If only it were this easy

Spin rinse repeat

My first mistake was watching The T get into Facebook. That was a small step but a major one. I could feel my mind split into two. I followed her down the FB rabbit hole and now I suffer from online schizophrenia. This is just like in Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three, the second installment in the Dark Tower epic when Roland has two sets of memories those that really happened and those that also happened. There was a boy. There was no boy.

My mental split happens along the line my virtual existence. You should post that to your anonymous blog. You should post that to not anonymous facebook. Once that mental debate gets rolling, I turn on ye olde iPod and continue listening to the Gunslinger series. Hence, nothing gets posted anywhere.

FB is an odd world. Just what is a friend? Anecdotally some meatspace friends and I have meta-FB discussions about the environment of constantly checking in for status reports, the politics of who to friend and whom not to and which way the friend requests flow, the politics of accepting or ignoring or accepting and then quarantining friends. Granted, we also just post like crazy and continue this little run down the stairs (we've got momentum now and dare not look at what our feet are doing lest we fall).

But it seems strange to me nevertheless. What event is worthy of a status update? I enjoy hearing about what folks are doing but gosh and golly the sun is out and why don't we just meet for a cup of joe or a brewski and chat? Reading the feed is a weak substitute for face to face. I know I am not the first to say this but I am coming to understand it in my own time. I have selfish underpinnings. I think I am much funnier in the flesh. I like hearing people laugh at me or with me, it matters not most of the time. When the FB crowd does not respond with a "Jane Doe likes this', I feel like the humor fell flat.

My incessant feed checking is much like Tourette twitch. What is Sally doing right now? She hasn't posted in 12 hours is she all right? Should I call her? Should I call the police? OK, I agree that bringing in law enforcement is a bit extreme but I truly think I am wearing out the refresh button in my browser's URL box.

I've got errands to run and cat boxes to empty. Right after I read the feed one more time.

Back in school

Here I am at a major research university in the Emerald City for a
week long class in how to lead discussions. Some of my colleagues
wonder I feel I need this class. I think the fact that I am
questioning my skills as a discussion leader reveals differences in
our perceptions of our classrooms. That is a blog topic for another day.

I love being in a university setting. There is an energy unique to
this setting I didn't know I missed. And you have to love that the
prof started us off by telling us where the best drip coffee on campus
could be found.

Caffeine is the fuel of academe.

Sent from my iPhone

And then we sleep, glorious sleep

illustration for the August issue of Wired by Jason Lee

Link

I'm licensed to do what now?

After about 18 hours spent in a classroom and on the, uh, range, I am now the proud holder of a motorcycle license. I also have a bit of a sunburn on the back of my neck. The latter I earned by tooling around a paved lot while never getting above 2nd-gear. The former was acquired the same way. I've spent some time reflecting on the whole experience—T says possibly too much time.

True to form, The T turned my commentary on the course into an example of learning theory. Let me explain. A student in the class said she was taking the class because she bought a 400cc scooter to ride to work and she'd heard that if she was caught on the road, it would be taken away. She does not have a permit for the scooter. She seemed to think that it would be impounded because it was a scooter. I tried to explain to her that it would be impounded because she didn't have a driver's permit to ride it on the road. I guess she didn't believe me because the next day when the instructor asked her why she was taking the class, she said the same thing. She wanted her motorcycle license because she thought she needed to get a motorcycle because a scooter could not be on the road. She did not understand the role the driver's permit played in the situation. The scooter is completely street legal. It would have been impounded because of the lack of a permit, not because it is not a motorcycle.

It was fascinating to me to watch how my suggestion of necessary paperwork was ignored. This is where T's learning lesson comes in. People, i.e., students, will hold on to their beliefs until they can mesh new information with their old (possibly incorrect) understanding to come to a new understanding. This woman had it in her head that it was the mere existence of the scooter on the road that was the problem and not the lack of paperwork. I wonder if she's shopping for a Harley right now because she still doesn't get it.

(Is this where I mention she is in the country on a green card and that little bit of paperwork she seems to understand just fine?)

When The T has talked about how people hold on to what they understand during our many education conversations, I've nodded my head and agreed. It makes sense. I've then walked into a classroom and wonder why my students make mistakes that were addressed and discussed previously. Their understanding of the math is similar to the scooter-chick's understanding of impounding: each party is holding on to what they know because new info has not been integrated into their belief structures—yet (hopefully 'yet'). Now I'm pondering my role as an instructor to help students with this integration of new info. This falls into Leading a Horse to Water scenario so I know I can't just give them the info and think that they'll immediately believe in it and integrate it and understand it. But how far do I lead? Do I walk right to the water? Do I just provide a map and compass? Do I try to come up with more detail in this analogy when I could be doing other things?

ponder ponder ponder

Never thought I'd use that nugget

Last century when I was in middle school, my gonads dictated that I take Home Economics rather than woodshop. Well, it didn't take. I am helpless in the kitchen. I can struggle through pizza, popcorn, pasta, and reheating restaurant leftovers. My mother, on the other hand, can do some serious magic when it comes to cooking. When I was wee, her renditions of Leftover Surprise were stupendous (how leftovers ever existed in our family of six is beyond me). She had a few recipes that were cycled through every now-and-again and she has at least one soup that cannot be committed to paper since the main direction is "continue to add sugar and vinegar to the duck blood, raisins, and prunes until it tastes right." Yummy. I kid you not.

She had one cookbook that I foresaw even at a young age as the thing we four siblings might fight over at the reading of the will. My brother headed this feud off by getting all the sibs our own copies a few years ago. Good move, bro!

The Encyclopedia of Cooking was compiled by Mary Margaret McBride and has 1536 pages. My mother's copy is bound in hinged steel plates (my copy has a cover but it is not attached). It is massive. It has recipes on everything, including raccoon and other game. Lard is a major ingredient throughout the recipes. This is not surprising since it was published in 1959, the heyday of the Lard Era. It shows every kitchen gadget of the time and how to use it. It defines cooking terms, like "pasties." (I'm making those tomorrow.)

It also has a typo and I only know this because of what I must have picked up Home Ick, er, Ec over three decades ago. Fact: the ingredients in American cookbooks are listed in the order they are used. So the recipe for Rice and Cheese Croquettes that lists mayonnaise, flour, then flour again is in error. "Why is a self-confessed reheater making something she cannot pronounce?" I hear you cry. I was both drawn to the combination of rice and cheese and comforted by the fact that I knew what all the other ingredients were and that none were raccoon.

Anyway, the corrected typo should read: mayonnaise, flour and milk. The amounts of the ingredients isn't what helped me solve the problem. I know not how to make a sauce that will thicken and two tablespoons of milk would certainly be stiffer than 2/3-cup of milk, wouldn't you agree? Well, if you agreed, we'd both be wrong. It was the directions for how to add the ingredients to the saucepan that helped me solve the dilemma and use 2/3-cup of milk.

Now, if Ms. McBride had not been from deep in the heartland and perhaps had a habit of sipping a wee bit of sherry between steps and sounded a bit more like the Queen, I don't think I could have solved my dilemma. Apparently, cookbooks on the other side of the pond list the ingredients from greatest to least quantity used. I don't think I picked up this part of the factoid in junior high. Regardless, I would like to thank my teacher whose name is lost to me. Tomorrow's lunch of rice and cheese croquettes is a go. Dinner will consist of turkey pasties. Stop by for a nibble if you're in town.

Jump on this new networking opportunity

One of the norms here in Meanwhile Manor is that toilet paper and Q-tips and tissues just seem to get replaced when they are empty or running low. We are believers in the Toilet Paper Fairy, as identified here in this Pickles comic:


So there is part of the back story to today's post. The other facet of the back story is that The T and I have been totally sucked into the black hole that is Facebook. We are currently having a good time and yet trying to figure out how to carve out time in our day where Facebook fits in. But I digress. To summarize thus far: we believe in the TP Fairy and we joined F'Book.

What follows is what you would have overheard had you been listening in this morning.

The T: Supplies are running low. It seems the the TP Fairy is slacking off.

Me: Distracted. Maybe the fairy is distracted.

T: By Facebook? The fairy is spending too much time on Facebook?

Me: TushBook. It seems more appropriate that the TP Fairy would be distracted by TushBook.

For the record, that is one social network I would not browse.

Well, this sums it all up nicely

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

You don't say

Dear Sir,
As per your letter last, I thank you for your ane compliments. Yet my eptness is useless in the task you have sent. Alas, though I chalantly try to answer your query and discern what a silhou is, I am as yet dumbfounded. I have info regarding a possibly related animal, however.

The following item is, of course, the famous creature of the silhouette family that is pandemically spreading over the globe right now, facebookus shadowus:


Facts so far: This chameleon-like creature is able to look like everyone and no one. It has an incredible rate of growth (increasing by 5 million per week; 150-million silhouettes worldwide), and each spawn—er, offspring seems to be unique from all others. It is masculine, feminine and Alfalfian. Since the sex of silhouettes is undetermined, we must be careful in assuming that of silhous until we observe one in the wild or capture one.

I have recently infiltrated the facebookus shadowus community and will begin studying behaviors, traits, customs, etc. more closely. As always, I'll send more info as it becomes available.

Now you tell me

Our gardener dude Duane (first mentioned here) came by to do a little work. I think I should mention now that (we just learned) he is a bit of a legend in the northwest plant community. We're somewhat lucky to have found him because we met him at a party and he works with a friend and we happen to live in the same zip code, etc. He's talented and we're thrilled. Anyway, it has been a while so I was happy to work on the lawn with him. I had a lot of pent up frustration from the tiling episode and I needed to do something physical that in no way was limited to staying inside the lines.

About six weeks ago, Duane came by and killed a third of our front yard. Yes, on purpose. He sort of cleansed the palate. Apparently he follows the starting from scratch methodology of urban jungle creation. Our front lawn has been one-third dead and dry and two thirds green yet dying with extensive clover. We've been answering the neighbors' questions of what our plans were for the dead dry strip with pithy responses such as: "oh, we just like that color better" or "we're going to pave it" or "it's a landing strip." A few replies like that and your neighbors will stop asking you what you're doing. I guarantee it.

On yesterday, Duane came by to roto-till the landing strip. I offered to help. My frustration over the tiling debacle made the prospect of swinging a pick very enticing. I picked all the sod and ripped it up and Duane ran the tiller and—voila!—in about four hours, the dead dry strips of grass became overturned strips of dirt with dead grass sprinkled throughout. And this is an improvement.

While we were taking a break, I mentioned to Duane that I was thinking of painting a runway or parking stripes or something on the dead grass just to tease the neighbors. He said there is paint meant for use on vegetation. It's used to mark out pathways or bed locations or somesuch and will degrade over time without harming the plants. In fact—get this—another client has been painting some ground cover green because it died almost immediately after he planted it. He went on to say, "yeah, but now even the paint doesn't look that good. (pause) I'm not a very good gardener."

Well, that's bullhockey and was very humorous because it is so exceedingly self-effacing.

I'm going to go rub some ben-gay on my sore pick-swinging muscles and look out over my strips of dirt on the front forty.