Re: Richard III. When dh and I were newly married and thoroughly impoverished students living in the Bay Area, for his birthday I spent money we didn't quite have and bought a pair of tickets to see Ian McKellen as Richard III in San Francisco. And he did the same thing, my birthday being the same week. We then had to find someone at the last minute to buy the unexpected extra tickets. Now that was a great production of Shakespeare! We happily now take the kids to watch the free Shakespeare in the Park each summer here in flyover country; but the memories of dressing up and going into the City to see McKellen linger.

The SA is a church and so doesn't file the tax form that Charity Navigator uses to evaluate charities.

The last day I shopped at Goodwill, I commiserated with the checkout clerk, a tiny woman who looked about ten months pregnant and who was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, saying I hoped she got a chance to sit down soon. She said she wasn't permitted to sit at any time during her 8-hour shift. Just inhuman, and quite possibly a violation of federal law.

There's a Goodwill next to the main Half Price near me, with shelves full of books still with the $0.50 yellow Clearance tag from the HP's shelf (literally yards away), being offered now for a couple of dollars. Any time Goodwill gets hold of a book from before 1970, they apparently decide it's an antique and put it in their display case for a high price. It's amazing.

I was pretty sure the Maccabean Revolt was before the time of Christ, by about two centuries.

I'm glad you're able to go and be with her to say goodbye. Drive safe, and I'll be praying.

I might. I'm committed to Julius Caesar and The Tempest with Middle Girl in the immediate future, but I'd like to revisit Shakespeare more widely. Had a fun literary moment today; I was reading D'Aulaires' to Wee Girl, and got to the part with Zeus crushing Typhon under Mount Aetna. I told her that story had just been in my own book, and read to her the Typhon section of Pindar's "Pythia 1": "... beneath the pinnacles dark in leaves of Aitna he lies shackled underground..." etc. She was quite interested to learn that the story wasn't just for kids, and I hope that she liked hearing the sounds of poetry for grown-ups.

We bought the dvds way back when, and they have been big hits. Leon Garfield, a fantastic writer who wrote Shakespeare stories for children, wrote the screenplays, and the animation is superbly done and varied. My littler girls learned much Shakespeare from them - not so much the plots, which really don't compress well, but substantial chunks of the poetry, associated with characters and events. The Romeo and Juliet one is unsuitable for our prudish household, and the tragedies can be a little (cartoon) bloody, so you might want to preview. We like to watch them with the subtitles.

Any board game is an adult board game if you add a betting round. Married couples may prefer a non-monetary forfeit.

I remember when it was us Catholics. Now we even have a Jesuit in the Vatican, and we can't convince anyone these days that we're pulling the strings. Sigh. I think the turning point was when they unwittingly un-excommunicated that Holocaust-denier "bishop," and it came out that nobody in Rome knew enough to look at his Wikipedia page first. Suddenly it was plain to the world that the place is a bureaucracy run by geriatric Italians. Our Illuminatus cred is gone.

Oh! We put the pointy bit at the top! <ancient Egyptian slaps forehead>

Simultaneously reading Trollope, Pindar, and a history of printing in Europe. Also, dh, perhaps to make amends for his recommendation of The Wasp Factory*, brought me home from the university library The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class, which looks fantastic and right up the alley of classical homeschoolers and Core Knowledge fans. http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Life-British-Working-Classes/dp/0300153651 So I have plenty on my plate for this week or so! *When we were in high school, he gave me a copy of a particularly wretched book by Robert Heinlein called The Cat Who Walked Through Walls or some such. When I finished and mentioned it wasn't what I preferred to read, he said "Yes, isn't it terrible?" You'd think I'd have gotten a clue since then.

Are they really controlling PRISM and 9-11? That must be an expansion set.

Just got this for the first time today, only when editing posts - I have to edit nearly every post because of poor vision, so I'd have surely noticed if it had been an issue for my posts before. (Also because of poor vision, I never get the captcha right, but somehow it always lets me through here.)

I don't know what the situation at your church (cathedral?) has been, but by question 5 or 6 it was clear that the writer/sender of the letter needs to reflect on the sins of gossip and calumny. Dressing them up as a survey is just icky.

All done with Faust Part Two. Still working intermittently through Pindar and Five Hundred Years of Printing, which are great but hard to read in large chunks. Pindar especially; after a while, reading yet another ode to some juvenile athlete, paid for by his wealthy father, in which Junior is compared to mythical Greek heroes, gets to be like watching a beautiful woman working for an upscale escort service. Elegant and talented, sure; but still at heart very like prostitution. ---------------------- For the goddess of strict truth steers the city of the West Wind Lokrians, and the Muse of heroes is among them, and brazen Ares. The fight with Kyknos turned back even the surpassing might of Herakles; and Agesidamos, winner in boxing at Olympia, may give thanks to Ilas his trainer, as once to Achilles, Patroklos. (from "Olympia 10") ------------------- Too bad this edition doesn't include Pindar's fragments, with the famous "O glistening city, violet-crowned, dear to song, bulwark of Hellas, famous Athens, haunted by divine presences!" Meanwhile, for easier reading I have Trollope's The Way We Live Now, the ultimate "society has gone to hell in a handbasket" novel, perfect for my encroaching middle age. You kids get off my lawn!

Definitely. That's why I prefer to have both Oxford and Penguin editions.

Alas, no Hitchhiker's Guide, Sherlock, Nord and Bert, Leather Goddesses 2, Bureaucracy, Beyond Zork, or Zork Zero. But I'm looking forward to playing Lurking Horror again: the only computer game to set the Cthulhu mythos at MIT. I think only the LGofP games had a Lewd option, or am I forgetting one?

Am I the only one who didn't know that Activision has published all* the Infocom interactive text games for $10? I have them loaded up on my iPad now. It includes all the packaging, including the little necessary objects ("feelies") which were the stone-age copy protection. Someone take the children for a few days, please. I'm off to play Leather Goddesses of Phobos and relive the 80s. *Okay, not Hitchhiker's Guide and a few others they didn't have rights to. But who cares.

Can you adopt me?

Lots of good advice from MamaSheep. The only thing I might add is that it's easy to despair when it looks like there's been regress - like all those carefully laid planks have been torn out and you're back to square one. I try to always remember that we're never really back to where we started: my daughter now has actually done the thing she or I wanted her to do, and now she knows for certain that she can do it. And she will. Every success is in the bank.

The two favorite summer desserts at our house: 1. Sliced watermelon Ingredients: one watermelon. Slice and serve. If on porch, see who can spit seeds farthest. Time: one minute 2. Strawberries and cream Ingredients: strawberries, heavy cream. Core strawberries. Pour cream over them. Time: three minutes Alternative: peaches and cream. As above.

Great Girl weaned at nearly 4, or maybe it was just after. She was a very precocious reader. I decided the end was near the day she wanted me to hold up her book and turn the pages for her while she nursed. I thought, Kid, if this is boring you to the point you need a book, we're pretty much done. She doesn't remember that, but she says she does remember nursing.

Mine is a similar age, though not on the autism spectrum. I've found the key to be these steps: 1. Let her observe the activity I think she would enjoy or ought to try. Have her see kids close to her age involved. Best of all is a child she knows or even a friend if possible. See if she expresses interest, or gently suggest that she would be able to do that activity if she liked. 2. Talk to her a little about the activity beforehand: not about whether she will manage to participate or not, but about where and when it will be, who will be there, etc. Tell her I (or someone else in the family who she considers acceptable) will stay with her until she tells me to go away. 3. Assure her that she can choose just to watch and not participate, without giving any hint that I might be disappointed if she can't manage. It's so much easier not to be anxious if she knows she can bail at any time and it will be all right. 4. Be really, really patient. Sometimes she just can't do it. Sometimes she can, and then later she can't. It's all okay.

Trust me, for all its heft it's an easy read. Not like certain German Romantic poets....