Sitting here watching the wheels go round, in that state of ADHD/Inattentive stasis that is my normal waking state.

Was talking to my father a few days ago, about a relative who had started out working making moulds in a foundry. I know this story, sort of, so I said, "Because his wife's parents didn't encourage him to go to college."

"Yes," he said. "There were very leftwing, almost Communists, and they believed in the dignity of the working man." Now, there's a sentiment that's fallen way out of fashion. Which reminded me of another relative, whose parents also told him not to go to college, because "a man should work." Which isn't all that different, just a few words, and I always made the lame joke, "Are you sure these people are Jewish? We're supposed to be the people of the book." We also used to be the people of the left. Does that even show up in mainstream American Jewish literature? The kind that gets taught? Only in Philip Roth's I Married a Communist, which was much more about payback for Claire Bloom writing a memoir.

Imagine a transition. The kids are finishing camp this week. I can't get Primera to read much: she decodes quite fluently and her comprehension is just about average, but she doesn't have much interest in reading on her own. Last night I hooked her in by reading the Reader's Digest version of Heidi to her and Secundo. Predictably, I got all teary when Heidi cried over Peter the goatherd's blind grandmother.* Secundo is hypersensitive and, like his father, doesn't like to hear about things that upset him. Primera, though, was riveted and did a pretty nice job of interpreting what was happening. She even made a good guess about who the "ghost" was going to be: she thought maybe it was Heidi's grandfather, sneaking back to visit her.

She keeps doing the camp handclapping games by herself, and it's turned into a kind of stim. In my infinite maternal wisdom I keep swooping over and saying, "It looks inappropriate!" Behavioral lesson # 1: replace it with another more appropriate behavior. I think I need "Sniffy the Rat" version 2.1.

*I, Victorianist. I will retain to my dying day my love for Victorian deathbed scenes and angelic but sickly girl-children. Which reminds me that today (Saturday, as I'm editing this) there was an asinine article in, say, the Times, by Laura Miller arguing that "classic" children's literature that you are supposed to like (by implication, few children actually do like--where do the nostalgic grownups she describes come from?) is full of such deathbed scenes. Um, Laura, lots of children like them because of the deathbed scenes (nor does the masochistic fun stop in childhood. Bette Davis movies, anyone?).

And if that's not hep enough for your seemingly po-mo-grrl-power-loving heart (would Bette's gay iconic status help?), consider that the invalided girl actually was powerful, in a subversive passive-aggressive way. In general, I've found Miller's criticism and essays to be shallow, this particularly so.

Okay, I feel better now.