All By Myself. Don't Wanna Be. All By...

I'm all by myself.

It's weird. The SU and Risa are in San Diego for the Cal-State/Junior Olympic Games, where Risa will be swinging her bat and playing first base for her softball team. Vida is on day 4 of sleepaway camp (Risa was there, too, but we had to pull her out early for the San Diego jaunt), and Lea is at an overnight at her camp, as well. I will spare you an overwrought description of the dramatic maternal emotions I've cycled through in regards to all this sleeping-away business. Suffice it to say it's been a bittersweet week.

For two days now, my friends have been asking what I'm going to do tonight. "What are you gonna do? You'll be ALL BY YOURSELF." I felt compelled to plan something. Salsa dance class, anyone? A massage and/or facial? A movie? But then I came home from taking the SU and Ri to the airport, and the housekeepers had just finished their work, and the house is all clean, and my books beckon, and my moleskines send out their siren call, and the pillows on the couch in the den have been plumped up and then punched down perfectly in the center, and well, at heart I am a homebody. So I'm just gonna keep my body home.

As I type, I'm caramelizing onions. I'm doing this because I figure that if I get hungry later, they will provide a tasty base for whatever I eat. I think I will also fry some garlic. Is my life not fascinating? Am I not now FASCINATING you with the details of my FASCINATING life?

Speaking of fantastical (yes, I know, the word I was using was fascinating; stop quibbling), I'm reading a book by the late Italian children's author Gianni Rodari. It's titled The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories. It's amazing in that it outlines a sort of curriculum for the imagination of children. I'm fuzzy on the details, but it seems that the work in this book is part of the famed Reggio Emilia teaching method. Here is what Rodari has to say in his introduction:

I hope that this small book can be useful for all those people who believe it is necessary for the imagination to have a place in education; for all those who trust in the creativity of children; and for all those who know the liberating value of the word. 'Every possible use of words should be made available to every single person'—this seems to me to be a good motto with a democratic sound. Not because everyone should be an artist but because no one should be a slave.

*dramatic pause in which you realize the import of Rodari's message*

I'm here to say that the book doesn't just work wonders for children. Your Nesting Ground Mistress was so generally inspired by the ideas that she has begun to write a new story. Oh bless-ed happenstance...