I couldn't call it a day without replacing those raptor-headed women on the previous post with these lovely children

Home from camp for less than 24 hours, Oliver was already outside in our yard, watering the lemons and vegetables. We have a serious drought going on, if you hadn't heard, and we're obeying water restrictions. That's why our lawn looks so awful. I wish I could enlist someone to do a complete overhaul of our front and back yards -- make them drought resistant. Maybe we'll do it ourselves in a grand, homeschool-style effort this fall.

Henry and I went to see the movie Boyhood the other evening and then took a bunch of photos on the top of the Arclight Cinemas parking garage. The glorious sunset helped to mitigate the obliteration I felt watching the film. It was incredibly beautiful and interesting, and I haven't gotten around to writing a three-line movie review, but I will. Here's what the sky looked like:

And here's Henry's hand in the sky:

I'm going to miss those boys. They're leaving tomorrow for a trip to my parents' house in Atlanta and then onward to Hilton Head Island. We've been joking all night on when they might catch sight of a person carrying a gun -- legally -- in either state. Good Lord. I will join them for a few days next week, but this house is going to be quiiiiiiiiieeeeettttt, for sure.

When Homeschooling and Han Dynasty Men Collide with Technology

So, this morning Oliver and I were reading in his History of the World book about China in the seventeenth century -- while the Protestants and the Catholics were battling it out in the Hundred Years War, the Manchus were dictating to the Han Chinese about their hair (shave your forehead, grow a pigtail). I asked Oliver to use his iPad and pull up an image of a Han Chinese, and being dyslexic he spoke into the device and we got this:

Evidently, Siri or whoever the heck inhabits the iPad, misunderstood Oliver and gave us some hot Chinese men. Hilarity ensued, and it was hard going to get back on track with the historical executing and plundering and conquests.

There's some larnin' going on in these parts (and not pants!).






Good Lord. I imagine someone is blocking my post as we speak --

Home School, Science, Bread and Butter

So, this morning we did some experiments with the new chemistry kit and then I dropped Oliver off at his urban homeschool science class. I read a bit in the car, took a walk and bought a baguette at a crunchy granola hipster market. I bought some fancy French butter with sea salt, too, that was ridiculously expensive, and then I unashamedly smeared it on the baguette with my fingers in the car. I know that if I were sexy Nigella Lawson ya'll would think I was great and love her! but I'm just me, with sea salty buttery fingers and a half of a baguette in a brown paper sack in my white Mazda.

The Burn Bowl

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains

its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Last evening, Oliver and I attended another workshop with Jim Robertson out at Malibu Creek State Park. We arrived at 3:30 and stayed through the rising of the full moon until after 9:00. We learned how to start a fire from little more than a nest of pine straw, a rock and flint, a bow-like tool and some serious back and forth movements. Here's the City Lady, getting ready to fire up.

Oliver, of course, is much more talented and created quite a fire with the help of Jim:

Jim taught all of us how to create a burn bowl. The burn bowl is a primitive container that you make by slowly blowing on an ember that you've placed in the center of a split piece of wood. The blowing is a slow and mindful activity. Jim told us that you can do it over a period of days.

Oliver took to this with his usual focus, blowing slowly and steadily until the ember had carved out a small indentation. Over the next few hours, the indentation became a dark bowl with smooth sides that Oliver periodically scraped out.

Jim told us that the bowl is a part of us and we are a part of the bowl.

Oliver then carved the piece of wood, softening and rounding the corners. He'll sand and polish it at home.

Afterward, he made a small, rustic spoon, using the same slow and mindful effort.

I guess I could make metaphor here -- the deep breath, the slow out-take, the burst into flame, the ember that erodes the grain, the carving out, the smoothing -- but I won't. As Jim said, the bowl is you and you are the bowl.

Another Dispatch from the School of Revolution: Squishy Dough Parts

Here's the Big O, downing a bowl of spicy chicken ramen. I picked him up yesterday afternoon from a small school that includes home-schoolers in its special Friday program. Do you know that boy went, not knowing a soul, and came out all smiles? The day's activities and learning included the viewing of the great Jacques Tati's M. Hulot's Holiday. Honestly, who knew I'd be talking about a French movie with my twelve year old son, and so enthusiastically, particularly after the heightened drama of the last couple of months. He's been a whole lot of smiles of late, partly due, I'm sure, to the de-schooling that we're doing, and partly due to the fact that he's a smiler naturally, and he's just remembering how to do it. I feel a bit manic when I start talking about these two books I'm reading -- Deschooling Gently and The Teenage Liberation Handbook -- I imagine droves of people, even some of my closest friends, think I've gone completely off my rocker. Which I have, actually, at least regarding cigars and John Boehner.

Anywho.

Here's a conversation that the Big O and I had in the car on our way home from his wonderful day. As background, I'll reveal that Oliver had to go to the bathroom, really, really badly but there was too much traffic to stop the car, so he told me that he needed to just keep talking to stay distracted.

Mom, how DOES a girl pee, anyway? Where does it come out of? he asked.

Oliver! You know that! There's a small opening at the end of the urethra, I replied.

Oh, yeah! I remember that from those pictures we looked at in science class. You know, of the human body? All almost-teenagers' voices end in a question, right?

Exactly, I said.

Yeah, there's a hole there that's between two pieces of dough, squished together. He looked out the window.

Reader, I nearly wrecked the car and then just said what I've said at least 67,459,021 times during the last twelve years:

OLIVERRRRRR!

The main message from The School of Revolution, of course, is that things are actually quite hunky-dory normal in these parts.

Cake, Lemonade Stands, Homeschooling and The Walk to End Epilepsy

That's going on: cake baking. Today's order is for a Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. I have to decorate it, too -- a wacky Coupon Diva logo. Later, I'm making an Hallelujah cake for a friend's birthday party. The Big O is working on his lemonade stand that he'll be manning at this Sunday's End Epilepsy walk and 5K at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. He and The Husband are making it into quite a project -- a homeschool project, actually -- with real food and labor costing, profit margins, etc. Oliver has "hired" two friends to help him out, and the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles is providing a booth, table, chairs, tablecloth and, of course, thousands of patrons. I believe there will be lemonade and cookies (home-made of course) for sale for hundreds and when they're out, they're out. A significant portion of the proceeds will benefit the work to End Epilepsy.

In case you aren't around to have some of the best lemonade in town, you can still contribute to the walk by going to our Team Sophalofa page and making a donation. Any amount is welcome -- our local affiliate -- the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles -- is a terrific one whose director and other employees work incredibly hard in responding to those of us in the community. They even, most recently, have attended informational conferences regarding this whole medical marijuana thing and are organizing efforts to find out more. Given how top heavy many non-profits are, and how so much money goes to schmoozing and administrative costs, it's so refreshing and encouraging that the EFGLA is so responsive to its members. The walk is at the beautiful Rose Bowl in Pasadena, something that we look forward to each year.

Join the Walk to End Epilepsy, Drink Lemonade from Ollie's Lemonade Stand and Eat Cookies!

Dispatches from The Schools of Humming, Tradition and Revolution***

Dispatch One - Revolution

Since we decided to pull Oliver from his public charter school and explore options, I've been reading a book called Deschooling Gently by Tammy Takahashi that has been enormously helpful in these early days. I realize that for the past year and a half, Oliver's experience at school has been increasingly stressful and that he broke down completely in the last month and a half of this school year when it appeared that things were not going to be an improvement over last year. I won't go into the reasons why here, but suffice it to say that it was a sort of perfect storm with no one person or institution to blame, but rather a confluence of factors (adolescence, dyslexia, unique personality) and a direction that our school is taking that I believe to be unfortunate. I looked at Sophie a few weeks ago, looked at Oliver and looked at Henry. If I'd been naked in a tub, I would have sat up and shouted, joyfully, Eureka! This is way too hard and life is too short and Oliver is too precious to go on like this! Literally. That's literally what I thought. So I put a stop to it.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book:

Deschooling is a process of getting used to learning as a family without the external control of a school system. Some call it a decompression time, or a vacation. Generally, it involves doing less schoolwork and more life work, less judging and more exploring, less have-tos and more want-tos. Deschooling is moving toward a life where everyone is happy and learning.

Deschooling is learning how to live without being in school, to fend for ourselves, and to provide our children with an appropriate educational environment. 

So, that's what Oliver and I are doing right now -- we're de-schooling. In the mornings, we sit down and listen to the Writer's Almanac. This morning we listened to some fascinating information about the history of Voyager I that led us to search for Carl Sagan's beautiful reading titled "The Pale Blue Dot." We watched a video on that, explored another website about Saturn and talked about what it means to be alive in the universe. We wrote in a journal online and set a goal for the rest of the day. The other day, Oliver particularly liked a poem by Anne Sexton that we heard on the Writer's Almanac, so we talked about metaphor and hidden meanings. That discussion went into the online journal, too. Oliver dictates and I type (remember how much I love to type and how good I am at it?).

Yes, I have plans to explore other options -- even other schools that cater to the dyslexic child. I've done and continue to do lots of research on homeschooling, though, and I'm already making connections. There's math to think of and science, of course -- there's curriculum and field trips and get-togethers. Every now and then I think I've gone completely insane, but then I pick up the book and remind myself that we're "deschooling gently," that this didn't happen in a vacuum and that Oliver is happy and silly and light for the first time in well over a year. I'll repeat that:

Oliver is happy and silly and light for the first time in well over a year.


***The dispatches from the Schools of Humming and Tradition will follow in the next few days.

Oxygen Rainbows

A rainbow line of oxygen tanks pulls up right alongside me on the highway, dragon clouds and blue skies above. I've only known careless love, sang the bard, a wheedle through my head. Oliver sat beside me, shot the photo and looked straight forward.  I tend to slip in the shocker when you least expect it. When somethin's not right, it's wrong. I pulled him out of school last week, quietly. I'm de-schooling for now and homeschooling for later. The road is wide and the sky is wide. It's all going to be ok.

Changing Education Paradigms

Nearly 11,000,000 people have viewed this video, but I was not one of them. Thank you, Francesca, for giving me the link!