Ghiblified for privacy

We invited people ages 9-13: I really wanted to keep the age range narrow so the kids got the feeling of dancing with people their own age. I set up a spot for parents to hang out in another room, or they were welcome to drop off and head out. The lower age limit meant Nora (nearly 5) was watching from the sidelines, and a few other younger siblings stayed home. I did allow two 8yo younger siblings who can hold their own at a regular evening dance.

Overall, I think of this sort of age restriction similarly to advanced contra dances or Galhalla: while I love that we have a default of “everyone welcome”, there are also benefits of limited-admission events. I think it’s good to have occasional events for a more specific crowd.

With the table turned on its side (first time doing that!) we had a clear area of 7ft x 21ft:

This width would be tight for a contra dance with adults: you normally want a minimum of 8ft per set. For example, the Cambridge Masonic Hall (where BIDA is) is 47ft wide, and is comfortable at five sets (9.4ft/set) and danceable but squishy with six (7.8ft). Luckily, the kids are on average less than 7/8 adult size, so the width was not an issue. The length was just right for the crowd (~20 kids) but a larger group would have needed to take turns.

Andrew called, and while many kids are on the short side it was still helpful to stand on the couch for a better view:

Of the ~20 kids, all but one had contra danced before, and most of them had been many times: children of contra dancers, plus a few friends. You might think we’d have a room of experts who could dance regular evening fare, and they certainly thought so! But actually we had a group who didn’t understand quite the extent to which the adults around them had been helping them through dances. This was a very hard crowd to satisfy! They were intense dance snobs (”We want to do real contras!” “This was great, but next time I want harder dances!” “Can we do a dolphin hey?” “Moneymusk!!”) but did not reliably remember their roles, or distinguish left and right. Andrew did a really good job picking dances that felt like “real contras” and not “family dances”, without pushing the difficulty past what the crowd could handle.

We did a snack break in the middle, which was definitely the right call. Chips, grapes, crackers, someone brought lemonade, and I made eclairs.

I organized an acoustic open band, which grew from two people to five over the afternoon, including two kids. Garth and I have been jamming some lately, and while he’s still new to contra it was great to have him on piano. I played fiddle for most of the time (except when Jeremy stopped by for a bit), and while it isn’t my strongest instrument it does carry well. I’ve started wearing an earplug in my left ear when playing fiddle energetically, something I learned from a former boss, and my ear feels way better these days.

We didn’t amplify the band, but I did have a mic for the caller. It would probably have been possible to do without this, but not good for Andrew’s voice.

Overall, I’m really happy with how this went, and my kids are pushing hard for another one soon. If you’re in the Boston area this sounds like it could be a good fit for you or your kids, let me know so I can tell you about future ones?

Here’s what that looks like in the context of our overall spending:

On savings, there are two things going on. We’re drawing down our regular post-tax savings to donate more (-$72k) but we’re still putting money into retirement accounts (+$51k). It nets to -$20k, though mixing pre- and post-tax numbers into one sum isn’t really correct.

We’ve been prioritizing donations for a long time, but it feels very different now because of the AI boom. Some of this is that people who’ve made money in the boom will likely be giving more soon, and so money spent now can help set up organizations to spend future money more effectively. But more importantly, this is a key window of opportunity: transformative AI is coming very quickly, for better or worse. We want to push hard for “better”.

If you compare to previous years (2024, 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014), we’re donating a lot less than we used to in absolute terms:

Until mid-2022 I was working at a big tech company, optimizing to maximize donations, and now I’m at a non-profit. This means we’re giving a larger fraction, but of a smaller amount:

I feel good about this change. I’m now building an early warning system for engineered pandemics, which is urgent and important as AI increasingly substitutes for advice from expert virologists. It does mean donating much less than I would have if I’d continued in big tech, but I think this was well worth it. While money can enable important work, I see a lot of projects that primarily need dedicated people to bring them into existence, and I’d be excited for others to switch to direct work.

Even though we’re drawing down our savings to donate, our net worth rose 18% over the last year (adjusted for inflation). This was driven by stock returns on our retirement savings:

Now, retirement savings growing via stock returns is how it’s “supposed” to work: if we give away all the gains then we’ll have much less at retirement. But I see ~three futures as AI becomes rapidly more capable:

• Things go very poorly, long-term savings are mostly useless, and we really wish we’d done more.

• Things go very well, the world is very wealthy, we don’t need the additional money.

• Somehow, AI ends up being not that big a deal, and the world is still pretty normal financially.

It’s really only in that last world where our savings translate into us having a better life, and as AI continues not hitting a wall I see the chances of ending up in a basically normal world getting pretty small. While we shouldn’t donate to where we’d be destitute if we’re wrong, we’re not in danger of that. [1] So I think we should continue to draw down our non-retirement savings to donate more during this critical period.

Writing this post also got me thinking about our retirement contributions. We’re both contributing the maximum, which I think often makes sense even if you don’t expect a normal retirement, from a perspective of protecting savings. Since we’re in a good enough position financially and donating seems very urgent, I now think we should stop contributing to have more to donate going forward.

Evaluating Predictions

Back in 2024 I made a list of what I expected to write in 2026. How did reality differ from expectations?

2024: I think there’s a good chance we’ll have switched from giving 50% to some form of salary sacrifice. If we do, our pay, donations, and taxes will all be a lot lower.

I did this for a little while. I started at a 10% reduction, and then when Julia’s work decided to no longer support voluntary salary reductions I went to 75%. Then a few months ago I decided to stop since I wanted more flexibility in targeting donations.

2024: Childcare should be similar: the nanny share is working and I expect we’ll do something similar at least until our youngest starts kindergarten in Fall 2026 (and will show up in the 2028 update).

Yup, still doing a nanny share with our former housemate. While there was a bit where our nanny left and it took us a few tries to find someone who worked out, this is now going well again. We haven’t decided what we’ll do for afterschool when our youngest starts school in the Fall.

2024: I’d like to hope I have a better way of accounting for housing and savings in general and have gone back and redone all my previous numbers under the new system, but since that sounds like a ton of work I doubt I’ll have done that.

My prediction that I would be lazy was correct. This post represents zero accounting improvements, only more data due to the passage of time.

2024: I put about a 10% chance on AI, war, or other major events in this timeframe changing things enough that everything is weird in hard to predict ways.

The world is appreciably different from two years ago, but not in ways that strongly impacted our spending.

Making New Predictions

Let’s try and make some similar predictions for 2028:

• My odds that the world has changed substantially are up significantly, maybe 55%, primarily due to AI. I’d put about 10% on futures where things go very badly, where I’m not here to write a followup and you’re not here to read one. Then maybe 10% on really good futures where there’s no need for me to work on biosecurity and I can do music, dance, and blogging full time. And 35% on weird futures where we’re not dead but it’s not clearly good either. Don’t put a lot of weight on these numbers!

• Childcare costs will be down a lot, because all three kids will be in school. But we’ll still need to pay for afterschool, holidays, and vacations. Our oldest will be in 8th grade, so no college costs yet. Back in 2018 I was thinking that sometime around 2028 I might be moving from earning to give to direct work (due to the effective 100% marginal tax rate), but I ended up doing this earlier and for non-college reasons.

• We won’t be pulling from savings to fund donations because we’ll have finished giving away our remaining non-retirement savings. But with so much lower childcare costs we’ll probably still be able to give over 50%.

• We don’t have any expensive house projects. With how much the world could change soon I want to keep options open, and not lock up money in the house.

• We’re still living in the same house, and our housing costs will have gone down slightly because rents will have gone up a little (in a combination of real and nominal terms) but our mortgage is fixed-rate.

• Our shared car is a 2013 Honda Fit, and while these are great cars there’s a decent chance it won’t last much longer. Might need to make a substantial payment here.

Details

I’ve used the same approach as last year, which was unchanged from 2022 and very similar before then. Numbers below are monthly, based on 2025 spending.

• Donations: $11.9k (81% of 2025 adjusted gross income)

• Taxes: $3.0k

  • Income tax: $500

  • State tax: $500

  • Social Security tax: $900

  • Medicare tax: $200

  • Property tax: $800

• Childcare: $3.6k ($150/workday, three kids)

• Housing: $2.0k

  • Note: this is tricky; see details below on how this is calculated

  • One time expenses (all time)

    • Purchase and all one-time expenses up through the 2024 update: $1.1M

    • Major one-time expenses since the 2024 update: $31.8k:

      • Solar: $30k

      • Additional insulation: $1.2k

  • Ongoing expenses, covering the whole house including the tenants’ unit:

    • Electricity: $92

    • Gas (Heat): $257

    • Water/Sewer: $179

    • Other: $83

  • Rent income: $4.8k

• Retirement saving: $4.3k (all pre-tax)

• Other savings: -$6.4k (see below)

• Medical: $218 in pre-tax health insurance, ~$400 in post-tax co-pays etc

• Food: $964 (two adults, and three kids 11y, 9y, 4y)

• Other: $1k

  • Includes phone bills, taxis, car rentals, clothes, vacation, stuff for the kids, and other smaller expenses.

  • Because we are no longer tracking our expenses to the dollar, the distinction between “Other” and “Savings” is an estimate.

[1] Our house is 2/3 paid off, if we used savings to finish it off that would leave ~$1M saved. At a 4% safe withdrawal income this would be $3.3k/month. We also rent out several parts of our house, totaling $4.8k/month, which brings us to ~$100k/y of raw income. This would need to cover taxes, health insurance, utilities, house maintenance, food, etc, but almost everyone lives on far less. I think the largest risk is that we get a non-extinction future that’s still quite bad, but I have trouble seeing moderately higher savings making a large difference there.

Anna (10y) and I had been fighting a lot about practice. She’d complain, slump, stop repeatedly to make adjustments, and generally be miserable. I’d often have to pull out “if you want to keep taking fiddle lessons you have to practice”: she loves her teacher and is very motivated by the prospect of being good at fiddle. Still, it would take us ages and we’d barely get through anything.

One evening when she seemed like she might be open to it I explained that we were spending twenty painful minutes on two minutes of material. I challenged her: if she focused, and went through with no fussing, we’d be done in two minutes. It did turn out to be the right time for this message, she gave it a good try, and (with a little fussing in the middle) we were done in three minutes.

Over the next few days I continued to remind her that if she buckled down it would go quickly, and we got into a pattern of efficient and pleasant 2min practices. We probably continued this a bit longer than ideal, and then I went on a trip without handing this off well. Julia’s question was a good reminder that we weren’t done with the progression.

When I came back I started gradually increasing how long we practiced. Now that we had a good non-complainy dynamic this went well, and Anna started learning much faster. She wanted to be able to participate in jamming at NEFFA, worked hard at that goal, and last weekend she got to play Coleman’s March at the annual Kids Jam:

Part of why I took a long time to start lengthening lessons, beyond just forgetting, was that I don’t want to apply too high a marginal tax rate. If I had said “you still have to practice the full time, even though you’re getting 10x done now”, that would have been super demotivating. Instead, she got to enjoy a few weeks of the full profits (2min practice) before gradually working back up.

(This is just me writing about a thing that happened to work with one of my kids. No reproducibility claims here, your fiddleage may vary!)

Looking at past disasters, people mostly fall somewhere on a “kind and supportive” to “keep to themselves” spectrum. When there is looting it’s typically directed at stores, not homes, and violence is mostly in the streets. Having supplies at home lets you stay out of the way.

One distinction it’s worth making is between short (hurricane, earthquake) and long (siege, economic collapse, famine) disasters. Having what you need at home is really helpful in both cases, but differently so.

In short disasters (1917 Halifax explosion, London Blitz, 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami) you typically see sharing and mutual aid. Stored supplies mean you’re not competing for scarce resources, have slack to help others, and make you more comfortable.

Stories of looting in situations like this are often exaggerated or cherry-picked. I had heard post-Katrina New Orleans had a lot of looting, but this was actually rumor. There’s a really good article, “Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy“ on how rumors got reported as fact, and how the truth was nowhere near this bad. But the rumors had real effect at the time, including contributing to police and vigilante overreaction. Future disasters will also have rumors and reckless people with guns trying to be the ‘good guys’; more reason to stock what you need so you can stay home.

Long disasters are uglier. Here I think having supplies matters even more, but so does caution. The siege of Leningrad is a pretty extreme example, where survival mostly came down to things outside people’s control (ex: ration categories). When people did have stored food, however, it was very helpful as long as they were discreet. As people became increasingly desperate over the prolonged siege-induced starvation there are stories of people cooking at night or eating food raw to avoid alerting their neighbors (and, in the case of raw food, also because of lack of fuel).

Argentina and Venezuela are less extreme examples, but still informative. Because these were not nearly as severe as Leningrad there was much less societal breakdown. When there was violence and theft, it was concentrated around stores and transit; while there were home robberies this was uncommon. People who had more at home needed to shop less, which meant less exposure.

Similarly, in the siege of Sarajevo the risk was different (snipers and shelling, not robbers) but the takeaway is the same: people who had supplies and were able to stay home were less exposed to the risk.

Across both short and long disasters the pattern is similar: risk is mostly external, homes are rarely targeted, and having supplies that let you stay home is protective. The “people who are stronger than you will take your stuff” still happens, and in long disasters it’s worth putting thought into how to avoid being a visible target, but it’s not a major factor and it’s not nearly enough to outweigh the value of having food and other resources on hand.

It immediately became my favorite dance. I started volunteering, first out of frugality (volunteers get in free!) and then out of a sense of wanting to contribute, and in 2010 I joined the board. Over the past 16 years I’ve done just about everything at some point except treasurer, and now I’m stepping away.

It’s not that I think BIDA is doing something wrong; quite the opposite! We’re seeing record attendance, finances are good, so many fun dancers, and many people who want to pitch in. I noticed I would have been the seventh person running for three board spots, and realized it was a good time to let someone else have a turn. I’m excited to see what Emma, Harris, Bret, Veer, Casey, Naomi, Clara, and Persis do!

This seems like a good time to look back over how BIDA and the Boston dance community have changed over my time organizing.

The biggest change is that BIDA is now Boston’s main contra dance. This is kind of hard for me to believe, since we spent so many years as a small dance that tried to fill niches that were not well covered by the many other area dances. We’ve gone from essentially not booking established bands to booking them regularly, and with our attendance-based bonuses are one of the best-paying dances in the country. I do really enjoy the higher level of musicianship now, but am also really glad Boston Open Contras exists (along with BIDA’s open bands and family dance bands) to provide a lower-stakes environment.

The next largest change is probably the switch to gender-free calling (more history), and the level of role freedom that has come along with that. In 2010, I (and many others) would happily dance both roles, but if I was dancing the ‘lady’ role I had to be 100% on it because if anything went wrong it was my fault. Beginners were strongly discouraged from dancing ‘switch’, which also discouraged same-gender couples. And while this never happened to me in Boston, conservative men elsewhere would occasionally refuse any sort of physical contact if I encountered them in line while dancing ‘lady’. When I look at the dancers now, it’s amazing how people have really taken up this freedom to dance any role with any partner, which I feel really good about.

Some smaller changes:

• BIDA went from 1x/month to 3x/month, most recently by adding a monthly afternoon dance. Since we take the hottest part of summer off, this means going from ~10 to ~28 dances annually.

• We now have a dance weekend, Beantown Stomp. I kicked this off in May 2018, we had our first one in March 2019 and it’s now an established and anticipated event that people fly to from across the country. I’m especially grateful for Naomi for taking the lead for 2023 (and beyond!) when I was too burnt out on organizing cancelled events (2020, 2021).

• We have occasional family dances and livetronica (Spark in the Dark) events.

• Our events are still intergenerational, but differently so. In 2010 most dancers were baby boomers; while BIDA was unusual in how many millennials we had, we were still 50%+ baby boomers. At this point I’d guess our dances are fewer than 10% baby boomers: many have aged out of dancing, and many millennial-and-younger dancers have joined. This is also reflected in the board’s focus: the initial board was primarily mid-20s people thinking about how to get more 15-35yos dancing, but since we’ve succeeded at this it’s no longer a focus.

• We now schedule (and pay) hall managers. In 2010 we just expected most board members would be at most dances and this would give us enough coverage.

• BIDA is a lot more organizationally mature. Minutes from the early days say things like “We agreed not to have a President. Instead, we’ll use everyone in the board to make sure that we stay on top of things.” This turned out not to work very well, and instead specific roles are in charge of staying on top of specific things, with the intraboard coordinator handling things by default.

• We were still bouncing around between a few halls, and now we’re always at the Cambridge Masonic Hall.

• We’re a legal entity now, incorporated as a Massachusetts non-profit.

• We set up a safety policy, with a committee to handle issues as they come up.

• There used to be a lot more of a mentoring focus. Early dances were often two experienced musicians plus a new musician. Callers would typically have a shadow. Every dance allowed sit-ins (off mic, behind the band). We hosted jams about as often as dances. I see this change as pretty natural, and I think a lot of this is now happening informally outside of BIDA.

Organizing BIDA has been a big part of my identity, but I think it’s healthy for the organization to have people cycle through, and I’m confident it’s in good hands. Very excited to start attending dances just as a dancer, with no formal responsibility!

When people set out to divide chores they’re usually weighing duration and discomfort. These matter, but I think people should put more weight on the standards each person has, and generally try to give tasks to the person with the highest standards in that area.

If you divide everything this way, though, it will probably be pretty unfair: preferences are correlated, where someone who notices dirt on the floor probably also notices crumbs on the counter and that the recycling is overflowing. Some options:

• Do chores on a schedule. We host a monthly event at our house, and there are things I clean as part of setting up. It doesn’t matter whether the bathroom mirror looks dirty to me, I’ll clean it because it’s on my list. (But Julia will probably also clean it a few times over the course of the month.)

• Bring your needs closer together. If one member of the couple does the laundry but the other always runs out of socks first, they could switch who does the laundry, or they could just buy more socks.

• Decouple your needs. That same couple could instead switch to each doing their own laundry. Now if one person doesn’t do it for a long time it doesn’t impact the other.

• Make the need more salient. If one person isn’t noticing that something needs doing, you can address that directly. Empty the trash, but instead of taking it out you put it by the door they walk through to go to work. Accumulate dirty dishes on the counter (visible) and not in the sink (hidden). If you just start unilaterally increasing salience that’s passive aggressive and probably doesn’t go well, but if it comes out of an open-ended “what are some strategies we could use to make our chore division more fair” I expect that’s positive.

• Lower your standards. I know a few people who internalized a high cleanliness target as children, and benefited as adults from deciding to focus less on it. Often when becoming a parent: higher demands on time, letting high standards slip, realizing that actually it’s not a problem. I could also imagine a sloppier person intentionally raising their standards, but that seems a lot harder, or else it’s just something people around me have been less likely to talk about.

• Hire someone. If one person cares a lot about having clean floors and the other person doesn’t, neither of them enjoys mopping, and they have some money, they can apply (3) to solve (1) without running into issues with (2). I know couples and group houses who decided to pay for a cleaner to come every week or two, and found it massively reduced conflict. Automation (dishwasher, floor-cleaning robot) can work well here too.

This is an area where Julia and I used to have a substantial amount of conflict, and while things aren’t perfect here I do think they’re a lot better in part due to applying several of the above.

It’s hard for me to really imagine living through a famine. The world as I have experienced it has been one of abundant calories, where people are generally more worried about getting too many than too few. Essentially no one dies in the US from food unavailability. Globally, however, it’s different: each year millions die from hunger.

If you look at the circumstances of modern famines, they’re downstream from systems failing. Society was functioning well enough that most people got enough calories, then something went seriously wrong, most likely war. This is one of the reasons that it’s hard to use donations to reduce hunger deaths: getting food to people stuck in war zones is very hard.

This means from an altruistic perspective I feel torn: the current situation is horrible, but it’s also not where I think my donations would go farthest and so it’s not where I donate. This is the painful reality of living in a world that is far worse than it could be, doing what we can and knowing it’s not enough.

I also look at famine from a selfish perspective, however, thinking about how this risk might impact me and the people I most love. [1] As someone whose day job involves trying to reduce rare-but-catastrophic risks, I do think global famine is plausible. Our systems are robust to localized problems, but much less so to widespread disasters. Storing food to reduce the worst outcomes seems worth doing. [2]

The approach we take is buying extra of the non-perishables we usually eat, and rotating through them. Our main cost is in buying some food earlier than we normally would. We eat a lot of pasta and beans, and a pound of pasta and can of beans give about a person-day of calories and protein for $2, or $60 for a month’s worth.

The $60 cost isn’t the real number, though, because you’re investing: you can always eat this food later if you need the money. If the market would give you a 5% real return and the value of food roughly tracks inflation, the annual cost of keeping $60 as food is $3 ($60 * 5%). I think this is worth doing for most people until you bump into the limit of what you have space to store or what you’ll rotate through before it spoils, and may be worth it beyond that depending on how likely you think the risks are.

Aside from the tail-risk reduction, there are also day-to-day benefits of having more food on hand. We can go to the grocery store less often, buy a larger proportion of our food when it’s on sale, go to the farther store that charges less, and cook more things without going to the store. [3]

Like many preparedness questions, a lot of this comes down to how much space you have. When we were living in apartments, moving ~yearly and where each sqft counted, we only did a little of this (buying extra pasta). But now that we’re in a house (where I strongly hope to never move again) and generally have more space it’s worth it for us to do a bunch more. Something to consider next time you’re at the store?

[1] Having kids made me feel much more strongly here. I already did this some before having kids because it seemed reasonable, but the idea of them not having enough to eat is viscerally horrifying in a way that’s hard to think or write about.

[2] A rough EV estimate: storing three months of food costs $180 up front and so $9 in lost returns annually, not having enough food in a 3-month famine might give a 5% chance of death, and perhaps you value your life at $10M. This gives a conditional benefit of $500,000, and means it’s worth it as long as you think your annual odds of experiencing a 3-month famine are at least 0.002%. Alternatively, if you’re not the kind of person who would actually rotate through food let’s imagine you buy rice and beans. White rice lasts ~indefinitely if you keep it dry and keep out the rodents; canned beans are edible and nutritious well past their sell-by, perhaps 10y. Rice is a bit cheaper than pasta, but buying a rodent-proof tub to keep the bag in adds some cost, so let’s say it’s still $180 for a three-months better-than-starvation option that lasts you 10 years. Then it’s worth doing as long as you think annual risk is at least 0.004%.

[3] For example, this evening Lily decided she wanted to cook dinner, making a vegetarian curry she’d learned from a friend. It turned out we already had everything in her recipe on hand, with a few substitutions (ex: canned tomatoes instead of fresh).

(Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying “me” could mean either of us. Ones from others are labeled.)

2025-01-12

Anna, about the Whos inviting the Grinch to their Christmas dinner right after he stole all their stuff:

“I think the Whos are pretty forgetful, or naive, or both.”

2025-01-12

Onomatopoeia: the sound of a three-year-old yelling “TOO LOUD” in the bathtub to hear it resonate.

2025-01-13

Anna: I’m going to go play with Lily

Julia: How’s your homework doing?

Anna: I already finished it

Julia: A minute ago you said you hadn’t started it

Anna: Well, I did some?

Julia: Let’s check...

Anna: I didn’t actually do any of it.

...

It later turned out Anna had left her homework at school

2025-01-18

[out of nowhere]

Nora: what? I like oranges!

Nora: oranges are my favorite fruit

Nora: I love oranges

...

(The [statement] [pause] “what, [justification]” format is one Anna had been using extensively)

2025-01-18

Nora to me after I got home close to bedtime: “I’m happy you’re going to put me to bed.”

(To Jeff) “You gave up putting me to bed. (Reassuringly) But you’re still alive.”

2025-01-20

Me: Thanks for making lasagna!

Nora: You’re welcome!

Me: Uh, I was talking to Mama, because you didn’t make the lasagna

Nora: Ooohh. Sorry Mom!

2025-01-21

Anna: Eeeww! There were caterpillars in my Reese’s peanut butter cup!

Me: Uhh, how old was your peanut butter cup?

Anna: I don’t know! I don’t know if it was the one from Halloween this year, or from when I was four.

(I have a guess)

2025-01-22

Nora, regarding mint chip: “This kind of ice cream is my FRAVORITE. It’s so beautiful. The color is so pretty.”

2025-01-23

Nora: why do little kids don’t have computers?

Julia: because they’re expensive, and they break easily

Nora: because of the bendy bit?

2025-01-25

Questions from Nora this week:

Why are our heads all the way at the top?

Why is the ocean so big?

Why do people have a lot of parts?

How do blackberries grow into black?

Is 101 this big? (holds hands apart)

Is this as slow as a sloth moves?

Why does hair grow slowly?

Why Papa doesn’t work at our house?

Why is Daniel Tiger doesn’t have any cars?

Do animals just sometimes die?

Why do you and Jeff have three kids?

2025-01-26

Nora: I sort of like Mama better than you

Me: I like you a lot

Nora: When you’re away, do you miss me?

Me: I miss you lots. Do you miss me?

Nora: I do miss you.

...

Nora: Is your beard back yet?

Me: What do you think?

Nora. I think it is back. You look more normal now.

2025-01-29

Nora: when you’re a grown up, do you grow back into a baby?

Julia: no, grownups stay grownups

Nora: whyyyy?

2025-01-29

Julia: “Anna, it looks like someone tampered with this homework break timer to be way more than 5min”

Nora: “I did it!”

2025-01-29

Nora: [improvises a lullaby] “does that feel beddish to you?”

2025-01-29

The big kids have gotten excited about the fact that they call Nora Fluffin, and she loves a TV show called Puffin Rock.

Lily: “Nora! It’s crucial! You’ve got to get on a rock so we can film an award-winning TV show about you on a rock! Fluffin Rock!!”

...

Fluffin Rock:

2025-02-01

Nora has started telling me at bedtime, “We’re in love.” Last time I asked, she said it’s because we spend a lot of time together.

Tonight: “We’re in love. Because I have [fingers to her eyes] eyeshadow.”

(”Oh?”)

“I have blue eyeshadow to be in love.”

2025-02-02

So now Nora knows about beheadings.

Me: [singing Horrible Histories’ “The King of Bling” while getting Nora ready for bed]

Nora: What is that song about?

Me: It’s about Charles the second. The Puritan government didn’t want parties and fun, and when he came back to be king he had lots of parties.

Nora: Where did he come back from?

Me: I think from France? His father got killed, so he had to go away so he didn’t get killed too.

Nora: Were there lions?

Me: No.

Nora: How did his father get killed?

Me: ...People killed him.

Nora: How?

Me: [increasingly unsure this conversation is a good idea] ...They cut off his head.

Nora: How did they cut off his head?

Me: With an axe, I think.

Nora: Oh, that’s a *great* way.

Me: You mean that’s a great way of doing it?

Nora: Yeah. Did they cut off his hair, too?

Me: Well, it was attached to his head at the time, so kind of.

2025-02-06

Me: let’s do fiddle practice!

Anna: but Dad! [Looks up from craft project] I have homework to finish!

2025-02-06

Anna, after watching a video about the International Space Station: It would be fun to live in space, but also really annoying.

Lily: There are literally a zillion pieces of space dust flying around at a bajillion miles per hour that could literally kill you at any time!

2025-02-08

After a day with lots of socializing, I told Jeff and the kids that Jeff was in charge and I was going to have some introvert time. When the kids eventually burst into the bedroom, Nora announced with satisfaction: “I wanted to stop you havin’ quiet time, I wanted to distract you.”

...

Jeff is away for the weekend, the kids were happily playing by themselves, and I told them I was going to have 5 minutes of alone time. 30 seconds later Nora was in my room on my lap asking “What is alone time?”

2025-02-09

Me: Did you get back recently, or have you been home for a while?

Nora: I got back recently. By the way, what does recently mean?

2025-02-10

Nora often has questions about space, bodies, and death. Tonight’s bedtime involved a whole montage of staying-alive advice:

“Space has no thing in it. Everybody has to breathe. Because if you don’t breathe, all your parts can’t work. That’s why breathing is important to learn! [Interlude for a drink of water]

... When people be old they keep eating food, and then they don’t die. So if people start to die, they keep eating food, and then they turn into a normal person and not an old person. [Interlude while I tell her that’s not what happens]

You know what? We have to stay alive longer than other people. Because we have a lot of things to do. That’s why we have to eat a lot of food. And we have to use our bodies.”

2025-02-11

Nora: [looking at a picture in a book] That is not a good idea. You should at least wear a coat or a hat or something.

Me: this is a picture of summer, when you can go outside in just shorts and a t-shirt or a dress.

Nora: you should still wear something more than that so that you do not freeze.

Me: Maybe you don’t remember it, but in a few months it will be so warm outside that nobody will need a coat to keep warm!

Nora: Ooohh! That makes more sense.

2025-02-12

Me: Please put that rubber band in the trash so the cats don’t eat it. It could make their bellies very sick.

Nora: And they could die?

Me: Yes, and we don’t want that.

Nora: [thoughtful pause] I don’t like Nyx very much. He scratches me sometimes.

2025-02-12

Nora: I think babies are the lowest person in the world.

2025-02-13

Lily, explaining the school recess rules: “On half the days the boys get to use the turf, and on half the days the girls get to use it. And if you’re nonbinary you can do either.”

Lily decided to go by she/her again, so I guess her recess options are more limited now.

2025-02-15

Nora: I am getting very strong

Lily: can you pick me up?

Nora: [kicks Lily]

Lily: ow! Kicking is not okay!

Nora: [confused] you asked me to kick you up

2025-02-16

More questions from Nora, a few of them prompted by conversation but mostly out of the blue at bedtime:

Is a finger one of our tubes?

Do people die at different times? But not you and Papa, you will die at the same time

Why is a rock so hard and still?

Why does everyone sleep?

Why is poop sticky and messy?

Why is winter so long?

Is space dark everywhere?

After we’re dead do we get alive again?

Do people just sometimes burn theirselves?

Why is Papa the breakfast-maker?

How does water come out of us when we cry?

Are ponies actually real?

Why is the table so flat?

Can hedgehogs also make scary sounds? And happy sounds?

Why do people not steal other people’s stuff?

Why do we have eyebrows?

Why do mans don’t like coffee?

But why does the hand keep going around the clock?

Where is space?

2025-02-18

Nora: If little kids make a really really big mess, they can ask their grown-ups to come and see and help them clean it up.

2025-02-25

Nora: let’s play chase! I will run, and you will try to catch me, and I will try to hit you with this thing. But I will be careful to not hurt you.

2025-03-01

Nora: [Gets down from lunch]

Julia: Did someone say you could be done?

Nora: Yes

Me: Who was it?

Nora: I think I’m right

2025-03-03

Anna, holding a calculator: Ask me a math question!

Nora: How many pears am I holding? I’m pretending I’m holding pears in my hand.

...

Later, Anna: “I don’t KNOW how many fives there are in the world!”

2025-03-06

Nora: there was a giant puddle on the bike path, and we got blazing wet!

2025-03-09

Setting up for our EA dinner, Lily is very into counterfactual impact:

Lily: If I hadn’t helped you set up for the dinner, would you still have been ready on time?

2025-03-11

Nora: “This is my song: first spring, then fall, then winter, then it starts again! There is no summer in my version.”

...

It’s always 1816 for Nora

2025-03-15

Nora: “This is a nice house in a nice world”

2025-03-18

Nora: [singing] Q and U, both rhyme. Clock and Pew, ... don’t rhyme

2025-03-20

The frontal cortex coming online. Nora was running and stopped in front of this stick. “I was going to pick it up, but you can’t run with sticks! That’s the rule, Mama.”

2025-03-30

Me: “Here’s a picture of the queen, back when she was alive.”

Nora, flipping the coin over: “And there’s the dragon that killed her.”

2025-04-02

Nora: [singing] I’m not going to school. I’m not very big yet. I’m three. That’s not a very big number; very small number baby. It’s a ya ya. Llama llama p’mama. Llama llama p’llama.

2025-04-12

Lily: “Sign here. N-O-R-A.”

Me, from downstairs: “Lily, *what* are you having her sign?”

Lily: “The doctor’s note. She’s the parent of this injured squirrel.”

2025-05-01

Nora playing with rhymes: “Let’s nurse, and read! And curse, and plead!”

2025-05-10

Nora: when I am a woman, I want to do what my mama does

Me: and what is that?

Nora: I don’t know

...

She recently told me that she wants to be a mama when she grows up, and she will still live with us and so there will be two mamas. She said there will be five people in our house: Mama, Papa, Lily, Anna, and Nora. So this apparently involves her being a mama but not having a child.

2025-05-11

Nora: Normally porchfest doesn’t look like that. Normally you dance in Muddy River [Morris] suits.

2025-05-11

Nora: Who spilled the milk?

Me: I’m guessing the cats.

Nora: I’m guessing the cats. Stop copying me!

2025-05-16

Nora: [hits Lily with an inflatable sword] now you are a princess!

Lily: I don’t want to be a princess, I wanted to stay a witch

Nora: But my sword has *princess* *magic*!

Nora: Poof! Now you are a princess!

Lily: Refusal

2025-05-17

Lily: there is a spider that looks just like an ant!

Julia: if it looks just like an ant, how can you tell it’s a spider? How many legs does it have?

Lily: three

2025-05-18

Nora: “I have too much breath in my head, and that makes me laugh a lot!”

2025-05-19

Anna: “Mom, Dad: Lily is being a pretentious hipster”

2025-05-21

[at the school Spring Concert]

Nora: can I go on stage with you?

Lily: ...yes!!!

Nora: No! The teacher will be surprised! No! No! Go away Lily!!

2025-05-27

Julia: You can go outside if you’ll stay in the yard.

Julia: Where will you stay?

Nora: Outside!

2025-05-29

Nora’s chants this morning:

“I guard the food! I guard the food!”

“I spray the cats! I spray the cats!”

“I will behave! I will behave!”

(The cats love to get on the table and eat human food. Lily needed to get something and asked Nora to guard her food. We use a spray bottle for this. Nora didn’t spray the cats or people unnecessarily but Anna was worried she would.)

2025-06-02

Nora: “I’m dead, and then I turned back into life. Like Jesus!”

2025-06-05

Nora: Papa, I ate all the blueberries!

Me: Were they tasty?

Nora: I didn’t want anyone else to have any blueberries.

2025-06-06

Nora: [singing] “I’m eating the pesto sauce, with only one spoon! And I’m double dipping, and I’m double dipping”

(This was after a while of a series of fresh spoons. But then it was clear she’d eat the whole bowl, so she’s excited to double dip)

2025-06-08

Nora: I wish I was a grown up. I want to be able to do all the things.

Me: What do you most want to be able to do?

Nora: Throw darts. You know, the sharp things?

2025-06-09

Anna: I don’t want to use that water bottle. Lily shouts at me whenever I use it.

Lily: It’s okay, you can use it

Anna: I’m not allowed to use it

Lily: I’m giving you permission

Anna: Well, I don’t want to use it anyway

2025-06-09

Nora: I love you with my heart. But you’re not really in my actual heart.

2025-06-13

After a very long charades-ish game:

Us: what *were* you?

Anna: I was pretending to be a baby dinosaur that had no idea how to act like a dinosaur

2025-06-15

“Can I have some watermelon?”

“Not yet, because we’re eating dinner in a couple minutes.”

“Can I sit in a chair and look at it?”

[I promise she doesn’t always have this kind of self-control]

2025-06-16

Nora: The pandemic is the start of our life

Me: The start of *your* life

Nora: No! All of the people’s life!

2025-06-19

A (rhetorical) question from the second day of summer break: if your sibling says “I’ll bite you” and you reply “Bite me then” and she bites you, is it reasonable to get an adult to put her in time out for biting?

2025-06-20

Lily set up a pretend grocery store for Nora to shop at, with a paper grocery store card made by Lily.

After a while I asked, “Nora, did you buy some groceries?”

Lily: “No, she failed to buy groceries because her grocery card was invalid.”

2025-06-25

Nora: “I’m just gonna betend that I have a watch that tells me I need to jump for 40 minutes”

2025-06-29

Me: I don’t think this is a good place for a stick: someone could lean back and get hurt on it.

Lily: Daaaad, it’s a *spear* not a *stick*.

Me: That doesn’t make it better!

2025-07-02

Anna: Nora says there are emeralds in our house. Are there?

Me: Not that I know of.

Anna: She says there are eight billion million emeralds in our house.

Me: .... Nora, do you mean molecules?

Nora: Yeah

2025-07-10

Nora has been making up a lot of games at the park, but the names don’t correlate much with the game. There’s one called “jump around, jump around, in a circle, in a circle” which involves her pretending to be a baby monkey and trying to get a ball away from me. There’s one called “rumble around” which involves me trying to tickle her armpit while she runs away.

...

I like that she wants to play catch. She runs away and I try to catch her.

2025-07-11

Nora, riding her scooter: Some babies are very attacky.

Me: What do you mean by that?

Nora: They wiggle around when they nurse, and they hurt their mamas, and their mama says stop but they don’t stop.

Me: That’s true.

2025-07-11

Nora: Mama, where is my vitayum?

Julia: If I get a vitamin for you, will you eat it?

Nora: No.

2025-07-16

“Nora, why are you chasing Cameron with corn?”

2025-07-23

Nora: Ruthie, can I have some beer please?

(Our housemate was having the non alcoholic kind)

2025-08-01

Nora questions lately:

But why do we wear pants on top of our underwear?

Did people make the world?

Why are ants in the world?

When will we die?

Are there two kinds of sewer?

2025-08-01

The last ten minutes have consisted of Lily and Anna arguing whether Anna is allowed to bring a plastic hot dog into their play tent. Lily says only lacto-vegetarian pretend food is allowed.

2025-08-01

When Anna is grumpy she tends to say obviously false things. “It’s not supposed to be cold in summer, it is supposed to be a low of 85 and a high of 107 every day!”

2025-08-03

Lily: it’s really annoying that you keep asking Claude for recipes instead of using Google like in the olden days

Anna: in the olden days you’d have to learn it from your parents

Julia: why is it annoying?

Lily: because it’s going to take over the universe!

2025-08-04

Nora: dad, one billion million quadrillion is bigger than four.

2025-08-05

Nora: Mama, I want two questions

Julia: Ok

Nora: The first one is about desert. I want some banana mixed with chocolate sauce, and some plain banana.

Julia: I can do that, but before dessert you need your medicine

Nora: I will drink hot chocolate

Julia: That’s what you have already

Nora: But I just want plain hot chocolate

Julia: How would you like this to be different?

Nora: I don’t want it to have my medicine

Julia: You need to have your medicine

Nora: Ok, I will drink my hot chocolate with my medicine if you will tell me a story

2025-08-06

Nora: Daddy, I will follow you wherever you go. But I will not follow you into the driver’s seat.

2025-08-13

Nora similes:

“I’ll go as fast as a moose drinking milk!”

“When I was a baby, was I as cute as a ginormous train that looks like a monster?”

“That’s funnier than a bus driving a car”

“It’s prettier than a swirling purple”

2025-08-23

Lily: can I pour boiling water through my shirt without taking it off?

(This was a real question, answer was no. And an explanation of why this would be a bad idea.)

2025-08-24

Nora: One time, I told my mom that I thought night was day! Can you put that in the Nora, Lily, and Anna group? It’s just so funny!

2025-08-25

Nora: I’m glad I was born. I was wondering what it would be like, so I decided to be born. I like it a lot! There are lots of parks, and lakes!

2025-08-29

Nora’s self talk, balancing on rocks:

“When you get to a wobbly part, just hold still and use your balance.”

“No fear...No beer.”

2025-08-30

Me: Nora, did you put wood chips or something in your hair?

Nora: [condescendingly] No! I put *sand* in my hair.

2025-08-31

Lily: would you like to come and busk with us?

Anna: well, I don’t like playing fiddle, but I do like getting money...

2025-09-02

Etiquette rules from Jeff about interruptions: “If someone is licking your arm, you’re allowed to say, ‘Stop licking my arm,’ even if someone else is talking.”

2025-09-04

Nora: they wouldn’t let Nix [our cat] into the swimming pool because: (1) he might not take a shower, (2) he doesn’t know how to swim, and (3) he can’t open doors.

2025-09-04

[Coming out from my meeting after hearing a lot of crying]

Nora: [Redacted] did a lot of crying!

[Redacted] I did not do a little crying!!

Nora: I said a *lot* of crying, not a *little*

2025-09-13

I taught Nora how to hold her sleeve in her fist when putting on a coat so that she wouldn’t end up with her sleeve all bunched up. She is super excited. Except she keeps forgetting and using the opposite hand, and then being confused why the coat won’t go on.

2025-09-29

Nora: [out of nowhere] I’m fine!

2025-09-30

Lily: I am only a “child” when it’s convenient for me

2025-10-02

Nora: [during turbulence] when I’m squeaking like this, it either means I’m sad or I’m happy. In this case it means I’m happy!

2025-10-13

Lily: Nora, first bump!

Nora: [punches Lily in the fist]

2025-10-14

Me: what’s this?

Anna: that’s been there for weeks!

...

Anna: but, yes, I did do it

2025-10-15

Anna: [in 4th at a k-5 school] Unfortunately I have to be the older book buddy *again*

2025-10-15

Nora: I wish I was a grownup.

Me: What would you like about being a grownup?

Nora: I could do things you don’t let me do. Like drill.

2025-10-17

Anna: I got this trophy in school for being quiet.

Jeff: So if you don’t speak, you get atrophy.

2025-10-18

Nora fell on the stairs today but wasn’t badly hurt. Afterwards we were discussing that it could have been much worse.

Nora, reassuringly: “My heart is still pumping, and my blood is moving around. So I’m ok.” These are indeed great qualities.

2025-10-26

Nora got mad and spilled all the crayons out. Afterwards: “Sorry for making a big mess. ...But it’s not as big a mess as if a monster messed up all our stuff and our house, and we had to rebuild our whole house.”

2025-10-29

[discussing a new childcare provider]

Nora: is she very nice?

Julia: yes

Nora: will she kill me?

(She had a grin on her face like she knew she was asking a provocative question)

2025-10-29

Nora: “I stole this horse.”

Me: “Where did you steal it from?”

Nora: “South America.

....Actually I didn’t steal it, I just wore a stealing costume”

2025-10-29

[looking at BIDA’s Far-UVC setup]

Nora: Will all the people be, like, “what is that thing!?”

Nora: Will that keep the people from getting sick?

2025-10-31

Me: I finished my Halloween costume!

Nora: that doesn’t really look good.

2025-11-03

Anna: [counting bites as she eats a slice of pizza] 302, 303, 304. I’m going to stop counting and just eat the pizza.

Cora: Good idea!

Anna: Well, I’ll still count, but it will be in my head.

2025-11-07

[driving through the southwest]

Lily: Papa, do people normally say “wow” this much?

2025-11-14

Nora: this lollipop is too sweet and tastes weird

Me: if you don’t like it, you have plenty of other candy and can pick something else

Nora: it tastes like Cocomelon

Me: Do you mean watermelon?

Nora: No, I mean Cocomelon.

2024-11-16

Me: If you could make a wish in a wishing well, what would it be?

Nora: A million kitties and a million puppies.

Nora: And a house made of blueberries and full of blueberries so we could eat the house.

2025-11-20

Lily: I ran so fast to get home that I slipped

Nora: I’m glad you’re still alive!

2025-11-23

Nora: “I say ‘grocamole’ because it’s too hard to say ‘guacamole’ so I just say ‘grocamole’”

...

Nora: “This is a little too not salty”

2025-11-25

Anna: Nora, I think you would be warmer if you zipped up your sweatshirt

Nora: but I’m *already* warm! But I’m still cold.

....

Now Anna is explaining the concept of warmth to Nora

...

Nora: [sings] I’m not cold, I’m just pretending, why don’t you just ***dance***

2025-12-05

Anna: I had a raspberry from the bush when I got home from school, and it tasted like a *frozen* raspberry!

Me: have you looked at the thermometer?

Anna: 😳

2025-12-05

Nora: I’m a very good rememberer. Sometimes I even remember things that didn’t happen!

2025-12-11

The first rule of the Advent calendar is: you don’t complain about the Advent calendar to me. Today I learned that this rule doesn’t prevent Anna from complaining about the Advent calendar to her sisters, who pass it on to me.

Nora: “Anna says, what is the point of Christmas bandaids if it’s not a toy?”

2025-12-12

Nora: I want same as Anna, but no cheese. Just pasta, with butter, salt, and shaky cheese.

2025-12-14

Nora: that person is dressed just like a snow pig! I mean a polar bear.

2025-12-16

Even if it’s literally true that you have a lousy child, you shouldn’t expect them to appreciate your opportunity to use archaic phrasing.

2025-12-20

Anna: Nora, stop whacking me!

Nora: I didn’t, and it was by accident!

2025-12-21

[at a family dance]

Caller: this dance is called Sasha, and we start by pretending that Sasha has been very naughty. I know none of you have ever been naughty but...

Anna: [to her partner but loud enough for everyone to hear] oh, *I* have!

2025-12-27

Nora: my favorite part of sledding is going down the hill

2025-12-28

Anna: my hands are all greasy

Jeff: okay, let’s all go wash hands

Anna: why do we need to wash hands?

Jeff: so they won’t be greasy

Nora: my hands are all hairy from the butter

• Yes: Lists, links, blockquotes, code blocks, inline code, bold, italics, underlining, headings, simple tables.

• No: Colors, fonts, text sizing, text alignment, images, line spacing.

Let’s say I want to send someone a snippet from a blog post. If I paste this into my email client the font family, font size, blockquote styling, and link styling come along:

If I do Cmd+Shift+V and paste without formatting, I get no styling at all:

I can deal with losing the blockquote formatting, but losing the links is a pain.

What I want is essentially the subset of HTML that can be represented in Markdown. So I automated this! I made a Mac command that pulls HTML from the clipboard, passes it through pandoc twice (HTML to Github-flavored markdown to HTML), and puts it back on the clipboard. I also packaged it up as a status-bar app:

You can run it by clicking on the icon, or invoking the script:

$ normalize-clipboard

Which gives:

Alternatively, if I actually want Markdown, perhaps to paste into an LLM interface, I can skip the conversion to HTML:

$ markdownify-clipboard

I’m pretty happy with this! It’s open source, on github, so you’re welcome to give it a try if it would be useful to you.

Note that I haven’t paid for an Apple Developer subscription, so if you want to use the pre-built binaries you’ll need to click through scary warnings in both your browser and the OS. I’ve documented these in the README, though an advantage of building from source is that you don’t have to deal with these.

This was my first time using Platypus to package a script as a Mac app. It worked well!

Many diseases spread through the air, which is inconvenient for us as creatures that breathe air. You can go outside, where the air is too dilute to spread things well, but it’s cold out there, and sometimes wet. You can run an air purifier, but cleaning lots of air without lots of noise is still the world of DIY projects. Ideally you could just shine some light, perhaps in the 222-nm range, which would leave people alone but kill the viruses [1] and bacteria. Yes, let’s do that!

Last year if you asked “if far-UV is so great, why isn’t it everywhere?“ one of your answers would be:

There are very few providers, and hardly any of them sell an off-the-shelf product. You usually can’t just buy a lamp to try it out—you have to call the company, get a consultation, and often have someone from the company come install the lamp. It’s a lot of overhead for an expensive product that most people have never heard of.

This has changed! You can buy an Aerolamp for $500, shipped. Proudly displayed at Thanksgiving:

Here are five four silently cleaning a whole lot of air at a dance I help organize:

At $500 this is out of (my) Christmas gift range, but I think we’re now at the point where dances, churches, offices, rationalist group houses, schools, etc. should consider them.

(I have no stake in Aerolamp and they’re not paying me, I’m just very excited about their product.)

[1] Ok, yes, I know viruses “can’t be killed” because they’re “not alive”, but far-UVC causes them to become unable to infect and replicate which is close enough to “killed” for me.