I didn’t have many stuffed animals or dolls as a kid – I had a koala bear instead of a teddy bear, and back then stuffed things were usually stuffed with an abominable sawdust mixture and made of heinous plastic fibers, which made them mostly uncuddly and very unwashable, so the koala was Not My Favorite. I also had some hand-me-down toys from my sister, and, sibling rivalry having been ramped up to the nuclear level between us, you can imagine how little I cared about the hand-me-downs. A few months ago, I decided to quit stealing my kids’ stuffed toys and get some for myself, just because. So, I have:
1. A stuffed emperor penguin with chick: I love this one, it’s soft, soft, and I like penguins. The chick is attached, sitting right between Dad’s feet, cute as can be. This one rides in my car with me, and the kids borrow it for cuddling when we’re going somewhere.
2. A Raggedy Ann and Andy: I count them as one because it seems wrong to have one twin without the other. When I was in elementary school, there were a lot of kids’ books about the Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. They ate a lot of candy, in fact, they ate candy exclusively. I thought that was a little yucky, but I liked the whole fantasy aspect of their stories when I was a kid. Also, I can wash them, and I like that they are plain, modest, and friendly looking.
3. Paddington Bear: Oh, Paddington. If I could have traded lives with anyone or anything or a fictional character in my childhood, it would have been Paddington. I envied him his life with the Brown family. No matter how sticky he got, how often he got lost, how many times he dug up the wrong plant, let the tub run over, or made a mess of the kitchen, they loved him nonetheless. What a lucky bear! I envied his duffel coat and his rain hat, and I wished I were him. So, I have a Paddington Bear, and he sits in my knitting basket next to my usual chair. Sometimes I just look and him and smile, and other times I pick him up and straighten his coat and give him a hug. A Paddington Bear is a good thing.
4. Not Got A Sock Monkey Yet. I can’t decide whether I want to knit one for myself or buy a pre-made sock monkey on line. When I was little, you couldn’t buy sock monkeys, someone had to make one for you. My friend Sarah had one, and all the way up until 6th grade, she slept with her sock monkey. It looked rode hard and put away wet and was all lopsided because she liked to sleep on it in one particular way. Lucky monkey, to be so loved! So, I’m still dithering over the monkey.
5. Fifi, sort of. She’s a black poodle wearing blue pajamas and white bunny slippers. I tried to give her to my daughter, but my daughter has her tiny teddy, Theodora, who rules the Pink Bedroom with a worn Iron Paw. Bunny doesn’t play with Fifi much, and every time I’m in her room, I pick up Fifi and snuggle with her. I went to one of those stores where you pick out a stuffed animal and add any noisemakers to it, if you want, before they fluff in the stuffing for you. Then you pick out clothing and pay a large wad of cash, and they create a nice cardboard cradle or pet crate, and you have to name the critter before you leave. Fifi was my first. I later had a pig stuffed and dressed him in a silver tracksuit and gave him to Spawn. His name was Kevin Bacon. Yeah, well, I probably needed an aspirin.
Anyway, I’m thinking of filing formal adoption papers to have Fifi become mine officially, and if that causes a lot of horrified expressions on Bunny’s face, followed by a great teenaged slamming of doors, then I’ll go make one up for myself.
Man, now I feel like I need a nap. With a stuffed critter!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Oddball Word of the Day
antipathy (an-TIP-uh-thee): n. a settled aversion; a basic repugnance
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
sich ins Zeug legen: to work flat out, to go hammer and tongs at something
zB: Wenn du die vielen Briefe heute noch fertigschreiben willst, musst du dich ins Zeug legen.
auf Englisch: If you want to get all those letters written by today you'll have to work flat out.
Origin: Here "Zeug" refers to the harness of the draught animal.
(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Wenn du die vielen Briefe heute noch fertigschreiben willst, musst du dich ins Zeug legen.
auf Englisch: If you want to get all those letters written by today you'll have to work flat out.
Origin: Here "Zeug" refers to the harness of the draught animal.
(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Another Sock Yarn Project
Well, it’s been a while, but I haven’t been doing much because the weather has been pretty warm. It snowed yesterday, so I started another project. I have lots and lots of leftover bits of sock yarn, so I’m doing mitered squares. It will probably wind up being a blanket of sorts, but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to join strips diagonally, thus making the miters point upwards, or if I like the look of them being kind of sideways, like some optical illusion.
For this project, I’m using size 4 needles, and casting on 40 stitches. I then slip one stitch for a tighter edge and knit one row plain, then knit to the two stitches before the middle (K18) then K2tog, (insert maker) then sl 1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over, and knitting the remaining 18 stitches. The next row is sl 1, knit plain (38 sts). On the next row and every OTHER row thereafter, I knit to the last two sts before the marker and miter as noted above. When I’m down to only 4 sts remaining, I k2 tog, sl 1, k 1, psso, then turn and knit the last two sts together. I leave that stitch on the needle and pick up 19 more stitches down one side of the square for 20 stitches, insert a marker and cast on 20 more. Knit one row plain and continue as before. Also, I put a safety pin on what I decide is the right side of the work so I don’t forget.
I’ll keep you posted as this evolves.
Keep ‘em clickin’!
Oddball Word of the Day
ventose (VEN-tohs) adj. windy; given to empty talking
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
How Was My Easter? IN-LAWS! ‘Nuff Said.
Well, probably not, or I wouldn’t be writing a blog entry about it! I should also, for flavor, introduce the cast of characters – my family was there, of course, which included hubs, Spawn, Bunny, Doodle, and me. Hubs has Issues with his siblings. His entire family has problems with clocks – one time they showed up 4 hours late for a housewarming. What makes that particularly relevant is that it was ours. Spawn had to go to work in the afternoon, so we all agreed that we would make sure to leave in time.
My mother-in-law, widowed last year, her husband of almost 60 years having died of CJD, was there, of course. I admire the way she is bouncing back, at 82 years of age, from such a tremendous loss. She’s involved with her remaining friends and has survived with aplomb (or perhaps senility) the passing of a dear friend in the interim. She stays active in her community and is working on learning to fend for herself. She has moved out of the family homestead – a 50 year old tract home in the south suburbs and into a small townhouse which was specifically designed for older people who may be having mobility issues – wheelchair wide doorways, grip bars in strategic locations, easy access all around. She and I had a difficult few years, but since her mild stroke at her 50th anniversary party, and my subsequent bulldozing of pretty much everyone to get her to the hospital, we’ve found a new appreciation and accord for and with one another. She’s pretty deaf and sometimes forgets her hearing aids, and she’s kind of a mumbler.
Then there was my brother-in-law, a confirmed bachelor, aged 50-ish, who is, in my opinion, so completely unable to comfortably relate to others on a one-to-one basis that he invites everyone to everything – every family gathering has to be a party, so that he can plan to be a perfect host rather than learning about other people and letting them learn about him. His late father also described him as being one of those people on a perpetual quest to jam 10 lbs of sand into a 5 lb bag on a regular basis because he plans to do way more than is ever actually possible or sensible. He’s also kind of manipulative, and I generally find him shallow and annoying. I am not alone in those feelings.
Also present were my sister-in-law and her new husband, who happens to be her third husband. I like the new husband – he’s in his early sixties, a medical professional, easy-going, mellow, interesting to talk to, and he has a wide-range of interests. He’s also very wealthy, which explains to a considerable extent why my sister-in-law married him. She’s a 55 year old drama queen, a diva, who has run her own life into the ditch so many times that none of her immediate family will discuss her past because it’s too embarrassing. She has one son, who was not there, who’s in his early thirties, and they have issues that would make Dr. Phil run for his Prozac stash in a big Texas hurry. Just picture growing up in the shadow of your single mother’s perpetual, self-absorbed emotion storm, and I’ll leave your imagination to fill in the blanks there. I try very hard to stay in the moment when I’m in her company. I am sometimes successful. Ahem.
And then there was the only other person my brother-in-law could rope into joining us at the last moment for Easter lunch, my ex-Aunt-in-law-sorta. She used to be married to a distant cousin of my mother-in-law, divorced him 20 years ago, and we haven’t stopped hearing about it since. She’s also a diva, although a more objective one than my sister-in-law, if that’s possible, and she gets notions. Being a stone-cold diva, her most significant notion is that we are all fascinated to pieces over whatever is going on with her. The good part of her diva-hood is that if we are not in favor with her (i.e. we haven’t been slobbering all over ourselves to pay her the attention she feels she deserves), she cold shoulders us and doesn’t waste much of our time blathering ceaselessly into our ears. I actually think she’s kind of funny, and sometimes she means to be. She can be very charming if you have something she wants. She was 45 minutes late, and her entry involved a lot of waving scarves and a deep-throated, “OH, don’t EVEN ASK! Oh!”
Anyway, we headed off to meet at an Olive Garden close to mother-in-law, hubs in an evil mood because he really wasn’t looking forward to being part of the audience for his brother’s party demeanor and the inevitable simultaneous two-diva emote-off. I was busy strategizing.
I realized that over the many years of our marriage, I’ve let his family drive events, partially out of respect for his parents, and partially from wanting to be a people-pleaser to some extent. With Spawn, my own offspring, needing to leave by a very specific time, I also realized I couldn’t allow that to happen this time. Since they are notorious dawdlers with no respect for other people’s time, I was going to have to trust my own generally reliable clock and just take charge of getting things moving along. The first order of business would be making sure we were seated and ordering right on time, regardless of whether the rest of them were there or not.
So, I did. I got us seated, and, wonder of wonders, the rest of them showed up within a few minutes (except for Auntie Diva), and I had already ordered a couple of hors d’oeuvres for the table. I made sure to tell my mother-in-law that we had to leave at a specific time, why we had to leave and to get her agreement that that was perfectly OK. Amazing how well that worked out in the end. When Auntie Diva didn’t show, didn’t answer her cell or home phones, my sister-in-law started her worry routine, and I put a big, deliberately obtuse foot on it to stamp it out and said, “She’s probably on her way, and it’s against the law to talk on a cell phone when you’re driving in this state. We need to order because we need to be gone by 3 o’clock, and I’m sure the staff will make certain to serve Auntie Diva promptly when she does arrive.” Sister-in-law began to pout until mother-in-law said, very pleasantly, “Of course, that makes perfect sense.” Victory!
And, in general, things went pretty swimmingly as long as I stayed on top of making things move right along time-wise. There were a few moments of excessive quirkiness, though. As the restaurant filled up, we had to yell louder and louder at my mother-in-law, and she got mumblier and mumblier. Eventually, this resulted in a lot of people with perfectly good hearing yelling, “WHAT?” at the deaf lady. It’s a good thing I enjoy irony.
Then there was the moment when my sister-in-law’s divahood overcame my pledge to be obliviously swell at all times. We’d been talking about Spawn’s tastefully masculine earrings and how that didn’t bother me, that I just tell the kids no facial piercings or tattoos while they’re living at home, and I’m not paying for any of that anyway. The sis-in-law decided to share one her Great Moments in Parenting with us. (Breathe deeply; you’ll be glad you did.) She regaled us with the time her grown son, who hasn’t lived with her since he was 15 years old, returned from serving in the military during the current war and came to visit her. He was wearing a tank top and had a tattoo of a yin-yang symbol on his upper arm, which caused her to, in her own words, “burst into tears. I was just weeping and weeping.”
My mouth hung open in shock, and I stupidly asked, ”Why?” She replied, “Because he’s my BABY!” That flipped all my social behavior meters into overload, they shorted out, and the next thing out of my mouth was, “Oh my God, it’s not like he’s Jewish and can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery now!” The look of utter and complete shock on HER face, that I would think she was making a mountain out of a molehill and that I was thinking about HIM rather than her emotions, was probably worth whatever price I’ll wind up having to pay. My mother-in-law chuckled at my wit, my husband snorted into his salad, and my daughter nearly choked on an olive.
My social behavior meters hadn’t charged back up yet, so I made it worse by blurting out, “I wouldn’t care about that, I’d just be glad to see him.” Heads bobbed in agreement, and then I finally realized what I was doing and rammed a truckload of lettuce into my own face to shut myself up. Fortunately, the conversation moved on to dentistry, and sis-in-law could take that opportunity to save up her flusterment at my hands until she gets the chance to trash talk me behind my back.
I’m about half embarrassed and half glad that I said it. She provides a lot of her interpretations of Great Moments in Parenting which make me want to either puke at her self-absorption or just leave the room before I puke, and that winds up with me venting later, which hubs doesn’t need either since he is usually there, too. At least this time, I haven’t needed to vent, having gotten it all out on the spot.
Aside from that, things were OK until it came time to pay the bill. The dithering began. “I want to pay at least part of it,” insisted my mother-in-law. “I think we should all pay for our own groups,” said my husband. My brother-in-law offered, “Why don’t I just see what each person’s...” before he was interrupted by Auntie Diva barking out, “What? Are we paying? I only got here a little while ago!” As they argued, I grabbed the bill folder, shoved my credit card into it, and returned it to the waitress, who scampered off to run it through the machine.
My husband looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “We can just let the others send us checks or whatever,” I said, “it’s 20 minutes before 3, which leaves us just enough time to pay, make a pit stop, and get back on the road.” He nodded and then proceeded to yell that explanation at his mother, who agreed and smiled at me. The rest of them were still dithering, except for my new brother-in-law, who, in a very gentlemanly fashion, quietly got some cash out of his wallet and on his way to the bathroom, slipped it to hubs. He was quite generous, and I think he was glad that for once someone else picked up the tab before his new wife could get theatrically extravagant with his money.
On the trip home, my husband was in a much better mood. He glanced over at me and whispered, “Jewish cemetery?” and grinned. If I could have slammed my head onto the dashboard, I would have. I just said, “Oops” and smiled back. He patted my hand and smiled some more.
So, I suppose all in all, it really worked out much better than our usual gatherings with his clan. They weren’t late and we weren’t either; dithering and dawdling was reduced to a minimum, my mother-in-law and I were in perfect amity about the need to keep on schedule and paying the bill sensibly and quickly, and, of all of them, she’s the only one I really give a hangnail about (except for my kids, and they were VERY happy about not being late and hanging around with loud family beyond their endurance level). It makes me think that maybe joining them for other gatherings might not be so bad from here on out, as long as I stand firm on our needs as a family unit. And I hope sis-in-law will keep her Great Moments in Parenting to herself from now on, too.
My mother-in-law, widowed last year, her husband of almost 60 years having died of CJD, was there, of course. I admire the way she is bouncing back, at 82 years of age, from such a tremendous loss. She’s involved with her remaining friends and has survived with aplomb (or perhaps senility) the passing of a dear friend in the interim. She stays active in her community and is working on learning to fend for herself. She has moved out of the family homestead – a 50 year old tract home in the south suburbs and into a small townhouse which was specifically designed for older people who may be having mobility issues – wheelchair wide doorways, grip bars in strategic locations, easy access all around. She and I had a difficult few years, but since her mild stroke at her 50th anniversary party, and my subsequent bulldozing of pretty much everyone to get her to the hospital, we’ve found a new appreciation and accord for and with one another. She’s pretty deaf and sometimes forgets her hearing aids, and she’s kind of a mumbler.
Then there was my brother-in-law, a confirmed bachelor, aged 50-ish, who is, in my opinion, so completely unable to comfortably relate to others on a one-to-one basis that he invites everyone to everything – every family gathering has to be a party, so that he can plan to be a perfect host rather than learning about other people and letting them learn about him. His late father also described him as being one of those people on a perpetual quest to jam 10 lbs of sand into a 5 lb bag on a regular basis because he plans to do way more than is ever actually possible or sensible. He’s also kind of manipulative, and I generally find him shallow and annoying. I am not alone in those feelings.
Also present were my sister-in-law and her new husband, who happens to be her third husband. I like the new husband – he’s in his early sixties, a medical professional, easy-going, mellow, interesting to talk to, and he has a wide-range of interests. He’s also very wealthy, which explains to a considerable extent why my sister-in-law married him. She’s a 55 year old drama queen, a diva, who has run her own life into the ditch so many times that none of her immediate family will discuss her past because it’s too embarrassing. She has one son, who was not there, who’s in his early thirties, and they have issues that would make Dr. Phil run for his Prozac stash in a big Texas hurry. Just picture growing up in the shadow of your single mother’s perpetual, self-absorbed emotion storm, and I’ll leave your imagination to fill in the blanks there. I try very hard to stay in the moment when I’m in her company. I am sometimes successful. Ahem.
And then there was the only other person my brother-in-law could rope into joining us at the last moment for Easter lunch, my ex-Aunt-in-law-sorta. She used to be married to a distant cousin of my mother-in-law, divorced him 20 years ago, and we haven’t stopped hearing about it since. She’s also a diva, although a more objective one than my sister-in-law, if that’s possible, and she gets notions. Being a stone-cold diva, her most significant notion is that we are all fascinated to pieces over whatever is going on with her. The good part of her diva-hood is that if we are not in favor with her (i.e. we haven’t been slobbering all over ourselves to pay her the attention she feels she deserves), she cold shoulders us and doesn’t waste much of our time blathering ceaselessly into our ears. I actually think she’s kind of funny, and sometimes she means to be. She can be very charming if you have something she wants. She was 45 minutes late, and her entry involved a lot of waving scarves and a deep-throated, “OH, don’t EVEN ASK! Oh!”
Anyway, we headed off to meet at an Olive Garden close to mother-in-law, hubs in an evil mood because he really wasn’t looking forward to being part of the audience for his brother’s party demeanor and the inevitable simultaneous two-diva emote-off. I was busy strategizing.
I realized that over the many years of our marriage, I’ve let his family drive events, partially out of respect for his parents, and partially from wanting to be a people-pleaser to some extent. With Spawn, my own offspring, needing to leave by a very specific time, I also realized I couldn’t allow that to happen this time. Since they are notorious dawdlers with no respect for other people’s time, I was going to have to trust my own generally reliable clock and just take charge of getting things moving along. The first order of business would be making sure we were seated and ordering right on time, regardless of whether the rest of them were there or not.
So, I did. I got us seated, and, wonder of wonders, the rest of them showed up within a few minutes (except for Auntie Diva), and I had already ordered a couple of hors d’oeuvres for the table. I made sure to tell my mother-in-law that we had to leave at a specific time, why we had to leave and to get her agreement that that was perfectly OK. Amazing how well that worked out in the end. When Auntie Diva didn’t show, didn’t answer her cell or home phones, my sister-in-law started her worry routine, and I put a big, deliberately obtuse foot on it to stamp it out and said, “She’s probably on her way, and it’s against the law to talk on a cell phone when you’re driving in this state. We need to order because we need to be gone by 3 o’clock, and I’m sure the staff will make certain to serve Auntie Diva promptly when she does arrive.” Sister-in-law began to pout until mother-in-law said, very pleasantly, “Of course, that makes perfect sense.” Victory!
And, in general, things went pretty swimmingly as long as I stayed on top of making things move right along time-wise. There were a few moments of excessive quirkiness, though. As the restaurant filled up, we had to yell louder and louder at my mother-in-law, and she got mumblier and mumblier. Eventually, this resulted in a lot of people with perfectly good hearing yelling, “WHAT?” at the deaf lady. It’s a good thing I enjoy irony.
Then there was the moment when my sister-in-law’s divahood overcame my pledge to be obliviously swell at all times. We’d been talking about Spawn’s tastefully masculine earrings and how that didn’t bother me, that I just tell the kids no facial piercings or tattoos while they’re living at home, and I’m not paying for any of that anyway. The sis-in-law decided to share one her Great Moments in Parenting with us. (Breathe deeply; you’ll be glad you did.) She regaled us with the time her grown son, who hasn’t lived with her since he was 15 years old, returned from serving in the military during the current war and came to visit her. He was wearing a tank top and had a tattoo of a yin-yang symbol on his upper arm, which caused her to, in her own words, “burst into tears. I was just weeping and weeping.”
My mouth hung open in shock, and I stupidly asked, ”Why?” She replied, “Because he’s my BABY!” That flipped all my social behavior meters into overload, they shorted out, and the next thing out of my mouth was, “Oh my God, it’s not like he’s Jewish and can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery now!” The look of utter and complete shock on HER face, that I would think she was making a mountain out of a molehill and that I was thinking about HIM rather than her emotions, was probably worth whatever price I’ll wind up having to pay. My mother-in-law chuckled at my wit, my husband snorted into his salad, and my daughter nearly choked on an olive.
My social behavior meters hadn’t charged back up yet, so I made it worse by blurting out, “I wouldn’t care about that, I’d just be glad to see him.” Heads bobbed in agreement, and then I finally realized what I was doing and rammed a truckload of lettuce into my own face to shut myself up. Fortunately, the conversation moved on to dentistry, and sis-in-law could take that opportunity to save up her flusterment at my hands until she gets the chance to trash talk me behind my back.
I’m about half embarrassed and half glad that I said it. She provides a lot of her interpretations of Great Moments in Parenting which make me want to either puke at her self-absorption or just leave the room before I puke, and that winds up with me venting later, which hubs doesn’t need either since he is usually there, too. At least this time, I haven’t needed to vent, having gotten it all out on the spot.
Aside from that, things were OK until it came time to pay the bill. The dithering began. “I want to pay at least part of it,” insisted my mother-in-law. “I think we should all pay for our own groups,” said my husband. My brother-in-law offered, “Why don’t I just see what each person’s...” before he was interrupted by Auntie Diva barking out, “What? Are we paying? I only got here a little while ago!” As they argued, I grabbed the bill folder, shoved my credit card into it, and returned it to the waitress, who scampered off to run it through the machine.
My husband looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “We can just let the others send us checks or whatever,” I said, “it’s 20 minutes before 3, which leaves us just enough time to pay, make a pit stop, and get back on the road.” He nodded and then proceeded to yell that explanation at his mother, who agreed and smiled at me. The rest of them were still dithering, except for my new brother-in-law, who, in a very gentlemanly fashion, quietly got some cash out of his wallet and on his way to the bathroom, slipped it to hubs. He was quite generous, and I think he was glad that for once someone else picked up the tab before his new wife could get theatrically extravagant with his money.
On the trip home, my husband was in a much better mood. He glanced over at me and whispered, “Jewish cemetery?” and grinned. If I could have slammed my head onto the dashboard, I would have. I just said, “Oops” and smiled back. He patted my hand and smiled some more.
So, I suppose all in all, it really worked out much better than our usual gatherings with his clan. They weren’t late and we weren’t either; dithering and dawdling was reduced to a minimum, my mother-in-law and I were in perfect amity about the need to keep on schedule and paying the bill sensibly and quickly, and, of all of them, she’s the only one I really give a hangnail about (except for my kids, and they were VERY happy about not being late and hanging around with loud family beyond their endurance level). It makes me think that maybe joining them for other gatherings might not be so bad from here on out, as long as I stand firm on our needs as a family unit. And I hope sis-in-law will keep her Great Moments in Parenting to herself from now on, too.
Oddball Word of the Day
desultory (DEHS ul-tuh-ree): adj. disconnected; casual; unmethodical
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, April 09, 2007
Directionally Impaired
I’ve been busy shuffling family members from one place to another, mostly doctors’ offices lately, and this week is shaping up the same way. I can find my way around my own town reasonably well, but I get lost easily when I leave town. I used to make sure and conscientiously get Mapquest directions, then I’d highlight them to make the important turns more obvious, and I’d even trim off excess paper for easier in-car handling. Sometimes I still got lost either from reading something wrong or because the roads had changed since they were charted by Mapquest.
I get lost less often these days, but it has nothing to do with Mapquest. Last Christmas, my husband got me a Garmin GPS Navigator and stuck it to my windshield. Hubs is one of those guys who, even if I give him color choices and catalog numbers, will go shopping for me at Ace Hardware because that’s where he feels comfortable, and it’s got stuff he feels comfortable buying. He has bought me something wonderfully feminine (a purse with beads) exactly once in our marriage – otherwise it’s appliances, electronic doo-dads, or other things that whirr or clank.
Well, the Garmin looked like a pretty good compromise – something I would probably actually use, plus, even though it doesn’t whirr, it does require a power supply, which fits his criteria. He was very excited and drove my car all over town, plugging locations into “My Favorites” for which I don’t need directions, since I already know how to get to all of them. I thanked him nicely and didn’t use it for a month.
One day I got a little curious, so I turned it on and thought, “OK, let’s see if you know how to get to the middle school.” A female voice advised me on how to properly leave my driveway and what to do once I did. I got a slightly eerie feeling creeping up my neck, but I ignored it. I followed Garmin’s directions, which were perfectly accurate, up until I was ½ block away from the middle school. Garmin advised me to “TURN LEFT.” I replied, “I can’t, that would put me in the middle of a baseball field. Damned high tech crap!” Garmin shrieked that I must immediately “TURN LEFT, TURN LEFT!”
I didn’t turn left. Garmin sulked. After I had turned into the parking lot for the middle school, Garmin announced that it was “RECALCULATING,” and I swear I could hear it making noises of disgust and impatience. The now distinctly creepy female voice advised me to drive a half a block back east and TURN RIGHT. I cut off its power supply instead.
I used Garmin another couple of times that same week when I went out of town on errands. Inevitably, the navigator has been dubbed not only female, but shrewish as well. In all fairness, though, she managed to get me to and from my locations with no detours through sports fields or children’s parks. Another month went by before I powered Garmin back up again.
This time, I wanted to see what she’d do if I put a destination in and then ran other errands first. She didn’t like it much at all – she shrieked, “TURN LEFT! TURN RIGHT!” and then repeatedly mumbled and spat about how I was forcing her to begin “RECALCULATING”. I could hear the “DAMMIT” under her digital voice. I was reminded of the Star Trek episode where some bright spark gives the ship’s computer a personality and it then either flirts, pouts or refuses to do as asked. I wondered if I was pushing Garmin to her limits, too. She tried to send me down the right street the wrong way, and I’d have been unable to park from that direction, and she wasn’t happy with me. I felt I’d gotten the upper hand, just a little, on my home turf. It wasn’t much of a victory, but I felt triumphant nonetheless.
So, last week Garmin snoozed while I trundled Doodle to the dentist, Bunny to a friend’s house, myself to the hospital, and ran a thousand ordinary errands. I woke her up on Wednesday and told her that we were going to be taking some very important cargo into Joliet – my Dad had an appointment with his cardiologist. As I poked her buttons, I reminded her that this would not be a good time to play any pranks involving streets under either construction or water, and that I really needed her help this time. I always get lost either coming or going because of the one-way streets. I apologized for muting her voice; I didn’t want it to startle or confuse my Dad, who, with his Alzheimer’s taking a circuitous route through his brain, startles easily at some things and becomes extremely perplexed and eventually upset over other things.
Garmin didn’t let me down. The route in was a little different from my former Mapquest routes, and the route out was a little different, too. I don’t care; I got there and back in good time, confidently, and with Dad in good humor and spirits. I can forgive Garmin for being kind of a stress monkey from time to time, and for being occasionally inaccurately programmed (by yards rather than miles), as long as I can get my Dad and other loved ones where they want or ought to be.
So, if you see me, or some other person, arguing vociferously with an empty car, and you see a little black circle on the windshield, it’s not Rush Limbaugh who’s set us off, it’s probably Garmin. And, we will get where we’re going, especially after all the “RECALCULATING!”
I get lost less often these days, but it has nothing to do with Mapquest. Last Christmas, my husband got me a Garmin GPS Navigator and stuck it to my windshield. Hubs is one of those guys who, even if I give him color choices and catalog numbers, will go shopping for me at Ace Hardware because that’s where he feels comfortable, and it’s got stuff he feels comfortable buying. He has bought me something wonderfully feminine (a purse with beads) exactly once in our marriage – otherwise it’s appliances, electronic doo-dads, or other things that whirr or clank.
Well, the Garmin looked like a pretty good compromise – something I would probably actually use, plus, even though it doesn’t whirr, it does require a power supply, which fits his criteria. He was very excited and drove my car all over town, plugging locations into “My Favorites” for which I don’t need directions, since I already know how to get to all of them. I thanked him nicely and didn’t use it for a month.
One day I got a little curious, so I turned it on and thought, “OK, let’s see if you know how to get to the middle school.” A female voice advised me on how to properly leave my driveway and what to do once I did. I got a slightly eerie feeling creeping up my neck, but I ignored it. I followed Garmin’s directions, which were perfectly accurate, up until I was ½ block away from the middle school. Garmin advised me to “TURN LEFT.” I replied, “I can’t, that would put me in the middle of a baseball field. Damned high tech crap!” Garmin shrieked that I must immediately “TURN LEFT, TURN LEFT!”
I didn’t turn left. Garmin sulked. After I had turned into the parking lot for the middle school, Garmin announced that it was “RECALCULATING,” and I swear I could hear it making noises of disgust and impatience. The now distinctly creepy female voice advised me to drive a half a block back east and TURN RIGHT. I cut off its power supply instead.
I used Garmin another couple of times that same week when I went out of town on errands. Inevitably, the navigator has been dubbed not only female, but shrewish as well. In all fairness, though, she managed to get me to and from my locations with no detours through sports fields or children’s parks. Another month went by before I powered Garmin back up again.
This time, I wanted to see what she’d do if I put a destination in and then ran other errands first. She didn’t like it much at all – she shrieked, “TURN LEFT! TURN RIGHT!” and then repeatedly mumbled and spat about how I was forcing her to begin “RECALCULATING”. I could hear the “DAMMIT” under her digital voice. I was reminded of the Star Trek episode where some bright spark gives the ship’s computer a personality and it then either flirts, pouts or refuses to do as asked. I wondered if I was pushing Garmin to her limits, too. She tried to send me down the right street the wrong way, and I’d have been unable to park from that direction, and she wasn’t happy with me. I felt I’d gotten the upper hand, just a little, on my home turf. It wasn’t much of a victory, but I felt triumphant nonetheless.
So, last week Garmin snoozed while I trundled Doodle to the dentist, Bunny to a friend’s house, myself to the hospital, and ran a thousand ordinary errands. I woke her up on Wednesday and told her that we were going to be taking some very important cargo into Joliet – my Dad had an appointment with his cardiologist. As I poked her buttons, I reminded her that this would not be a good time to play any pranks involving streets under either construction or water, and that I really needed her help this time. I always get lost either coming or going because of the one-way streets. I apologized for muting her voice; I didn’t want it to startle or confuse my Dad, who, with his Alzheimer’s taking a circuitous route through his brain, startles easily at some things and becomes extremely perplexed and eventually upset over other things.
Garmin didn’t let me down. The route in was a little different from my former Mapquest routes, and the route out was a little different, too. I don’t care; I got there and back in good time, confidently, and with Dad in good humor and spirits. I can forgive Garmin for being kind of a stress monkey from time to time, and for being occasionally inaccurately programmed (by yards rather than miles), as long as I can get my Dad and other loved ones where they want or ought to be.
So, if you see me, or some other person, arguing vociferously with an empty car, and you see a little black circle on the windshield, it’s not Rush Limbaugh who’s set us off, it’s probably Garmin. And, we will get where we’re going, especially after all the “RECALCULATING!”
Oddball Word of the Day
napiform (NAY-peh-form): adj. having the shape of a turnip
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, April 02, 2007
THE Talk
I’ve now had to have The Talk with my two oldest children. I knew when I became a parent that someday I’d need to have the talk with them. I naively thought The Talk would be about sex and figured that I was pretty much done when we had that one at the onset of puberty for each child.
With my oldest one, and I do pity firstborns because things are usually awkward and untried with them, so they have to cope with experimental parenting as well as their own issues, I tried to be fairly clinical. I managed to avoid using charts or illustrations, and, eventually, I handed off to my husband. Being a man of few words, he raised one finger in the air wisely, opened his mouth, stalled while thinking for a minute or so, and then blurted out, “Let me know if you need any condoms.” Spawn’s brains caught fire and he had to smother the flames by putting a pillow over his head and squeaking a lot. Maybe he was laughing; I know I was. Hubs looked sheepish, shrugged, and left the room, figuring he’d done his fatherly duty. I suppose, if one is of a pithy type, he had.
Anyway, The Talk is not That talk. The Talk goes more like this:
Me: I need to talk with you about your performance in school.
Subject Juvenile (hereinafter SJ): You mean my grades, don’t you?
Me: Yes and no.
SJ: That means ‘yes’.
Me: Don’t distract me. I’m concerned that you are not working at your best level of performance.
SJ: Because I got a B? Geez, you always want me to be perfect.
Me: No, not because you got a B. I don’t care about Bs. What I care about is that I see you doing a lot of self-sabotaging and not turning in your best work, and that concerns me.
SJ: Because you want me to be perfect and have straight A’s and not have a life!
Me: No, those are not my standards, nor are they requirements. Grades are A reflection of performance, but they are not the only gauge of performance. What I’m worried about is that you are not developing academic diligence, and that is going to bite you on the behind in college. I am also concerned that you don’t want to put in your best effort just for the sake of doing so.
SJ: Why should I if I can get A’s from doing papers the night before or even if I don’t study, or if the teachers keep putting the due dates back? Why should I stress out over stuff like that if I can get good grades without working hard?
Me: Because this is not about grades, it’s about the pursuit of excellence for its own sake and for your sake in understanding what you can do when you really put your mind and effort into it, and for you to understand what you need in order to really do your best work. The end result of doing that, at this point in your life, MIGHT be a good grade and probably would be, but you know from past experience with me that if I see you putting in the time and putting in the thought and paying attention to what you are doing, I really don’t care what kind of a grade you get. Excellence has been diligently pursued, and that’s the point. If I think your teacher is being unfair or arbitrary, I’ll talk to them, but if I’m happy with your behavior, I have made a point to say so when that happens, and you know that.
SJ: So, if I work really hard on this term paper, and it “shows” to you, but I still get a B or a C on it, you don’t care.
Me: Mostly, no. If I think your teacher was grading improperly, I’ll say something and you can decide to take it up with the teacher or to have me do so if you wish. If you get a C, my first thought would be that, given you worked to your best ability, something went missing – maybe the teacher thought they specified something and didn’t, or maybe you forgot to do a specific something. But neither one of those things is going to make me think you did a slapdash job or sloughed off.
SJ: And, even if I can get A's without studying, you still think I should study?
Me: Yep. As you progress through school and into college and from there into the working world, you are going to, increasingly, need to develop your OWN standards which are as high or higher than those of your teachers, professors, and bosses. Those standards may be in different areas, with different goals, or they might be the same, but I think you need the practice in a) setting high standards for yourself, b) working diligently towards those standards, and c) understanding what it means to reach them or how to handle not reaching them as well. There will also be times when you may need to set your standards a little lower because you have other things that are more demanding that take precedence. All of that requires practice and awareness.
SJ: So, you’re saying that it’s OK to lower my standards sometimes?
Me: Yes, judiciously. Look, everyone has some point in time where their load is too heavy or too demanding and they really cannot put all their best effort towards everything – there aren’t enough hours in the day, their health is bad, they are having real trouble in some other area and need to put more attention towards fixing that – stuff like that. It’s called “prioritizing”.
SJ: Why should I “prioritize” schoolwork? Maybe I’m “prioritizing” my friendships.
Me: We both know that’s code for “I don’t wanna do it.”
SJ:
Me: Straight out, my experience with you and your work is that you have little experience in pursuing excellence for its own sake or for the sake of learning your own needs in achieving excellent results, you have minimal experience in understanding your time requirements, and you don’t really understand how to maximize your resources to your best advantage to achieve an outstanding result that YOU can be proud of. I’ve watched you put forth minimal to moderate effort in school for years now, and get praise and good grades for working far beneath your abilities. I’ve seen you look smug and disappointed at the same time, and I’ve seen what it’s done and is doing to your character. It is one of the things that has truly angered me about your schooling – that your teachers and peers reward you for putting so little effort into your work.
You are now hitting the wall in terms of not being able to achieve the results you are accustomed to with the same minimal effort, and you are getting angry and resentful and loud and difficult to live with, and that has to stop. And all of that is happening because you know that you are capable of doing better and you are disappointed in yourself for not doing better, right?
SJ: Yeah.
Me: So, rather than standing by, as I have been doing, biting my tongue, I’m stepping in now and telling you that things need to change, that you need to start learning academic rigor, self-discipline, set high standards for yourself, and learn the skills you need to achieve those results; that you need to learn how to pursue excellence so that you can be proud of what you create and achieve instead of resentful that it isn’t as easy as it used to be.
SJ: OK, I get it. … Are you mad at me?
Me: Not really. You haven’t been challenged to be your best outside of this house before this, so you have no experience in dealing with such a challenge. It’s very hard for me to tell someone who’s getting straight A's that they’re not working hard enough because how much harder can you work? Where are the rewards for doing so? I understand that. Things are different this year, and I’ve stood back to see how you’d react and given you time to learn on your own.
I still expect you to learn on your own – I’m just telling you that I see this problem and I expect you to handle it. It’s a tough call for a parent to make – if I speak up, am I interfering or am I doing the right thing. I’m not even sure myself. I just know that I can’t continue to sit by and listen to your anger and let you be hard to live with because you are frustrated – that’s hard on me and the other family members. You need to fix it, and this is my perspective on what’s going on.
SJ: It’s really not about the grades, is it?
Me: Remember “Skills for Adolescence”? Did I ride you like a donkey to excel in that class, or did I agree that it was a waste of your time and set some minimum grade standards?
SJ: Yeah, OK, I remember that.
Me: If you need to ask me for resource material or websites or advice, you can, but I’ve said my piece.
SJ: OK. Thanks. I think I understand better now what you’ve been telling me all these years, I just didn’t get it before because… I guess I didn’t see the reason for it before.
Me: OK. You do know that one way or the other, whether you decide to make changes or not, I love you just the same, right?
SJ: Yeah, I know.
I still don’t know if speaking up is the right choice, and I don’t know if I’ve done it well or really remarkably badly. I am seeing some changes, mostly for the positive now, but that could be short term. I don’t know. I want my kids to be happy in their adult lives; I want them to understand how well they can do when they try, how to prioritize, how to forgive themselves when they don’t do well, and how to keep trying. I want them to be proud of themselves, knowing they’ve done a good job, even if no one else ever acknowledges it, regardless of whether it’s a business plan, a doghouse, or a dinner for four. I want them to believe in themselves, to test themselves, and to learn to succeed to their own standards. And I don’t know if I’ve pushed them forward or under the damned Mommy bus. (sigh)
Meanwhile, it’s time to go tutor and do laundry and reassure the dog that the thunder is not going to come inside the house and eat him up. And if I’ve really screwed things up, maybe I at least managed to teach them to forgive their mom.
With my oldest one, and I do pity firstborns because things are usually awkward and untried with them, so they have to cope with experimental parenting as well as their own issues, I tried to be fairly clinical. I managed to avoid using charts or illustrations, and, eventually, I handed off to my husband. Being a man of few words, he raised one finger in the air wisely, opened his mouth, stalled while thinking for a minute or so, and then blurted out, “Let me know if you need any condoms.” Spawn’s brains caught fire and he had to smother the flames by putting a pillow over his head and squeaking a lot. Maybe he was laughing; I know I was. Hubs looked sheepish, shrugged, and left the room, figuring he’d done his fatherly duty. I suppose, if one is of a pithy type, he had.
Anyway, The Talk is not That talk. The Talk goes more like this:
Me: I need to talk with you about your performance in school.
Subject Juvenile (hereinafter SJ): You mean my grades, don’t you?
Me: Yes and no.
SJ: That means ‘yes’.
Me: Don’t distract me. I’m concerned that you are not working at your best level of performance.
SJ: Because I got a B? Geez, you always want me to be perfect.
Me: No, not because you got a B. I don’t care about Bs. What I care about is that I see you doing a lot of self-sabotaging and not turning in your best work, and that concerns me.
SJ: Because you want me to be perfect and have straight A’s and not have a life!
Me: No, those are not my standards, nor are they requirements. Grades are A reflection of performance, but they are not the only gauge of performance. What I’m worried about is that you are not developing academic diligence, and that is going to bite you on the behind in college. I am also concerned that you don’t want to put in your best effort just for the sake of doing so.
SJ: Why should I if I can get A’s from doing papers the night before or even if I don’t study, or if the teachers keep putting the due dates back? Why should I stress out over stuff like that if I can get good grades without working hard?
Me: Because this is not about grades, it’s about the pursuit of excellence for its own sake and for your sake in understanding what you can do when you really put your mind and effort into it, and for you to understand what you need in order to really do your best work. The end result of doing that, at this point in your life, MIGHT be a good grade and probably would be, but you know from past experience with me that if I see you putting in the time and putting in the thought and paying attention to what you are doing, I really don’t care what kind of a grade you get. Excellence has been diligently pursued, and that’s the point. If I think your teacher is being unfair or arbitrary, I’ll talk to them, but if I’m happy with your behavior, I have made a point to say so when that happens, and you know that.
SJ: So, if I work really hard on this term paper, and it “shows” to you, but I still get a B or a C on it, you don’t care.
Me: Mostly, no. If I think your teacher was grading improperly, I’ll say something and you can decide to take it up with the teacher or to have me do so if you wish. If you get a C, my first thought would be that, given you worked to your best ability, something went missing – maybe the teacher thought they specified something and didn’t, or maybe you forgot to do a specific something. But neither one of those things is going to make me think you did a slapdash job or sloughed off.
SJ: And, even if I can get A's without studying, you still think I should study?
Me: Yep. As you progress through school and into college and from there into the working world, you are going to, increasingly, need to develop your OWN standards which are as high or higher than those of your teachers, professors, and bosses. Those standards may be in different areas, with different goals, or they might be the same, but I think you need the practice in a) setting high standards for yourself, b) working diligently towards those standards, and c) understanding what it means to reach them or how to handle not reaching them as well. There will also be times when you may need to set your standards a little lower because you have other things that are more demanding that take precedence. All of that requires practice and awareness.
SJ: So, you’re saying that it’s OK to lower my standards sometimes?
Me: Yes, judiciously. Look, everyone has some point in time where their load is too heavy or too demanding and they really cannot put all their best effort towards everything – there aren’t enough hours in the day, their health is bad, they are having real trouble in some other area and need to put more attention towards fixing that – stuff like that. It’s called “prioritizing”.
SJ: Why should I “prioritize” schoolwork? Maybe I’m “prioritizing” my friendships.
Me: We both know that’s code for “I don’t wanna do it.”
SJ:
Me: Straight out, my experience with you and your work is that you have little experience in pursuing excellence for its own sake or for the sake of learning your own needs in achieving excellent results, you have minimal experience in understanding your time requirements, and you don’t really understand how to maximize your resources to your best advantage to achieve an outstanding result that YOU can be proud of. I’ve watched you put forth minimal to moderate effort in school for years now, and get praise and good grades for working far beneath your abilities. I’ve seen you look smug and disappointed at the same time, and I’ve seen what it’s done and is doing to your character. It is one of the things that has truly angered me about your schooling – that your teachers and peers reward you for putting so little effort into your work.
You are now hitting the wall in terms of not being able to achieve the results you are accustomed to with the same minimal effort, and you are getting angry and resentful and loud and difficult to live with, and that has to stop. And all of that is happening because you know that you are capable of doing better and you are disappointed in yourself for not doing better, right?
SJ:
Me: So, rather than standing by, as I have been doing, biting my tongue, I’m stepping in now and telling you that things need to change, that you need to start learning academic rigor, self-discipline, set high standards for yourself, and learn the skills you need to achieve those results; that you need to learn how to pursue excellence so that you can be proud of what you create and achieve instead of resentful that it isn’t as easy as it used to be.
SJ: OK, I get it. … Are you mad at me?
Me: Not really. You haven’t been challenged to be your best outside of this house before this, so you have no experience in dealing with such a challenge. It’s very hard for me to tell someone who’s getting straight A's that they’re not working hard enough because how much harder can you work? Where are the rewards for doing so? I understand that. Things are different this year, and I’ve stood back to see how you’d react and given you time to learn on your own.
I still expect you to learn on your own – I’m just telling you that I see this problem and I expect you to handle it. It’s a tough call for a parent to make – if I speak up, am I interfering or am I doing the right thing. I’m not even sure myself. I just know that I can’t continue to sit by and listen to your anger and let you be hard to live with because you are frustrated – that’s hard on me and the other family members. You need to fix it, and this is my perspective on what’s going on.
SJ: It’s really not about the grades, is it?
Me: Remember “Skills for Adolescence”? Did I ride you like a donkey to excel in that class, or did I agree that it was a waste of your time and set some minimum grade standards?
SJ:
Me: If you need to ask me for resource material or websites or advice, you can, but I’ve said my piece.
SJ: OK. Thanks. I think I understand better now what you’ve been telling me all these years, I just didn’t get it before because… I guess I didn’t see the reason for it before.
Me: OK. You do know that one way or the other, whether you decide to make changes or not, I love you just the same, right?
SJ:
I still don’t know if speaking up is the right choice, and I don’t know if I’ve done it well or really remarkably badly. I am seeing some changes, mostly for the positive now, but that could be short term. I don’t know. I want my kids to be happy in their adult lives; I want them to understand how well they can do when they try, how to prioritize, how to forgive themselves when they don’t do well, and how to keep trying. I want them to be proud of themselves, knowing they’ve done a good job, even if no one else ever acknowledges it, regardless of whether it’s a business plan, a doghouse, or a dinner for four. I want them to believe in themselves, to test themselves, and to learn to succeed to their own standards. And I don’t know if I’ve pushed them forward or under the damned Mommy bus. (sigh)
Meanwhile, it’s time to go tutor and do laundry and reassure the dog that the thunder is not going to come inside the house and eat him up. And if I’ve really screwed things up, maybe I at least managed to teach them to forgive their mom.
Oddball Word of the Day
puissance (PYOU-i-sens): n. great power, might, or influence
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, March 30, 2007
Five Places I Get News on the Web
I get syndicated feeds from a bunch of sites. Lots of my interest is in education, what with the whole having kids thing and all (I know people are snorting and hooting and going, “Oh, YA THINK?” behind my back. I’m fine with that. Have a beer.) so my sources are weighted in that direction.
1. Education News : Extremely reliable, mainly national but some international links, digests, and guest columnists. Lots of resources, high quality source of information, mainly for K-12. Really, the majority of the information deals with K-8, but that’s probably more of a reflection on the ratio in original source reportage. Daily feed.
3. Wrightslaw: Not only is there a fascinating personal history for the founder of this website, the wealth of legal information and analysis is unbeatable. Wrightslaw covers news and legal updates for IDEA and 504 issues for kids with disabilities. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Many of the articles are also handy for general-purpose interactions with school districts, or in situations where there is a potential for legal action in the future. Plan to spend several days thoroughly investigating the website if this field applies to you, and sign up. The feed is weekly, I think.
4. Quirky happenings and headlines from This is True: Comes to you weekly and wittily in simple text format. Originator of the Stella awards for dumb lawsuits, a good site for rolling your eyeballs over Zero Tolerance interpretations, and lots of good humored stuff ‘n nonsense.
5. German Stuff at http://www.germanabout.com/: Although I don’t like the preemptory way the “about…” sites try to seize control of my computer, I’ll deal with it for this one. I recommend this site to everyone who wants to learn German, practice German, help others learn or practice German, or who just has an interest in the subject. There is lots of valid and vetted information here; it’s a truly professional quality site for reference and use for beginners and those who are refreshing their skills. Once a week updates on news, specialized vocabularies, word of the day (if you want it), all with advertising, but y’know, advertising happens.
Have a great weekend!
1. Education News : Extremely reliable, mainly national but some international links, digests, and guest columnists. Lots of resources, high quality source of information, mainly for K-12. Really, the majority of the information deals with K-8, but that’s probably more of a reflection on the ratio in original source reportage. Daily feed.
3. Wrightslaw: Not only is there a fascinating personal history for the founder of this website, the wealth of legal information and analysis is unbeatable. Wrightslaw covers news and legal updates for IDEA and 504 issues for kids with disabilities. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Many of the articles are also handy for general-purpose interactions with school districts, or in situations where there is a potential for legal action in the future. Plan to spend several days thoroughly investigating the website if this field applies to you, and sign up. The feed is weekly, I think.
4. Quirky happenings and headlines from This is True: Comes to you weekly and wittily in simple text format. Originator of the Stella awards for dumb lawsuits, a good site for rolling your eyeballs over Zero Tolerance interpretations, and lots of good humored stuff ‘n nonsense.
5. German Stuff at http://www.germanabout.com/: Although I don’t like the preemptory way the “about…” sites try to seize control of my computer, I’ll deal with it for this one. I recommend this site to everyone who wants to learn German, practice German, help others learn or practice German, or who just has an interest in the subject. There is lots of valid and vetted information here; it’s a truly professional quality site for reference and use for beginners and those who are refreshing their skills. Once a week updates on news, specialized vocabularies, word of the day (if you want it), all with advertising, but y’know, advertising happens.
Have a great weekend!
Oddball Word of the Day
rodomontade (ROAD-uh-mahn-TAYDE): n. arrant, arrogant boasting or braggadocio; ranting, blustering talk.
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW, edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
etwas in den falschen Hals kriegen OR
etwas in die falsche Kehle kriegen: to take something the wrong way
Origin: The picture is of food going down the wrong way, i.e. down the windpipe instead of the gullet.
zB: Meine Bemerkung dass sie eine lustige Frisur haette, hat sie in den falschen Hals gekriegt. Ich habe sie als Kompliment, nicht als Beleidigung gemeint.
auf Englisch: She took my comment about her having an amusing hairstyle the wrong way. I meant it as a compliment, not as an insult.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
etwas in die falsche Kehle kriegen: to take something the wrong way
Origin: The picture is of food going down the wrong way, i.e. down the windpipe instead of the gullet.
zB: Meine Bemerkung dass sie eine lustige Frisur haette, hat sie in den falschen Hals gekriegt. Ich habe sie als Kompliment, nicht als Beleidigung gemeint.
auf Englisch: She took my comment about her having an amusing hairstyle the wrong way. I meant it as a compliment, not as an insult.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Knitting Knewbies
At my Chix group we get occasional newbies. I like them. They’re usually mostly clueless, which is why they’re newbies, but they’re so easily impressed it makes me feel like Steve Martin in “The Jerk” when he got so excited about being in the phone book.
Last night we got three newbies, and that was a lot of fun. They were impressed by knitting on circular needles, knitting without watching the needles, knitting on four needles, cabling, and following charts. Some of which I was doing, and some of which the other regulars were doing. It was kind of charming and sweet – we old-timers get so accustomed to knitting mindlessly that we forget what it’s like to be new and worried about every single stitch.
It’s also nice to be of assistance, particularly when the assistance is really simple. One knewbie has some problems getting her circular needle to stop coiling up on her, which a simple twist fixed. She also got confused as to the knit and purl stitches, also an easy fix. Sometimes we get a knewbie who is dogged and therefore creates wonderful things, but at great expenditures of time and effort – she’s working on a children’s sweater for a granddaughter, which incorporates cables, intarsia, textured stitches, and shoulder shaping. I think she’s pulled some parts of it out 8 times, but she just keeps clicking away, coming in for help, and to show us what she’s done.
I also admire these gals. I can be really self-critical and not want to show my own ineptitude in public sometimes. It used to be a leap of faith for me to walk into what could be an artesian well of snooty experts and admit I’m clueless. I found out the bonding and social potential of being in need of help some years ago, and it’s really an eye-opener to realize that asking for help is not only socially acceptable, it’s a good way of opening up a dialogue and being accessible to potential friendships and a wider circle of interaction.
Anyway, as for knitting, I have no pictures at present, but I’m making headway on the Charlotte’s Web shawl and a pair of self-striping socks. Maybe next week I’ll remember to take some pix.
Last night we got three newbies, and that was a lot of fun. They were impressed by knitting on circular needles, knitting without watching the needles, knitting on four needles, cabling, and following charts. Some of which I was doing, and some of which the other regulars were doing. It was kind of charming and sweet – we old-timers get so accustomed to knitting mindlessly that we forget what it’s like to be new and worried about every single stitch.
It’s also nice to be of assistance, particularly when the assistance is really simple. One knewbie has some problems getting her circular needle to stop coiling up on her, which a simple twist fixed. She also got confused as to the knit and purl stitches, also an easy fix. Sometimes we get a knewbie who is dogged and therefore creates wonderful things, but at great expenditures of time and effort – she’s working on a children’s sweater for a granddaughter, which incorporates cables, intarsia, textured stitches, and shoulder shaping. I think she’s pulled some parts of it out 8 times, but she just keeps clicking away, coming in for help, and to show us what she’s done.
I also admire these gals. I can be really self-critical and not want to show my own ineptitude in public sometimes. It used to be a leap of faith for me to walk into what could be an artesian well of snooty experts and admit I’m clueless. I found out the bonding and social potential of being in need of help some years ago, and it’s really an eye-opener to realize that asking for help is not only socially acceptable, it’s a good way of opening up a dialogue and being accessible to potential friendships and a wider circle of interaction.
Anyway, as for knitting, I have no pictures at present, but I’m making headway on the Charlotte’s Web shawl and a pair of self-striping socks. Maybe next week I’ll remember to take some pix.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
CPAs and IRS Lamaze
Well, hubs and I went to the accountant yesterday to get our taxes done. I had been doing the taxes during the early years of our marriage, what with the experience of growing up with accountants and penny pinchers behind me, but then I had Spawn one December, and I wasn’t up to doing the taxes that year, so we started using this particular accountant.
Our accountant is a special favorite of hubs’ for a couple of reasons. First of all, he used to bill himself, unofficially, as “The Shoebox Accountant,” which meant that if you brought him all your stuff in a shoebox, in no particular order and sometimes frightfully crumpled or spotted or horrible, he’d straighten it all out, fit for an audit or military inspection, and get your impossible taxes done. The second reason hubs likes our accountant is because he’s kind of a “shoebox” personified. His office is not your usual pseudo-banker looking professional office. Instead, it looks like a warehouse full of generally detested stuff in decaying boxes, which are lying at all kinds of angles, books stacked haphazardly around, computers cobbled together with all manner of dirty, used parts, and the boxes and grocery bags of his clients are stowed higgledy-piggledy around the office.
Also, the accountant is a lifelong, diehard Chicago Cubs fan, so he’s almost always wearing a Cubs shirt or cap, and the walls have a junk store appearance with yellowing Cubs posters, CPA plaques given to him by his loving children, or made in school decades ago, and maps. I’m not sure I understand the maps, but maybe they’re covering up holes in the wall or something. I like him because, despite his office’s startlingly jumbled appearance, he knows his stuff like the back of his hand and because his plants are usually dead.
See, his wife collects unique pots and puts interesting plants in them. When their house gets too full of interesting potted plants, some overflow into his office. There are bonsai trees, ferns, little succulent things, and other normally delightful plants. He and his assistant tend them carefully during the majority of the year, but then tax season hits, and they’re so busy they stop watering them and work 20 hour days on taxes, non-stop. So, by the time hubs and I come in, the plants are dead, browned and crispy-looking, the dried remnants of hopeful foliage, slain indirectly by the demands of an inhuman government agency. It’s allegorical. Or maybe just goofy enough to hit my funny bone at the right angle.
Over the years, we’ve sent several people to our accountant, people who are normally very prissy and image conscious, but they’ve usually gotten in over their heads, or they’re running late AND over their heads, and they need a tax rescue. He always does a great job, they love him, and he gets a lot of repeat business from our referrals.
Anyway, tax time is usually stressful for us because hubs’ job is, technically, as a self-employed captive insurance agent. This works out great for his company, since they get to charge him through the snoot for all the services they provide (letting him sell their insurance) and they have next to no accounting to do for him at tax time, and he has to pay all his own expenses, and his own staff, and all the other malarky. This means there is no tax withheld, and we pay Very Large Tax Estimates all through the year, the kind that are so huge that they make me wonder how we can afford groceries, and then we get to pay some more when all the damage is assessed.
Hubs gets more stressed out than I do, although since I’ve taken over the family accounting, his tax-time stress level has lowered. Yesterday, armed with balance sheets, register reports, and 1099’s, we headed off to Quirky Accountant’s office, braved the dead plants, the grocery bags and boxes full of other people’s paperwork, and the slipping piles of enormous tax tomes, and I handed over our neat little screaming orange file pocket of info. QA had the taxes done within an hour, which included a philosophical talk with my husband about a hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical other insurance agent client about funds and insurance law.
The tax bill was distressingly big again, as it always is, but I stepped in before hubs could get to the point where he had two lit cigarettes going at once and was pacing at light speed, and pointed out that over the last year we’d been living close to the vest for just that reason, and that we could pay the whole nut without having to sell even one of the children for medical experiments. I knew I wouldn’t like writing the check, just on principle, but the nice thing is that the check can be written without hesitation. Hubs halted halfway through pulling out his hair and did a double-take at me. The accountant and I glanced at each other because, under all the grocery bags on his side, and the maternal aspect on mine, we have a meeting of the minds at the bottom line. Hubs stood up from his stress monkey crouch, and smiled. We all relaxed. The taxes were done, the bill could be paid, and I promised to buy him beef sandwiches at Arby’s on the way home.
Hubs was more relaxed today, the day after T-Day, than I’ve seen him in years. I smiled benevolently at him over our morning coffee and waved him off to work. Then I did some Lamaze breathing for about 10 minutes and started writing checks. I felt like I was birthing the money, in bigheaded, screaming piles, but I wrote the checks anyway. And, off they go, all swaddled up in IRS forms with 1099 Binkies, inoculated by a CPA.
Sometimes, though, I do dream of sending the taxes off with insufficient postage, just to be annoying, but I’m pretty sure that would come back to bite me somehow. Breathe in, pant out; breathe in, pant out…
Anyway, as my public service for today, for those of you who donate to charity, rules are changing somewhat for your 2007 taxes. If you donate goods (such as knitted items) or cash, there are some new guidelines to follow. Applicable IRS publications are:
IRS Publication 526 on Charitable Contributions
Publication 561 Determining the Value of Donated Property
Our accountant is a special favorite of hubs’ for a couple of reasons. First of all, he used to bill himself, unofficially, as “The Shoebox Accountant,” which meant that if you brought him all your stuff in a shoebox, in no particular order and sometimes frightfully crumpled or spotted or horrible, he’d straighten it all out, fit for an audit or military inspection, and get your impossible taxes done. The second reason hubs likes our accountant is because he’s kind of a “shoebox” personified. His office is not your usual pseudo-banker looking professional office. Instead, it looks like a warehouse full of generally detested stuff in decaying boxes, which are lying at all kinds of angles, books stacked haphazardly around, computers cobbled together with all manner of dirty, used parts, and the boxes and grocery bags of his clients are stowed higgledy-piggledy around the office.
Also, the accountant is a lifelong, diehard Chicago Cubs fan, so he’s almost always wearing a Cubs shirt or cap, and the walls have a junk store appearance with yellowing Cubs posters, CPA plaques given to him by his loving children, or made in school decades ago, and maps. I’m not sure I understand the maps, but maybe they’re covering up holes in the wall or something. I like him because, despite his office’s startlingly jumbled appearance, he knows his stuff like the back of his hand and because his plants are usually dead.
See, his wife collects unique pots and puts interesting plants in them. When their house gets too full of interesting potted plants, some overflow into his office. There are bonsai trees, ferns, little succulent things, and other normally delightful plants. He and his assistant tend them carefully during the majority of the year, but then tax season hits, and they’re so busy they stop watering them and work 20 hour days on taxes, non-stop. So, by the time hubs and I come in, the plants are dead, browned and crispy-looking, the dried remnants of hopeful foliage, slain indirectly by the demands of an inhuman government agency. It’s allegorical. Or maybe just goofy enough to hit my funny bone at the right angle.
Over the years, we’ve sent several people to our accountant, people who are normally very prissy and image conscious, but they’ve usually gotten in over their heads, or they’re running late AND over their heads, and they need a tax rescue. He always does a great job, they love him, and he gets a lot of repeat business from our referrals.
Anyway, tax time is usually stressful for us because hubs’ job is, technically, as a self-employed captive insurance agent. This works out great for his company, since they get to charge him through the snoot for all the services they provide (letting him sell their insurance) and they have next to no accounting to do for him at tax time, and he has to pay all his own expenses, and his own staff, and all the other malarky. This means there is no tax withheld, and we pay Very Large Tax Estimates all through the year, the kind that are so huge that they make me wonder how we can afford groceries, and then we get to pay some more when all the damage is assessed.
Hubs gets more stressed out than I do, although since I’ve taken over the family accounting, his tax-time stress level has lowered. Yesterday, armed with balance sheets, register reports, and 1099’s, we headed off to Quirky Accountant’s office, braved the dead plants, the grocery bags and boxes full of other people’s paperwork, and the slipping piles of enormous tax tomes, and I handed over our neat little screaming orange file pocket of info. QA had the taxes done within an hour, which included a philosophical talk with my husband about a hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical other insurance agent client about funds and insurance law.
The tax bill was distressingly big again, as it always is, but I stepped in before hubs could get to the point where he had two lit cigarettes going at once and was pacing at light speed, and pointed out that over the last year we’d been living close to the vest for just that reason, and that we could pay the whole nut without having to sell even one of the children for medical experiments. I knew I wouldn’t like writing the check, just on principle, but the nice thing is that the check can be written without hesitation. Hubs halted halfway through pulling out his hair and did a double-take at me. The accountant and I glanced at each other because, under all the grocery bags on his side, and the maternal aspect on mine, we have a meeting of the minds at the bottom line. Hubs stood up from his stress monkey crouch, and smiled. We all relaxed. The taxes were done, the bill could be paid, and I promised to buy him beef sandwiches at Arby’s on the way home.
Hubs was more relaxed today, the day after T-Day, than I’ve seen him in years. I smiled benevolently at him over our morning coffee and waved him off to work. Then I did some Lamaze breathing for about 10 minutes and started writing checks. I felt like I was birthing the money, in bigheaded, screaming piles, but I wrote the checks anyway. And, off they go, all swaddled up in IRS forms with 1099 Binkies, inoculated by a CPA.
Sometimes, though, I do dream of sending the taxes off with insufficient postage, just to be annoying, but I’m pretty sure that would come back to bite me somehow. Breathe in, pant out; breathe in, pant out…
Anyway, as my public service for today, for those of you who donate to charity, rules are changing somewhat for your 2007 taxes. If you donate goods (such as knitted items) or cash, there are some new guidelines to follow. Applicable IRS publications are:
IRS Publication 526 on Charitable Contributions
Publication 561 Determining the Value of Donated Property
Oddball Word of the Day
tautology (taw-TAWL-ug-gee): n. unnecessary repetition of an idea in different words
(From the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(From the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, March 23, 2007
Five Assorted Things to Ponder
My computer is finally virus free and working at a reasonable speed again, so…
1. I ‘ll be celebrating an important national holiday today, seeing as it’s National Chip and Dip Day. I don’t normally eat either, but it’s important to make my patriotism obvious and support our troops by stepping up to the plate (chip bowl) and batting (or dipping) away. Also, just for fun, I called up my republican house rep. And urged him to support HR1415, the Restoring the Constitution Act, so’s we can be a free country again, too.
2. My post on the Last Sock has generated a lot of nice comments. The latest one, which mentions using one’s Mensa card as a humor enhancer, reminds me of one of my first experiences with Mensa, or, at least, with another Mensan.
I had joined and not gone to any meetings or said anything to anyone about joining. I did put a little decal on my MomVan window, and it looked a lot like a Batman emblem. A pompous ass of a neighbor, who was always trying to convince anyone who’d listen about the absolute correctness of his point of view, asked why I had a batman sticker on my car. I told him it was a Mensa sticker, and he was much struck, telling me he was a Mensan also. He hadn’t been to any meetings either since joining, so he quit being a pompous ass to me, and I cut him some slack on thinking of him as a pompous ass, and we decided to make a group trip to the next monthly meeting, along with our spouses.
My husband gets carsick if he doesn’t drive (or maybe he’s a control freak, but let’s not go there), so on the night of the meeting, he and PA neighbor dude were sitting in the front seat of the neighbor’s car, the wife and I were in the back, and everyone was yakking up a storm except my husband. He was just sitting there, looking a little cranky. He rolled his eyeballs as the volume increased, and then he started making little motorboat noises – BRMMMMM, BRMMM. The noises got louder. He started miming driving the car, brrrrmmmmm-ing away, bouncing in the driver’s seat, leaning forward over the wheel, and so forth. He finally got everyone’s attention, and PA’s wife said, “HEY! Do you need the keys, maybe?” He put a big stupid smile on his face and nodded enthusiastically, and we all laughed for quite a while over the Mensans forgetting he might need the keys to actually get us to the meeting.
We keep in infrequent touch with our former neighbors, but if hubs or I forget to give the other one something obvious that’s necessary to complete (or begin) a task, a short “brrrm” will usually suffice as a reminder.
3. Der Foehn – in Austria, I could swear I heard it referred to as “die” Foehn, but that probably doesn’t matter to anyone other than me and my calcifying brain cells. Anyway, during the transition between Winter and Spring, there was occasionally a time when the air was warm, there was still snow on the ground, and people would be cranky, short-tempered, a little peculiar, surprisingly romantic or fey, and it was jokingly blamed on der Foehn – a warm Spring wind sweeping over the Alps. The hapless humans dwelling in Switzerland and Austria (and maybe elsewhere) were supposedly emotionally disrupted by it, and it caused a general sense of unease and sometimes inexplicable behavior. There may be more to it than that, but I probably wandered off in a Foehn-induced haze somewhere during the casual discussion of it.
Anyway, der Foehn has been sweeping through my house the last couple of weeks while the snow took its time melting. It seems to be gone, mostly, now, and I’m glad of it. It felt a little like I kept waking up slightly new (to myself) each day, and I had to get reacquainted with me – disorienting, but not necessarily horrible. Other family members were equally affected by it, so things were odd around here.
4. Bravo for coffee! For those of us who truly enjoy our brews, SciAm advises the middle-aged and happily caffeinated amongst us that we might not need to switch to prune juice after all.
5. The new principal at our local HS seems to have spent a quarter and bought a clue. After 15 years of tyrannical domination by an unscrupulous and popular football coach, said coach was retired, pretty forcibly. There was a huge, orchestrated outcry by his supporters, he made a splashy move to another district, and that district wound up, within a year, getting him charged with multiple violations of some state school sports code, and he quit there, made more headlines, and is, quite predictably, suing everyone in sight to supplement his already overly-generous pension receipts. In a very dark corner of my heart, I hope he gets crushed by a bus full of Odyssey of the Mind contestants on their way to do voluntary community service by helping out at the Special Olympics.
Anyway, the new principal, not someone I would previously have crossed the street to spit on, is restoring some academic integrity to the high school. The senior slack-off year, full of courses that did not require books and barely required attendance, has been dealt a deathblow – hurrah! Instead, seniors have to take any core classes they may have missed, with added challenging options of dual credit with the local community college, work-study programs, and a number of other things that get a nod of approval from most of us concerned parents.
I am crossing my fingers and hoping for, over the next several months: a) the death of the block schedule and return of an 8 class day, b) increased rigor being brought back to foreign language classes, social studies, and English, c) further AP classes being offered, d) a big shake up in the teaching staff, removing some destructively dead wood and putting remaining teachers where they will do the most good, and e) the return of a GOOD German language sequence.
1. I ‘ll be celebrating an important national holiday today, seeing as it’s National Chip and Dip Day. I don’t normally eat either, but it’s important to make my patriotism obvious and support our troops by stepping up to the plate (chip bowl) and batting (or dipping) away. Also, just for fun, I called up my republican house rep. And urged him to support HR1415, the Restoring the Constitution Act, so’s we can be a free country again, too.
2. My post on the Last Sock has generated a lot of nice comments. The latest one, which mentions using one’s Mensa card as a humor enhancer, reminds me of one of my first experiences with Mensa, or, at least, with another Mensan.
I had joined and not gone to any meetings or said anything to anyone about joining. I did put a little decal on my MomVan window, and it looked a lot like a Batman emblem. A pompous ass of a neighbor, who was always trying to convince anyone who’d listen about the absolute correctness of his point of view, asked why I had a batman sticker on my car. I told him it was a Mensa sticker, and he was much struck, telling me he was a Mensan also. He hadn’t been to any meetings either since joining, so he quit being a pompous ass to me, and I cut him some slack on thinking of him as a pompous ass, and we decided to make a group trip to the next monthly meeting, along with our spouses.
My husband gets carsick if he doesn’t drive (or maybe he’s a control freak, but let’s not go there), so on the night of the meeting, he and PA neighbor dude were sitting in the front seat of the neighbor’s car, the wife and I were in the back, and everyone was yakking up a storm except my husband. He was just sitting there, looking a little cranky. He rolled his eyeballs as the volume increased, and then he started making little motorboat noises – BRMMMMM, BRMMM. The noises got louder. He started miming driving the car, brrrrmmmmm-ing away, bouncing in the driver’s seat, leaning forward over the wheel, and so forth. He finally got everyone’s attention, and PA’s wife said, “HEY! Do you need the keys, maybe?” He put a big stupid smile on his face and nodded enthusiastically, and we all laughed for quite a while over the Mensans forgetting he might need the keys to actually get us to the meeting.
We keep in infrequent touch with our former neighbors, but if hubs or I forget to give the other one something obvious that’s necessary to complete (or begin) a task, a short “brrrm” will usually suffice as a reminder.
3. Der Foehn – in Austria, I could swear I heard it referred to as “die” Foehn, but that probably doesn’t matter to anyone other than me and my calcifying brain cells. Anyway, during the transition between Winter and Spring, there was occasionally a time when the air was warm, there was still snow on the ground, and people would be cranky, short-tempered, a little peculiar, surprisingly romantic or fey, and it was jokingly blamed on der Foehn – a warm Spring wind sweeping over the Alps. The hapless humans dwelling in Switzerland and Austria (and maybe elsewhere) were supposedly emotionally disrupted by it, and it caused a general sense of unease and sometimes inexplicable behavior. There may be more to it than that, but I probably wandered off in a Foehn-induced haze somewhere during the casual discussion of it.
Anyway, der Foehn has been sweeping through my house the last couple of weeks while the snow took its time melting. It seems to be gone, mostly, now, and I’m glad of it. It felt a little like I kept waking up slightly new (to myself) each day, and I had to get reacquainted with me – disorienting, but not necessarily horrible. Other family members were equally affected by it, so things were odd around here.
4. Bravo for coffee! For those of us who truly enjoy our brews, SciAm advises the middle-aged and happily caffeinated amongst us that we might not need to switch to prune juice after all.
5. The new principal at our local HS seems to have spent a quarter and bought a clue. After 15 years of tyrannical domination by an unscrupulous and popular football coach, said coach was retired, pretty forcibly. There was a huge, orchestrated outcry by his supporters, he made a splashy move to another district, and that district wound up, within a year, getting him charged with multiple violations of some state school sports code, and he quit there, made more headlines, and is, quite predictably, suing everyone in sight to supplement his already overly-generous pension receipts. In a very dark corner of my heart, I hope he gets crushed by a bus full of Odyssey of the Mind contestants on their way to do voluntary community service by helping out at the Special Olympics.
Anyway, the new principal, not someone I would previously have crossed the street to spit on, is restoring some academic integrity to the high school. The senior slack-off year, full of courses that did not require books and barely required attendance, has been dealt a deathblow – hurrah! Instead, seniors have to take any core classes they may have missed, with added challenging options of dual credit with the local community college, work-study programs, and a number of other things that get a nod of approval from most of us concerned parents.
I am crossing my fingers and hoping for, over the next several months: a) the death of the block schedule and return of an 8 class day, b) increased rigor being brought back to foreign language classes, social studies, and English, c) further AP classes being offered, d) a big shake up in the teaching staff, removing some destructively dead wood and putting remaining teachers where they will do the most good, and e) the return of a GOOD German language sequence.
Oddball Word of the Day
borax (BOr-aks) n. cheap or shoddy merchandise, esp. furniture
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
jemandem ein Gesicht schneiden: to make/pull a face at someone
zB: Als Friedl ihre Freundin Astrid sah, schnitt sie ihr ein Gesicht. Sie hatten sich naemlich wegen eines Jungen gestritten.
auf Englisch: When Friedl saw her friend Astrid, she made a face at her. You see, they'd had an argument over a boy.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Als Friedl ihre Freundin Astrid sah, schnitt sie ihr ein Gesicht. Sie hatten sich naemlich wegen eines Jungen gestritten.
auf Englisch: When Friedl saw her friend Astrid, she made a face at her. You see, they'd had an argument over a boy.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
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