Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mother Jones

New developments in my household: Anna works at a grocery store deli. She also drives. This means that I don't have to take her to and from work, but as her mom it also means that I can't go to bed until she gets home.

The deli officially closes at 9. She has to help clean up and do some prep work and so the actual time that she leaves varies and depends on how busy they were, etc.

I put Mary and Frank to bed at 10 and then wait for Anna. Usually I clean up the kitchen or start a load of laundry.

She comes home tired and smelling of Hy Vee Chinese. We sit and talk for a few minutes about her supervisor that night, or a coworker. She describes the huge pots with baked on food that she scrubbed. She complains about her giant smock, though it is sized "small." I feel a bit like a labor organizer as I question the late hours and work conditions. My little worker shrugs and says "eh." We go to bed.

I love it when new routines create themselves. This new job concerns me a bit, but I have to admit that I love our time together after she gets home from work and needs to unwind a bit. I have a found a window of opportunity to talk to a teen. That's harder than talking to management.

Saturday, April 02, 2011

We are Men of Harvard

"I had more than once stated in public that in my opinion a five-foot—at first a three-foot—shelf would hold books enough to afford a good substitute for a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading," Dr. Eliot, President of Harvard University for forty years, explains in the Introduction to the Reading Guide.

A week or so ago I started a project that I have been meaning to do for years. I am following Dr. Eliot's reading suggestions for a year. I moved the Harvard Classics to my bedroom and I end the evening with fifteen or so minutes of reading.

These selections would have my friend Tara throwing herself about dramatically complaining about reading the white male perspective again.

I love Tara for this reason, but I also like to read things written from the white male perspective.

I won't blog about every reading, but I am sure it will come up. Tonight my mind is full of Browning's memories of spring in England. It is a pleasant image and one that resonates as I watch spring come to my part of the world.

I have recently rid myself of pounds and pounds and pounds or books. I have flung them in the air in various ways - the free shelf for clients at my office, my dance studio, the Goodwill, and even a coffee shop. They are books I love, but books that I no longer need to have around me.

There are books that I will never get rid of. Among them are my Harvard Classics. The set was a gift when I graduated from law school. My Great Grandfather had a set of them and I always admired them and wished to read them. My Grams remembered that. :-)

Perhaps you have heard my rant against the business administration degree? I think they're crap. And I think Dr. Eliot would agree with me. Bank Presidents should read Browning. I am serious.