This is the best photo of me. I am very much in this era right now.
A little quote from the family newsletter.
Last summer, back in Issue #68 of the Adey Shaw Reporter, we went camping with the Armstrong family at Presqu’ile Park. It was our first camping trip with another family. And, to be honest, it was hard. This year, we did the same trip with the same family and is was easier. We wouldn’t describe camping with small children as “fun” but it is definitely getting easier and more enjoyable. We can imagine enjoying ourselves (and the children) while camping in a few years. And so, we’ll keep at it; the kids definitely had a good time.
Megan did all of the packing, so I don’t have an elaborate pack list for the trip. Oh well! A couple packing “Ooops”-es from the trip:
A few general trip planning things: packing lots of ready made food was great, we ought to leave a gap after the end of the school year before travel, and we ought to leave a day or two gap between trips.
Taking the girls camping with another family was an interesting exercise in co-parenting. I could feel the tensions and resonances between our parenting styles throughout the trip. I am, for better or for worse, a rather laissez-faire person. At times during the trip, I even felt a little sketchy about how permissive I am with the children. We’re all learning.
We also took the girls to a wedding. It was Mira’s third wedding and Mabel’s first. They were an absolute delight. I organized a mini “children’s program” for the wedding. I brought some bubble wands and various toys for the kids. It was great fun to blow bubbles and play silly games. Through out the wedding, I handed out little toy cars, tops, and dinosaur pop-its to the kids.
I brought along the Kobo loaded up with Always Coming Home by Le Guin. It continues to be a joy to read. One night, I read it alone by the fire for a good long while and felt transported to another world. While loading up the Kobo, I also added some poems by Alden Nowlan.
Nowlan, Alden. Selected Poems. House of Anansi Press, 1996.
It was so freaking good. I read a lot of the poems out loud to Meg on the drive. Here are a couple howlers that we enjoyed.
Nowlan isn’t especially well-known. There doesn’t seem to be much of his stuff online. A shame really. I got thinking to myself, as we were driving, that I should put some of his stuff online even if only to have a place to read it aloud from when sharing poetry with friends. Another poetry related to-do: I have scanned copies of Grooks that need a web home.
I got playing with these two related string figures from Hiva Oa and Ua Pou. They’re called O TE NOHONA O TE KUA (The Perch of the Kua Bird) and NA KUMU HEI (A Wreath of Fragrant Plants).
Handy, Willowdean Chatterson. String figures from the Marquesas and Society Islands. Vol. 18. The Museum, 1925.
These figures have a nice heart sequence that I worked out over breakfast in the hotel lobby after the wedding. It would be nice to film sometime.
I fell in love with Peter Rukavina’s blog. In particular, I went down a rabbit hole reproducing the fantastic styling of his blogroll. It’s just an OPML file styled pretty! The only one that I’ve seen that is nearly this well-done is Maya’s blogroll.
Right now, my blogroll is run by a hot mess of scripts.
It could just be a hand written OPML file.
I barely ever use newsboat except to update the blogroll OPML file.
So, my own version of Peter’s beautiful blogroll is brewing in the experimental zone.
Published: Jul 5, 2026 @ 19:00.
Last Modified: Jul 6, 2026 @ 16:44.
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