Oh good grief! These gun folks don't realize that making everyone upset with them hurts their cause. Tunnel vision. Best of luck to Great Girl!

I'm still mulling over the style. Some thoughts.... --Did Tristano want a word-for-word transcript? --Did Tristano want another book written about him and was either hoping it would be flattering like the last, or was hoping it would clarify what his hero's life had actually been? --After Tristano's death, the author didn't write a book, but just released a verbatim book. Was this the previous agreement? Did the author intend to write a book but Tristano's confusion made it impossible to write a coherent and true story? Did the author decide Tristano's own exact words were more powerful than anything he could have written? Did the author use the exact words so as not to be accused of tarnishing the memory of Tristano, the war hero? Was the author disillusioned with Tristano and did the minimum to fulfill his promise?

If so, I'm old and crabby too. She could have explained the basics of the story in the time it took to pack the snacks and drinks, I think. I think she may have arrived at the event with the mentality that it's a homeschool/kids performance, but surely signs saying no food was allowed should have been heeded, which tells me she was either inconsiderate or assumed that because it was a kids' performance the regular rules didn't apply. For example, our library doesn't allow food and there are signs to that effect in the room where they hold the book club and give the kids snacks.

My subscription order, which ships automatically every few months, is delayed. It's always been on time or sometimes they've even shipped it a day early. Luckily it's just some household items and is not urgent. Prime orders I had shipped in the last two weeks to myself were a day late. I sent a birthday gift to rural PA using the same address I use twice a year for shipping these gifts. The recipient received a notice that there was a delivery problem and she had to go to the post office to pick up. The best part was they left the notice on the door. Why not bring the package, then?! I did it the same way I've been doing it twice/year for 9 years. Not Prime-related, but my dad had some important financial papers that needed to be at a brokerage by a deadline. They had sent him papers to sign and a pre-paid UPS 2-day envelope. DH dropped them at UPS the Monday before Thanksgiving and the brokerage was open until 5:00 Wednesday. When it didn't arrive before the holiday we figured there was still time on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It didn't arrive until the Wednesday after Thanksgiving (9 days later) and the brokerage was only 20 miles away.

Yes, very annoying, all of it. For a children's performance I would expect a bit of whispering and probably some ill-timed restroom visits, but that's it. The plot and characters should have been covered ahead of time and there should have been no food if it was not permitted.

Butter, I'm glad you're healing well! I finished Tristano Dies last night. I must admit I while I saw the quality and beauty of the book, I didn't enjoy reading the first 2/3 of it. The last third was very interesting, starting around the time another point of view is inserted into the text via a letter. It was a slightly confusing book to read. As if stream of consciousness doesn't have its own challenges, if one adds old age and morphine it's even more challenging. In the final days of his life, Tristano has summoned a writer who wrote a previously flattering book about him to sit at his bedside and take down the story of his life. The book is written as if it's a verbatim record of what he says to the writer, including requests for glasses of water, asking whether he has a recorder in his pocket, telling him he wants more morphine or that he wants a nap, etc. I like the "meta" concept that Tristano appears to think the author will write another book about his life, but after Tristano is gone, the author actually releases a verbatim transcript. And we never hear from the author, as Tristano has asked him to never speak. This method of writing the novel was, for me, the most interesting aspect of it. It leaves questions: Did the author betray Tristano by releasing all his words, flattering and unflattering alike? His previous book about Tristano had been flattering, was that why Tristano called him again? Or did he call him to set straight the story after he was gone? And what about request outside the story, like getting a straw for drinking? Did Tristano know everything would be included? Did the author intend to write a book instead of a transcript? If so, what happened to that plan? This was the first book I've ever read translated from Italian, and the first novel I've read that references Italy and WWII. I was intrigued by the peek into the story and life of a war hero. As Jane mentioned a few weeks ago, it was a dark book, but there were also moments of lightness. In Tristano's morphine haze, he would often wander into philosophical discussion and thought-provoking ideas, an addition to bits of dark humor. Wow, it looks wonderful! :D

My kids do not understand Arabic, and neither do I. Although I'm trying to find time to embark on a study of Arabic words common to the Qur'an. Computers have made this much easier. For example, here's an app that takes the top 569 Aarbic words whose variations make up ~80% of the Qur'an. Having something like this was unimaginable when I was a child. I think there's definitely a movement towards having non-Arabic speakers learn what they're saying it instead of simply memorizing. I think no-translations-are-the-real-thing is a double-edged sword. While I believe that's generally true, it can be daunting for new Muslims. Heck, it's even daunting for people who grew up as Muslims but not speaking Arabic. Once I was listening to a American scholar who became Muslim in his teens and at that point had been studying Arabic for 30 years, including moving to Arabic-speaking countries for a few years. He said that classical Arabic was an ocean and he was still standing on the beach. It's just one of those books that can be read over and over for deeper and different meaning. I'm glad so many of those books exist in the world.

Thanks everyone! I ended up getting some local dried fruit and nuts in cute red baskets. Junie, I love my dentist. He's just really excited by dentistry, is very energetic, but also gentle. Everyone who works there has a great attitude and they are always joking around and going out to dinner together. My only fear is that because he is older than I am, I suspect he might retire earlier than I would like. I need a clone of him in his twenties.

I found out I need a dental crown and my dentist and his assistant are coming in on Saturday so it can be made and billed in 2015. They're coming in on their day off, during the holidays no less, so I wanted to arrive with some token of my appreciation. They just called to offer this so with the short notice I need something locally available or available Amazon Same Day. The dentist is a ~60ish man and the assistant is a mid-40s woman. They are very nice but I don't know them that well. I usually give sweets, books, or flowers. Sugar seems out as they are dentists, and the florists in town don't open until after my early appointment time. I don't feel I know them well enough to select good books. As an aside, I don't give alcohol so wine and spirits are out. Any ideas?

I thought some of you might be interested in this, especially in light of recent threads about the price of educational materials. Quote from Electronic Frontier Foundation: More info.

I guess it depends what you mean by "introduced." Children who don't speak Arabic are taught to memorize before they really understand. The reasons are to teach the child to pray, to establish a habit, and to take advantage of the memories of young children in the poll-parrot stage. In this sense most children I know learn the first Surah because it's the most important, then the shortest ones first as they are the easiest to memorize. The first is fairly short but is not the shortest. Another important verse is verse 255 of the second surah, Al-Baqara ("The Heifer", the longest Surah). Verse 255, Ayat-ul-Kursi (loosely, "The Throne") is also memorized earlier than other surahs. If you're just speaking about content with a native speaker of Arabic, I could see someone using that order, but I've never seen that myself. Are you confused yet? :)

Not a food exactly, but I stopped getting UTIs after I starting taking Uva ursi pills. I just checked and it also comes in a tea bag form. You'd have to research it for kids, though.

She's worried she'll have to add "shackles" to that list. ;)

Reading your answer made me realize what a silly question I had asked. I do know what secular means; I look for that in all our homeschooling materials! I just got turned around when asked for secular materials about religion. I can't think of a book but I called my dad to ask him. He collects religious books as a bit of a hobby. Ironically, my mom said he was praying at the time so he'll call me back later. :) I didn't want you to think I had dropped the topic.

May I also suggest puff pastry as an alternative to phyllo? It seems a bit fancier and festive, at least to me. Here's an example from the BBC, but you'd want to cut smaller for appetizers.

This is a great idea, although the recipe I used to use (before I misplaced it!) tasted better fresh out of the oven than if transported. It's easy in a food processor and moderate in a pan, in my experience.

Thank you!

It wouldn't bother me if he explained he doesn't have insurance (if that's true) and would like the cash price, but if he just said he's broke that would bother me a bit, but not much. FYI, I don't know where you live but here on the West coast financial folks often get up very early to deal with NY markets. A friend of mine was up at 3:15 am and in the office by 4:30 am, necessitating him to be in bed by 8:00 pm on weeknights. After he made lots of money he retired not because of the volume of work or travel but because he was tired of getting to bed so early and being restricted in what he could do with his evenings. On the plus side, he had been able to be home when his kids got out of school, but they grew up and that wasn't needed anymore either.

I sound like such a Negative Nellie. :blush: For the dual enrollment, I definitely think that would work to give parents a break and get kids out of the house and near mandated reporters. (And I would be happy to be able to take part, don't get me wrong!) But don't you think the overwhelmed parents who are not intentionally abusing their kids are also likely to go to the doctor, dentist, church, etc. It seems the overlap of those who are homeschooling, abusing kids without knowing it, and never joining any activities or partaking of health and dental care is very small. As I mentioned, it wouldn't work in CA unless they opened it up to all private schools and I'm guessing they rely on a certain percentage of kids paying for public school and not partaking. In our district the extracurriculars are funded by a foundation and the parents pay in, as do businesses who want to sponsor activities in exchange for recognition. I did inquire at one point about whether we could join but they were booked with public school kids and didn't have enough space and teachers. We have a fair amount of things through our rec department, but I'm not sure if those employees are mandated reporters. Looking over the web site, they need CPR cards, in some case driving licenses, TB shots, criminal checks and fingerprints, but nothing about mandated reporter training.

I'm not sure most Christians read the Bible metaphorically. Maybe just parts of it? Muslims almost never read the Qur'an metaphorically, unless we were going out of our way to look at something like that as an academic exercise. Some of the contents overlap with stories from the Bible and the Torah (virgin birth of Jesus (pbuh), for example) so I suppose if someone already thinks of some of the overlapping stories as metaphors they might continue to consider the same for the Qur'an. Another overlapping (but not exactly) similar story is that of Adam and Eve. Islam doesn't lay the temptation at the feet of the woman, and doesn't talk about Original Sin, but if you consider the story metaphorical anyway.... The Qur'an was written in bits and pieces over time, as revelations were sent. It was later compiled with the longest chapters first and the shortest last, more or less. It's not written in a chronological fashion in which you can put more importance on what comes later. If you want to think of it as Muslims do, you can consider it as the revelation following the NT, with some overlap, some "corrections" to the NT way of thinking, and some things specific to what was happening at the time of the revelation. It is also a book with legal aspects, including topics such as the treatment of non-Muslims, inheritance, property, etc. I think that's generally true. I struggle with this all the time. As a corollary, consider someone who understands ancient languages and reads original texts in those languages. This could be The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Torah etc. In that way it is like an deep, significant book that we try to understand in the modern day. The Qur'an is very poetic and has a certain rhythm to it. Here's a video of someone reciting Surah Al-Fatiha. I chose it because it has a translation on the screen and you can see how a direct translation doesn't have the same rhyme and meter as the original. I'm not sure what you mean by a secular understanding of the Qur'an. Do you mean just an explanation without assuming the reader is Muslim?

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

We're heading out the door soon, but I wanted to briefly say that context is extremely important when reading the Qur'an. An example might be messages which have to do directly with a battle being fought, but read in the Qur'an sound much more generalized toward enemies, rather than specific enemies. Another example are the rights of women, which may sound antiquated now, but were revolutionary in the context of the treatment of women in pre-Islamic Arabia.

I'm going to re-think my plan of handing DS The Martian and a dictionary. DH said he learned all of his curse words from his father building a gingerbread house each Christmas. Maybe we should try that.

"Taquitos" 1970s WW style: Toast "bread" in a toaster. Smear some canned "chicken" spread on the "bread" and roll up. Repeat 10 times. Meanwhile, dissolve some "gelatin" in 2 TB of hot water. Once dissolved, add 1 cup cold water and 1 cup cold "salsa" from a can, not a fancy schmancy jar. Line up "taquitos" in a tray and pour "gelatin" mixture over. Chill until set. Serve with "cottage cheese" and "lime jello" set with "fruit cocktail" for dessert. Watch the children fight over the single one-half maraschino "cherry" included in the fruit cocktail can. Olé! That sounds a bit like the More-With-Less cookbook I mentioned upthread. The only themed reading I do is probably of no interest to anyone here (history of alternative medicine in Europe and the U.S.) and the books will have to be purchased as they are rather obscure, expensive, and out of print, usually. I don't really talk about them in BaW threads. I'll pass on the Sunday post and not subject anyone!

I absolutely agree with the concept, but I'm not sure you can (or should) legislate it. If someone truly wants to isolate a child (and I consider this abusive) it can be done. Families often live far apart or even in other countries, states don't share information, people have rights to privacy and to own large pieces of land, etc. One way to keep somewhat better track of children would be to have federal single payer healthcare for them.