Surprisingly not like real life, the TV

On TV, teachers are always in the middle of deep, thoughtful lectures right as the dismissal bell rings.  And teachers never get upset when the students start getting up and leaving.  When I was in school, which was not terribly long ago, the teachers had us trained not to get up until they said we could.  The bell?  A mere suggestion.  And they got to the important parts of their lectures earlier in the period.

It’s tough on Long Island

There’s vicious cycle, and then there’s vicious circle. 

Vicious cycle makes me think someone with a thick New Yawk accent is saying vicious circle.  But, you know … New Yawk-ish.  Edith Bunker-ish.

There’s no bitterness in cookies

I wanted to be a Brownie when I was in first grade.  Some of my friends were Brownies and they got to wear the brown dress and the sash and they had patches and pins.  I heard stories about their activities and thought it sounded like a really cool club to be in.  But I always thought that you had to be chosen to be a Brownie (like, maybe by a teacher), and since I hadn’t been chosen, I didn’t ask my parents if I could be a Brownie.  So I never was one.  And here I am, 29 years old, still remembering that I wasn’t cool enough to wear that brown uniform.  Or the green one that came later. 

On the other hand, I never had to go door-to-door selling cookies, either.  I hate talking to people—especially people I don’t know—so that worked out for me.  I could just eat the cookies.  A much better deal.

And today I found out that there is indeed a substantive difference between Samoas and Caramel DeLites.  I always suspected there was.  Samoas forever.

Olympic stamina

I’m glad the main part of the gymnastics is over so I can start going to bed at a normal time again.

Writing with a view

I wonder how much of an effect a writer’s environment actually has on her.  For instance, if you built a sleek, bright, modern, glass-enclosed house overlooking some gorgeous beach in New Zealand and stuck 100 writers in there with typewriters, computers, pencils, crayons, whatever, would the writing be more inspired, or more optimistic, or more lyrical than the writing of 100 writers stuck in jail cells in the rain in England in the winter with the same materials at their disposal? 

My theory is yes, it would be, in a general sense.  Which I’m not saying is necessarily the goal here.  I just wonder what the correlation would be.

Fun with cats

We have a sheet of paper on our refrigerator, near the bottom, with a list of a bunch of plants and vegetables that are poisonous to cats.  Just in case we drop something on the floor.  You know, so we know how quickly we need to clean it up. 

Our boy cat started eating the list.

My husband, Ambrose Burnside

M:  “I think I should grow out my beard some more.  Chicks will dig me more if I have a nice bushy beard.”

T:  “I don’t think so.  I like the close-cropped look.  You’ll look like a mountain man with a bushy beard.  You’ll do better with the ladies if you keep it close.”

M:  “No, no—having a bushy beard is cool, like, in a Civil War kind of way.”

What’s freakiest is the weather

We’re watching Freaks & Geeks for the first time, on DVD.  It supposedly takes place in a suburb of Detroit.  Yet in the Halloween episode, when the geeks trick-or-treated for hours and the freaks kicked pumpkins and raised hell, it was light out the entire time.  And nobody was in heavy coats.  In Michigan.  In late October.

More recently, in what has to be mid-winter (because we’re halfway through the series), the geeks were playing baseball outside in the sunshine in SHORTS.  IN MICHIGAN.  IN MID-WINTER.

I know it’s probably rare to find a gray, gloomy, cold-looking day in Southern California, but at least they could wear jackets or something.  Hats.  Gloves.

A list of my favorite pies

1.  Strawberry-rhubarb

2.  Chocolate cream

3.  Banana cream (tied with banoffee)

4.  Apple

5.  Cherry

6.  Mixed berry

7.  Peach

8.  Blueberry

9.  Pumpkin

10.  Pecan

11.  Coconut cream

12.  Chicken pot

Tick tock

Jane Austen Book Club was 106 minutes of my life I will never get back.