you’ve been warned
If you happen to find a mysterious little white splotch on your upper arm when you’re out for a walk and it turns into a tiny red bump, ignore it.
DO NOT under ANY circumstances do a Google Image search for “spider bite.”
No, really. Don’t.
what’s your excuse?
I was trying to post a comment on someone’s blog just now and got an error message due to “high network traffic or heavy usage of Blogger.”
The error message took me back 12 years to a professor I had in college whose name was Ed. (All faculty were addressed by their first names). Ed is one of the most chipper morning people I have ever met. I was a night owl, but I didn’t mind mornings — which was a good thing, because if I had hated mornings, I might have hated Ed too. Three days a week, he would walk into our Principles of Management class a few minutes before 8:00 with a huge smile and an over-enthusiastic “GOOD MORNING!” Ed had been awake much longer than the rest of us, not only because he couldn’t get away with rolling out of bed and going to class, but because he Got Up Early to Use The Internet.
That’s right, folks. He started his morning with Netscape and the screechy sound of dial-up before the information superhighway became congested with traffic from timezones to the west. (Remember that little comet that crossed the Netscape horizon while waiting for webpages to load?)
The following year, Ed taught my Quantitative Decision Making class — affectionately known as Quant. It was memorable not only because it was my favorite class in college (I’m serious!), but because that’s where my favorite Ed story took place. I’m probably the only person in the class who still remembers this, but one day as he was handing back our homework assignments, we noticed that some of them were rather wrinkled and even torn.
His explanation? “My dog ate your homework.”
the turtle I didn’t imagine
Yogi Berra once quipped, “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it.”
Fortunately, the 9-inch (!) turtle I spotted when I was out for a walk this morning stuck around long enough for me to return with my camera and a yard stick an hour later. Isn’t it incredible?!
drive-by shooting
I pulled out the owner’s manual for my digital camera this evening and happened to see the following admonition in the safety notes at the back:
Never attempt to take pictures while in motion. Do not use the camera while you are walking or driving a vehicle. This can result in you falling down or being involved in a traffic accident.
Oops.
great tree, terrible location
Four months after I bought my house, Hurricane Isabel blew over the ornamental plum tree in my front yard. She huffed and she puffed and down it went. I wish I could have seen it go, but if I hadn’t been working late that evening, the tree would have landed on my car!
I didn’t feel any particular attachment to the tree, so I didn’t really care that it was gone. What I cared about most was the opinion of the long-time owner of the house. The family I bought the house from had only lived in it for a few years while the dad was in a graduate program, but the couple who owned it previously had lived here for many years. I was sure that one day they would be driving through their old neighborhood and gasp as they exclaimed, “Someone cut down our beautiful ornamental plum tree!” And I was sure they would think all kinds of mean thoughts about this new owner of the house because they didn’t know the truth.
I needn’t have worried. A day or so later, some men from my church brought their chainsaws and hauled the whole thing away, and while they were working, my neighbor across the street came out to chat. Frances was 90-some years old and quite spry, and she told me that she had already called the former owners of the house. “I said, ‘Pete, you’ll never guess what happened to your tree!’”
So they knew the truth about the demise of the tree. I’ve never met Pete and Greta, and I don’t know if they’re still in the area or if they’re even still living, but I hope they never find out what I’m going to do this week. I’m having a big, old walnut tree chopped down. A walnut tree that provides wonderful shade. A walnut tree that drops walnut bombs on my metal roof and litters the property with those wretched stem things. I’m sure Pete and Greta would disapprove. Even *I* disapprove, and I’m the one doing it!
“What’s wrong with the tree?” my sister asked when I told her I was having the tree taken down.
Nothing is wrong with the tree. That’s why I feel so guilty. The tree is in perfectly good health, and it’s probably as old as the house, which was built in 1945. It’s big and tall and awesome. I love it.
The only problem is that it’s ten feet from my house… and ten feet from my neighbors’ house… which is about 23 feet from mine. Not surprisingly, the tree branches are currently hanging over both of our houses, and if I keep trimming it like it has apparently been trimmed for the past how-many decades, it will continue to be a weird, narrow, two-dimensional tree. Still, I feel like I’m unnecessarily destroying a piece of history. I’ve convinced myself that when the tree is gone, my house will look short, boring, and naked and I will be wracked with guilt and regret.
Some of you probably think I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe I am. After all, it’s “just” a tree. But if you think this is unnecessary drama, just wait ’til I describe my indecision about possibly painting my brick fireplace…
doing CPR
“Are you OK?!”
He was flat on the ground and wasn’t moving. I tapped his shoulders and then gently shook him.
“Sir, are you OK?” I asked again. No response. I placed my ear near his mouth. I heard nothing. Felt nothing. He wasn’t breathing. I kicked into high gear and started administering CPR. Thirty chest compressions. Two breaths. Thirty chest compressions. Two breaths.
And then I stopped. Not because the CPR was successful, but because he was plastic… and because it was time to learn about AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators).
You probably didn’t know that June 1-7 is National CPR and AED Awareness Week. Neither did I — until I read a short article in the newspaper yesterday notifying the community that Emergency Prep, a local CPR/First Aid/AED training organization, was offering free CPR and AED instruction (not certification) classes today.
We each got to practice on our own mannequin that made a clicking noise when the chest was sufficiently compressed. And when I tilted his head back, pinched his nose, and breathed into the perfectly sanitary mouth, the simulated airway caused his chest to rise. I realize that nursing students and med students get to use far more high-tech patient simulators (like SimMan), but I thought it was pretty cool.
I know a lot more about CPR and AEDs than I did prior to this evening, but I obviously hope I never have to put my hour and a half of training to use. And if I’m ever in need of CPR, I certainly hope nobody has to pull out a little CPR quick-reference guide to remind them what to do!
brownie edge lovers
If I were to rank the popularity of my blog posts by the number of hits they’ve gotten, the “wanted: a perfect brownie recipe” post would come in at #12 out of 334. Just within the past week, people have used such search terms as “perfect brownie recipe,” “brownie recipe crackle top,” and “flaky brownie” to find that post.
Psst. Googlers: the word “wanted” means I Don’t Have One.
I also don’t have one of these:
Isn’t that amazing?! (And don’t you think it looks a bit like a computer game from the early 90s?) This “Edge Brownie Pan” is made by a company called — are you ready for it ?– Baker’s Edge, and retails for a hefty $34.95.
As clever as the idea is, there are three reasons I don’t want one:
1. I prefer not to fill my kitchen with tools that have only one purpose… although I do own a pizza cutter, an ice cream scoop, and a waffle iron. If I’m going to own a kitchen item that only does one thing, it needs to do that one thing much better, much more quickly, or much more easily than the classic alternative. In other words, I have to be convinced that a specialty tool is worth adding to my kitchen.
2. I apparently missed the memo informing the world that the prime brownie real estate is along the edge, so I’d rather have a middle piece.
3. As much as I love brownies, I actually don’t make them very often, so a pan like this would spend the vast majority of its life sitting in my cupboard collecting dust, and that just wouldn’t be fair to an incredible brownie pan like this.
But… if you’re a die-hard brownie edge lover, this just might be your dream come true!
