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.