Things to Do - Grandma's House (including The Stories We Tell, Cherish This Day & Random Links)

One of my goals for 2015 is to take more photos of the kids with their grandparents. Dan's parents and my mom are such a big part of our lives, but I rarely photograph the moments the kids spend with them (probably because I'm so happy to let the grandparents take over the children while I zone out/sleep/read my book on the couch). Anyways, here are some photos of our recent trip to Richmond.

If you have a chance, don't forget to check out Cherish This Day & The Stories We Tell, both of which have amazing group posts today.

RANDOM LINKS:

* The Best Feminist Books for Young Readers.

* These are my absolute favorite sweatshirts in the world (and they're super cheap).

* This list is making me really want to vacation in Philly this summer.

* Female Supreme Court Justice legos.









Grandma Margie's art studio always brings the fun. In case you're wondering, T's wearing his homemade Santa Clause mask, with a beard, of course.





Coco was welcomed on a trial basis, during which she broke out of her crate, ate a full vacuum cleaner bag (off of the vacuum cleaner), and trashed the laundry room. F**cking dog.



The kids hoped that writing a schedule for Coco might improve her behavior.







F made mashed potatoes, Grandma Margie taught the youngest two kids to knit, and Dan debated politics with his dad.



The kids learned how to play spades, Dan could not be happier.







And, somewhat miraculously, my children all got along (for the most part).

HAPPY WEEKEND EVERYONE!!

Things To Read - Five Interesting Articles From Around the Web (on the fall of neighborhoods, destructive tweets, food safety, fairness, & internet trailblazing)

1. (The Fall of Neighborhoods) - Would You Call 911 on Another Parent? - "The real issue? We can’t rely on our neighbors to help look out for our kids, and that’s why our neighborhoods don’t feel safe enough. When you let a 10- and 6-year-old walk home on their own, it feels scary because they’re fully responsible for their own safety. What’s missing is the sense that we’re all responsible for everyone’s children.

. . . .

I understand that the reasons for this are vast, starting with the disappearance of the front porch and ending with the disconnectedness of the Internet. These structural shifts can seem too big to push against on our own.

But here are some simple things we can each do:

We can invite a next-door neighbor over for dinner.

We can make a point of attending neighborhood events, such as farmers markets or park dedications or festivals.

We can make an effort to chat with other parents when we pick up our kids from daycare or school.

We can walk instead of drive, so that we see our neighbors and have a chance of talking to them.

We can teach our children that if they’re alone and feeling scared, they can seek out a woman with children and ask for help. Teach them not to fear all strangers.

We can tie the shoe of someone else’s kid at the playground, or reach out a hand when someone else’s kid wants to get down from the playground ladder. We can ask a parent who’s juggling too much stuff: “Please let me carry that for you.” We can accept offers of help instead of demurring. These small things say “We’re in this together” when every message around us says “It’s all on you.”
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2. (Destructive Tweets) - How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life - “I cried out my body weight in the first 24 hours,” she told me. “It was incredibly traumatic. You don’t sleep. You wake up in the middle of the night forgetting where you are.” She released an apology statement and cut short her vacation. Workers were threatening to strike at the hotels she had booked if she showed up. She was told no one could guarantee her safety."
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3. (Food Safety) - Why Last Night's Chicken Made You Sick - "Identifying the cause of an outbreak is much simpler than trying to stop one. Once officials have traced the contamination to a food producer, the responsibility to curb the problem falls to the U.S.D.A.’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, or F.S.I.S. In the summer of 2013, as the outbreak spread, F.S.I.S. officials shared the C.D.C.’s conclusion that Foster Farms meat was behind the outbreak, but they had no power to force a recall of the tainted chicken. Federal law permits a certain level of salmonella contamination in raw meat. But when federal limits are breached, and officials believe that a recall is necessary, their only option is to ask the producer to remove the product voluntarily. Even then, officials may only request a recall when they have proof that the meat is already making customers sick. As evidence, the F.S.I.S. typically must find a genetic match between the salmonella in a victim’s body and the salmonella in a package of meat that is still in the victim’s possession, with its label still attached. If the patient has already eaten the meat, discarded the package, or removed the label, the link becomes difficult to make, and officials can’t request a voluntary recall."
. . . .

Some products, such as cut-up chicken parts, have no performance standard at all. A hundred per cent of the product in supermarkets may be contaminated without running afoul of federal limits. Rangan told me that she was stunned when she discovered this, just recently: “We’ve asked the U.S.D.A. point blank, ‘So does that mean there aren’t standards for lamb chops and pork ribs?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we don’t have standards for those.’
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4. (Fairness) - Believing that Life is Fair May Make You a Terrible Person - "The world, obviously, is a manifestly unjust place: people are always meeting fates they didn’t deserve, or not receiving rewards they did deserve for hard work or virtuous behaviour. Yet several decades of research have established that our need to believe otherwise runs deep. Faced with evidence of injustice, we’ll certainly try to alleviate it if we can – but, if we feel powerless to make things right, we’ll do the next best thing, psychologically speaking: we’ll convince ourselves that the world isn’t so unjust after all.

Hence the finding, in a 2009 study, that Holocaust memorials can increase antisemitism. Confronted with an atrocity they otherwise can’t explain, people become slightly more likely, on average, to believe that the victims must have brought it on themselves."
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5. (Internet Trailblazing) - How Your Travels Around the Internet Expose the Way You Think - "Trailblazer gave me an x-ray view of my own mental activity. Clicking on random memes triggered a curious search query and—boom—20 pages later I’d find a useful scientific paper. (I’m now more forgiving of falling down a Twitter hole.) Traditional academic citations never capture serendipity, the stumbling, associational nature of how knowledge relates to itself. Trailblazer does.

Imagine if trail sharing became routine. Reporters could enrich their stories by showing how they came to their conclusions. You could send funny or jokey pathways, like cognitive emoji. Trails are like Proustian cookies, teleporting us back to mental states from weeks ago. Vannevar Bush was right: The journey is a destination."

Places to Go (Vacation) - Democracy in Action at the Virginia State Capitol (Richmond, VA)

Alfonso Lopez, our local delegate for the Virginia General Assembly, has a son who attends the same grade school as my children. Every year, at the school's auction, Alfonso auctions off a personal tour of the State Capitol and every year someone outbids us at the last minute (seriously - EVERY YEAR!). So after our most recent loss, Alfonso said that even if we didn't technically "win", we still could come visit him at the Capitol anytime. Awesome, right?

The only glitch was that we really wanted to see the Capitol in action - heated floor debates, impassioned filibusters, nasty back-room deals (apparently I watch too much House of Cards). But the Virginia General Assembly only meets 45 days in odd-numbered years (60 days in even numbered years), so in order to see halls full of our Delegates and Senators, we decided to pull the kids out of school on February 27, the last day of session.

I thought this would be a fun way to teach the kids about democracy, but turns out Dan and I learned a lot as well. For example, did you know that the VA General Assembly has existed since 1619? Making it the the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere.















We arrived early to the General Assembly, so we checked out the building's cafe. Turns out views from the deck were gorgeous.



F and her grandfather. Sometimes candids look rather, um, unplanned.





Thomas Jefferson designed the Assembly building (or at least recommended the Roman temple to copy for the building) and chose the hilltop location, as he seemed to dabble in everything.











Eventually we made our way to Alfonso's office, where the kids received activity kits and pins. Free stuff = happiness, even when everything is educational.









After a quick tour of the General Assembly building, we made our way over to the Capitol. The state of Virginia commissioned the George Washington statue during Washington's lifetime. The sculptor used a life mask and other measurements of Washington himself, thus it is considered the most accurate depiction of our first President. (Apparently, like me, Washington also had a bit of a tummy problem).





P didn't want to give up the seat of power.





While Alfonso had meetings (which, I'm sure, were very House of Cards-esque), we took a tour of the Capitol building. Jefferson, Pocahontas, several Confederate leaders - lots of US history in one building.







And for the grand finale - we witnessed democracy in action from the visitors' gallery. Unfortunately, the kids were pretty tired by this point and the votes we saw weren't exactly thrilling because on the last day of the session, they apparently vote on lots of stuff that's not very controversial. But some month has to be Virginia's Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (congratulations March 2015!), and we got to watch the vote that made it happen! Anyway, I think the kids got the picture, or at least part of it - they have a big scoreboard that shows how each delegate votes on each bill, and T kept asking why they were all voting for green.



And here we are with our awesome state delegate. I highly suggesting meeting your own delegate and asking for a tour. Sometimes learning about the past is exactly what you need to become excited for the future.