I said that in response to an email today. It was the latest in a series of emails from Mouse dealing with the complications of returning home from a study abroad in Africa. This one was not about the housing snag, which we are working on and that’s all I’m gonna say. Well, except that she won’t be living in a cardboard box. I hope. 😉 This email was about a flight snag and she had forwarded several messages about it and this particular one included a long, unfathomable discussion of the whole problem from a person who identified himself as an engineer of some sort. Mouse suggested that maybe he needed a course in writing from Judith Dewoskin, a legendary Commie High English teacher. I agreed but sheesh, an engineer? I understood.

My brother the engineer and I once had a rather legendary discussion about how to approach problems. He maintained that life was a story problem. I HATED story problems when I was a kid and I countered that life was all about patterns. Patterns, I can understand. It was Sunday morning and we were at Fin Family Moominbeach and NPR was on. At that moment, that puzzle program with Will Shorts came on. I couldn’t quote you the algorithm for the puzzle that day but when he said, “Norman Mailer” and “carpenter in Utah” I spouted out “Mormon Nailer” in very short order. The Old Boy asked, “Hey, how did you get that so fast?” Of course, my smug reply was, “Patterns!” Actually, I think I was coming out of the bathroom when I said that.

My bro’ was actually a wonderful writer. He was a mechanical engineer but he was also a jazz trombonist. A mix of skills. And my cousin Jay is a civil engineer (think toilets) and also a wonderful writer. She is female (married, two children) but doesn’t refer to herself as a “lady engineer” like Susan, a friend of mine from high school, used to do. She worked for GM and I’ll bet it was hard in those days to make people take you seriously as a female mechanical engineer at GM.

To me, the housing situation is more critical than flights home. There are always flights. The flights’ll get worked out and I bet it’ll happen without any intervention from me. I think the best policy is to wait a bit on that. Engineer Boy or someone else will figger it out. The housing situation will get worked out too. We’re not waiting as much on that.

Mouse flew to Senegal out of Chicago O’Hare. It was a long day going over there and back from The Planet. We dithered and dathered all summer. Metro would’ve been so easy and that’s where Lizard flew out of when she went to Spain. Mouse originally kind of wanted to take the train over to Chicago a day or two before her flight and stay with a friend. And then there was talk of arranging for a flight from Metro to O’Hare. In the end, I was glad we drove her over there and not just because of the whole ipod fiasco. It was more than that and I don’t have time to translate my thoughts into words right now. But I also want to be there to scoop up my little Mouse off the plane home from Senegal. Day-twa or Chicago. I don’t care. Squeak squeak. I want to be there too. And so does Froggy. grok grok

And yes, I have totally lost my focus here and there is no conclusion to the whole engineer thing. It’s my blahg and I can write what I want to, write what I want to, wriiiite what I waaaant to. You would write too, doo da doo da doo. Stream of consciousness anyone?

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