Visions of sugarplums

In "The Night Before Christmas," the children who were all snug in their beds had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

But what, exactly is a sugarplum? Apparently, it's either a piece of candy or a real piece of fruit.



(above) An extremely fine example of plums, and a featured photo from wikipedia. Taken or Created by User:Fir0002, used under gnu license.

I personally like to think of sugar plums as candied plums, rather like those lovely sugared cranberries that Paula Dean and Kat Cora made on Iron Chef America for the dessert battle, except with plums.


A more commonly-recognized Christams candy. Public domain image by Kathleen French

Fairy flower children

My brother got married recently to a lovely, talented and really remarkable woman. They had a beautiful, charming wedding, which was mightily enhanced by the cutest flower girls ever.


Fairies of the meadow by Nils Blommér (1816-1853) Image is in the public domain. While these fairies are ethereal and dancing nicely, they are not terribly cute.


I’ve seen plenty of children who work as professional models acting like wedding flower girls, but my sister-in-law’s nieces were even cuter than that. Just imagine, three cherubic-faced pink-complexioned girls with curly blonde hair in gauzy golden dresses with training ribbon bows. Now imagine that they behaved perfectly throughout the wedding, strewing petals as directed, sitting nicely during the ceremony, and generally looking like fairy children. Now imagine that my cherub-faced nephew, resplendent in his pint-sized tuxedo is screaming and generally acting like the 2-year-old that he is.

A digression here is in order, because my nephew is actually much cuter than a cherub. Also, what I tend to think when I think "cherub" is really not a cherub, but rather a putti, which is cuter than a cherub.



(Left) What I normally think of when I think "cherub"...a putto. Photograph by Jürgen Hornschuh, used under Gnu license.

(Below)More putti...In a painting by Rubens, often considered to be a well-known artist.



I firmly believe that my nephew is one of the cutest, funnest children ever. He also has a really healthy pair of lungs. Really healthy. Those girls were unfazed. They were the cutest, best-behaved flower girls ever.

Ironically (or perhaps not), my brother has long been rather fascinated by flower fairies. He even has a couple of tattoos. The fairies are not as cute as my brother's nieces and nephew, but still worth looking at.

American Cheese Guilt

After reading Dave's comment about my cheese entry, I feel compelled to list some of the many reasons why I disagree that Dave is an idiot.

Top 10 reasons why Dave is not an idiot

10. He teaches prisoners how to read
9. He convinces ordinary North Americans to eat bugs for dinner

Deep fried bug stall at an Asian market...yum. Image copied under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Photo by Takoradee

8. He orders a mean Thai entrée
7. He shares his cookie-dough ice cream


Roman ice cream (probably not cookie-dough flavored). Photo by Alessio Damato. Copied under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

6. He is more educated than 80% of people worldwide
5. He managed to live in Wyoming for two years without serious cultural mishaps
4. His “pears become wet” poem is a universally-recognized college alumnae/i cue


Moist pears. USDA photo by Keith Weller. Image Number K5299-1.

3. He wrote a couple of Spark notes
2. His daughter seems to think he’s the smartest man on earth
1. He picked Kim to be his life partner

So…not too shabby, if you ask me, any nonsense with burger shacks notwithstanding.

Making assessments

Photo by Moriori for Ruler article, released into the public domain by same.

Things don’t mean terribly much unless you can measure them. Well, in most circumstances. Luna Lovegood, one of Harry Potter’s good friends, would tend to disagree on the grounds that it’s pretty hard to measure a crumple-horned snorkack, possibly because there aren’t any available specimens to measure.

However, in the more workaday world inhabited by MightyIsis, most things can be measured and should be. Take, for example, the humble pint glass.


(Left)Photo by Will Murray (Willscrlt), released into the public domain.

It’s hard, though, especially when you would strongly prefer to let things be a little more free-flowing, like chocolate chips.


(Right) The origins of chocolate chips. Public domain image by Medicaster.

Of course, assessment is more than simply measuring. It also means evaluating, as in these chocolate chips are "yummy," as observed by the "mmmm" sound that consumers make while eating them. And, by that measure, the snorkack can be assessed, possibly as "elusive."

But is it really necessary to assess the number of chocolate chips you’re eating? They’re so yummy. They remain yummy even after you find that, of the four pairs of jeans that fit last month, all are unacceptably tight and two will no longer button. In this situation, and assessment of the benefits and expenses of eating an unlimited number of chocolate chips, going to the gym more frequently, and buying new jeans might be in order.

Godmother by mail

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Image is in the public domain.

In the fairy tale Cinderella, the heroine's godmother is curiously absent until she appears to give fashion advice, support and transportation to the venue where Cinderella finds herself a husband, thus getting out of everyone's hair forever. I wonder sometimes where the godmother was...why didn't she write? And even if the evil stepmother was intercepting Cinderella's mail as evil stepparents are wont to do, Cinderella's godmother was a fairy. Why didn't she bibbity-boppity her way over and help her godchild out?

My dear friend kissmiley is expecting her first child in far-away London. Kissmiley is bearing up under the pressure quite well, especially considering that she is all alone in a foreign land full of mini washers, seeking medical care and day care.


(Right) The Buckingham Palace in England. Picture relased into public domain by Misterweiss. Kissmiley does not live here.

I am lucky enough to be the godmother of babysmiley, but find myself in a quandary: how to be a godmother by mail?

It’s a bit hard, especially when one has superstition to deal with. Personally, I feel that it is tempting the fates to decorate the nursery too early or send baby gifts before the baby is available outside the womb to receive them. Maybe I’ve read Anne’s House of Dreams one too many times, but I can’t erase the image of the young, bereaved mother unable to even take a walk alone in their grief while simultaneously needing to deal with arriving baby gifts. I get all weepy whenever I think about it.



Prince Edward Island map 1765, somewhat before Anne of Green Gables was published. Image is in the public domain.


Another difficult issue is day care. My understanding is that many day care agencies have waiting lists of up to 3 years, which, if my calculations are correct, actually would require the parents to have planned child care over two years in advance of the baby’s birth. How is such a thing possible? I mean, OK some people might be able to plan with in vitro fertilization, but that can have some unanticipated effects, or babies. Just look at Jon and Kate…plus 8. It’s a great show, and they seem to be muddling along fine, but I really can’t believe that they were planning to have 6 additional children. They certainly aren’t claiming that they originally wanted sextuplets, although they pretty clearly wanted them as soon as they showed up in the womb. Most people in that situation would probably be prepared to have 2 or 3 more babies¸but 6 is certainly a handful, even if they are that cute (and those kids are pretty darn cute).

Which brings me back to kissmiley. Is it unreasonably superstitious to refrain from giving any gifts until babysmiley arrives in the light of these day care issues?

The Silent Treatment

Some ostraka from the Agora Museum, Athens--names such as Aristeides and Kimon can be read. Such shards were the basis for the earliest forms of ostracism. Photo from traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/Archaeopaedia

According to Dr. Kipling D. Williams, a professor at Purdue University, giving someone the silent treatment is more psychologically (and even physically) painful than actually striking them. This is because the brain responds in the same way to both actions. In fact, Kipling D. Williams (is that not the coolest name ever?), suggests that raising one’s voice is a better alternative.

I feel a little bit bad now.

As an introvert, I often shut down in situations of high stress, like being confined in the same car with one person for over 4 hours, which is when I find myself desperately needing a break from high-intensity interaction. I now feel pretty bad about this, because I’ve been unintentionally harming loved ones by shutting down.

I do not feel bad, however, for giving the silent treatment to a certain boyfriend who said something nasty about two hours into our first (and last) car trip. I asked what, exactly, he meant by that, and he didn’t want to answer on the grounds that he didn’t want to discuss it, he just felt like saying it. I told him that I was made deeply uncomfortable by what he’d said, and that I’d be unhappy and upset if he didn’t clear the air. He didn’t respond, and two minutes later tried to change the subject. I didn’t answer him, even when he insinuated that I was overreacting. He tried the new subject a few times. Three and a half hours later, he finally caved in and apologized.

It’s really not easy to give someone the silent treatment when you’re all alone in a subcompact car (all my friends are very energy conscious), let me tell you, boy. I think it's just easier to say "sorry" and stop saying nasty things.


1996 VW Polo at Bristol Car Show, The Downs, Bristol, England.
Taken by Adrian Pingstone in June 2004 and released to the public domain

I also feel much better about my tendency to speak firmly and loudly in situations of conflict. Unfortunately, women who get even the slightest edge to their voices when upset are “hysterical loons” (which I think is a bit mean, since loons are really very nice, and not terribly edgy birds), and don’t tend to be treated seriously.



Arctic Loon (Gavia arctica) on Nest by Robert Bergman United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Image is in the public domain

Hopefully Kipling D. Williams will have some answer to that in the coming months. For now, he has quite an impressive array of titles.

Of course, I still need a strategy for getting some mental space during road trips.

Top Ten Reasons People Hate Road Trips

Pavement markings on Old Route 66 on on Cajon Blvd. in San Bernardino, California, August 29, 2001. released into the public domain by Philip J. Erdelsky


10. passengers who forgot to shower

9. getting stuck in rush-hour traffic with no juice boxes

8. tacky gift shops at road-side facilities

7. aunts who refuse to eat at any restaurant with the words "road kill" in the name

6. paying $4 per gallon for gas

5. needing a potty break along an isolated stretch of highway

4. getting stuck in the back seat with a four-year-old who is pretending to be a bumblebee

3. drivers who try to stop at restaurants named after road kill

2. glares: sun, spouse, snow, small child

1. that 99 bottles of beer on the wall song


I’m not 100% sure that these are the top ten reasons people don’t like car trips. Personally, I find it really difficult to maintain my temper while in rush hour traffic with an impatient passenger who is angry because we’re lost ( usually this is my fault--I get lost a lot), but refuses to read the road map and also complains when I pull over to read it myself. (OK, this has only happened a few times, but it was not fun for anyone involved.)

I have asked a few people why they don’t like reading maps. Most of them think maps are hard to read. Others are afraid of getting us lost. And, although this might seem weird, many people are afraid of folding maps incorrectly because of some past experience with an authority figure who had rather forceful views on keeping maps as pristine as possible. This experience has a way of making people actually afraid that if they misfold any map under any circumstance, then something very dire and bad will happen to them.

This won’t happen in my car. I really don’t care if my maps get “messed up”…bending, folding and spindling (ok, spindling is less frequent) are all par for the course for a map in use, and frankly, I think the maps should just grin and bear it and stop making people nervous. My friends are good, kind, intelligent people and they deserve better than to be bullied by maps. Unfortunately, early conditioning is pretty powerful—just think about Pavlov’s poor dogs, drooling when they heard a bell, even if they didn’t get any treats.



Celestial map from the 17th century, by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit. Image is in the public domain. I doubt that it was ever folded, bent, spindled or mutilated during a road trip.

When I think of trouble with map folding, I always think of Colonel Parmander of F-Troop. He had a lot of trouble with maps. And, given the number of other problems he had, like the antics that Larry Storch’s character was continually getting up to with the local “Indian” tribe (I don’t mean to be offensive here. This term should be understood as indicating a bizarre Hollywood construction based more heavily on Peter Pan than any actual Native Americans past or present.), you’d think that maps would be the least of his worries. Not so. Apparently, when setting out for battle, much like setting off on a car trip, it helps to know where you’re going.

Hook and loop meets isolation monkey

There are several ways to look at the idea of attachment. For example, Velcro, which is the trade name for a particular brand of hook-and-loop fasteners. See: <"http://www.velcro.com/ ">

Velcro was developed as an improvement on items like zippers, buttons, and laces because it has a not of interesting properties, works better in some cases, and also makes a cool ripping sound.



Photo: Alberto Salguero (Pablo Alberto Salguero Quiles)

Usually this type of fastening isn't what people mean when they think "attachment" in their relationships. Ok, most people aren't really talking about Velcro or other nonbranded hook-and-loop fasteners on dates at all, although there's a great scene in Next Stop Wonderland in which Hope Davis's character goes on a blind date with a guy who markets little miscellaneous rubber widgets for the "Crilex corporation" in Waltham. He admits that they're not terribly exciting, but intimates that bad things could happen if we didn't have those little rubber nubs on the bottom of the phone. Hope Davis' character doesn't go on a second date with Rubber Nub Man, but she does look at the nubs more frequently after that scene. Too bad for Nub Man we've all moved to cell phones.

...but I digress...

It has been suggested that an attached person in a relationship would be like Crazy Glue. Interestingly, Wikipedia's expert, notes that there is a generic name, "cyanoacrylate" that describes both super glues and medical glues, a category into which crazy glue falls.


Cyanoacrylate. Public domain image from wikipedia.

According to psychological attachment theory, the 'crazy glue' attachment between romantic partners could be described as "anxious/preoccupied" attachment or "clinginess." This research into attachment included those poor baby monkeys that were kept in isolation from other monkeys and then dumped into suburban-type monkey habitats by Harry Harlow. None of the monkeys were particularly happy about these proceedings.


Vertical chamber apparatus, called the "pit of despair" where baby monkeys were kept in isolation by psychologist Harry Harlow.

In fairness, Harlow tried to make the monkeys better, and succeeded fairly well with a lot of them.

...yes, that was another digression...

When considering adult romantic relationships (See Fraely and Shaver http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/shaver/publications/fraley00.pdf), securely attached partners are comfortable depending on each other, accepting help and support and then giving it back in return. This is a normal expectation in human relationships, and people who are able to find and maintain a balance in this area are happier and healthier.

Clingy partners get unreasonably upset if they feel neglected, which they can often imagine, rather like poor Mary Musgrove in Persuasion. They are not fun to date. On the other hand, avoidant partners diss their mates and then blame them for not being happy enough about being dissed. This behavior is especially lacking in charm when a mate has been seriously ill and the avoidant partner feels like going bowling instead of calling to make sure everything is all right.

To reiterate, an appropriate level of attachment looks like this:



Image by Kelly Cookson Used under Gnu license

So, what does this mean, exactly? let's take the example of a blog that is used primarily as a platform to communicate and entertain friends and family and as a primary means of self-expression. One might reasonably expect such a blog to contain mention of things that are important to the author. Hence, when MightyIsis was romantically attached, this blog contained mentions of the attachee where appropriate, like during events where both partners were present. In contrast, the blog of an unattached person would have little to no mention of a romantic partner in it.

Source for "pit of despair" photo: PhD thesis of Steven Suomi, University of Wisconsin believed to have been released, but fair use is claimed. The image has no commercial value; it is widely available and iconic; it is being used for educational purposes in articles about the experiment and its creator.

It's really all my fault, dammit!!

Was "Great adventures in cheese -OR- Why I should have read Paul Fussel 10 years earlier"

What upper-middle class people think of when they hear the word "cheese."

Cheese on a market in Basel, Switzerland by Alex Anlicker


In my family of origin, the American cheese slices that were not wrapped in plastic were considered, if not "fancy," then at least "better" than the plastic-wrapped ones. (Wispride, the pride of Wisconsin, was "fancy" guest fare. My mom even had a special little crock that exactly fit the plastic container. No, I'm not kidding.) In fact, I was unaware that any cheese product came without a branded outside label until I was 5 years old and met my grandmother, who lived in Europe and made her own cheese from milk she milked herself from her very own personal set of goats. (No, I'm not kidding.) I thought this was an idiosyncratic quirk.

When I went to college, I started interacting with people whose social class identifications were rather different than my own. Many of the students in my high school were far more well-off than I was, but their tastes and cultural assumptions were quite similar. Not so, my college friends.

One of my dearest college friends, DG, has what I now view as distinct class assumptions from myself. In the past, this caused some problems because I just didn't get it. Over the years, he refused to eat at Burger King or McDonald's (this made road trips a bit challenging). When I started dating his best friend from high school (BFFHS), I started to suspect that these preferences were symptoms of deeper differences.

BFFHS and I went out for about a year, and he was a very courteous and considerate boyfriend. He opened doors and paid for dinner and made sure I didn't get run over when I accidentally stepped off the curb in front of taxis. He was also way out of my league class-wise, as I discovered on a trip to IGA.

We were planning to go hiking, so we were a bit off the beaten path. In some municipalities, the IGA, which is an independent grocer (see http://www.iga.com/home.asp), can be a bit more downscale than the large chain supermarkets. This particular IGA was graced with signs that welcomed users of food stamps and recipients of WIC (a special program for women, infants, and preschool-aged children). It was a small, old, and battered-looking store, and the dairy case was also small and battered-looking. I didn't think anything of this, until BFFHS said, "I can't find the gourmet cheese section."

When I was in high school, I probably would have just handed BFFHS a canister of Wispride and called it a day. However, by this time of life, I had acquired what I liked to think of as "cosmopolitan flair" despite my Mickey Mouse leggings. I knew what "gourmet cheese" meant, but I viewed gourmet cheese sections as a hallmark of "fancy" supermarkets. For me, the IGA was certainly not fancy, although it was very clean. I said that I didn't think there would be a gourmet cheese section, which BFFHS poo-poohed because all supermarkets have gourmet cheese sections.

As I wrestled with the new concept that people actually lived in communities where all supermarkets were fancy, BFFHS went to find the manager--there were three. They took one look at BFFHS, turned as a unit and glanced accusingly at me, as if to suggest that I should have known better than to bring him into an IGA in the first place, then directed BFFHS to the gourmet cheese store in the nearby mini mall. I thought the cheese shop was quite fancy, personally.

BFFHS and I broke up, years passed, and DG came to visit me at graduate school. I brought him to a burger shack-type place by the lake--the kind of burger place full of pimply teen aged kids behind cash registers and in front of grills paved with hamburgers and cheeseburgers. There were gigantic plastic pails of pickles (sweet and dill), and the menu was posted up on the wall in individual removable plastic letters. Someone had mixed up several colors and sizes, and a few "e's" had been rendered by using a backwards "3." A sign taped to a bucket of pickles indicated that onion rings were "special" and required a trip to the last register with your receipt. For me, this was a perfectly normal American-cheese oriented venue, much like Burger King and McDonald's, except more "fancy" (because of the free pickles.)

We arrived at the cash register after a long line of people whose orders were like: "3 cheeseburgers, 2 fries, and 3 cokes." Just like at McDonald's or Burger King. (See above for the names of restaurants where my friend would not eat.)

I turned to my friend who said, "I'll take a cheeseburger, make that medium rare, but a little bit more on the medium side. Oh, and where are your selections for cheeses?" The pimply young man behind the cash register looked up, bewildered. His mouth flapped open helplessly. I had a recollection of getting a "gourmet" burger at a Bennigan's that had been cooked to order. "Cheese or no cheese," I said, still not understanding why my friend was looking at the menu again.

"But what type of cheese is it?" My friend asked. "American." I said, looking at the cashier, who nodded. My friend shuddered, then helped himself to pickles. I ordered him a burger, and when we sat down to eat, my friend noted that it had not been cooked to his specifications. I thought of the Bennigan's again, and then about the burgers at "steak and stein" a now-defunct restaurant that sometimes had cheddar or Swiss cheese on the burgers (this was beyond "fancy" when I was a kid.)

What I think of as a default when someone says "cheese."

Ilmari Karonen Processed cheese slices individually wrapped in plastic

There was an object lesson here that I didn't get until several more years later, when I read Class by Paul Fussel, who explains social class divisions in the United States. I found the book interesting, and wished that I'd read it before inflicting the burger shack and the IGA on my friends. After reading Fussel, I also understood why the IGA managers looked at me accusingly. BFFHS was wearing an argyle sweater vest.

Who knew? ...well, probably I should have


An argyle sock turned inside-out to show the technique better. Taken by me in August 2005. Don Blaheta (aka blahedo).

Mammaliciousness

A good friend of mine does not like to eat mammals for various moral, personal, heath, and ethical reasons. It's hard for him because he, like Homer Simpson, really really enjoys the plethora of products that come from the magical source of bacon, pork roll, ham, pork chops, and spare ribs--the pig.

Sow and five piglets from http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/


I respect my friend's decision, mostly because he doesn't get all weird when I chow down on a nice, juicy hunk of bleeding red meat. Yum! He also doesn't lecture me about the morality of the beef industry while wearing leather.

A porterhouse steak on the grill. This is a public domain photo from PDphoto.org

So, on this trip we stopped at Cracker Barrel, which I find to be a truly delightful spot for lunch, despite any allegations of bad practices. You can find the nearest at http://www.crackerbarrel.com/ (No, I'm not getting paid to advertise--I just like them.) The Cracker Barrel of Broome County, NY is my personal favorite. They are SO polite and the food is extra-yummy.

However, it's not the greatest place to bring a friend who doesn't eat mammals. Why? Well, there's bacon in some of the vegetables. Personally, I like bacon-y vegetables. Chef John Besh noted on Iron Chef America, that he didn't know what a vegetable without bacon tasted like when he was a child. And if Chef Besh likes bacon-vegetable combos, why shouldn't I? Yum! (or did I already say that?)

My youngest brother is rather fixated on bacon, and by that I mean that he likes bacon rather more than my other two brothers and Jeffrey Steingarten. Which is rather a lot. He (my youngest brother, not Jeffrey Steingarten) likes to send out bacon-related web sites.

Here are some bacon-oriented sites. http://iheartbacon.com/ http://www.baconunwrapped.com/ http://baconshow.blogspot.com/

I also know some people who like Francis Bacon....erm, not to eat, but to read. Possibly to read about. I don't know that much about Mr. Bacon (or Sir Bacon?), except that he dressed in a way that I would think of now as funny, but at the time was rather fashionable.



This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.


Just think...someone had to sew all those buttonholes by hand. Likely, that someone was a mammal.

I love blogthings

Your Five Variable Love Profile

Propensity for Monogamy: Your propensity for monogamy is high.You find it easy to be devoted and loyal to one person.And in return, you expect the same from who you love.Any sign of straying, and you'll end things. Experience Level: Your experience level is high.You've loved, lost, and loved again.You have had a wide range of love experiences.And when the real thing comes along, you know it! Dominance: Your dominance is low.This doesn't mean you're a doormat, just balanced.You know a relationship is not about getting your way.And you love to give your sweetie a lot of freedom. Cynicism: Your cynicism is low.You are an eternal optimist when it comes to love and romance.No matter how many times you've been hurt - you're never bitter.You believe in one true love, your perfect soulmate.And if you haven't found true love yet, you know you will soon. Independence: Your independence is high.You don't need to be in love, and sometimes you don't even want love.Having your own life is very important for you...Even more important than having a relationship.

The'>http://www.blogthings.com/thefivevariablelovetest/">The Five Variable Love Test

You Are 31% Scary

You scare men off ocassionaly, but only very weak men. You're a normal woman. You're not perfect, but you're pretty darn close.

Do You Scare Off Men?

The closet of lizardly delights

After my experience with the high-end cockroach of Fort Lauderdale (see post, below), I found myself situated in a truly beautiful suite of rooms. It was absolutely lovey...spacious, with a deck and fuzzy bathrobes.

...And some lizards.

They were not quite as spectacular as the lizards that grace Tom Spinker's delightful web site.
http://www.southalley.com/index.html

However, they were, indeed, lizards, running around in the bottom of the closet.

After having encountered a cockroach who was larger than the combined closet-dwelling lizard community, I wondered if I would fare better in another hotel room. In the end, I decided to see if the lizards left the closet, since they weren't really causing a problem and they were much smaller than my insect visitors.

A few factors swayed my decision. The most important of these was that the animals appeared to be moving up the food chain, and I was not eager to encounter any mammals in my next hotel room.

I warned the nice girl at the desk about the lizards when I left. I felt bad, because she seemed really upset that I'd moved from bugs to lizards. They offered another room discount, which I turned down because they'd been really nice about the whole roach thing.

Picture credit: Olaf Breidbach, Visions of Nature: The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel. Prestel Verlag: New York, 2006. Image is in the public domain.

The Giant High-End Cockroach

The place: An anonymous posh hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The time: 7 am on a sunny mid-November Tuesday morning
The unwanted visitor: a 2-inch long, shiny dark brown cockroach-like insect
His friends: a number of worms
Fig. 49 from Insects, their way and means of living, R. E. Snodgrass.


Yuck.

I was not in a stellar mood when I arrived in Fort Lauderdale late Monday night. A full day of teaching, a hectic journey to Newark airport, a delayed flight, and a long taxi ride are not cheer-bringers to me. There may be people who thrive on such wonders, but I'm not among them. I was still having the tail end of an adrenaline rush when I got into bed and didn't sleep terribly well, but speaking engagements are speaking engagements, and you really do have to get up.

Imagine my surprise to find a rather large cockroach lying on his back in the middle of the bathroom floor. At first, I though he was dead, but no such luck was mine. After dropping some tissues on him, so I wouldn't have to touch his dead and possibly unhygienic insect body, I realized that my new friend was quite alive because he started scuttling madly about the travertine tiles. Then he disappeared.

Yuck.

A few moments later, as I was wondering whether to call for help, my new friend made a break for it. I breached the social contract by squishing him in a rocks glass, then got ready for my meeting and brought him to the front desk of the hotel. On the way, I discovered that a number of worms had also entered the room through the front door.

Did I say "yuck"?

Yuck.

The nice girl at the front desk was suitably horrified about my visitor and gave me a new, nicer posh room. I started feeling a little bit guilty because I'd really liked that story about Gregor Samsa when I was in high school.

Taking the bait

You don't have to take the bait.

Created in Adobe Illustrator by Jeremy Kemp, 1/16/05

Released into the public domain by the author.

A wise woman told me this while I was taking the bait from a former colleague at a recent conference.

And the wise woman is correct. You don't have to take the bait.

However, you can think about why you might want to. For example, a former partner could post unflattering things about you on his or her blog. And does such peurile behavior warrant your attention?

It might, if you can use the bait as an opportunity to improve.

Irresponsible posting

I've been reminded now by several people that I have been remiss in my blogging.

It's been busy. I had roaches to deal with.

Of course, it's really no excuse, but it is a reason, of sorts.

Wedding Bell Blues?

Well...not blues exactly. It does seem, however, that having purchased the tallest red shoes of my life, I was taller than 75% of the bridal party in which I participated. As I'm not that tall, it was a bit perplexing. I felt a sort of nurturing instinct toward all the little people.

It made me wonder why tall people don't always seem more benevolent, but then I figured that we shorter people must get annoying.

Shoe madness

Shoes on display in a shop window, Vienna, Austria, July 2005. The prices are in Euro.
Photo taken by KF.

High heeled shoes are evil. They're high, with spindly heels on them.

I realize that Clinton and Stacy are all in favor of high heels, but I'm not really.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I own high heels. In fact, I just bought a stunning pair of red suede and patent peeptoe heels for a wedding on Saturday. The heels are really high because my dress is really long.

Thankfully, I found the suede shoes, because I would not have wanted to be stuck with these:

Photo taken in 2003 at a shoe exhibition at Drammen Museum in Drammen, Norway.
Copyright Jarle H. Knudsen. Released under the GNU FDL

Horcruxes

As transcribed by various sources, JK Rowling describes Voldemort's horcrux creation schedule as follows:

Horcrux -- Murder victim

Tom Riddle's diary-- Moaning Myrtle
Marvolo Gaunt's Ring/Resurrection Stone -- Tom Riddle Senior
Helga Hufflepuff's Cup -- Hepzibah Smith
Salazar Slytherin's Locket -- A Muggle tramp
Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem -- An Albanian peasant
Harry Potter -- N/A
Nagini -- Bertha Jorkins

But it doesn't make sense.

Moaning Myrtle was killed by the balilisk, and she's not mentioned at all in Dumbledore's explanations to Harry about the horcruxes, either. Furthermore, Dumbledore noted that Voldemort reserved horcrux making for significant murders, which means that the peasant and tramp also seem unlikely. And, finally, Dumbledore seems to think that Tom Riddle made Nagini into a horcrux when he killed the Riddle's old gardener, Frank Bryce, which may have qualified as a 'significant' murder.

Dumbledore also comments that Tom Riddle stopped wearing the Resurrection Stone/Peverell coat of arms ring once he turned it into a horcrux, and he's wearing the ring afterward in Slughorn's office, which seems inconsistent. It also seems somewhat inconsistent that Riddle already made two horcruxes before talking to Slughorn about the possibilities of making more than one horcrux. Tom Riddle may have been evil, but he wasn't totally stupid.

One possibility is that Tom created his first horcrux (the diary) when, at age 16, he killed his father and grandparents. This would tally with the age of the fragment of soul when Harry and Ginny encounter it in Chamber of Secrets.

Harry notices that the locket reflected Tom Riddle's handsome eyes, which seems to indicate that that horcrux predates the visit to Dumbledore when Voldemort had finally managed to efface his muggle father's features (gross). Voldemort also hides this horcrux in a location associated with his pre-Hogwart's childhood. So, perhaps poor Hepzibah Smith.

I rather like the idea that Regulus Black witnessed Voldemort making a horcrux following the death of one of the Order of the Phoenix and thought the locket was the only available horcrux.

So, do I think that JK Rowling is wrong? Or the transcribers? No, not really.

I think that Harry Potter inhabits a written universe and that one of the keys to good writing is revision. So, perhaps the horcrux schedule was revised.

and then I wonder whether or not there is actually something better to worry about...like why my last chunk of brie tastes like the plastic it was wrapped in...

Immoral Princes

enough said?

Well, maybe not.

It seems that fairy tale princes are believed to be highly moral, marrying Cinderella and Snow White even though there are no kings in the picture demanding that the marriages take place. Or, at least that's the way it appears to happen in the movies.

John Moore, a truly engaging writer of young adult fiction, however, presents a somewhat different view of princes and their various moralities. Realizing, perhaps, that as a fairly diverse grouping of people, the handsome princes might not all have exactly the same views on dating, marriage, and ethics, Moore shows princes negotiating some of these boundaries while saving distressed damsels, fighting dragons, and/or getting into general princely mischief according to their several personalities.


Having recourse to Wikipedia (OK, I must stop depending on this as a source for all my informational needs...but it's SO handy!), I find that "prince" means any number of things and can refer to the ruler of a principality (think Monaco), the up-and-coming ruler of a country with a king or queen, and of course, the Half-Blood Prince of Harry Potter fame, Severus Snape, who is, thankfully, not mentioned in the Wikipedia "prince" entry, which is at least somewhat reassuring.

The Giant Deer of Long Road

Not really the Giant Deer
But close.
USDA photo by Scott Bauer


While driving on Long Road after a hiatus of about 18 months, I saw the Giant Deer. He looked about the same, actually, except without the spectacular antlers that he sports during the summer months.

I thought there wasn't that much to write about deer, except why they should fear acorns (See "why acorns should be scary to deer"), but Wikipedia showed me how wrong I was.

After all, there have been some rather famous deer, like Bambi, who would never have been the star of a film had he not been the protagonist of Bambi, ein Leben im Walde by Austrian Felix Salton. I read the book (in translation) a few times, and it seems to be about the fact that love does not conquor all, life is longest if lived alone and unencumbered, civilization kills those it tames, and that, basically, it's pretty darn tough to live in nature, particularly when hunters are chasing you with guns.

Interestingly, Walt Disney's version of Bambi was heavily influenced by the same sort of people who might, even as I write this, be masking their scent with acorns and setting off to transform hapless wild deer into tasty venison treats. (See http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/paschons/language_http/essays/salten.html). According to some experts, the hunters in the Salten book were transformed into a large forest fire through the magic of animation.

The Giant Deer seems uninfluenced by concerns about hunters masquerading as acorns or apples, forest fires, or even vehicular traffic.

In fact, the deer of the Poconos, as opposed to the bears, seem generally friendly and mellow. So friendly and mellow, in fact, that they appear to make friends with cars. Why, whenever I visit my former landlords, the deer trot over the the car after I park it, presumably to see if it's OK, and how it's been doing in the lowlands. This seems pretty odd when considering that the rate of deer-vehicle collisions was highest in Pennsylvania compared with the rest of the US in 2005.

Or perhaps not.

Far cry from Vezzini?

Wallace Shawn, who played Vezzini in The Princess Bride (see "Why, what in the world..."), also lent his voice to the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Toy Story. Interestingly, although the character in the film was made by Mattel (http://www.mattel.com/ ), the actual "actor" is copyrighted by Hasbro http://www.hasbro.com/.

Ironically, the Hasbro web site doesn't show Rex under their products, but an alternative "dinosaur" (actually a Transformer) named Repugnus seems to be available http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=ps_results&product_id=17570.

I would not like to be named "Repugnus," personally, but I suppose that robots have different sensibilities.

...but I digress...

Personally, I always found the scene in which Buzz Light Year glosses over the corporate affiliations of the various toys in Andy's room quite amusing, particularly the bit where Rex explains that he was actually made by a smaller company acquired in a leveraged buy-out.

Jean Baudrillard noted that we now live in a world full of copies, a world in which fakes actually set the rules for reality. That's kind of distressing, until you consider that you could possibly be a neurotic plastic dinosaur from Mattel...Hasbro...er, someplace.

Why, what in the world....

...could that be?!

In The Princess Bride, the Man in Black, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, aka Wesley, pretended to fall for this simple ruse while killing Vezzini with "iocane" powder. (So much for never going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.) Vezzini, mid mad cackle, drops dead, and the Man in Black completes his capture of the Princess.

If only the drivers of New Jersey's rush hour arteries were as savvy as Wesley, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, aka The man in Black. But, alas, at least some of them are not. If my observations are correct, many fairly ordinary sights are quite amazing to them, causing rather large traffic tie-ups near piles of dirt, construction vehicles, and dead animals.



...or perhaps there is something less troubling going on. What if one person, who has actually never seen a large pile of black dirt before, asks the driver to slow down so he/she can take a look, and then other drivers, wondering what could possibly be so interesting about a pile of dirt, slow down to see what's happening. Since it's just an ordinary pile of dirt, many drivers might linger wondering why on earth anyone else would slow down to look at a pile of dirt.

Probably that's it.

"secret" code names

The lovely and talented M Maus has asked about the creation of code names in this blog.

Hmmm... MightyIsis finds this to be a bit of a stumper, actually, because she doesn't make up the names herself. Like James Joyce (and hopefully this is one of very few similarities), MightyIsis basically gleans things from the surrounding area.

Let's face it...most people make up their own names. Look at The Colonel and Kissmiley, for example. Even Mr Savior was only called that after he had cards made up that said "savior" on them.

And the cool bookstore lady is, in fact, highly cool, and works at the bookstore.

Can you make stuff like that up?

I think not.

Photo by Constantine P. Curran

The smell of truth?

In Room with a View, Eleanor Lavish, a silly independent woman journalist replete with the features of the lady novelists George Eliot once decried, dashes about Florence looking for the true underbelly of Italian authenticity. Believing the Italians to be close to the earth (IMHO a common representational flaw in all of Forster's "Italian" novels), Miss Lavish mistakes dirt for culture, discovering "true Florentine" smells amongst bull droppings and carrying about a pair of Mackintosh squares to protect her from any contact with profane elements of nature, like grass and Italian coach drivers.


Entertaining as Miss Lavish's antics of repression might be, MightyIsis finds the idea of "true smells" to be a bit distressing... well, outside of restaurants and botanical gardens, perhaps. For example, the "true deli smell" of Katz's (See "send a salami" below) is lovely, if a bit too meaty for vegetarians. Even the somewhat institutional aromas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Cafe strike a better note, somehow.

Which brings us to Philadelphia, the site of a few smells that were truly...smelly. The "genuine" smells of Fairmount Park, which appeared to be having a problem with a rather pungent form of green scum mixed with garbage, were rather offensive in a "make-your-Nestle's-Toll-House-ice-cream-sandwich-less-good" sort of way. Later, M Maus noted the aromatic qualities of the region frequented by horse-drawn carriages while standing close to "The Signer," a rather nice Philadelphia landmark near the old visitor's center and Carpenter's Hall. (Of course, now that the Constitution Center has life-size statues of the actual signers, this amalgam [these are brilliantly explained in the opening of Parenthood] of various signers seems a bit superfluous, but I digress). In response to this smell, MightyIsis and M Maus had a brief discussion of EM Forster and repaired to Bookbinder's for better genuine smells and some lovely chowders and bisques...they also have a rather nice sushi and an interesting style of adorning the lobster cocktail (yum!)--authentic lobster parts.

And smells are not the only "authentic" items at Bookbinder's--they have pictures, lots of pictures, and a far more impressive array of stars than even Katz's deli. Of particular note was Pope Pius XII, who seemed fairly grim looking for a man about to partake of Bookbinders' cuisine (such a facial expression seems impossible after that lovely food), featuring in a glossy color photograph just across from the ladies' room.

...or perhaps he had come in from smelling some authentic Philadelphia horse droppings....

Hard to do redux

DG (aka "bat guy," "bug-eating guy," and "the 'wet pears' haiku poet") has asked about the status of the Colonel-Isis relationship.

Alack, alack, alackaday... MightyIsis-Colonel lovin' is no more.

Sad, but possibly inevitable. As Barbara DeAngelis notes in Are You the One for Me, the more ideological and cultural similarities between two people, the better the chances for relationship success.

Now, consider the likelihood of a military-minded, republican, NRA-membership-holding dude, sweet and heroic though he may be, and a bumbling, liberal, Quaker-sympathizing gal making a go of it. Not terribly high, n'est pas?

MightyIsis is very proud to note that DG heroically refrained from asking any probing questions about "technical proficiency" (see post of the same name, below).

Barbie's Patron Saint?

On a recent trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we saw some rather grisly little depictions of the torture of St. Barbara, one of the many blonde virgin saints who were given over to ghastly bodily maltreatment by fathers who wanted to force them to marry, possibly themselves (a theme treated very well in Deerskin). Passing over the question of why on earth it would be better to torture your daughter to death publicly rather "accidentally" poison her and make it look like the wrath of your own pagan gods, it struck me that poor St. Barbara, with her stunning good looks, "dream" bathhouse, and exciting adventures was a forerunner of the Barbie doll.



Ok, this is a ridiculous theory, and it has nothing to do with the more official stories:

http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02284d.htm

Although one might suggest that the association between Barbie and GI Joe could somehow be traced to St. Barbara's connection to the military and cannons. Again, a silly theory, but entertaining to bruit about over one too many glasses of merlot.

Interestingly, a St. Barbara parish in Massachusetts has an entry "what time is 9 o-clock mass?"

http://www.rc.net/boston/st_barbara/index.htm

Send a salami...

...to your boy in the Army (read: Aahmee).

Photo: André Karwath aka Aka

Yes, that's right, folks, MightyIsis, with the lovely M Maus, visited Katz's Deli, http://www.katzdeli.com/ the site of the famed When Harry Met Sally fake orgasm scene (See "technical proficiency," in July). After tasting the brisket sandwich on rye (yum!), I understand how she might have felt, had she actually been eating the sandwich. However, I noted that Sally disassembled her deli masterpiece to have a higher bread-to-meat ratio, which appears to be a testament to her lack of sensuality. At this point, I wonder how anyone could even eat the bread, because that was the best brisket I'd ever tasted, outstripping even the efforts of a post-college boyfriend's grandmother, because of whose culinary expertise, I remain the only gefilte-fish-eating "goy" known to many of my friends.

It's interesting how New Yorkers deal with tourists. Due to a lucky set of circumstances, like M Maus's superb map reading skills and ability to find parking spaces in Manhattan, we arrived at Katz's about 20 minutes before the lunch rush. Since there was a lull, the deli men were happy to lecture us about the various deli meats, the correct breads to eat with them, and why we were not to lose the little blue tickets. Whew! If we'd gotten there later, I'm sure we would have been hustled along by unruly and hungry New Yorkers trying to get back to the office before their 1 o'clocks.

We also got to meet the actual Mr Katz. He is way cool, and really nice. It made the brisket taste even better, which would seem impossible.

Free Haggis!!

Yes, that's right. Not just haggis, but free haggis.

Where did I find such an amazing sight? In Newfoundland, of course. Well, maybe it isn't quite that logical, but some friends did actually partake of free haggis while watching Highland dancers perform in 28 degree heat (C not F) during a trip to St John's Newfoundland.

It was a bit surprising, I thought, mostly because the majority of the free food was dessert items, and it seemed a bit illogical to have haggis there alongside chocolate cake and apple pie. But maybe that was merely an American prejudice.

Forbidden highway

On a recent trip in rural Pennsylvania, I was nearly killed by a couple of drivers. Why? Because they felt that merging should be completed well (as in at least 1/2 mile) before the actual merge point. In fact, they seemed to think that they should enforce this opinion by the application of murderous energies toward those attempting to use the available highway lanes.

There's something very disturbing about this generally, but the most distressing thing to me was the vehemence with which these drivers gesticulated and yelled. They seemed to feel fully entitled to regulate the traffic in this way.

Hypothesis 1: a new group of truck-based transportation officers had been formed for PA.

Unlikely.

Hypothesis 2: Perhaps I was insane. After all, I learned to drive in New Jersey, a state generally recognized as having bad drivers. Possibly I had no idea of what I was doing, and I should have meekly sat in traffic for a mile while letting a perfectly good highway lane go to waste.

Well, maybe, but that still didn't explain the other drivers who were also trying to use the "forbidden lane."

Next step: research

After calling 9-1-1 and asking for a police officer to please come, I decided that my next step was to consult the driver's manual for PA. Sure enough, it's perfectly legal to pass a car on the left on a multilane highway. It also appears to be illegal to swerve in order to hit another vehicle or run it off the road.

Where does that leave my hypotheses? In scientific theory, the best answer is always the simplest.

Simple answer: two jerks tried to kill me (and my lovely passenger) on Wednesday.

Oh dear.

Collapsible colanders

The new craze in kitchenware? I found quite a number of these with my best pal in Bed Bath and Beyond while we were looking for a bridal shower gift.

My personal favorites are the silicone numbers, because they're so nice and colorful. It makes me wish I hadn't sprung for the LL Bean pasta/stock pot/steamer/colander combo....almost. You can't really steam broccoli in a silicone colander because the plastic frame might melt.

Of course the plastic ones that unfold like milk crates are interesting, too. They just seem like they're made out of Lego brand building blocks, which isn't kitchen-y at all, but reminiscent of the Lego brand building block living room on While You Were Out. A bold decorating statement, although perhaps not an attractive one.

Finding a doctor

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz discusses why "more" is actually "less," specifically that the "more" becomes so overwhelming that you somehow mysteriously wind up with less. Scary.

I understand what he means. I need to find a doctor, and it's really difficult. Back in the "good old days" (which possibly didn't exist, according to historians), there was only one doctor, and you were basically dependent on his expertise and training, which in the 19th century could possibly have been quite little. Let's face it, the Johns Hopkins, which was the first scientifically based medical school, wasn't founded until rather late in the 19th century, and before that medical training was largely based in what we now call the "humane letters." This meant that your doctor had probably read rather a lot of ancient Greek and could therefore understand the Hippocratic oath in the original, but might not have understood very much about infection...which makes sense since most microbes had not really been invented/discovered.

Nowadays, doctors are smart and have lots of scientific training...at least in my personal experience. They study for a long time in very difficult environments and read tons of journal articles and basically have to do tons of research just to stay current. One of the curious things about this current state of affairs is that we read scholarly medical expertise back into the physicians of the good old days. This is why we have episodes of Little House on the Prairie in which the doctor is able to research the literature to discover that a child has a rare form of leukemia that can only be treated by radiation that hasn't been developed for medical use, but the writer saw on Disneyland in the 1950's.

I read a lot, and watch a lot of television, and I like older items and newer scientific materials. So, in finding a doctor, I'm a bit unrealistic. I'd like to have a cross between Doc Baker, the Walnut Grove internist, the cute doctor from E.R. played by Kelli Martin, and Albert Schweitzer. Not likely. Of course, it really doesn't matter if this fantasy vision is likely because the option of a smart, competent practitioner in my insurance plan isn't much less fantasy-based.

Most doctors I've met are, indeed, smart. They're usually better than competent, particularly if you get them on a good day. But you also have to consider that some of them get better training, or have better motor skills, or better rapport in the practice. And sometimes, their office staffs are not doing what they need to be doing, which makes finding a doctor a relatively difficult decision. It's not just about the doctor. It's also about the billing office and whether or not the nurse understands what the doctor is talking about.

...so, as I'm doing this, I almost wish I could go to a veterinarian. After all, there are very few vet schools, the office staff generally like dogs and know a lot about them, and they give treats....

Driving to Byzantium

or Rittenhouse Square...that was probably it, because you can't really drive to Byzantium from where I live. Or maybe you could have at one time, but Byzantium doesn't technically exist any longer, except in stories and songs, which makes it a bit more of a mythological or epic phenomenon, even though you could probably get to where it used to be, albeit not by car....

William Butler Yeats described Byzantium as a place where aged intellectuals could escape sensual excesses and have actual conversations, which sounds pretty groovy in the particular sense of "grooviness" which is devoid of the sunburnt mirth, dance, and provencal song Keats described when under the influence of the nightingale... So, like an "animal house" that's more like the New York Public Library quiet reading room.

So where were we? Ah yes, driving to Rittenhouse Square...

The way to Rittenhouse Square is full of obstacles and challenges, like the Schuylkill Expressway. Some days it's a picturesque vision of loveliness...others, it's a parking lot. I don't have enough experience to know when, exactly, the highway will be in which condition. Consequently, I often find myself making a long, running commentary on the driving. It's especially worthy of comment, I find, when cars slow down dramatically so that their drivers can examine the world around them--"why look, a pile of fresh dirt!"

But I digress.

The real reason for the trip toward Rittenhouse Square was a trip to the Franklin Institue in order to bolster my rapdily declining mental faculties. The trip was relatively successful.

I hope.

Why acorns should be scary to deer

I went to a gun store for the first time in twenty years. It was a bit scary, mostly because of the guns. One was pink plastic...like a Barbie-esque gun for girls (although I believe that the Mattell Corporation strongly discourages violence and would not endorse any gun with the Barbie logo).

In an effort to avoid standing next to any missile-launching devices (of which there were several), I wandered into the deer attracting aisle, in which various deer-related calls and whistles can be found. They also have those small cans that you turn over...like the cute ones that moo for children, except these are to lure unsuspecting deer to their deaths. I was reminded that, in the novel Bambi, the title character was saved from certain death by the kind intervention of the oldest deer in the forest as he (Bambi) was dashing pell-mell toward the sound of one of those lovely deer devices.

In life as opposed to fiction, however, deer aren't always fooled by sounds, and can , in fact, smell the difference between a hunter holding a gun and say, dirt, or acorns. Hence, you can also buy various scents (acorn, apple, and dirt) to mask you smell and blend into the surroundings. I found the whole idea of pretending to be an innocent acorn and then shooting a deer to be a bit weird.

And then, when I thought it all over, I realized that as a person who really likes action movies, I should be more OK with the gun store. I mean, I love that scene in The Matrix in which Neo and Trinity get "guns...lots of guns." Of course, I also saw the "making of" movie, so I know those guns were fake, and that the walls were made of foam and that, basically, no real violence was perpetrated in the film.

So maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

Recycling Egyptian Style

Poor King Tut! He died unexpectedly, and was buried with a number of recycled objects, hastily made over for him. There is even some speculation that his father's mummy was pushed aside and replaced with the boy king's. It all seemed so tawdry, until I remembered that many Western societies actually consolidate graves, and bones, and other remains on a fairly regular and ongoing basis.

So, maybe the whole recycling thing isn't so bad...just think about it, those jewel-encrusted, solid gold organ chests wouldn't be cheap today, but they would have been worth a lot more all those years ago. And lest we forget, the ancient Egyptians had a propensity for striking off the names of people they stopped liking and replacing them with other names of people they still liked. And King Tut would have been a prime candidate for such name replacement because the Pharaoh who might have been his father was, in fact, pretty pesky to the ancient Egyptian psyche. For one thing, he got rid of all the old gods, and replaced them with a single god. He also moved the capital city.

People don't like to have their religion taken away and their cities moved. They find that it, generally, sucks. And in ancient Egypt, when they decided that you sucked, your name got taken off of expensive stuff (like temples) and replaced with another name.

So next time you decide to gut a whole religious culture and move all the cities, think again.

Writer's block

It happens to everyone, I suppose...but what to do about it? In Throw Momma from the Train, Larry (played by Billy Crystal) has terrible writer's block because his wife Margaret "stole" his story, his life, and (apparently) his manhood. Which is pretty mean, when you think about it one way, but maybe a bit exaggerated when we see the end of the movie. Larry writes a novel about his adventures with Owen, only to find that Owen (played by Danny DeVito) wrote a book about his adventures with Larry. Enraged, Larry throttles Owen for "stealing" the story, only to find that Owen wrote a pop-up book.

Not good. One wonders if perhaps Margaret simply wrote about Larry... and why not? They were married, after all...

Anyway, Larry's writer's block is pretty funny and involves lots of activity with scotch tape, hard liquor, coffee, and watching Oprah. I do so like Oprah..she's lovely when you have writer's block, or any time, really.

So, I really don't have anything to write, which is like writer's block in a way, except that I'm writing, which gets a bit babbly. And stuff.

Metafighting -OR- How on Earth Did We Wind Up at the Passive Aggressive Olympics?

Metamessaging is one way of being really critical of someone without having to take responsibility for being mean. Done properly, it can turn into metafighting, which is like fighting, but without actually admitting that you're angry.

It can be done in reverse, too, like when someone reads unintended metamessages into other communications. This happens sometimes because someone is used to metacritics and therefore thinks every communication is a criticism. Which can be painful and tricky when you're just getting to know someone. The thing that totally sucks about this is that metafighters often don't even understand what they're doing or why.

At its worst, metacommunicating can be really damaging and awful like when it breaks down the possible paths of communication, leaving one person feeling picked to shreds and the other one still dissatisfied because they've now unintentionally angered a loved one. And let's face it, criticizing a loved one is sometime necessary for everyone's health, mental and otherwise.

This whole mess is kind of like the luge run at the winter olympics of passive agression...pretty easy to start, impossible to slow down, and heaven help you if you hang into the track at the wrong moment.

One of my friends from when I was in high school got kicked in the head when he looked into the track during a practice luge run at the Lake Placid Olympics in the 1980's. I met him afterward, so I'm not sure what the long-term effects were, but he said it hurt a lot at the time. I think about him getting whacked in the head by a luge runner every time I wander into passive aggressive olympic behaviors at work or home.

I ask myself, "Why can't we just fight like normal people?" Of course, I then realize that this is what normal people do. Particularly bourgeois normal people.

Maybe I should just give up and go shopping.

What would Barbie do?

A wise man once said, "Barbie..." OK, that's ridiculous, actually, because wise men tend not to speak to Barbie, who is, after all a doll.

Is it possible that there is any wisdom in the Barbie universe, where everything possible is bubble-gum pink and girls do all the fun jobs (except pilot). It looks pretty fun, in a perky, squealing sort of way that I don't personally find appealing for more than a couple of hours. But it's still fun, and Barbie and pals don't seem to spend a lot of time pondering their problems. Things just don't seem that complicated. Maybe that's a wise way to live.

The biggest drawback to the Barbie universe is that Ken can seem rather dull against the party pink. But maybe that's easier, too, and wiser. Why date exciting and undependable men, when Ken is always hanging around ready to be helpful and fly things?

Customer Service

I live in a region where customer service is quite different compared with where I grew up. In much of my experience, the customer service professional may yell at you a little, but he or she will, in fact, eventually do what you want, especially if you use a lot of big words while you're yelling back and your credit card was issued to "Dr.". Where I live now, no one yells, but there is a decided lack of interest in doing what you, as a customer, might want.

My favorite weird customer service incident took place shortly after I left the greater NY metropolitan area. I was at a deli counter, and I wanted a sandwich. The deli had the combination of meats and cheeses that I wanted, and I was pleased, although slightly apprehensive about the bread. When I placed my order the man behind the counter, quite pleasantly, said, "No. We don't make that."

Nonplussed, I pointed out that he had the cold cuts, and he said, "you have to order off the menu." I tried again. He refused. I thanked him and turned to leave.

Then he yelled at me for leaving, insisting that I had to have a sandwich from the menu.

I ignored him and left. He yelled after me for quite a while, which caused a few of his other potential customers to edge away from the counter and go to the hot dog stand.

That was a bit weird, but I had a very nice and much cheaper lunch at another deli counter in the same building. So, I was fine.

Interestingly, the thing that bothered me the most was the idea that this man actually thought that I was required to eat what he wanted me to eat. How odd.

Then I thought about the art of negotiation. In order to negotiate effectively, you need to have enough power and/or influence to convince your adversary/negotiation partner that you should get what you're requesting. Generally, in a common culture, this comes down to proving that you mean business and are willing to walk away from the negotiation. In my early life, this was accomplished by yelling and using big words--let's face it, delis in NYC are used to competing for customers, so they'll make you a weird sandwich, even if they complain about it a little. In my new location, it seems, customer service people are used to calling the shots because they can, and they don't know how to deal with customers who want what they want, and are willing to walk away and get something else.

....I've decided to eat more sushi.