A Brief Reflection, Useless(?) Information

First of all, to briefly address the recent terrible events in Newtown, CT, my heart aches for the 20 children and 6 adults who lost their lives. I suppose if this means actual, productive discussion about gun control and how we treat mental illness (although autism is not a mental illness, and it gets me fired up when it's treated as such), that's something good. Focus on "actual, productive": Tragedies like this produce way too many knee-jerk reactions and bring out a lot of bile and finger-pointing, which accomplishes nothing. I'd also like to see the names of the victims used a little more instead of the media un(?)intentionally glorifying the name of the shooter. In my little opinion, if we let the name of the person pulling the trigger fade into obscurity, perhaps others wouldn't try to imitate him later. The victims seem way more important to memorialize. I also like the idea of the 20 random acts of kindness that have sprung up--a positive coming from such an awful negative. For now, I hug J a little tighter and wonder where and when this kind of thinking will end or what we can do to lessen it a bit.
But on a different note (and I need to do this for myself, this blog, and anyone reading it), I got this idea from another blog and figured I needed a lighter post than my previous one and as a counterpoint to the great sadness that's weighed so many of us down recently. So here goes:

Five Facts You May Not Know About Me

1. I still choke up a little every time the Christmas tree grows after Linus wraps it in his blue blanket and tells the rest of the gang the story of the nativity
2. I can't stand for labels in a cabinet to face in/away from me.
3. Goldfish crackers are my biggest food weakness. I'm taking that on one fish at a time.
4. I've never read any novel by Ernest Hemingway.
5. I sometimes talk to myself in the bathroom mirror, just vocalizing the thoughts in my head. I realized this when I caught myself doing it at work recently and wondered just how loudly I was talking and whether my co-workers could hear me.

Niiiiiiice

I just saw my new favorite clip having to do with etiquette that has gone by the wayside while watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent:

Suspect: [says something mildly unhelpful]
Det. Goren:  [asks question]
Suspect: [begins texting while Goren speaks to him]
Goren: I'm sorry, are you texting us?  Because we're the ones talking to you right now. 

BAM.  I am totally using that. I get very fussy about phone manners and lack thereof, although I admit I did walk through Target today talking to my mom.  However, I didn't have a personal conversation about anything embarrassing.  Is that better or just hypocritical?

How we roll

If you've never gone to www.cafepress.com, it's a site where you can buy and make your own t-shirts--and lots of other items-- for a very reasonable price. We made these two onesies for baby J because 1) we have great and slightly off-color senses of humor, and 2) T wants him to eventually join the Masons, so we've decided to start him out early ("Lewis" is a Masonic term for the son of a Mason. Don't ask me to explain it further, although T did and can tell you all about it):

Who better than Calvin?

That's the primary Masonic symbol of the square and compass

We found the pictures and chose the fonts; we had a lot of fun doing it. I don't always go in for personalizing clothing, but how could we resist when the site makes it this fun?

Advertising

I was home sick today (Wednesday) with laryngitis. This makes it extremely hard to teach, although, as I noted elsewhere, extremely creative. Fortunately most of my students were quite kind. Only a few kept muttering to their classmates, "Dude, I can't hear her." NO KIDDING. I also love, "Hey, Mrs. Frau, 'd you lose your voice?" No, I'm just mixing it up a bit. For fun. Fortunately I could glare and whistle, and those skills helped a great deal. Hot tea also helps. And frozen yogurt.

So as I lay in bed not talking and watching a bit of TV, I saw an ad and now will compile a list I call

Conversations Topics Women NEVER EVER Discuss in Real Life*:

- detailed birth control methods and their side effects
- the effectiveness of yogurt in digestive health
- women's vitamins
- anything where the phrase "just call your doctor" and "side effects" are used together
- how great chatting on a 1-900 number for singles was

That is all.

*All right, someone, somewhere may discuss them. But it's rare.

Four Things

Ouiser tagged me, so here goes:

4 things you'd find in my bag:
My bag is my school bag, so you'd find
- one green or purple pen
- a textbook
- stray paperclips
- bobby pins for hair emergencies

4 things you'd find in my purse:
- wallet
- glasses microfiber wipe thingie
- more bobby pins, a hair elastic
- mini Tide pen for self and husband stain emergencies

4 favorite things in my room (on the nightstand):
- a half-empty glass of water
- My St. Paul's Book of Common Prayer
- a list of things T loves about me, given to me on our first wedding anniversary
- My journal

4 things I'm currently into:
- cooking using my Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way cookbook
- actually organizing my life and teaching in terms of planning ahead, color-coordinating folders, and using my Google calendar like crazy
- Mad Men (I can't stand Don Draper, yet I am drawn to his perfect and flawed facade of a life)
- the Girl trilogy by Stieg Larsson

4 things you don't know about me:
- The movie The Blair Witch Project terrified me so badly, I almost had to leave because, for some reason, I truly believed it could happen.
- I have to fold my napkin in its original form before I leave a restaurant. I don't know why.
- Occasionally, for no reason, I will stand on one leg with the other foot balanced on the inside of the opposite knee (like tree pose, for those who do yoga). I am partially convinced in a former life I was a bushwoman who tended sheep, as I have often seen pictures of them doing this.
- When I walk to school in the morning, I sing Carole King's song "Beautiful" to remind myself to have a good day and to have confidence in myself.

More of a real entry soon. I've got some things I'm mulling over for entries; just have to sort it out.

The Perils of Voice Technology

My dad sent me this. It's funny yet makes quite a comment on how we treat people from different cultures.

P.S. the right side gets a bit cut off--you can also see it on YouTube.

Utterly Random Questions and Observations

1) Has anyone else ever noticed that in B-grade movies, the characters overuse each others' names to an obnoxious extent? Next time you watch a movie that you realize is mediocre at best, see if this is true. Case in point: From Paris, with Love. Not my choice, BTW.

2) Does Miley Cyrus not see the pattern of child-star-turned-sexy-bad-girl that others have left in her wake? She's heard of Lindsay Lohan, right?

3) What, truly, is the appeal of Silly Bandz?

4) When will we ever get this giant oil spill stopped? Can we? What will the repercussions be? And how in the name of heaven could the oil companies be so blind and foolish and arrogant not to plan for something of this magnitude?

5) Can the next two Harry Potter movies truly live up to the last book?

6) I've often posited that e-books and 3-D television simply a secret plot of the world's opticians and ophthalmologists to cause eye problems and therefore increase the need for corrective lenses. Think about it.

7) Can Andy Murray win Wimbledon, breaking the U.K. champion drought?

8) If I look sad and downcast, look longingly but quickly at someone, and then look down, bite my lip, and look away, can I be cast in the next Twilight movie?

9) When I have kids, I don't care what sort of hovercraft-transportation-screen-within-a-screen crap they have out. They're playing outside with sticks and rocks.

Making fun of technology

Recently I met a delightful woman I met at a party and we decided we had a funny SNL skit that really could work. We were bashing Twitter and Facebook a bit. Not to get hypocritical, I admit freely that I do have accounts on both. HOWEVER: I do not check Facebook obsessively every ten minutes--I probably look at it every few days. And I don't remember the last time I checked Twitter. I know each has its uses and I have gotten in touch with old friends and even thought about using each medium for teaching. So there.

HOWEVER...we were making a bit of fun of the users who feel the need to type every little bit of mundane crap that goes on in their lives, giving the rest of us the blow by blow. When did this desperate need to tell all and sundry about minute details arise? I must admit I'm in awe and impressed (truly, not ironically) that people make a living doing this. For crying out loud, Dooce [very famous blogger who now has her own show on HGTV] got a friggin' free washing machine when she complained about crummy service via Twitter. That's power.

Now, our skit consisted of this same spewing forth of our daily gems...about ten years ago, when we were still using telephones and e-mail was hitting its heyday as a regular means of communication. Here's a sample, although I think it would be best as a visual. Use your imaginations. All names will be made up-ish.

From: Meg
To: Jo, Beth, Amy, Marmee, Laurie, JBrooke, Sallie
Subject: laundry
Time: 10:03am

Just did four loads of laundry! Will these twins ever get potty trained?


From: Meg
To: Jo, Beth, Amy, Marmee, Laurie, JBrooke, Sallie
Subject: laundry
Time: 10:07am

And now Demi just pulled half the laundry off the line and Daisy just threw up, so you know what that means!


From: Meg
To: Jo, Beth, Amy, Marmee, Laurie, JBrooke, Sallie
Subject: laundry
Time: 10:12am

Now someone's at the door!


From: Sallie
To: Meg
RE: laundry
Time: 10:14am

Ugh, yes, laundry is the worst. That's why the maid does ours. P.S. that's me outside ringing the doorbell.


From: Marmee
To: Meg, Beth, Jo, Amy
RE: laundry
Time: 10:21

Now, Meg, you know that laundry is just part of your wifely duty. Of course I'll help you if you need it, but you should really try to bear the burden cheerfully.
* * *
[phone conversation]

Harry: Hello?
Hermione: Hey, Harry! Just finished Snape's latest essay on wolfsbane potion!
Harry: Um, ok....Is there anything else, Hermione?
Hermione: Nope! Ok, now I'm off to call Ron, Ginny, Padma, Neville, Luna, and everyone else in my contact list to tell them the same thing. [click]

* * *
[voice mail from me to everyone I ever met from Colgate]
"You should really start watching Lie to Me. It's a cool show and it's got Tim Roth, the dude who was in Pulp Fiction robbing the diner, in it. By the way, this is Die Frau*, Class of '99."


Doesn't it seem weird? Is it just me? Why do I really need to tell people that were in my sister's class in grade school about the fact that I have wild strawberries growing in my back yard? (OK, I do, and it's so cool.) How far will the madness go?

Now I have to run and update my Facebook profile for the day. GTG, CU L8R. [shudder]

*not my real name

This about sums up how I feel today

It also explains why I haven't posted in a while--I'm trying to avoid such a scenario. And Flickr is annoying me. Anyone know how to upload a bunch of pictures to Blogger all at once, or do I have to do it one at a time?

(click to enlarge)

another way to take away from productivity

If you haven't checked out this blog yet, do so immediately for laughs. You really need the audio for the full effect.

Wow

The only reason I follow Twitter is because I sometimes run across gems such as this one, linked by The Bloggess:

Instructions Book by Neil Gaiman

Movies, TV, Books

Just a random assortment of suggestions and non-suggestions. Basically, it's Saturday morning and I'm avoiding cleaning my house and grading. You're welcome.

Books

Last Night in Twisted Riverby John Irving

Is it all right that I'm giving this review and I'm not done with the book? Because I already love it. This may have something to do with the fact that, as a rule, I love John Irving's novels. He's sucked me in right away (although it does begin with a lot of history of the logging industry)--he'll have you going along, thinking, "OK, good plot, memorable characters..." and WHAM! He throws a curve-ball at you. Let me put it this way: I've read ahead in about four places because I can't wait to see what's next.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Admittedly, I am also not too far through this novel (that I'm reading for my book club. Whoops. J, you've probably finished it AND made copious notes. But you are a human dynamo), but I'm enjoying the lack of completely linear writing. The narrator interjects himself a lot, working two intertwined plots at the same time. I happen to like that. I find his writing here very lyrical in spots. Hopefully it will continue. I'm going to hear Rushdie speak next Friday, so that should be fascinating.

I suppose I should add the caveat that I may like Midnight's Children so much because most of what I've read for our book club I (and others) have not enjoyed, so perhaps part of my feeling toward this book involves sheer relief, but I don't think that's entirely why I recommend it.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I'm reading this one as my summer reading book for the students, and I find it riveting. It's a collection of short stories all based in one small town in Maine, and they're all intertwined. The main character, Olive, is a retired schoolteacher who's a bit crusty, a bit domineering--I alternate between utterly disliking her and feeling sorry for her as the author drops more and more bits of Olive's life into the stories. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and I can see why.

The cool part is that this year we had the students come in and recommend books (an idea both obvious and innovative), and I believe a few kids recommended this one. Thought-provoking and at times bitterly sad, Olive Kitteridge also has its bright spots. I've truly enjoyed it. Plus it's not terribly long, so it's one you can keep on your bedside table and read a story a night.

TV

If you haven't gotten into LOST yet, well, I don't understand why not. Rent the DVDs and watch it from the beginning and see if you don't get hooked. In a sea of crime and doctor dramas, it has a sometimes confusing but never boring storyline.

I never thought I'd feel sympathy for a serial killer, but we love the Showtime series Dexter. I warn you, it's extremely dark and sometimes unnerving, but we think the acting is great and the plot often blackly humorous. Lots of blood, though (obviously), and lots of swearing, so if that's not something you like, don't go for it. Tell you what--if you could get through and enjoy the movie Fargo, I think it has that same air about it. These are also on DVD.

I just got into Modern Family after hearing three people (whose opinions I trust) rave about it within as many days. We watched it the other night and laughed a lot. I think someone finally hit on a combination of families that are exaggerated in just the right way and got away from the "dumb-husband/shrewish, acerbically witty wife" combo that's been around since The Honeymooners. And I think Ed O'Neill has gotten funnier as he's gotten older-- he's improved on his timing. Honestly, some of it was so hilarious because it seemed familiar.

Movies

• I don't have much here except to write that apparently the movie Crank 2: High Voltage
  is, according to my husband, "the worst movie I've ever watched all the way through," and he's let himself watch some real stinkers. He said it felt as though a fourteen year-old boy had written the script: bad one-liners, explosions, fast cars, sex, scantily clad women, and bad guys...all to a soundtrack that featured lots of electric guitar. But worse.
  

I have become convinced that the reason I like the movie Meet Joe Black as much as I do is solely because of the soundtrack by Thomas Newman, who's done the music for American Beauty, Finding Nemo, The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, and others. I just love how hauntingly beautiful it is. Otherwise, it's not that terrific a movie.

Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet confuses 9th graders because they can't reconcile Elizabethan English with modern scenarios. The men need to be in doublets and tights (although the codpieces are a bit much), not gang-wear, for them to get it.

Honestly, I haven't seen anything in the theater lately, so let me know what's good.

So there's my two cents. Do with it what you will. I'm off to clean and bake cinnamon-raisin bread with my mom for my grandma's 95th birthday tomorrow.

Funny yet thoughtful

Click to see the whole thing

Memoir in Six Words

Pretty fun article from NPR about writing a six-word memoir. Smith magazine has compiled a collection of some truly great ones. Here are examples from the article:

Found on Craigslist: table, apartment, fiance.
Becki Lee

Met wife at her bachelorette party.
Eddie Matz

Family portrait: everyone smiles but me.
Ian Baaske

I picked passion. Now I'm poor.
Kathleen E. Whitlock

Normal person becomes psychotic on Twitter.
Robin Slick

Yale at 16, downhill from there.
Anita Kawatra

Here's mine: I live life off the cuff.

It's not great, but it's a decent first try, yes? My one colleague thought we could do it for all the students and fill the English wing of the school. We all liked the idea a lot--we'll see what the kids come up with.... Now you, readers! What can you come up with?

Your Feel-Good Friday

If you haven't seen this Pixar short film yet, here it is. If you've already seen it, enjoy it again. I just love the little girl's expressions throughout, especially at the end.

This sounds so familiar

Click on it to get the whole picture.

Speaking of Poems...

...have I told you all/do you know about the Poetry 180 website? I bet I have, but I want to mention it again. I just love it because it makes poetry accessible to school children...and adults, frankly. The point is to have schoolchildren read one poem every day school's in session, adding up to 180. Sure, I don't like some of it, but a number of others appeal to me because it's not high-falutin' or impossible to understand. It's a nice change from the lofty poetry that gets shoved down your throat as a student, the poetry you have to analyze and examine and find all the metaphors and symbolism and uuuggghhh. Granted, I still make them do that, to some extent. I kind of have to. The greatest irony was looking at the first poem, by former Poet Laureate (2001) Billy Collins:

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

...And then we examined it. But not too closely. We looked at the first thirty and I enjoyed "Did I Miss Anything", "The Partial Explanation", and "The Distances", to name a few. Check them out. I often feel daunted by poetry and this website helps me find access to it as well. This is also why I have the kids write "found poetry", which is simply poetry created from words that someone else has written. Again, because I don't consider myself a poet myself, I find creating poetry difficult...but if you give me words to work with, I can come up with something. It's why someone created magnetic poetry for the fridge--that little bit of inspiration. I equated it to Legos (I have to get creative to reach the kids): Even if you all have the same set, what you do with them is quite different. Check out this site to see what others have made up--although I warn you, I have no control over any of the content, so I'm not responsible if any of it is questionable. Some of it's quite lovely. Here's one I came up with that comes from the Amazon.com review for Reading Lolita in Tehran. I promise nothing in terms of quality, but I'll give it a shot:

The Book Group

An inspired blend

A moving testament

with the ability to change and inspire people's lives

Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of
great Western literature

banned by the government

forced to meet in secret

They met to talk
share
and burst into color

These books "were not a luxury but a necessity."

Try one yourself!

Sledding

Just a fun Sunday with my friend M and her five year-old son J (his first time sledding!) This is what numerous inches of snow allows, so I have to say that sometimes it's nice to live in a snowy area!

He thought this was the hill; it's just a giant pile of snow removed from the parking lot!

This sheriff's car was buried next to it, which I found pretty amusing

M and J

J's first run; he had a bit of a crash but it didn't stop him from wanting to go again!




Just a cold, snowy Sunday



This is one of the only places in the United States that has this sort of toboggan run

Snow

There's no other title for it. I warned Ouiser several times this was coming, and here it is. Everyone has their images of snow; it was even a (terrible) song in White Christmas. We think of the perfect looking pine trees, softly falling in the night, and often it does look like that. Snow can be beautiful. It can also be gray and hard as a rock, but that's mostly from highway travel. I much prefer the former to the latter.

When you live where I live, you get used to some form of snow arriving possibly as early as Halloween and as late as May, one year. Probably April. So yeah, we're pretty used to snow here in WNY. It has many forms: wet, powdery, heavy, slushy, sticky, pretty, and thick, to name a few. One becomes quite the connoisseur, uttering statements such as:

"This is great for snowball making! Packs well and doesn't stick to my mittens too much!"

"Yay, the light kind--makes shoveling easy!" (We have ergonomically correct shovels. Makes it easier for the back, you know.)

"Ugh, wet and heavy--better move the car from under the tree [so when the snow snaps the branches, they will not damage your car, which actually happened to me because the snow weighed 12lbs per square foot]."

I tend to measure snow in terms of whether or not Penny can run through it, or if it's deep/messy enough that I have to wear boots instead of nice shoes. That reminds me of another typical WNY conversation on New Year's Eve day at the shoe store:

"I need to find awesome boots that I can wear in the slush. Do you have those?"
"Oh, yeah, they're leather AND waterproof. And they have this cute design on them."
"Screw it; I'll just get the fleece-lined galoshes that look like cowboy boots."

Snow is my life; I walk in it, play in it, drive in it. I will have you warm weather weenies know that we've gotten anywhere from 2-4 inches of snow every day this past week and never once did anyone think of closing the schools...for which every student and teacher was incredibly grateful. Or not. Truly, it didn't even occur to anyone that anything might close. My city goes through anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 TONS of salt every year for winter. One of our first acts when we bought our house was to secure a plow guy, whom we love dearly.

The best part, though, is the skiing, snowmobiling, and sledding, which DH and I did last year. There's a great run near our house and we were the only ones there without children. Didn't stop us from making serious runs--and let me tell you, it's quite the workout slogging the sled back up the hill when you're dressed like Randy from A Christmas Story. It is also still fun to throw yourself in a pile and make a snow angel, even if you are over 30.

And then there's the serious side: We had to buy a roof rake, a 25 foot long metal rake with a large scraping blade that helps get snow off the roof. You never realize these contraptions even exist until the dining room begins to leak, as it did last year. Those icicles are not just for covering with food coloring and eating, people!

So here are a few of my better pictures, taken yesterday. Enjoy and stay warm. And slow the hell down when you're driving, turn into a skid, and pump your brakes. Thank you.

We forgot to take in the lawn chairs. Whoops.

Just to give you perspective on how much we have

Deer tracks through our yard

I think the best part is either walking as it falls silently around me, catching the light no matter the time of day, with the covered hush of sound that only winter can bring; or sitting inside on a snowy night as the wind howls, with warm cozy clothes on, a fire in the fireplace, comfort food, and people I love. You just can't get that at any other time of year, which is why I still love the snow, no matter the mess it makes. I guess that's why I live here.

Cereal Commercials: The Dark Underbelly

OK, I've talked about designer perfume. Now, I have to ask: From a media standpoint, why do so many children's cereal commercials have the premise of one character/set of characters keeping the cereal from another or attempting to take it by force? I suppose because it's so tasty one want to keep it all for oneself, but isn't that simply teaching gluttony? Perhaps I've truly hit on something; perhaps this is one of the catalysts for childhood obesity. Probably not.

Seriously, Fruity Pebbles? Why is Fred Flintstone such a creep that he can't share his Pebbles with Barney? Is there some finite amount? And why does Fred have sole access? For crying out loud, they used to share Winston cigarettes together. What happened to the neighborly love? Fred's obsession with these Pebbles and his rage frighten me.

Ah, and then there's Trix cereal. He's the TRIX rabbit. Why call him the Trix rabbit and then tell him, "Trix are for kids"? That's just cruel. Can't we teach our children to share? Doesn't that count as a vital lesson? Why, then, O advertising creative team, why have these children chuckle and tease this poor bunny? I call shenanigans on this one. Does anyone remember in the 80s when they had a write-in contest to see if the Trix rabbit should actually get his beloved Trix and the majority said he should? Well, it's been 20 years and I think it's high time we gave him another chance or perhaps offered him an alternative. It sure doesn't seem as though they're doing this for his health.


Lucky the Leprechaun defines irony for me. He's had no luck keeping his own damn Lucky Charms. Once again, jerk kids keep trying to steal his Lucky Charms, coming up with all sorts of nefarious plans to take them. How about asking, children? Lucky doesn't seem to be the same sort of cereal hog as Fred. I bet if you were nice, he would share. Doesn't this give kids the wrong idea: Take what you want and do anything to get it?

Super Golden Crisp: The way I remember it, Sugar Bear used to beat up those who tried to take his cereal. Now, mind you, if someone tried to steal my food, I might get a little edgy, too. He is a bear, after all, and there's the whole survival/resource guarding instinct. But hey, "It's got the crunch with punch"? So it makes you so strong you can defend yourself against sugar-stealing attackers? And why did Sugar Bear sound like Bing Crosby? (Was that a subtle dig at the crooner's alleged behavior toward his children?)

I'm sure there are others out there, other sugary cereal ads waiting to corrupt the minds of our youth. TAKE HEED, PEOPLE. Do it for the children. Won't somebody please think of the children?!?!

P.S. Do not get me started on my dissertation of Sonny the Cocoa Puffs Bird as the prime example of addiction and the dangers of a sugar high.