she's just saying...

A confluence of craft and science

The assignment:

Construct a model of a virus to hang in the classroom. Bonus challenge: make it from natural materials (vs. foam and plastic straws). No food substances allowed.

This is one of those assignments that piques my interest, and that I don't feel guilty about helping with. It qualifies as a family project. Really -- what's actually being learned here?

So, first, the virus: we went with the colorful and fascinating influenza germ:

We discussed carving and painting a styrofoam ball, but frankly: boring. Then it hit me: needle felting! It's a craft I recently learned, had a brief fling with making Easter eggs, then couldn't think of anything else to make that wasn't a bit too twee. Perfect for a flu virus!! Plus Henry enjoys poking a ball of wool roving with a very sharp barbed needle - an excellent craft for a kid who avoids all crafts.

Ta-daa:

I think we nailed it, don't you? So did the teacher - we, I mean Henry, got an A.

Romneycrate

Math is fun!

One of the unexpected benefits of having a middle schooler (wait - there are benefits?) is that you get to relearn all the stuff you forgot in the intervening years. For example, I now know how to find the volume of a four-sided pyramid. Something that should come in handy never. Oh, and the surface area of a cylinder, in case I need to paint a water tower in my future.

These are concepts I haven't thought about in decades. Actually, I don't remember learning them the first time, so this is a handy brush-up. I enjoyed (re)learning how to graph a linear equation with a y-intercept this year. I figure it's great for senior brain-training, and as long as I'm not graded on it, mildly interesting.

So what do you say when your child asks you why he has to learn these concepts? The line about how it's going to be useful some day; or that it's a good computational and learning exercise; or do you tell them the truth: that it's to pass the test? I've said all three, but here's another I just thought of: learn it so you can help your kids with their homework someday.

"Right circular pyramid"? Do they mean a cone? Neither of which these are. Now I'm really confused.

Cereal Guilt

Being a charter member of the Bad Moms Club, I have plenty I can feel guilty about. Topping the list this week is sugared cereals.

Henry eats about five bowls of cereal a day. At least. So I've posted a list of cereals on our fridge, ranked by nutrition. I drew a line below which I wouldn't buy. It's right below Frosted Flakes and right above Cookie Crunch. Nothing involved with  marshmallows, cookies or candy bars.        

Henry's been on a campaign for the last seven years to get me to buy him Lucky Charms (way down on the list). I've brought home all the fun organic brands I ended up having to choke down, slid by with Cocoa Krispies and even stooped as low as Trix (see photo). So far I've resisted the charms of multi-colored marshmallow bits ("extruded marbits," technically) but he's wearing me down.

Henry's about 5' 8" and weighs 115, so childhood obesity is not an issue here. He's also never had a cavity, so my warnings that his teeth are going to rot out and be drilled to the roots don't work. He really isn't into sugar otherwise: I have to throw out Easter and Halloween candy months later (after I've eaten my fill), but he wants that cereal.

My friends range on the continuum of "sugar = poison" to "what's the big deal, it's just a friggin' box of cereal!" I don't buy into the popular conviction that sugar and food dyes cause behavioral issues, ADHD, bad grades, juvenile delinquency and general depravity. But standing in the cereal aisle, looking at the screaming neon packages designed to entice innocent babes to stuff themselves with chemicals, the Bad Moms Club guilt kicks in.

Anyway, I only have to hold out 12 more days. Summer's coming, and what's summer for but to sleep late, watch cartoons and eat junky cereal?  Isn't it?

Quite pretty, really, but is it food?

Drop and give me 7

I was reading a terrifically smart and funny NYT article about the "stupid" casual games that we play on our phones and tablets that end up sucking up hours of our lives, and the writer mentioned Drop 7 as one that he was addicted to.

Beiong the inquisitive and curious reader that I am, I decided to download it. Damn him.

I've never been an Angry Birds fan. Cute, but doesn't hold my interest. And Words with Friends is not really a game to me, it's a social activity that I enjoy with some friends, and it has a leisurely pace over the course of several days. Yes, I'm playing against seven people right now, but that's not so bad - I could play up to 20.

But with Drop 7 I've finally tasted true addiction. This game is pure mind-crack. I tell myself I'll play just a quick game, and an hour and a half later, I stagger away from the phone, my mind filled with dots and lines and exploding numbers. It's a very simple game with a strategy that grows in complexity as you begin to see patterns and combinations. It's sort of a cross between Tetris, Sudoku and that kid's game, Four in a Line. No need for cheesy graphics or cartoony subplots here. Just. the. dots.

I play it standing by the stove, forgetting what I'm cooking. I play it "just a few minutes" before going to sleep, reluctantly stopping a lost hour later. I've been captured by the depth of that world of that simple 7x7 grid that I crave during the workday at my desk, sneaking glances at the forbidden phone.

As quoted in the article, the designer of the game, Frank Lantz, says "Drop7 occupies a 'hinge in the universe' that is at once mathematical (it allows you to play between the ordinal and cardinal meanings of a number) and spiritual: it holds you in a place between conscious problem-­solving and pure intoxication."

Yeah. Whatever. The only way I can see to break the addiction is to delete the app from my phone, and I'm going to do that. Any time now. I'm just going to play a couple more games after I post this, but if it really gets out of control, I can delete it any time. I will. Meanwhile, I invite you to try it*. Just once. Go ahead - what do you have to lose?

 *also available on iTunes

Why we love the high desert

This is a Friday frylet freezlet for sure.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Looks like a great weekend to stay in and knit.

I can't think of a post title, canoe?

I've decided to sell my beautiful canoe. Bought in the days when money didn't matter, it fit the vision of my small family canoeing blissfully together on the lakes and rivers of Central Oregon. Or of me and a loving mate on a moonlit paddle. Of course that vision assumed the family wanted to canoe; versus, say, dirt-jumping on a mountain bike all summer, or that there was a loving mate in the picture. I've used the canoe maybe 15 times in the last eight years, and it should be owned by someone who can enjoy it.

Here's the listing, in case you're working on your own vision.

It kills me to sell it - admitting the dream hasn't transpired. I just need to construct a new one: I think I'll look at a small, stable kayak fit for one. Or maybe just an inner tube I can carry down to the river.

The only photo I have of the canoe and me. *sigh*

Top Ten Tuesday - random queries

Things I've researched on the Google this week:

1. Why does almond butter taste nothing like almonds?
2. How to fix the leak in my drip irrigation pressure regulator
3. Mother's Day, Mothers' Day or Mothers Day?
4. Drop 7 strategies
5. How to break an addiction to Drop 7
6. Whether "Awake" will be cancelled by NBC
7. Mean, mode and median - which is which, again
8. Why do I have tennis elbow in both arms, when I don't even play tennis?
9. Where to buy Woodsy Owl dolls wholesale (seemingly nonexistent)
10. Size 28x32 men's jeans - also don't exist

I guess that kinda sums it all up these days.

 

When Cultures Collide

We spent Christmas at my parents' in Hendersonville, NC, which is somewhere south of Asheville  somewhere in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge mountains. A beautiful area of hills and hollows, Appalachian mixed with southern lite.

One of my tasks was to procure and set up the Christmas tree (my second of the season, but who's counting?). On a cold rainy morning Henry and I dashed out to make Christmas happen. We needed a new tree stand first as well as the tree to put in it. We weren't up for dealing with box-store parking and crowds, so went looking for a local tree lot. Unlike Oregon, they're not on every corner in NC. But there was an ancient hardware store next to a little garden nursery down the road and I stopped in, hoping to get both errands done at one shot.

I ran into the hardware store first. This was the kind with an ancient wooden ride-on horse on the porch, wood floors, bins of nails and deer heads hung on the walls. It came complete with three menfolk hanging around the stove discussing an old car. I asked the young man at the counter if they had Christmas tree stands.

Unfortunately they didn't, so I asked where I might find one nearby. He called to the men: "She's looking for a tree stand - do you know where she can find one?" They looked over and checked me out. They seemed confused, concerned and doubtful. One said: "She's not really dressed for it," as they looked at each other with some alarm, taking in my suburban mom ensemble. Another said to the group: "Well, isn't there one down the road a few miles?" "Yeah, Harry's got one at his place..."  I said "Is that a store?" We all stared at one another. The young man of the group said "No, a Christmas tree stand! To hold a Christmas tree!" Light dawned on their faces. "We thought you was going deer hunting!" "We didn't think you was dressed for it!" They all laughed and looked relieved. My turn to be confused.

Turns out that a tree stand in western North Carolina refers to a structure in the woods from which to shoot deer. I noted that I didn't have my gun with me, we all guffawed awhile and they directed me to the nursery next door where I got the needed tree stand, threw a tree into the trunk, and headed home to produce Christmas.

The forest was safe for another day...

The godless 1%

forgive me for I have punned 

I just read in the NY Times that the incidence of Americans who identify as atheists is 1.2%.

That is the percent who self-identified specifically with the A-word in this poll. Another 12% described their religion as "nothing in particular." (I'm not making that up.) I think it's harder to declare you're an atheist than it is to say nothing in particular. It means you've thought about it and come to a decision, rather than simply waiting for a sign either way. (Actually, the nothing people worry me - to be indifferent to such a core issue seems profoundly apathetic, but that's another post.)

I've written before about the anomaly of being a church-going atheist. It appears that Unitarians make up .7% in this poll, so I'm one of the smallest of the small percents. Funny. I don't feel that way on Sunday mornings, singing "Spirit of Life" along with my fellow congregants. Thank God (oh, wait, I can't -) that I have found a place where even the smallest point-somethings feel welcome, "a place of solace, comfort and community" as we say in the opening words.

So this gives me the chance to tell my favorite Unitarian joke (of which there are so many):

“How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb?”

“We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship to your light bulb and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service. We explore a number or light bulb traditions including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted; all of which are equally valid paths to spiritual luminescence.”

Amen.

Let me be perfectly clear

Have you ever played that team-building game where you have to give someone verbal instructions on how to do something to see if you're communicating each step clearly? Oh. Well, I have. The reason never became so clear to me as earlier this fall when Henry wanted to go to a fair in town.

He was planning to bike there to meet his friends and needed cash for the games and junk food. I only had a twenty dollar bill so gave it to him with these words:

"OK, you can go, but first go down to the corner store and get change."

Twenty minutes later and no Henry, I started to get concerned. I went outside and asked another neighborhood kid if he had seen Henry. "Yeah, he went to the store and then rode down to the Fall Fair."

With my twenty dollars in carefully counted change, which he then spent, treating his friends to all the cotton candy they could stand.

I couldn't even get mad at him - he did exactly what I told him to do.

Cranberries Go Tex-Mex

Yes this is a repeat. So sue me.

This is my all-time favorite cranberry sauce. I bring it to every Thanksgiving gathering, mostly for me. It adds a surprising and welcome contrast to the typical Tgiving menu, and goes great on cold turkey sandwiches as well. Warn the children, however - it's spicy.

TEX-MEX CRANBERRY SAUCE

INGREDIENTS: (approximate)
1 bag of cranberries
cup of sugar
cup of water
up to 1 chopped jalapeno, or about 1/4 cup canned, chopped
1-2 scallions, sliced
1+ tablespoon cilantro
1+ teaspoon cumin
2+ teaspoons lime juice

DIRECTIONS:
Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil; add cranberries, return to boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, gently stir in all the other ingredients and modify heat to your taste. This keeps forever in the fridge.

Top Ten Tues. Dislikes

I said I was starting up this blog again. I'm trying. So here's a post.

10 fairly innocuous things that I have a really strong negative reaction to:

1. vanilla candles
2. Celtic music
3. when someone runs their fingers along the edge of a piece of paper
4. raindrops falling on my head
5. cheesecake
6. the sound of studded tires
7. dirt in my sandals
8. bell peppers
9. playing volleyball
10. anything with a laugh track

OK, kind of makes me sound like a crank. What are yours?

Don't do it, for the love of god!

 

phraseology

 Happy Monday. Feels like a good time for a grammar rant.

Here's a few new favorite phrases I've been collecting:

"Personal Watermelon" - as promoted by my local Safeway. 'Cause I don't share my watermelon with nobody.

"Artisan Cocktails" - from an ad for a bar in (of course) Portland, Oregon, though I hear it's a national trend. This is what those medieval craftsmen were aiming for, ultimately: artfully hand-crafted alcoholic beverages.

"Glamping" - this is not a medical emergency; it's a portmanteau of "glamour" and "camping." Seriously. Check this out.

 

And some words that I wish people would look up before they use them to sound edumacated:

Blase - this does not mean "blah." Look it up.

Penultimate - the second to highest, most, best; not the highest most best itself.

Mute point - it's moot, not mute. MOOT.

 

Okay, got that off my mind. What are yours?

 

Fri. frylet: where to post your status

This chart has been making the rounds and you know I love flowcharts so had to share. Click on the image to embiggen it.

Status conscious? Check out this social media flowchart.

Clever thoughts bubble up constantly, but what’s the right venue for all of them? Now you can consult this handy graphic to help make those hard choices among Google+, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Dilemma solved!

This is all from the breakingcopy copywriting blog. Check it out.

 

Flipping out

This is what Henry has been obsessed with lately:

 

Flipping through the air. On a trampoline, off electrical boxes, into the foam pit. I've been driving him to gyms (and paying fees) several times a week so he can do this over and over.

I've been struggling with this. First, that he's going to break his neck or other body part. He just sprained his ankle trying to land and it's been a pain in the butt. Mostly because I have to walk the dog morning AND evening and take out the garbage and bring him tea while he rests on the couch. It's all I do. But I digress...

The other reason I am not wild about flipping is more complicated. I don't understand the point of it. He doesn't want to take gymnastics (too structured) and he's not interested in diving. He hasn't learned to land except a simple back flip from a platform, and that turned into an accident. So where are we going with this?

"I just like to fly through the air!" he says, and I try to be okay with that. Life should really be that simple.

Weren't we cute?

Happy Halloween from the family, circa late '50's:

You can't see it here, but I had a turtle shell strapped to my back. Cutest little reptile ever!

 

But wait, there's more:

 

Okay, one more, because you begged:

But how come I have to be the clown again?

Wiener Envy

Ever since I stopped blogging in July, I have been wondering what event would motivate me to start up again. Many comment-worthy events have occurred since then, but I haven't been compelled to post until today. The must-blog event has finally arrived.

 

Bend has been blessed by the presence of the Wienermobile all week. Numerous sightings on Facebook have allowed the wiener-focused to follow it around town. And of course it's tweeting and posting on its own pages. Henry spotted it on our drive to school this morning and we risked a tardy warning to stop and admire. It was parked all alone in a motel parking lot, waiting for its handlers to wake and fire it up. (unintentional lame pun there)

I have nothing profound to say about the Wienermobile; I just like saying the word. However, no matter the number of hot dogs it causes to be eaten, it's also performed another valuable service: it's gotten me to start up the blog again. So really, we're all wieners.

Now that's how to treat a woman

Scene: The front porch. Robin and Melissa have just arrived from a restaurant.
Melissa leans in the door and calls to her son.

Melissa: Henry! It's Robin's birthday! Come out here and wish her a happy birthday!

Robin: It's my birthday, Henry! I want a song and dance!

Henry: Okay, let me get my shoes.

 

That's my boy!

Skunk work

 

My brother's "conservation of bustedness" theory goes something like:  when you fix something, something else has to break, to keep the level of bustedness balanced. So of course when I fixed my car headlight (for the third time in three years), the burnt out driveway light, the leaking hose faucet and the screen door where Bindi busted through, something big had to go wrong. Which is that a skunk moved in under the deck.

Actually, I think a critter has been living there for some time as my previous dog showed a lot of interest in that corner of the deck, but I always assumed it was a family of brave mice (given the cat ratio in the neighborhood). But the other evening, I saw a large skunk waddling around checking for possible compost leavings before he scooted back under the deck again. Because as you know, skunks are crepuscular. (One of those cool words you learn in a wildlife museum. Look it up.)

After an initial panic, I called a number of wildlife control companies. Oddly enough, none of them seemed very eager to help me with this problem. The first one quoted me an astronomical figure to dig all around the deck and install chicken wire. When I expressed surprise at the price, he asked me if I just moved here from Mexico. Random, and belligerent, so I moved on. The second guy made and broke an appointment, then confessed he wasn't really comfortable with skunks, in spite of being certified by Oregon Wildlife to remove them. The third said he'd trap it for $180. However, due to state laws, he'd either have to release it on the property or euthanize it, neither of which work for me.

It all seems too much to deal with, frankly.  So I'm contemplating the live and let live approach.

Pepe Le Pew hasn't bothered us yet, really. If he's been around for awhile, he's got to be a pretty comfortable with our family;  kids, dogs, cats and I all hang around on the deck and back patio. I spray the hose and entertain, Bindi barks and pees, cats sprawl and kids pound across it while yelling and shooting water guns. Or maybe he's a really sound sleeper.

The potential downside is that Bindi, who isn't the sharpest pencil in the box but has plenty of enthusiasm, will spot it and chase. I've had dogs skunked before and lived through it, but it's no fun for anyone. While I'm figuring out what to do, I've researched the best skunk smell removal formula and laid in some hydrogen peroxide, just in case.

I've started a mild harassment program to gently convince the skunk that he'd be more comfortable elsewhere. Various suggestions I've found include sticking balls of ammonia-soaked rags under the deck, applying cayenne pepper solution around the den, putting dirty socks by the entrance (I'll need Henry's assistance with that one), installing a flashing red beacon or using commercial "predator urine" repellents. In the meantime, I've trained a light on the entrance to his den and am thinking about playing a radio there all day. Rap music, probably. Or heavy metal - that would make me move.