Gabe's Handwritten Birthday card

Sweet to my heart!

My beautiful mother

Mom, you are beautiful! I love you!

Halloween Photos

By popular request, here are a few photos from Halloween. Any guesses on the characters? Gabe is Indiana Jones, and Leo is Obi Wan Kenobi. And yes, that is electrical cable Gabe is carrying, doubling for a whip. Benji was dressed as a pumpkin, but dribbled sticky blue sucker juice down the front early in the evening, so his costume was in the wash when I took these photos.

Yes, Doug, is was a lucrative evening. Unfortunately for the boys, I confiscated about half of the loot in the dark of the night, so we only have about two gallons of candy left. We also had a record number of trick-or-treaters visit our house this year. I hoped to have a few skittles left over for my own sweet tooth, but we ran out at 8 p.m.

My new haircut

Shorter than I expected when I walked into the salon, but I still like it!

Aaaah, politics.

I've had a couple of interesting conversations in the last two days about today's political climate. Why are we so emotionally driven by something about which we should be logical? Here is a response I wrote on Tropical Velvet's blog, who was having second thoughts about sharing her political views online:

Ahhhh, politics. I have a lot to say on this and Gabe gets home from school in five minutes. Keep sharing, Becca. It is the only way to get past the emotional baggage people carry around with their political opinions and get to the nugget of the conversation -- who will be a better leader. Why do people get so emotional about it?

I honestly could have voted for either McCain or Obama. I thought (and still do) that they would both be competent, middle-of-the-line leaders. Both of them seem dedicated to fixing some of the big problems we are facing. We won't get a perfect president. And neither of them are the villains the other party has painted them to be. Both of them are smart, and neither beholden to any special interest.

The thing is, people associate a political party with a value set such as religiosity or morality. Not just R's, but D's too. The party comes to represent more than it is, and definitely something other than what it represents to you. It is tied to family and religious loyalty, and cultural identity. So when you cross their political views, they see it as crossing their personal integrity.

I don't often like to talk politics with friends because I am afraid of losing a friendship because of these deeply seated values could collide. Some people I don't mind, even when I disagree with you, because we are able to logically talk through it, and separate it from who you are as a person.

The only other thing I wanted to say is that you hit the nail on the head with the talking/listening comment, but boy, blogs do not easily facilitate that. They are quick, often emotionally driven tidbits of people's initial reaction to something. You just can't get deep enough.

In a recreation-conflict class waaaayyyy back in college, I learned about two different types of interpersonal conflict:

Goals Conflict: Two people want to use the same resource in conflicting ways (a snowmobile driver and a cross-country skier).

Values Conflict: Two people have different values, and it plays out in an "issue." A good example is the attitude toward wolves in the wild. Some ranchers HATE wolves, but not because of the animal, but because of what it represents (environmentalism, new attitudes toward development, animals over people).

The first type of conflict is solvable by management. For example, snowmobiles use the trail on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and skiers on Mondays and Wednesdays. The second conflict is more difficult because you have to figure out what the conflicting values are (sometimes people don't know themselves) then you have to try to find common ground (sometimes not possible). Politics is the second type of conflict.

Tony Hillerman

One of my favorite authors, Tony Hillerman, died this week. I first discovered the joy of a Joe Leaphorn novel laying on hot sandstone in my back "yard" when I worked as a ranger at Zion National Park with no TV in the house, and plenty of time to read. It was the perfect setting to be reading a mystery novel set in the four-corners region. The heros, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee were intelligent, flawed and relatable. The stories were suspenseful. The background of Navajo culture and mythology was educational. I tip my hat to a talented writer who loved his work.

Gabe in the Herald Journal

Gabe was on the front page of the local paper, the Herald Journal, this week. The featured photo is above (middle row, toward the center). He and his Kindergarten class sang "You are my Sunshine" for Ellis Elementary's 115 anniversary. They shuffled out on the stage, so serious and nervous and silent. Then all 40 of them suddenly burst into song, singing at the top of their voices. 40 Kindergartners, and not one of them hit the same note. It was absolutely a delight. If you are interested in a video, follow this link.