I scrubbed our bedroom yesterday (including cleaning my husband’s desk!), which was an absolute disaster because we never really got it set up right after we moved in two years ago. I know, that’s terrible, and I only have a lame excuse. Since there’s a new master bedroom in the addition (that we’ve been working on for 2.5 years) and hope spring eternal, we kept thinking… don’t worry about unpacking, we’re ALMOST done, and then we’ll just have to repack and unpack again!

So now that I’m not longer teaching, I suddenly have all this time on my hands, I’m going through HomeRemake 2009/10. I bought a book by Regina Leeds called One Year to an Organized Life, and while I don’t follow it exactly, it’s been really helpful and inspiring. She’s very personal in the book, and while the book has a hint of spirituality to it, it isn’t intrusive or clunking you over the head, which are two things I appreciate. I’m SO not zen, but I appreciate it in what limited understanding I have.

I’m kinda taking it one room at a time. This summer after we tore down the wall between the house halves (which is in the kitchen), I reorganized the kitchen. The bones have been better, and I’ve been way better about keeping up with the dishes, but it’s still not quite perfect. So today I’m tackling the kitchen. Tomorrow is the living/dining rooms (they’re separated by an arch, not a door, so it’s kinda like they’re the same room). Then it’s upstairs to tackle the new movie room! (of course, the movie room works. The bathroom? No. But the movie room is done.)

I have always had this vision in my head of me as an adult that keeps up with the house, tends a garden, and writes. And a mom, too. That sounds huge, but it was impossible while I had my old job (as much as I LOVED my old job and am thankful for the opportunity I had to be a teacher for 8 years and work with so many wonderful young people; my kids changed me in fabulous, necessary ways), so now I have the opportunity to see what I can make of it.

Back to it!

*I’ve been out visiting my sister and her new husband in Georgia, hence the no writing. Athens is a really cool little town, and I had a fantastic time. I miss you, Kiddo!!!*

When I was younger, I had a strong environmentalist bent. I bought “rainforest crunch” to save trees, promoted recycling in a town that didn’t have a recycling program, and marched in parades with BSET, the Boerne Student Earth Team. Somewhere around the age of 15, however, I was already an apostate. I’d gotten the distinct impression I was being lied to, or at least that extremism was being presented as facts, and as much as I’d love a healthier planet, without real facts, I wasn’t sure anymore that anything I did was actually helping. Any dissension I voiced was viewed as heretical by my compatriots, and eventually I left the group, vowing to do what I could on my own, but I couldn’t march when I felt like half the time I didn’t know what I was marching for.

And so I continue to this day, hanging on the fringes of the environmental movement, never really allowed in due to my doubts about global warming, belief that corn for fuel when there’s a world-wide food shortage is unethical (along with a few zillion other problems I have with ethanol, but that’s a different post), and thoughts that maybe it wouldn’t be horrible to spend money on clean coal technology, recovering shale oil, or safely extracting Crystal Methyl Hydrates. It’s not like humanity is going to quit using electricity for the sake of the planet (and, to be honest, whether or not it’s better for the planet, I don’t want to give it up, either), so it seems to me that exploring cleaner and less Middle-East-Dependent avenues of fossil fuels while people like my husband work on solar technology is a good thing.

So with my experiences, when my friend Ginger sent me an article called Global Warming as Religion, I found it quite humorous and true to my experiences. Granted, author John Brignell is not presenting a scientific treatise (though he is defending science) with documentation and source quoting, but that doesn’t detract from the amusement. Besides, he uses the word troglodyte, and any article that uses the trog is automatically cool in my book. So, if you’ve got a few minutes (it’s not exactly short), check it out. He’s got some good points. If you don’t, here my favorite quote from it that I feel needs to be repeated: “There is no fundamental clash between faith and science – they do not intersect. The difficulties arise, however, when one pretends to be the other.”

I gotta admit partiality to the monkir Obama-Wan Kenobi, but the look of extreme concentration on his face in these is pretty much awesome. Overall, seeing The President on the White House lawn with a lightsaber, brings a smile of glee to this geek’s face.

See, I’ve been doing research on the French artistocracy. I know a decent amount (for an American) about the British peerage system, but whenever I tried to transfer that knowledge to French novels I read, it never quiet worked. So, weird things I found out about French Aristocracy (pre-revolutionary; I haven’t tackled whatever Napoleon did):

• They have the Duc, Marquis, Comte, Vicomte, and Baron just like in England, but these titled people are rarely considered peers (or Pair as it’s said in French). This blew my brain. Pairie apparently comes from the idea of equality, so to say that you’re a Pair is to say that you are equal to the King. Only Princes who are also Ducs and some really old family Ducs can claim Duc et Pair, a process involving a letter from the King and approval of the governing body. Everybody else is “just” a noble.
• The Capetian Dynasty, which produced most of France’s kings, including Louis the XIV (the Bourbons are all Capetians), is Europe’s longest running continuous monarchy. Capet was elected King of France in 987, and his descendents have ruled, at various times, France, Spain, Luxemburg, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Sciliy, Naples, and some other places I’ve never heard of. Currently, a Capet sits on the throne of Spain and another is the GrandDuke of Luxemberg (apparently that’s their King equivalent, as they don’t call anyone “king”). That’s over 1000 years of dynasty.  Anywho, since titled people don’t have last names, that’s why in the French Revolution, Louis XVI became known as Louis Capet, because then he had a name like everybody else.
• They like to double use titles. There are several people called “Princes” who are not related to the King. Prince du Sang, however, only designated people descended in the male line from a King. This used to apply to everyone who was directly descended through the male line from Hugh Capet, but the Bourbons excluded all (or most?) other Capetian families from the title.
• The church was involved in their peerage, so they had ecclesiastical and lay peers. The ecclesiastical peers supposedly were higher status than the lay peers.
• France frequently (always?) used agnatic seniority. I’d never heard of this before. It means that the King’s brother get the throne before his son (and women never inherit). This seems way more confusing to me. If I understand it correctly, if you’re the eldest son of the King’s brother, your father may become King, but as long as the current King has sons, you won’t (assuming no disaster). Being a student of British literature, I’m used to male-preference primogeniture, which means that the oldest son inherits, unless there’s no sons, in which case a woman could inherit. The brother thing only happens if there’s not children.
• On a non-French note, as of 1980, thanks to Sweden (go Swedes!) the world now has absolute cognative primogeniture, i.e. the eldest child, not eldest son, gets the throne. The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and Belgium have elected to do the same. And that’s just one more reason to love vikings (and Belgians).

It rained today while I was on the road, and I had one of my most frightening car experiences to date. Now, let me preface this by saying that I’ve never been in a serious car wreck; I’ve been really lucky where cars are concerned, so you probably have a worse story than mine, but this still scared the crud out of me, and this is my blog, so I get to tell my wussy near wreck story like it’s a big deal.

I was on Bee Caves road out west of Austin, and the rain was intense but not torrential. As I turned a corner, my wheels stopped gripping the road, and suddenly I was going sideways down my lane. I pulled my feet off both pedals and gripped the steering wheel in a death grip, trying to straighten out, and completely not remembering if I’m supposed to turn into or away from the turn. The car starts fishtailing, and fortunately heads for the shoulder and not the three lanes to my left, and I kick up giant clods of dirt while careening towards where the hill was cut back to allow for the road (in Texas, we don’t go over the hills, we go through them) and I am thinking how glad I am that it’s the backend of my car and not the front that’s going to slam into the limestone and then wondering who I should call first if I wreck into it. Car fishtails again just before impact, spinning this time, throwing up more dirt, and finally I come to a stop facing the opposite direction of traffic.

I’m in one piece; I’m in the dirt, not on the road; I’m close to a turn, but not so close that oncoming traffic will never see me will never see me; and now I start trembling as the Beatles tell me to take a sad song and make it better. Overall, I am mostly proud of myself that I waited until after the car quit skittering around the road to be afraid, and after a few moments of breathing, I get back on my way, with a new appreciation for the ten and two position (which I’m pretty sure I was already in because of the rain, but try breaking my hands from that now).

Anti-climactic? Yes. Is there a moral lesson here? No. But it’s my blog, and I was scared, so I’m telling you about it. Safe travels, y’all!