tuckova

ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things

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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

Category: SQUIRE TUCK

  • dear people with children (or with opinions about children)

    How do you handle your child's holiday giving? Because I am lost. I think that up until about (some age) you tell the kid the list of people to whom they should give gifts (which is sort of sadly correlated with "people from whom they can expect gifts" but here we are), and you discuss…

  • phone conversation

    SQUIRE: Hey Mom. ME: Hey. S: What are you doing? ME: I'm talking to you. S: You sound sad. Are you sad? ME: No, I'm okay. A little tired. S: Well you can be honest with me if you are sad like you sound sad, and I think you do really sound sad for real.…

  • school in nature and books

    Pretty much every year the elementary grades spend one week of school out "in the nature"– it’s camp, basically. Squire’s first grade teacher didn’t take them because she was afraid they’d all drown in the lake or get eaten by bears (that one did wonder for the fears of a number of students, I am…

  • Practical Math

    For Easter we dyed a whole carton of eggs which white eggs are not always easy to find here but we found a whole carton of them and dyed them with fantastic colors and then ate one just to see of course and took the rest to the cottage and Saturday night the Easter Bunny…

  • Squire writes:

    Oh, my G-O-D! I got no real I.D. But I say that I got one to pass through the agencies But no one really knows That I like CD’s Like the rapping one’s And the Hip-Hop one’s. And then someone knows that I got no RID probably from the agencies But it’s too late! I…

  • freedom of choices vs. freedom from choice

    NIGHT 1ME: Tonight, instead of arguing, let’s vote for which game we play.FRIAR: Catan!ME: Catan!SQUIRE: I want to play Clue.ME: But we voted.SQUIRE: I don’t care.[argue argue argue; we play Clue] NIGHT 2ME: Do you want to play Clue or Carcassone tonight?SQUIRE: I want to play TransAmerica, it’s my favorite.ME: But I offered Clue or…

  • 11/44 = 1/4

    We had the quarter-year parent/teacher conference at Squire Tuck’s school. BOY do I like his new teacher. She just does so many small subtle things that I think are correct. Like she offered either individual private consultations or she said she could talk to us as a group. Offering to talk to us as a…

  • 2/44 = 1/22

    Two weeks of school down. Squire’s already lost his locker key and missed a couple homework assignments, but he seems to be holding onto the lunch card, which is impressive. And I think the school supplies thing went okay. Ah, the school supplies thing: I promised Julia I’d tell. In June, the teachers hand out…

  • Some people think it helps to slap your forehead

    We went to the beer garden yesterday to play Scrabble, which we’ve done nearly every night for the last week. School starts Monday, so spending every possible evening out of doors, especially for Squire, seems necessary and important. Although it was the same even temp in the apartment yesterday as it is every day, it…

  • The Legend of the Magic Bed

    Squire Tuck returns from his week away at camp today, and I told him I’d clean his room while he was gone, because it is beyond the skills of a ten-year-old to handle the mess in there, and sometimes you need a fresh start. As payment for my cleaning, I am stealing this story that…