Quote of the Day

Jonathan Rauch on "hidden law," the social norms by which we all live, and which are enforced through communitarian actions rather than the actual force of the state:

If you believe, as seems plausible, that there is a genuine clash of interests between parents and sexual adventurers, then the old dictates of hidden law--"keep it out of sight," for instance--seem to be a pretty ingenious way to strike a balance.

Some especially conservative parents are indignant because sexual adventuring is too visible, while some especially radical adventurers are indignant because they are not allowed to copulate in front of City Hall. Everyone else wishes the conservatives and the radicals would stop pushing the envelope before the bargain collapses altogether, leaving nothing but cops and politicians and lawyers to tell us how to behave. In the end, the man who wants to replace norms with nothing is the best friend of the man who wants to replace norms with laws.

Today is a big f'ing deal!

I would like to announce that I love my wife. And as of today, I have officially loved my wife for

Twenty-Two Years.

Wow, that's a lot of anniversaries. And she has been awesome through every single one of them.

We made a nice day of it. After all the celebrating we did Friday night, it was easier to kick back this weekend and spend most of our time gardening. I finally took the turning fork to the run along the west side of the house, and boy does it need more work: I made it about four feet. There's blackberry and grass and mint and strawberry all intermingled back there, and it's going to take more than two hours of hard labor to save that run for next year's strawberries. I'm tempted to fork under the mint, dig and re-condition the soil there, toss out all the grass, and re-plant the mint. It will probably survive.

We went to a lovely seafood restaurant for lunch, did some ordinary shopping, then came home for a quiet dinner and relaxation. The kid was at the local D&D store, being (apparently) a bit of a whiny teenager, even though she's only eleven. She doesn't relate to other eleven year olds well; too smart and well-read for them, but not quite ready to hang out with teenagers.