children’s education is important, yes. However, the expectations of parents (read: mothers) in this regard have become increasingly burdensome in recent decades. When I was a third grader, my parents helped me with big projects, and they occasionally attended a school function. Today, however, “good” parents are expected to make involvement with their children’s school and classroom a kind of second job. I see many moms who volunteer at school several days per week. When they aren’t actually AT the school, they are selling candy bars and wrapping paper to raise money for the school. These moms know more about the minutiae of their kids’ classwork than the kids themselves, and they expect to spend hours each night sitting next to their children as they complete their homework. Prep for a school project – like the annual science fair – is a major family undertaking requiring intensive maternal involvement at every turn, as well as expensive and fancy supplies.

Sometimes it really does feel like we live in two countries. As often as I hear complaints about this, I also hear complaints from others (including educators) about how school is viewed as daycare and it’s the lack of parental involvement that is to blame for our education system’s failures. While some of that is passing the buck (educators have an incentive for parents to be blamed) and some of it is smug superiority (parents have an incentive to feel superior to other parents and none of them are going to think that they are the problem, it still rings true. Perhaps by sheer repetition.

Granju, though, is making the other argument. Never has more been expected of parents. And you hear these complaints, too. So-called “helicopter parents.” Ironically, these complaints also come from educators, though more of the upper level variety. Perhaps some of this is coming from parents that are resentful about being “judged” by having a job and therefore not being willing to work for the school district 40 hours a week, there is an element of truth to it.

These two ideas are not mutually exclusive. It’s more than possible to have one set of parents that won’t let go and another set of parents that simply doesn’t have time to care. It does make it, however, difficult to really approach from any sort of policy or public meme perspective. Talk about how parents should be more involved, and it’s those that are already involved that are most likely to listen. Talk about how parents need to be more laid back, and those same parents are not going to want to sacrifice any perceived edge that their involvement gives their kids while others may (to the extent that they’re listening) take it as a pat on the back for doing something right (if only by default and circumstance).

What this gets me thinking about, though, is the degree to which, if this continues, it will further create a disparity (along economic lines) among the youth. Maybe not, if the helicoptering actually doesn’t do any good. In the Sigmoid view of the world, though, it’s that sort of hyperinvolvement that gets kids to do the right things to get into the right college and avoid the abject failure that occurs with regard to anybody that doesn’t go to an Ivy League (or perhaps Public Ivy) institution. As with most things, while dramatically overstated and false in scope, it’s hard to deny there being some truth there. You may not have to go to an Ivy League of Public Ivy, but it sure is helpful to have a degree of direction and if you go to a commoner university to get into the honors college or have a realistic game plan to get into a good field upon graduation.

I am an example of how having on-guard parents can make a real difference. Academically, I was headed absolutely nowhere until my parents put their foot down and my father watched over me to make sure that I was going what I needed to be doing. Had I been raised by another set of parents that didn’t do that, it’s likely I would have ended up a college dropout and in a much worse situation than I ended up in. Mom would later put the foot down when I started making noise about going to trade school instead of college. Well, she wouldn’t have stopped me, but she urged me strongly not to and had the moral authority for me to listen. On the other hand, in an alternative Sigmoidian view, my experience is irrelevant because the entirety of my failure or success is due to my genes.

Anyhow, all of this is the long way around saying that if competition between upper class (and upper middle class) parents has never been greater and more and more is expected of the parents, while it becomes increasingly common among working class families and below to let the school districts (inadequately) raise their children, this portends bad things for the future of equality. I know that this is hardly an original thought, but considering all of the objective factors that make it harder for people from poor families to get ahead, the consideration of the additional layers added by hyperparents who believe that their livelihood exists in the success of their parents and that State College is death, is pretty depressing.

On the other hand, Granju’s kids attend Episcopal schools, which are both private and Episcopalian. It’s not hard to imagine that her experiences are not universal. I went to a very strong public high school, which followed a moderately strong middle school, which followed a pretty strong elementary school. Past grade school, the expectation of parental involvement was pretty slight.

Per the Wall Street Journal, Y is for citY:

Much of this week’s National Association of Home Builders conference has dwelled on the housing needs of an aging baby boomer population. But their children actually represent an even larger demographic. An estimated 80 million people comprise the category known as “Gen Y,” youth born roughly between 1980 and the early 2000s. The boomers, meanwhile, boast 76 million.

Gen Y housing preferences are the subject of at least two panels at this week’s convention. A key finding: They want to walk everywhere. Surveys show that 13% carpool to work, while 7% walk, said Melina Duggal, a principal with Orlando-based real estate adviser RCLCO. A whopping 88% want to be in an urban setting, but since cities themselves can be so expensive, places with shopping, dining and transit such as Bethesda and Arlington in the Washington suburbs will do just fine.

“One-third are willing to pay for the ability to walk,” Ms. Duggal said. “They don’t want to be in a cookie-cutter type of development. …The suburbs will need to evolve to be attractive to Gen Y.”

This would be more impressive if we weren’t talking about ages 11-31 (or so). Priorities change over time. What seems cool and convenient when you’re young and healthy (and childless) are unnecessary luxuries when you’re older. Having a club house is great when you’re young and single, but it loses its appeal when you get older. Particularly with kids. Visiting with Hubert and Laurie over the holidays, it’s hard not to appreciate the degree to which lifestyle wants surrenders to practical needs. Heck, when I was in my early twenties I liked having a roommate. It seems that the older you get, the more personal space you want and need. And it’s hard to have personal space when you’re surrounded by people and living in the sort of density required for improved walkability and the like.

It’s not unlike my genesis with cars. I’ve always been a small car guy. I like the maneuverability, the cheapness, and mileage of small cars. I thought that I would drive a small car for the rest of my life. With time, though, I have found myself increasingly aggravated with not having a car that I can easily move stuff around in. Yes, I can rent a UHaul. Yes, Clancy’s car has a hitch. But our new car is a crossover SUV. Even without a pending family, we would have gotten a capacity car. And even though we could probably make due with her Camry if we had to with a family, at some point I just started wanting to be able to put stuff in the car without having to spend time perfectly situating everything so it will fit or worrying that the new chair I bought won’t fit in the trunk (it didn’t, but Staples was awesome about shipping it for free). And with houses, I think that making due with smaller space is something that starts getting old faster than you do.

If I had to make due with another small car, I most assuredly would. But I’m not at that stage in my life anymore. It makes me wonder a bit about vans, which I have for many years hoped that I would avoid. Right now I think it preferable to try to make due with something a little smaller even if it means putting clothes in a car-top carrier and the like. Our next vehicle will likely be larger than our current ones (for a full family-size car), but maybe or maybe not a van. But maybe ten years from now, I will look back and say “I loved that crossover, but I’m really at the time in my life where I need a van.” Or maybe we’ll simply be shoehorning everything into a Highlander.

Note to self: if you ever find yourself thinking “I am at a BMW time in my life…” no you are not.

My brother Mitch was in a car accident last week. He’s fine, but the car is going to need some serious work. In the meantime, he has a rental car. Or, at least, he had one until yesterday. Dad told him that he could use the van while until his car gets repaired. Ordinarily, since my folks are retired and don’t go out all that often, this would be an ideal solution. Except, of course, that I’m here. So while Mitch is driving the van, the other three of us are sharing the convertible. I had gently tried to talk Dad out of this, but I failed.

This presents a bit of a problem because I had planned a road trip this week. Beyond that, I am taking regular trips to the city and back to visit people and get caught up. Mom and Dad have resolved to work this all out, but it’s going to mean that I am going to have to have a clearer idea of what I am going to be doing and when I am going to be doing it. I planned this long trip home with an idea towards a kind of freedom to do some of the things I don’t usually get time to do as they occur to me.

When the subject was first broached, Dad shot down the most obvious solution to our dilemma, which is that I rent a car for the rest of my stay. That would, in his mind, defeat the purpose because Mitch was renting a car at a discounted rate and this would end up a net loss for everybody. For me it would be worth it to have limitless mobility. The cost would, but the discomfort of negating (or taking on the burden) of Dad’s generosity wouldn’t.

One thing about us Trumans is that we are, with the exception of my brother Oliver, a thrifty bunch. There isn’t a time I don’t look at my bank account and thank my parents for instilling this value in me. On the other hand, these are sort of special circumstances. And between the paychecks and pension in the three houses of Truman, we’re going to be bringing in thousands of dollars over a week that we’re all inconveniencing ourselves - driving each other around, altering our plans - for $15 a day (the amount my brother was paying for the rental car). You have to be careful not to get in the habit of paying too much or too regularly for convenience, but these are sort of special circumstances (otherwise, I would rent a car every time we came to town).

In other circumstances, I’d probably approach this as one of the Truman adventures wherein we display the value of saving a dollar, but that it’s coming at a rather inconvenient time since my time in Delosa is limited. I guess from my parents’ perspective, it means that I am going to be around the house more often (which might be a plus or might be a minus). I am also trying to take the broader view that this is part and parcel of the thirfty values that have served me so well and of my father’s generosity which has me using the convertible rather than renting a car every time I come down.

I guess I want to have it both ways. Generosity when it’s convenient and paying my own way when the generosity is being stretched a little thin. But it seems like it’s kind of one or the other.

This has sort of come up before in the past when it has come to air conditioning. Dad keeps a warm house. Obviously, not a problem in January, but in the summer Mom is wearing a sweatband to catch her sweat while Clancy is uncomfortable sleeping and I am changing clothes twice a day because sweat is getting the better of my morning clothes. I’ve tried to tell Mom that we would be glad to cut a check for whatever bump the AC contributes to the electric bill when we are in town. Negotiations on this are ongoing.

Not bossy with us. She has carved out some of her own rules about when she’s allowed on the sofa, but beyond that she’s generally pretty compliant. But one thing I wasn’t expecting when I got her is how she interacts with other dogs. She was raised with another dog in the household and the people at the shelter couldn’t say enough nice things about her temperament towards other animals.

The first sign that something was amiss was when the landlords brought their dogs, a puppy and an older dog. I figured that Lisby might respond negatively at first since it was on her turf but would get over it. Instead, the opposite happened. Lisby was initially curious, walking up with a wagging tail. Then, once she got close she became visibly uncomfortable and started flashing her teeth and growling. This would happen again at various places, including Petsmart and a dog park in Alexandria. Initial curiosity and interest followed by anxiety.

When I flew down to Colosse for a week or so, I left her with some friends down in Deseret who had two dogs. It repeated itself there, but after some careful introductions (and butt-sniffing) there were no problems. So, as I had hoped when she first started showing these tendencies, it’s mostly a temporary anxiety that she gets over.

For Thanksgiving we (all three of us) spent some time with Dr. Sharon Alvarez, one of Clancy’s coworkers, and her husband. They have a 6-month old Rottweiler, Bulworth. I figured it would be a good chance for her to spend some time and actually get used to another dog (and cat and birds, Sharon loves animals). Lisby was very interested in the birds. As food, it looked like. The cat was of mild interest, but she mostly wanted to chase it around and the cat mostly wanted to get away.

The dog… well that was a different story. Lisby tends to get particularly anxious around large puppies. Understandable. All that size and energy. She was more aggressive than usual, flashing her teeth and air snapping. She never got used to Bulworth, though. Was never comfortable around Bulworth. Disappointing, but not unexpected after our previous experiences. The funny thing, though, was how much she just started ordering Bulworth around. If Lisby wanted to be somewhere Bulworth was, she would just go and chase Bulworth, between three and four times her weight, away. She walked right by Bulworth to eat his food. And Bulworth went. We were kind of embarassed, though Sharon thought it was funny (as always, Lisby went over very well at the Alvarez household because of her mellow and friendly demeanor - except to Bulworth, of course, and the cat).

I was relating this to the lady at the shelter that hooked Lisby up with us. She was surprised at the general bossiness of Lisby since she exhibited none of those behaviors at the shelter, but was no longer surprised when I revealed Bulworth’s gender. Girl dogs are like that, she said. It’s one of the reasons they recommend never getting two female dogs. They just never stop trying to boss one another around and the pole-positioning never ends. But if you get a second male dog, no matter the size, they’ll just take it and do as bidden.

“How odd,” I said, thinking a particular thought.

“Well, look at the way humans interact!” she said, airing the thought I was thinking.