The Gamble Life

Umstead Park

So right before school started up Gus, Abe, and I went hiking in Umstead State Park which is right by Chris' office, so very convenient.  It was a very doable hike, with lots of interesting things to see.  I wore Abe on my back in the Ergo.  We saw so many beautiful spider webs!  They always seemed to appear out of nowhere so we had to be careful to make sure we didn't walk through any.

There was this old little cemetery right in the middle of the park.

And the area is known for its many triple-trunked trees so we saw a lot of those too.

There are several trails and they are all marked.  We were following the "blue diamond" trail which had plastic blue diamonds (what's wrong with spray paint anyway?  I didn't think the plastic markers did any better job, they had to be nailed into the trees, and most of them were decomposing!) every few yards marking the way.  I'm serious, there were lots and lots of trail markers. 

Which makes it all the more amazing that somehow we managed to end up completely off-trail, heading toward the edge of a cliff over a river!  I still don't know exactly how that happened.  There were lots of signs asking people to please stay on the marked trails, so I felt bad about wandering off, but we certainly didn't do it on purpose.  There were lots and lots of interesting rocks but we left them all where we found them.

The coolest thing?  Gus carried our lunch for us in his backpack.

It was a great hike.  I especially love when we do things that are local to where we are.  Talking to a friend of mine today she told me that she and her husband planned out (tentatively, of course) an activity for each of the weekends for the next 52 weeks.  I think this is a great idea and may copy it, with an emphasis on doing things that are local to Durham or North Carolina or nearby, things that we couldn't do living somewhere else.

When I lived in DC I made sure to do something at least every month that I couldn't do anywhere but DC and consequently when I moved away I didn't have any regrets that I'd never gotten around to seeing this museum or that monument.  It was a great feeling, and it was great fun doing it. 

Camp at Home: Rock Week, Part 1

Well, we took a week off of camp at home, and the past two weeks have been a bit less thematic.  But we've done some great experiments and activities around rocks and chemistry.  This exercise was really fun, and messy!  The pan of flour with toys in it represents the earth.

The salt represents micrometeorites...they cause essentially no damage, very little impact.  Just like on earth.

Then he tested a marble, to represent a larger meteorite.

And a golf ball to represent a once in a billion years meteorite.  That was, unsurprisingly, the most fun.  Gus had a blast building mountains to see how much more earth would spread if the meteorite hit a mountain, and so on.

Abe definitely wanted in on the action.

We had a lot of fun with this, but it took a good strong rain to clear all that flour off the porch.

I also got some pictures books about kids who are rock collectors and some books on how to identify any rocks you find.  Unfortunately, none of the rock identifying books were that good--I would like to find a really good one to buy, so if anyone has a recommendation, let me know.

We're just past half way through the summer and I'm glad we didn't sign up Gus for lots of camps, but I do think he needs a little more kid time, so I'm working to set up more playdates and I signed him for half-day art camp next week.  Especially since last night was his last t-ball game.  The season was a success and I think he'll want to play again next year.

He (along with all the kids on the team) received a trophy which I thought was kind of dumb.  But I was wrong because he has been so incredibly happy about the trophy, I can't even tell you.  And he knows everyone got one, he's still thrilled.  He showed it to Abe, called his grandparents to tell them all about it, and just loves it.  He still hasn't decided on the perfect place to keep it.  I guess I thought the trophy was going to be "praise" which I don't believe is useful for a child.  But as it turns out I think the trophy is recognition, which vital for us all, especially children.  I'm glad he got it.

Towelhead (spoilers!)

So we watched Towelhead the other night.  I didn't realize until just now that it is an adaptation of a novel.  Interestingly, that sort of changes how I feel about the movie.

There are spoilers here, because there is no other way for me to write about it.  So don't read if you don't want to know what happens in the story.

The movie is advertised as a "coming of age" story, and I guess it is, but hopefully most girls' coming of age doesn't involve rape at the age of 13, followed immediately by consensual sex!  I just could not help thinking during the entire movie "does this story need to be told?"  It was well-done, the acting is excellent, the characters are believable, the story is believable (unfortunately).  I just didn't really care to see it.  I don't need stories of young girls being raped by their adult neighbors in my head (It isn't overly graphic.  The movie is really excellently done.) 

I'll admit that since becoming a parent I have a greatly reduced interest in any storytelling that involves children getting hurt.  I also was not as aware of how prevalent a theme this is, but man, babies and kids getting hurt and killed is everywhere on TV and in movies.  But even leaving that aside I think I would have had the same reaction.  Did this movie need to be made?  Is it worth my time watching it?  I was definitely in the "no" camp...until I learned it is an adaptation of a novel.

For some reason, knowing that the story is a novel first and a movie second has made me think it has more worth.  This same story as a novel would not have elicited the same reaction from me.  Because a book is so much fuller than a movie, because a book is words and not images, a book is free to explore more unpleasant topics, in my opinion, than a movie.  I would have preferred to have read this, rather than seen it.

What do you think?  Are there stories, no matter how true or excellent, that just do not need to be told? 

Part of me is just tired of our culture's (our world's?) obsession with young girls.  I know that all of us came into our sexuality as teenagers and so it makes sense that we love the young because we were all young when it happened the first time...but there's got to be some maturity in us.  We need to grow out of it as we age.  Not that I wasn't relieved to learn that Taylor Kitsch is officially an adult (28!  That's definitely adult age!). 

I'm very susceptible to movies.  I often have dreams (or nightmares, depending) incorporating whatever movie I've seen most recently so I try to avoid certain types of subjects, and wasn't expecting what I saw in Towelhead.  Have you seen it or read it?  What did you think?