Yeah, it's that Serious

You ever try feeding a baby? It's difficult - all of those jokes about kids getting more gmisch on themselves than in their stomachs are true. They might actually be understated.

So I'm paying bills online (did you know you can do that? Technology is awesome!), and from over my shoulder in the dining room, I hear this:
"Here comes the train! ChuggachuggachuggachuggaWOOOOWOOOO!"
*beat*
"Oh no! The tunnel is closed! Look out! WOOOO WOOOOO!"
*beat*
"Lorelei, people died!"

I Wrote This

So, I'm driving home from the office tonight after running some errands back there. It's maybe 7:30 or so, and I was listening to Lorelei sort of sniffling in the back seat. She was tired, and a little hungry, and was starting to go a bit over the edge from happy baby to OH MY GOD I WANT MY MOMMY baby.

So I promised her I'd tell her a story.

Problem is, I don't know any good stories - at least, none that are suitable for a child.

So I started prattling on, and this is what I came up with:
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Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a castle surrounded by a large town. She was young, and she loved to climb to the upper reaches of the tallest tower and look out - because in every direction, all that she could see was part of the kingdom that her father, the King and Queen, ruled over.

The princess loved to go out into the town and wander the streets, and especially the market. She would walk through the marketplace and talk to the people who sold everything from fruit to jewelry to armor.

There was one boy in particular who always noticed her, though she never noticed him. He would watch her as she came through the market, and he was happy to simply be near her. He didn't care about the fine clothes she wore, or the pretty necklaces and rings, or the crown on her head. He hardly even noticed the guards who surrounded her to keep her safe.

No, this boy noticed the princess's face, her smile as she talked to the townsfolk. He saw how she always paid more for things than they could possibly be worth, and he saw how she never made a big deal of telling the shopkeeper to keep what she gave him. He even thought, if he walked behind her, that he could smell the perfume she wore.

Years passed, and the princess grew into a fine young woman, and the boy grew into a fine young man. He never spoke to her, never approached her, but he always smiled when he saw her just the same.

One day, a dragon swooped low over the countryside and into the town. He gobbled up livestock as he flew over the fields - whole flocks of sheep gone in one bite, cows devoured by the dozens in his great jaws.

The dragon flew into the town and set buildings ablaze with his breath. He smashed walls and homes and shops, and sent townsfolk running with his terrible roar.

The king and queen sent their finest soldiers out of the castle to fight the beast. Arrows bounced off his scales. Strong men swung swords, but they broke. These fighting men were no match for the dragon. The dragon shoved them aside and stomped towards the castle.

Suddenly, from under the rubble, the young man appeared. He walked into the center of town, put his hand up, and told the dragon, "STOP! You will go no further!"

The dragon looked down at the young man, and laughed. He said, "You are but a pathetic little man. You have no armor, you have no sword, you have no bow and arrow. I could eat you in a single bite. I could burn you to ash. I could pick you up and throw you so far that you would fly over the farthest mountains. And you ask me to stop? You command me to stop? Why should I?"

The young man said, "Yes, you could eat me, you could cook me, or you could fling me. But the woman I love is in that castle up there. She does not even know me, but I love her just the same. And if I do not try to stop you from hurting her, or hurting the people down here for whom she cares so much, then I have done myself more harm than you ever could."

The dragon thought for a moment, and said, "You are very brave. You are a fool, but you are brave. You stand here, with no armor, no weapons, just words. You command me to stop because you love a woman who you do not know. And so I will go. I do not think that I could bear to hurt someone who is as strange as you are."

And so the dragon leapt into the air. With a mighty WHOOSH, his wings flapped and he flew back across the sky, never to be seen again.

The king and queen came out of the castle and down to the town. They had seen the whole thing, and the king said to the man, "You are such a brave young man. You stood in front of a great monster and forced him back with just your words, and your love of our daughter. If you asked for my permission to marry her, I would give it."

The princess, too, came down from the castle. She told the man, "I was terrified of that dragon. I was scared he would come up to the castle and burn down my home, or that he would stay in the town and hurt all of the people who live here. And you stood in front of him, with just the clothes on your back and the courage in your heart, and you turned him away."

Then she said, "But I cannot marry you. You said it yourself: I do not know you. I have never met you. I do not know what you are like, your favorite color. I do not even know your name!"

She turned away, and the man looked as if his heart would break.

Then the queen said, "Young man, you are the bravest person I have ever met. Perhaps, as thanks for your bravery, perhaps you would like to stay a few days in the castle while the town is repaired?"

And so the young man went up into the castle with the king, the queen, and the princess. And he found a way to spend time with the princess - and she found ways to spend time with him. They would walk through the gardens of the castle, and she told him all that she knew about the history and legends of the kingdom. They would walk through the streets of the town, and he showed her al of the secret places, the tiny inns, and the people who lived there.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months. One evening, as the princess and the young man stood in the highest tower of the castle and looked out across the kingdom, she turned to him and said, "I have spent so much time getting to know you, and I know that your heart is good, and pure. What you did when you stood up to that dragon you would have done a thousand times over again to save the people of the town, even if it meant losing me. You would make a wonderful king and a wonderful husband. If you asked me to marry you, I would."

So he did.
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Nighty-night!

I'm not a Marxist

But I do play one on the Internet.

An interesting tidbit of information that came from a local newspaper's forums:
According to the US Census Bureau, income for the middle fifth of households has remained basically stagnant since 1998:

(using 2008 dollar figures)

Since 1990, the middle quintile's income is up 5%. By comparison, income for the top quintile is up 33%.

A good question to ask would be, "How does this break down in terms of public vs. private employment?" If public-sector salaries are up more than 5% in the middle quintile, but LESS than 33% in the upper quintile, then one might argue that rather than complaining about how much civil servants make, we should instead be wondering why the private sector's job creators - i.e. the wealthy - have not been paying their employees more.

Just saying.

Like an ant, only more susceptible to RAID

I've been so busy the last several weeks at work that I'm not sure how I managed to make it through. Normally, I don't mind being busy - but when being busy means putting everything else in your life on hold, it gets draining after forty days. Now I know how Noah felt.

Except at least he was on a boat.

Biblical humor aside, part of what has so flustered me since mid-may has been the one-after-another state of things. In May, we were supposed to have a kickoff event for Opening Doors to the Future: The Scholarship Initiative for Washington University. But because we couldn't get a critical mass of attendees, we had to cancel the event - five weeks of preparation, and $700 worth of food, lost forever. But no matter - we had a twin event planned for three weeks later.

Which happened, and went well - small, relaxed, decently-attended. But those events were bracketed on one side by Reunion and Distinguished Alumni Awards in May, and Summaries and Projections at the end of June.

And I feel like I've had to choose between my job and my family every time - and every time, I've made the choice of work - which is, as we can all realize, the wrong choice. But I've made it, and I have yet to invent a time machine that doesn't go forward at regular speed; ergo, I have to live with these choices.

Thankfully, that's almost all over. The only problem is that now that the fiscal year is over, it's starting up - and I get to do this all over again.