Hanni was a 5-year old Greek land tortoise who lived with an Austrian/American family in a small village in eastern Austria. In the summer when it was warm she lived in a suitable habitat outside, with places to hide and little hilly bits to climb up and down and a flat place to eat and a mesh wire roof to keep out birds and cats and other predators, and in the winter and on other days when it was cold she lived in the office inside the family’s house.

In fact, Hanni spent most of her time inside the house, either in the office or in a box in the cellar when she was hibernating, which she did about half the year.

In the office she had a couple hiding places under the desk, and she also enjoyed it in the space underneath the chest of drawers.

One year, Hanni awoke from hibernation and it was still too cold for her to go outside so the family put her in the office as usual. She tried to crawl under the chest of drawers but couldn’t anymore because she’d grown and she no longer fit but she kept trying, her little leathery clawed feet going “scritch-scritch-scritch” on the parquet floors, her shell “bump-bump-bumping” against the chest of drawers.

So she gave up and walked around the office, rolling wilted lettuce leaves into little doobie shapes by walking over them and rolling them up with her shell. Sometimes she’d high-center on one and get stuck and someone would have to lift her off, otherwise she’d stay in one place for hours, scritch-scritching.

One day, after several days of heavy eating (lots of dandilions and lettuce and little pellets made of ground up meal worms from the pet store) Hanni took a massive shit while butting up against the chest of drawers, trying to force her way underneath again.

The shit lay there, in the form of a large, soft black turd and while walking back and forth – scritch-scritch – Hanni stepped in it and did a Jackson Pollack with it all across about four square feet of parquet floor. Then she went back under the desk and tucked her leathery little head back into her shell and waited for it to dry to an incredibly hard mess.

After the black tortoise shit Jackson Pollack mess had dried to an incredibly hard mess, the family’s mom found it and made the dad go clean it up, which he did with about half a roll of paper towels and an unhappy look on his face. Not long after this, Hanni got to go outside into her little habitat.

Raising Hell is a new perspective on family life. If Erma Bombeck and Ozzie Osbourne had a bastard child and added caffeine, it would look a lot like Raising Hell. Raising Hell looks like a typewriter and sounds like a lawnmower. Raising Hell is red meat at a vegetarian restaurant. It’s the dispeptic hippopotamus at the tea party. Raising Hell is about finding love and beauty in chaos and panic.

It’s about parenting. It’s about bad parenting and good parenting and the grey area between. It’s about our kids and your kids and our neighbor’s kids. It’s about sibling rivalry and gum wads under the kitchen table. It’s about video games and school concerts and temper tantrums. It’s about being parents or knowing parents or wanting to be parents or not wanting to be parents.

It’s for everyone. We can learn from each other or laugh at each other and swear we will never do these things with our own kids even though we know we will. We can ask questions and get answers and maybe not get any answers but still get a few laughs.

Finally, a parenting magazine for everyone – devoted parents and child-haters alike. My brainchild, like the shoe project, only, uh, different. Serious this time because parenting is a serious thing. Which isn’t to say that it can’t be funny. Featuring Michele, Melly and Pat, designed by Sheila, born from the sweating brow of kd. Go there now.

There was something I was trying to say with that last post but, eh. I’ll have to circle around it I guess. This morning Alpha and I are enjoying a few hours of leisure. We dropped the kids off at friends last night and they won’t be back for a few more minutes, noonish. Meaning we had a morning to ourselves, meaning sleeping in and then lying around staring at the ceiling, hungover. At least one of us, I’m not saying who.

I always found hangovers most bearable with ice-cold Pepsi and old Star Trek re-runs or Elvis movies on TV with the sound off, Pink Floyd on the stereo. Now we have children, and no TV, so I try to avoid hangovers. But leisure. This morning wasn’t bad, sitting around, talking, with nothing much to do.

Soon the world will come crashing back over our heads so we enjoy this quiet. Well, enjoy is maybe the wrong word for a person with a bad hangover, I’m not saying who…

Last night we got to be adults for a while. We were invited to a friend’s for dinner. She cooked Thai food and served much wine. I just had a beer because I was driving. There was another couple there as well. The guy was an outgoing smartass, a lot like the way I act here on this site. It was interesting to watch. In person I am quiet, so we got along, no territorial pissing contests or anything.

It’s interesting being the only sober person in a room full of drunks. At one point Alpha told an emotional story. I decided not to interrupt because it was, first of all, a very good story, and second, I think it’s fine to talk about serious things in social situations, rather than try to stick to polite, innocuous topics all the time. Then they all got into an argument about something, I’m not exactly sure what and neither were they. For a while I played referee, saying things like, “well, on the one hand I agree with you, but I can see what he’s trying to say as well, and she has a good point…” but ultimately I gave up and concentrated on keeping my eyes open. My eyes get small after 9 pm.

Then we drove home. It was a good night. We weren’t exactly the house guests from hell, although we did initiate drunken arguments and we were the last to leave. I would invite us again, if I were our hostess.

And now we’re enjoying a few more minutes of leisure.

Leisure as a noun and not an adjective. Leisure not as leisure-time, time off work when you can take care of your private things, run errands and take busy vacations. Leisure as time empty of plans, goals and duties. The German word is “Musse” and believe it or not it’s less obsolete than the English expression, at least here in Austria. The freedom of bums and artists, or philosophers and mystics. Leisure as empty space filled by an expanding soul. Not the crushing depressive empty time of unemployment or boredom. A lightness, a mysterious space of discovery and experience and existence beyond language where life comes to you and stretches out at your feet.

Yesterday, I was emailing back and forth with a friend who couldn’t IM from work and I got all nostalgic about the old pre-IM days when e-mail was cutting edge.

It finally dawned on my that I didn’t have my own shoes at the Feral Living Shoe Project. I just went and fixed that. They are here.

Good description of kd here.
[Go there now.]