Melilyn.com

I had the weirdest thought today.

See, my family is homeschooled. The eighth grader and the second grader can pretty much take care of themselves, as they are able to read the directions in their workbooks. The youngest, however, is just switching from kindergarten to first grade, and is tougher. And, so Mom can help the other two and get other things done, I end up teaching her and helping through her workbooks.

Growing up, I never believed that I was a gifted kid. I was constantly told this. I had this awful idea that my IQ test was messed up and that I was the dumbest kid in the gifted program, and that they put me in because they felt sorry for me.

It occurred to me today that maybe I was wrong.

At Teg’s age, I was well into algebra. She’s still working through her basic math books. At Steve’s age, I was reading Nancy Drew and writing a weekly report on things like planets and the solar system. He’s still reading picture books. At Abby’s age, I was well on my way to the boxcar children and engrossed in outer space. She’s struggling through reading words and adds five and two with counting bears. All three of these kids are smart, by normal standards.

I’m not tooting my own horn, believe me. It was just an interesting revelation that basically told me that I’m not always as awful as I think I am.

Yeah, well, it happens again. I actually played with the PHP instead of working around it this time, and I’m pretty pleased with the results of this theme. And I’m also working on editing all of the static pages and adding some new ones.

Big project of right now is passover dances! I think I forgot to mention that. We’re doing two special dances during the passover seder for our congregation: The Sacrifice Lamb, by Joel Chernoff, and Reedeemer, by Nicole C. Mullens. The Sacrifice lamb is probably 75% choreographed, but Reedeemer… well, we have some vague ideas. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll do Shalom Jerusalem, by Paul Wilbur. Dance practice every Friday night until passover, HOORAY!

Last night, as I disconnected my internet from my computer and opened my door to put the cord by Mom’s computer, like I do every other night, I faintly smelled smoke. I put the cord away and went into the kitchen, where my mom was puttering around.

“I smell something funny,” I said. “Almost like something is burning.”

Now, any other time or any other place, this probably would not have been a big deal. It couuld have been a neighbor preparing a barbeque. It could have been Dad out by his burn barrel, burning wood scraps and sawdust from his shop. Except for the fact that it was just after eleven at night and Oklahoma is under a burn ban due to the drought and wildfires.

We went out in the backyard, where the smell of smoke was stronger, carried on the wind. Everything was hazy — or smoky — but we didn’t see anything that looked like a fire and we didn’t hear any sirens, either. In the front yard, we couldn’t smell it as much, but it was still definitely there.

“It makes me want to go up around our old house,” I told Mom. Our old street us up on more of a hill, and the smoke seemed to be coming from that direction.

“Makes me want to hop in the car and go check it out,” Mom replied. She finished what she was doing, we exchanged a look, and the two of us left the sleeping house and went out to the van.

We drove all over town for at least a half hour. All of Shawnee smelled like smoke, and it was hazy. It was almost as if there was a fog over town, but the weather was all wrong. At every intersection, we craned our necks and searched the surrounding neighborhood for thick smoke or the glow of flames. Nothing. Shawnee was almost silent.

Just before midnight we returned home, satisfied that our neighborhood wasn’t in danger of a wildfire, but thoroughly freaked out. This morning we got up and found out that there had been a fire just on our side of the City; it didn’t say how big, but if Shawnee was blanketed in smoke, it had to have been more than a little roadside cigarette burn.

Well, nothing happened, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers! A small adventure is an adventure just the same!