2015 Annual Update

Dear Family and Friends, 

Here's wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and happy holidays all around!

Our annual family updates have grown progressively shorter and shorter (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). Embracing the inevitable, we are happy to offer no annual update of our own. Instead it appears that some hapless anthropologist studied our family this past year and, before abandoning us as their ill-advised subjects, was kind enough to leave behind a few notes we have reproduced here.  

*Start anthropologist's field notes* 

The Peters Clan, observed in their native dress (PJs) on Christmas Day 2015

In 2015 the Peters clan, a group of six subjects known among the locals for the negligence of yard work, continued to inhabit a "cute" little house in a mature-treed suburban neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma: the house resembles a salmon pink island swimming in an ocean of overgrown plant life. Despite overhearing the occasional enthusiasm such as "handyman skills, we got this!," I (the anonymous observer) can report that the clan took well over a year to finish painting their garage door white. At this rate, their house will no longer be pink by the year 2352.

The Peters engage in a form of wizardry every morning as they ship off six clan members to six different schools between what is known colloquially as the "dark night of hell" namely 7:25 and 8:05 am every weekday morning. That wizardry involves the following people:  

Maya (3) now attends a nearby preschool, where she practices her new found debate and drawing skills that she is learning from her fellow clansmen. She continues to perfect her scowl and other facial expressions, to befriend various three-year old comrades and sibling friends, and to enjoy nicknaming almost every object and defending her siblings at every turn.  

Libbie (6) now attends Spanish-language first grade in an immersion language magnet elementary school, where she practices her developing art skills, early violin (a wooden device that emits periodic squawks to loud applause), and budding ninja skills on the jungle gym. Libbie, who loves being with her friends, reports not only dreams of visiting the fairytale land of Spain, but she sometimes writes about it as well. 

Elliot (9) attends third grade in a backyard local elementary, where he, while never ever admitting to enjoying school, appreciates yet another teacher who is tuned into his peculiar academic needs and wants--namely not being bored. When he is not pounding on the piano, plowing through (middle school) math, or negotiating screen time, Elliot is looking forward to finally being old enough to try his hand at the school's spelling bee this year.

Aaron (12), thanks to an outside scholarship, now attends sixth grade in a very small new middle school housed on the college campus where Ben works. After homeschooling fifth grade (click for his blog) last year, he is relishing a new geek peer group with which to tackle middle school topics and interests, new and old, such as chess club and robotics club, beginning Spanish and Chinese, piano and trumpet. Aaron has also sped to obtain the rank of First Class in the Scouting program and now serves as the newest deacon in his local church youth program. 

Kourtney now teaches (ultra) honors geometry to a very small class of eighth graders at a wonderful (and still different) private school on the opposite side of town. She also continues to tutor mathematics privately with a company. This summer she also completed her first Olympic triathlon and decimated a standardized exam for possible graduate school futures. Each of the Peters clan is convinced she also makes the world turn, the Copernican revolution notwithstanding. 
Ben continues to teach at a local private university, where he enjoys nudging undergraduates to rethink media technologies from the big bang to big data. He has recently taken up the huckster's habit of trying to sign up unsuspecting strangers to preorder by the truckload his two new books--obscure tomes on the Soviet Internet and Digital Keywords--that will be published next year by MIT and Princeton presses. He continues to serve as counselor in the leadership of his local church congregation, in the face of frequent travels and much else. 

Weekly clan routines involve regular gatherings, the occasional family meal, rehearsals of the family mantra, and frequent weekend disputes over which Avatar episode they should re-watch. They appear to believe life is wonderful, and little evidence exists to dispute that belief in their case. 

*End anthropologist's notes.*

Well, folks, there you have it. Here's wishing you and your clan a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a Happy Holidays! 

The Magic Story

Dear Reader,

How many Bechdel-test passing, fart-themed magical Princess adventure stories do you know with one illustration that fits in two places? 

Well, now you know one! Read on for the most recent Libbie-Tato collaboration. (All words are Libbie's.)

Tato (Ben) 

---

The Magic Story

By Libbie Peters
(written and colored by Libbie, illustrated and transcribed by Tato)

Once upon a time there was a princess that was a magician. She found herself on the top of her castle in the forest battling a dragon. She saw that the dragon was breathing fire onto the ground. She knew that the dragon wanted to fight her.

The battle began. She said, with her magic wand, a transfiguration spell that turned the dragon into a teddy bear. The teddy bear fell to the ground and it sounded like it exploded. 

Because of a curse on the magic wand, whenever she made something into something else, she became something else too—she became a bad guy.

As a bad guy, the princess found the teddy bear on the ground in the deep dark forest. She got her magic wand, climbed to the top of the castle tower, and she turned that teddy bear back into a dragon—a toot-breathing dragon. 

She wanted a toot-breathing dragon for her pet so that she could destroy all the teddy bears everywhere in the world. When the dragon would breathe toots on them, all the teddy bears would turn into marshmallows.

And then the princess and the dragon came to the city, where Mayor Mayo lived, they had all the teddy bears come to them. And she went to Russia, Spain, India, and all the places in the world, where she gathered all the teddy bears, and began turning them into marshmallows by having the dragon breathe toots on them.

She called all the people to eat the marshmallows, so the people began eating the marshmallows, while the princess and the toot-breathing dragon went to steal more teddy bears on other planets.

But then the dragon accidentally farted on itself, and turned itself into a marshmallow, because it was once a teddy bear too, and so its spell worked on itself too. And the princess saw the dragon that was a marshmallow, and the princess tried to toot on it, but she couldn’t toot.

So the princess came back to earth, and the Mayor Mayo saw them, and said, “what have you done to these teddy bears? Little Louie here lost her teddy bear, and we know it isn’t anyone else, because no one else steals teddy bears in this lonely town.” “Well, then what are you going to do with that person that stole the teddy bears?” asked the Princess. She replied, “we will take all the teddy bears from them and put the person in jail.”

“Well, how will you turn the teddy bears into something else?” asked the princess. The mayor said, “we will find a magician and tell them to turn them back!” “Well, if I help you, will you not put me in jail?” asked the princess. And the mayor said, “yes.” 

So the princess turned all the marshmallows back into teddy bears again, and then she turned back into a good guy again. 

The end.