We're coming up to what I always assumed was a made up holiday, St. Patrick's Day, but, no, the holiday's actual origin is a Roman Catholic church feast day for the patron saint of Ireland (Saint Patrick) who died on March 17, 461. Ironically, he wasn't Irish, but rather he was born in Roman Britain, kidnapped, sold into slavery and transported to what is modern day Ireland. He escaped to Gaul (France), entered a monastery and converted to Christianity. He returned to Ireland as a missionary. Christianity was actually very widespread at that point, but Patrick did confront the remaining Druids and ran them out of Dodge along with their pagan rites. Legend has it Missionary Patrick used the Irish shamrock to explain the Christian Trinity to the peasant population. (I don't know what he did when a mutant four leaf shamrock popped up.)
It really wasn't until the Irish began immigrating out of Ireland did secular celebrations of St. Patrick's Day begin. Eighteenth century Irish who fought in the Revolutionary War held the first St. Paddy day parades. Turning the holiday into a celebration of being Irish was a way for immigrants to stay connected to their roots. Parades and post parade parties were also a way to say, "We're here; deal with it."
A flood of Irish left the homeland because of the potato famine in the 1840's. Irish in great numbers appeared in Newfoundland, the United States, and also New Zealand and Australia as a direct result of the famine. The immigration numbers were so high in the United States that today 34 million people claim Irish ancestry. That's almost one in ten. 190,000 Irish Americans fought in the Civil War (out of 2.75 million soldiers). There were nine Irish signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Integrating Irish culture by the in place American population was an early example of how we embrace elements of an immigrant culture and make them our own. So, everyone, Irish or not, has joined in the idea of having or attending a fun parade, wearing green, pinching those who don't, having a party, sort of believing the four leaf shamrock (clover) is 'lucky' and drinking green beer.
The way I look at it is this: We just finished celebrating the Chinese New Year. It's the year of the Red Monkey, incidentally. If you are lucky, you'll go to a Mardi Gras parade and catch something thrown from a float, and even luckier if you get to eat some real Cajun food. Next week we will be 'wearing the green' for St. Patrick's Day which will set us up for Cinco de Maya. Those parades will be followed not by green beer, but by those tasty margaritas. We then sashay right into the 4th of July with barbecue and hamburgers followed by fireworks. Now, do we know how to do holidays or what? We may not have invented "Eat, Drink and be Merry", but we sure know how to do it.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Monday, February 29, 2016
How About Leaping into a New Time?
It's a pity I already have a husband because today is the traditional day when women ask men to marry them. Yes, one of the many bizarre things spawned by February 29th is the idea if the world is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket, as evidenced by the newfangled Gregorian Calendar adopted in 1582 with its extra added day every four years, well, then women might as well behave like men! This was the premise of a popular British play poking fun at the new calendar adoption. The idea took hold in Britain evolving into Bachelor's Day in England and Sadie Hawkin's Day in the United States. In actuality, February 29th was added to the Gregorian calendar to keep the calendar synchronized with the solar seasons.
You have a 1 in 1461 chance of becoming a leapling: the name for babies born on February 29th, and, therefore, have a birthday only once every four years. We actually have a friend who has a due date of today. I'm pretty sure the baby is going to pass this day by as a birthday since the mom's mother was 'late' with both her kiddos. Generally speaking, you bake babies about in the same fashion and amount of time as your mother. Forty weeks is just an average.
Much more interesting to me is the idea the Gregorian Calendar has served its purpose. Lots has happened in world since 1582. The most significant is the world is now completely and virtually instantaneously connected. Al Gore's information highway is a monster freeway of astounding proportions upon which zooms mankind at a rate unable to even be conceived by Pope Gregory XIII.
Seizing upon that fact, two scientists, Richard Henry and Stephen Hanke, professors at John Hopkins University, have decided the early Renaissance calendar we all operate under needs to be consigned to the rubbish heap. They have designed the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar. (Frankly, I think 'permanent' is a little arrogant. I'm sure Julius Caesar thought HIS calendar was permanent too.)
Here are the H/H calendar highlights: January, February, April, May, July, August, October and November all have 30 days. March, June, September, and December all have 31 days. While the length of certain months change, the days of the week stay exactly the same - from year to year. Thus, all the three holy days of the week (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) all occur in the same place as always.
Furthermore, each date falls exactly on the same day of the week every year. For example, in the H/H calendar, Christmas Day and New Year's Day are always on Sunday. Every five or six years there's an 'Xtra Week' added to the calendar - again that pesky solar synchronization - beginning the end of December. Jackpot! An extra week of holiday festivities works for me. Institutional and business scheduling is consistent from one year to the next since each year the days all fall on the same date. Countless man hours re-calculating everything from year to year to set schedules would vanish. Mortgage and interest calculations just got simpler and more fair. So far, so good. The H/H calendar sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Wait a minute! What happens if you have a May 31st birthday! Well, according to H/H, get over it and change your birthday to May 30th. Boy, are these guys naive. Have you ever tried to change the date of your birthday? I tried when I was 19 just for fun and because I wanted the opal to be my birthstone. I decided I wanted my birthday to be October 2nd instead of September 25th. People like my parents and my friends were outraged! How dare I! My birthday was my birthday, and I was stuck with it. What I wanted didn't matter. Additionally, I've never understood why those folks born on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day don't just change their birthday to a nice day in May or June, however; I've never met a person with a Christmas birthday who did it. Oh, and I won't even mention Halloween, which under H/H no longer exists.
For me the real problem facing the adoption of this calendar is the elimination of 'Time Zones' around the world. That's the adjunct proposal for the adoption of the H/H Permanent Calendar. By abolishing Time Zones and adopting UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), it would be the same time everywhere on the globe. Thus, if you work in California and do lots of business in New York, you don't have to arrive at work at 6:00 am Pacific Time to reach people who have just started their work day at 9:00 am Eastern Time. Imagine the boon for people who do business, have family, or need to communicate in real time with people on the other side of the globe if it was the same time everywhere.
Let me give you a glimpse of life on UTC. It's currently 3:00 pm in the afternoon, Mountain Standard Time (or Arizona [we don't believe in Daylight Savings] Time). It's also 10:00 pm. Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) which is seven hours later than Mountain Standard Time. Now, remember, a 'clock' as well as the system of Time Zones are artificial means to measure time. So, if I'm using Universal Coordinated Time where the time for everyone all over the world is the same, the sun rose in Arizona this morning at approximately 2:00 pm. Hmmm. I'd be getting up at 2:30 pm, headed for my workday which starts at 4pm and quitting time, after an eight hour day, would be midnight. I think we'd have to redefine what hours constitute morning, afternoon and evening and definitely use a clock based on 24 hours instead of 12 eliminating AM and PM.
Obviously, to reap the rewards of UTC everywhere, we'd definitely need an International Conference to hammer out the details like the International Conference on Time in 1884 did. As time keeping became more standardized and based on longitude and latitude, the International Conference on Time in 1884 adopted the Greenwich Observatory outside of London as the site of the prime meridian (the zero degree longitude) - the line upon which all time around the world would be calculated - and thus, the time zones around the world were created. Each time zone is plus or minus so many hours from the Greenwich Observatory. (I always wondered exactly what the prime meridian was, didn't you?)
This place was chosen to designate the zero longitude for time calculation because the Greenwich Observatory was acknowledged world wide as being the most accurate at keeping exact time, and also because the British were doing the most world wide commerce. Today, the UTC is calculated from the Greenwich Observatory (0 degree longitude) using some atomic calculation. (I'm done - the nutshell is you can figure your UTC time based on Greenwich Time - in Arizona, I'm seven hours earlier than UTC.)
What would an International Time Conference in 2016 have to work out? First, are we going to adopt the H/H Calendar world wide. There's a growing movement to do just that. Second, we'd have to jettison the idea the clock is tied to the sun. We'd still want to work during daylight hours and sleep during the dark, but our notion of what clock time constitutes morning, afternoon and evening would be radically different.
It all sounds really strange, doesn't it? However, did you know several institutions are already using UTC? All aviators use UTC to avoid the problem of is it AM or PM as well as eliminating those time zones they whiz through. They call UTC 'Zulu Time' which is much more catchy, don't you think? The national weather service uses UTC as well as world wide computer systems.
This is all just too much for me. I think I'll just have a Leap Year cocktail invented by Harry Craddock, renowned bartender, at the London Savoy Hotel in 1928, and go internet shopping for Leap Year deals offered only on the 29th of February. Perhaps Jet Blue will reinstate it's February 29th special fare of $29 again. Happy Leap Year Day!
You have a 1 in 1461 chance of becoming a leapling: the name for babies born on February 29th, and, therefore, have a birthday only once every four years. We actually have a friend who has a due date of today. I'm pretty sure the baby is going to pass this day by as a birthday since the mom's mother was 'late' with both her kiddos. Generally speaking, you bake babies about in the same fashion and amount of time as your mother. Forty weeks is just an average.
Much more interesting to me is the idea the Gregorian Calendar has served its purpose. Lots has happened in world since 1582. The most significant is the world is now completely and virtually instantaneously connected. Al Gore's information highway is a monster freeway of astounding proportions upon which zooms mankind at a rate unable to even be conceived by Pope Gregory XIII.
Seizing upon that fact, two scientists, Richard Henry and Stephen Hanke, professors at John Hopkins University, have decided the early Renaissance calendar we all operate under needs to be consigned to the rubbish heap. They have designed the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar. (Frankly, I think 'permanent' is a little arrogant. I'm sure Julius Caesar thought HIS calendar was permanent too.)
Here are the H/H calendar highlights: January, February, April, May, July, August, October and November all have 30 days. March, June, September, and December all have 31 days. While the length of certain months change, the days of the week stay exactly the same - from year to year. Thus, all the three holy days of the week (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) all occur in the same place as always.
Furthermore, each date falls exactly on the same day of the week every year. For example, in the H/H calendar, Christmas Day and New Year's Day are always on Sunday. Every five or six years there's an 'Xtra Week' added to the calendar - again that pesky solar synchronization - beginning the end of December. Jackpot! An extra week of holiday festivities works for me. Institutional and business scheduling is consistent from one year to the next since each year the days all fall on the same date. Countless man hours re-calculating everything from year to year to set schedules would vanish. Mortgage and interest calculations just got simpler and more fair. So far, so good. The H/H calendar sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Wait a minute! What happens if you have a May 31st birthday! Well, according to H/H, get over it and change your birthday to May 30th. Boy, are these guys naive. Have you ever tried to change the date of your birthday? I tried when I was 19 just for fun and because I wanted the opal to be my birthstone. I decided I wanted my birthday to be October 2nd instead of September 25th. People like my parents and my friends were outraged! How dare I! My birthday was my birthday, and I was stuck with it. What I wanted didn't matter. Additionally, I've never understood why those folks born on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day don't just change their birthday to a nice day in May or June, however; I've never met a person with a Christmas birthday who did it. Oh, and I won't even mention Halloween, which under H/H no longer exists.
For me the real problem facing the adoption of this calendar is the elimination of 'Time Zones' around the world. That's the adjunct proposal for the adoption of the H/H Permanent Calendar. By abolishing Time Zones and adopting UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), it would be the same time everywhere on the globe. Thus, if you work in California and do lots of business in New York, you don't have to arrive at work at 6:00 am Pacific Time to reach people who have just started their work day at 9:00 am Eastern Time. Imagine the boon for people who do business, have family, or need to communicate in real time with people on the other side of the globe if it was the same time everywhere.
Let me give you a glimpse of life on UTC. It's currently 3:00 pm in the afternoon, Mountain Standard Time (or Arizona [we don't believe in Daylight Savings] Time). It's also 10:00 pm. Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) which is seven hours later than Mountain Standard Time. Now, remember, a 'clock' as well as the system of Time Zones are artificial means to measure time. So, if I'm using Universal Coordinated Time where the time for everyone all over the world is the same, the sun rose in Arizona this morning at approximately 2:00 pm. Hmmm. I'd be getting up at 2:30 pm, headed for my workday which starts at 4pm and quitting time, after an eight hour day, would be midnight. I think we'd have to redefine what hours constitute morning, afternoon and evening and definitely use a clock based on 24 hours instead of 12 eliminating AM and PM.
Obviously, to reap the rewards of UTC everywhere, we'd definitely need an International Conference to hammer out the details like the International Conference on Time in 1884 did. As time keeping became more standardized and based on longitude and latitude, the International Conference on Time in 1884 adopted the Greenwich Observatory outside of London as the site of the prime meridian (the zero degree longitude) - the line upon which all time around the world would be calculated - and thus, the time zones around the world were created. Each time zone is plus or minus so many hours from the Greenwich Observatory. (I always wondered exactly what the prime meridian was, didn't you?)
This place was chosen to designate the zero longitude for time calculation because the Greenwich Observatory was acknowledged world wide as being the most accurate at keeping exact time, and also because the British were doing the most world wide commerce. Today, the UTC is calculated from the Greenwich Observatory (0 degree longitude) using some atomic calculation. (I'm done - the nutshell is you can figure your UTC time based on Greenwich Time - in Arizona, I'm seven hours earlier than UTC.)
What would an International Time Conference in 2016 have to work out? First, are we going to adopt the H/H Calendar world wide. There's a growing movement to do just that. Second, we'd have to jettison the idea the clock is tied to the sun. We'd still want to work during daylight hours and sleep during the dark, but our notion of what clock time constitutes morning, afternoon and evening would be radically different.
It all sounds really strange, doesn't it? However, did you know several institutions are already using UTC? All aviators use UTC to avoid the problem of is it AM or PM as well as eliminating those time zones they whiz through. They call UTC 'Zulu Time' which is much more catchy, don't you think? The national weather service uses UTC as well as world wide computer systems.
This is all just too much for me. I think I'll just have a Leap Year cocktail invented by Harry Craddock, renowned bartender, at the London Savoy Hotel in 1928, and go internet shopping for Leap Year deals offered only on the 29th of February. Perhaps Jet Blue will reinstate it's February 29th special fare of $29 again. Happy Leap Year Day!
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Happy V Day
If there was ever a minefield holiday, it's Valentine's Day. You start picking your way across it while still in elementary school. Who can ever forget the white paper lunch bags sitting like little sentinels on each desk. Right before recess, everyone was supposed to drop their valentine for each person in the class into each bag. The Valentine Day bags were decorated with crayons (1st, and 2nd grade), construction paper hearts (3rd and 4th grade), and then, beginning in the 5th grade, you had to decorate at home and bring it in. Boys reverted back to one hastily drawn crayon heart with their name under it while for girls, this was the first fashion statement. Those valentine bags were precursors to wearing the right or wrong outfit to the first day of junior high school.
If the teacher was unvigilant, the unpopular kids in class would find their bags woefully short of valentines, while the most popular girls started getting REAL valentine cards as early at the 4th grade. The rest of us had to content ourselves with punch-out valentines, 36 to a box. Those flimsy cards with images of Mighty Mouse, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Sleeping Beauty, (the Disney cartoon princess of 1959), Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, or the Jetsons rested in an untidy heap in the bottom of each bag together with suckers, Smartees, Double Bubble, Tootsie Roll pops, or the ever popular miniature box of chalky, candy hearts stamped with shorthand love sentiments in red dye #7. Moms didn't care about sugar consumption at school. It was all about being able to fill each bag in the class with a cheap piece of candy. My most unexpected valentine bag item was in the 5th grade. I pulled out an actual piece of jewelry (pink rhinestone heart necklace) from Stanley somebody. That year was the ONLY year I ran with the popular girls. Why or how that happened is still a mystery to me.
In junior high, white bags vanished, teachers dropped out of the equation, and valentine cards were shoved into locker vents. OK, again, shoved into the POPULAR girls' lockers. Valentine popular seemed to equate to either breast development, or if you had a 'steady'. At Eli Whitney Junior High, a steady was a boy you held hands with when you walked in the hallways before school. At age 13, steadies could change daily. Some girls, like me, were still playing with Barbie dolls and paper dolls, albeit with the door closed, so no one would know. I sensed I shouldn't still be playing with dolls, but in the 7th grade I found them more fun than boys.
When high school rolled around, Valentine's Day became SERIOUS BUSINESS. If you had a boyfriend, he was expected to deliver the goods preferably at school in front of your friends. There were heart shaped boxes of candy, bouquets of flowers, large stuffed animals, bracelets, necklaces, and if you were a Senior, the possibility of a Valentine's Day engagement ring (seriously!). Good grief! What were we thinking.
Think being married gets you off the Valentine's Day hook? Hardly. The minefield explosions of Valentine's Day just get bigger. About the only difference between today and yesteryear is it's now a two way street. Men expect acknowledgements of love as well as women. While Drake doesn't care a whit about any holiday, much less one which he has dark suspicions the greeting card/floral companies dreamed up, woe be it to him if he 'forgets'. And in my holiday crazed brain, a card just doesn't cut it.
So.....Happy Valentine's Day. I just hope you make it through without blowing yourself up.
If the teacher was unvigilant, the unpopular kids in class would find their bags woefully short of valentines, while the most popular girls started getting REAL valentine cards as early at the 4th grade. The rest of us had to content ourselves with punch-out valentines, 36 to a box. Those flimsy cards with images of Mighty Mouse, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Sleeping Beauty, (the Disney cartoon princess of 1959), Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, or the Jetsons rested in an untidy heap in the bottom of each bag together with suckers, Smartees, Double Bubble, Tootsie Roll pops, or the ever popular miniature box of chalky, candy hearts stamped with shorthand love sentiments in red dye #7. Moms didn't care about sugar consumption at school. It was all about being able to fill each bag in the class with a cheap piece of candy. My most unexpected valentine bag item was in the 5th grade. I pulled out an actual piece of jewelry (pink rhinestone heart necklace) from Stanley somebody. That year was the ONLY year I ran with the popular girls. Why or how that happened is still a mystery to me.
In junior high, white bags vanished, teachers dropped out of the equation, and valentine cards were shoved into locker vents. OK, again, shoved into the POPULAR girls' lockers. Valentine popular seemed to equate to either breast development, or if you had a 'steady'. At Eli Whitney Junior High, a steady was a boy you held hands with when you walked in the hallways before school. At age 13, steadies could change daily. Some girls, like me, were still playing with Barbie dolls and paper dolls, albeit with the door closed, so no one would know. I sensed I shouldn't still be playing with dolls, but in the 7th grade I found them more fun than boys.
When high school rolled around, Valentine's Day became SERIOUS BUSINESS. If you had a boyfriend, he was expected to deliver the goods preferably at school in front of your friends. There were heart shaped boxes of candy, bouquets of flowers, large stuffed animals, bracelets, necklaces, and if you were a Senior, the possibility of a Valentine's Day engagement ring (seriously!). Good grief! What were we thinking.
Think being married gets you off the Valentine's Day hook? Hardly. The minefield explosions of Valentine's Day just get bigger. About the only difference between today and yesteryear is it's now a two way street. Men expect acknowledgements of love as well as women. While Drake doesn't care a whit about any holiday, much less one which he has dark suspicions the greeting card/floral companies dreamed up, woe be it to him if he 'forgets'. And in my holiday crazed brain, a card just doesn't cut it.
So.....Happy Valentine's Day. I just hope you make it through without blowing yourself up.
Friday, February 12, 2016
The Era of Discard
No, I don't mean discord, I mean DISCARD. Currently, we are being not so subtly encouraged by the car industry to discard our automobile. After all, it's 13 years old, and as everyone knows, you should have a newer car than that. If you don't believe me, try to buy parts for an older car. We need engine mounts. There are no Lincoln Aviator engine mounts to be had anywhere in this country, neither genuine parts, after market parts, or salvage parts. The Ford dealership just waved bye, bye to us, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. A small business car mechanic is currently trying to jerry-rig a set from some almost one size fits all engine mounts. Jury is still out whether or not this will work.
It started me thinking about how many machines we currently discard because they need a bit of repair: Computers, televisions, clocks, watches, toasters, coffee makers, toaster ovens, curling irons, flat irons, hair dryers, irons, sewing machines, typewriters (obsolescence, there), mixers, along with one function appliances like juicers, bread makers, ricers, fry-daddies, mamas and babies, electric grills, waffle makers, electric fry pans, fondue pots, and a dozen others. Then, there are the big ticket items like: stoves, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwaves, and, of course, cars.
At least there's a salvage system for cars. I did a cursory internet search to see if there was a salvage system for small appliances. Nope. Not one that readily popped up. In Sun City we have a healthy re-sale market for small appliances that still WORK, but nothing for the coffee maker that doesn't heat anymore, or the iron whose only functional setting is linen. You can't take your hair dryer (or any other small appliance) to anyone and have it fixed. In the 1950's you could still get products repaired at your local repair shop which was sometimes a storefront in the local hardware store. There was a guy who worked on toasters and percolators and yes, hair dryers as well as any other small appliance. You brought it in, and he fixed it.
As cheap labor allowed cheap goods to flood the United States market beginning with 'Made in Japan' stamped on the bottom of thousands of products after WWII, we began to discard rather than repair because it was cheaper to simply 'buy a new one'. Manufacturing of actual goods now belongs to Chinese labor, and now the 'cheaper to buy a new one' is firmly ingrained in our psyche.
If you are a recycler, reuser, or part of the 'second hand market', well, more power to you. Even better if you are a repairer. Drake has saved many a cherished item around our household because he was willing to 'open it up'. In our remodel, we re-purposed and rehabbed one bathroom vanity, gave away one entire set of bathroom fixtures to a neighbor who is going to install our bathroom discards in her bathroom, and then donated the rest to a building materials recycle store front.
We kept one of our previous cars for seventeen years (yes, my faithful blue Volvo), and we're planning on keeping Goldie, the Aviator, for as long as we are towing the trailer around the country. So, get ready, car mechanics, because we are going to be calling on your ingenuity and repair skills to keep us running.
It started me thinking about how many machines we currently discard because they need a bit of repair: Computers, televisions, clocks, watches, toasters, coffee makers, toaster ovens, curling irons, flat irons, hair dryers, irons, sewing machines, typewriters (obsolescence, there), mixers, along with one function appliances like juicers, bread makers, ricers, fry-daddies, mamas and babies, electric grills, waffle makers, electric fry pans, fondue pots, and a dozen others. Then, there are the big ticket items like: stoves, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwaves, and, of course, cars.
At least there's a salvage system for cars. I did a cursory internet search to see if there was a salvage system for small appliances. Nope. Not one that readily popped up. In Sun City we have a healthy re-sale market for small appliances that still WORK, but nothing for the coffee maker that doesn't heat anymore, or the iron whose only functional setting is linen. You can't take your hair dryer (or any other small appliance) to anyone and have it fixed. In the 1950's you could still get products repaired at your local repair shop which was sometimes a storefront in the local hardware store. There was a guy who worked on toasters and percolators and yes, hair dryers as well as any other small appliance. You brought it in, and he fixed it.
As cheap labor allowed cheap goods to flood the United States market beginning with 'Made in Japan' stamped on the bottom of thousands of products after WWII, we began to discard rather than repair because it was cheaper to simply 'buy a new one'. Manufacturing of actual goods now belongs to Chinese labor, and now the 'cheaper to buy a new one' is firmly ingrained in our psyche.
If you are a recycler, reuser, or part of the 'second hand market', well, more power to you. Even better if you are a repairer. Drake has saved many a cherished item around our household because he was willing to 'open it up'. In our remodel, we re-purposed and rehabbed one bathroom vanity, gave away one entire set of bathroom fixtures to a neighbor who is going to install our bathroom discards in her bathroom, and then donated the rest to a building materials recycle store front.
We kept one of our previous cars for seventeen years (yes, my faithful blue Volvo), and we're planning on keeping Goldie, the Aviator, for as long as we are towing the trailer around the country. So, get ready, car mechanics, because we are going to be calling on your ingenuity and repair skills to keep us running.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Marvelous Magazines
In the 21st century we will be hearing the death knell of magazines as we've known them for the past 100 years. There's nothing like pages of text interspersed with pictures, and while an argument can be made this lay out is reproduced electronically, it's not really a magazine for me unless I have the tactile sensation of flipping the pages. Part of my dislike of Zinio, electronic magazine subscriptions, has to do with where I read magazines.
I know you can surmise this place. It's been called many things in the 19th and 20th centuries: It's 'the throne', (everyone is a king in his/her own castle), 'the crapper', (supposedly referring to the inventor), 'latrine' (oh, you're in the military), the 'pot' (shorthand for chamber pot), 'john', (inventor again) 'can' (who knows? - maybe the shape), 'potty' (toddler toilet training language), commode (the 19th century reference), and 'rest room' (the 20th century reference) Sometimes I think my entire digestive system is dependent on glossy pages.
Magazine reading took place everywhere in my 1100 square foot childhood house. Jack and Jill as well as Highlights were dentist office treats, but the early magazine staple in my house was the Reader's Digest. I started reading this publication when I was eight. The format of the RD was the same for my entire child and teen years. Thirty condensed articles (one for each day), drawn from other American magazines. Additionally, you could count on 'Humor in Uniform', 'Life in These United States', 'Amazing Anecdotes', and 'Personal Glimpses'. There was usually a condensed book as the largest and last article in the magazine. All of this was documented in the table of contents which was printed on the front cover. My very, very favorite monthly article was "Word Power". (A one page vocabulary test. Pick the multiple choice answer of word definitions on one side of the page, with the correct answer choices on the back of the page.) I LOVED WORD POWER! I credit that one monthly page as the nascence of my love of language.
Not only the outside table of contents, but also size of the magazine set the Reader's Digest apart from other publications. It was founded by a husband and wife team and has been published since 1922. I'm in good reading company: It's been consistently the most read magazine in America for more than 100 years, and although it's been jazzed up and graphically enhanced (more pix and more electronic references), it's still instantly recognizable. It's printed in Braille as well as in multiple countries in multiple languages. There's an electronic version. You can also get this magazine in large print. FYI, I read my first large print RD, and I hated it - the format and size suck.
The Reader's Digest condensed book in the back of every issue were my first grown up books. About age ten I was easily reading these, so I just naturally graduated out of the kid's books - remember, young adult lit hadn't been invented yet - into adult fiction at the public library branch I patronized each week. In my late elementary school and junior high school days, I read Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Four or five of the most popular fiction and non-fiction books were abridged and published together in one book four times a year.
The literary minded despised those offerings, but they were immensely popular being published from 1950 until 1997. Those abridged books certainly increased my reading speed and comprehension. It was a great day in my young life whenever I scored unread volumes at garage sales. My other monthly magazine came to me via my Grandmother Sartor. She subscribed to two magazines: The Farm Journal and McCall's. I had zero interest in farming, but I was entranced each month by Betsy McCall, the monthly paper doll.
As I matured, so did my magazine choices. I graduated to Time when I was in my teens. As soon as we had a permanent address, Drake and I began adding magazines to our household. My mother gave us Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine as our Christmas gifts from 1974 until her death in 2007. My first response to our move to Texas was to subscribe to Texas Monthly followed by Texas Highways. After our visit to Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian complex of museums in 1977, we added Smithsonian to our house magazine rack. Our old friend, Reader's Digest, rejoined our household during Sarah's growing up years together with ZooBooks and Highlights. At the zenith of our home ownership, we added Consumer Reports.
One of the few things I dislike about our current nomadic existence is our inability to subscribe to magazines. Today, I buy only one magazine each month: Real Simple which is the modernized 21st century home making magazine for today's working woman. (While I don't work for pay anymore, I appreciate the 'Zen' quality of this magazine.) When in Arizona, I fill my periodical addiction with pre-read mags which I buy for about $.25 each.
Sometimes, I find really old magazines which today seem archaic in their attitudes toward women. Sarah and I read a 1961 version of 'Good Housekeeping' over Christmas. Jackie Kennedy was prominently featured as well as Velveeta cheese recipes, and my favorite, the Letter to the Editor from the tobacco industry defending their product and asserting there was no link between cancer and cigarettes. Just an aside, in December of 1952, Reader's Digest published "Cancer by the Carton" the first widely disseminated anti-tobacco information to the public.
My magazines have migrated to the throne room because even as much as I love them, they have been squeezed out of the living area by my electronics. Since the remodel has started, we've been reduced to one bathroom, and I can tell my tendency to 'camp out' in the throne room with my magazines is one of the many things sitting on Drake's very last nerve. It's my fervent hope magazines survive in print. If they don't, I may have to dedicate a tablet to the bathroom magazine rack even if it will be a poor substitute. Perhaps holographic technology could sway me away from ink and paper. Until then, I'm going to cling to my 20th century magazine vibes.
I know you can surmise this place. It's been called many things in the 19th and 20th centuries: It's 'the throne', (everyone is a king in his/her own castle), 'the crapper', (supposedly referring to the inventor), 'latrine' (oh, you're in the military), the 'pot' (shorthand for chamber pot), 'john', (inventor again) 'can' (who knows? - maybe the shape), 'potty' (toddler toilet training language), commode (the 19th century reference), and 'rest room' (the 20th century reference) Sometimes I think my entire digestive system is dependent on glossy pages.
Magazine reading took place everywhere in my 1100 square foot childhood house. Jack and Jill as well as Highlights were dentist office treats, but the early magazine staple in my house was the Reader's Digest. I started reading this publication when I was eight. The format of the RD was the same for my entire child and teen years. Thirty condensed articles (one for each day), drawn from other American magazines. Additionally, you could count on 'Humor in Uniform', 'Life in These United States', 'Amazing Anecdotes', and 'Personal Glimpses'. There was usually a condensed book as the largest and last article in the magazine. All of this was documented in the table of contents which was printed on the front cover. My very, very favorite monthly article was "Word Power". (A one page vocabulary test. Pick the multiple choice answer of word definitions on one side of the page, with the correct answer choices on the back of the page.) I LOVED WORD POWER! I credit that one monthly page as the nascence of my love of language.
Not only the outside table of contents, but also size of the magazine set the Reader's Digest apart from other publications. It was founded by a husband and wife team and has been published since 1922. I'm in good reading company: It's been consistently the most read magazine in America for more than 100 years, and although it's been jazzed up and graphically enhanced (more pix and more electronic references), it's still instantly recognizable. It's printed in Braille as well as in multiple countries in multiple languages. There's an electronic version. You can also get this magazine in large print. FYI, I read my first large print RD, and I hated it - the format and size suck.
The Reader's Digest condensed book in the back of every issue were my first grown up books. About age ten I was easily reading these, so I just naturally graduated out of the kid's books - remember, young adult lit hadn't been invented yet - into adult fiction at the public library branch I patronized each week. In my late elementary school and junior high school days, I read Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Four or five of the most popular fiction and non-fiction books were abridged and published together in one book four times a year.
The literary minded despised those offerings, but they were immensely popular being published from 1950 until 1997. Those abridged books certainly increased my reading speed and comprehension. It was a great day in my young life whenever I scored unread volumes at garage sales. My other monthly magazine came to me via my Grandmother Sartor. She subscribed to two magazines: The Farm Journal and McCall's. I had zero interest in farming, but I was entranced each month by Betsy McCall, the monthly paper doll.
As I matured, so did my magazine choices. I graduated to Time when I was in my teens. As soon as we had a permanent address, Drake and I began adding magazines to our household. My mother gave us Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine as our Christmas gifts from 1974 until her death in 2007. My first response to our move to Texas was to subscribe to Texas Monthly followed by Texas Highways. After our visit to Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian complex of museums in 1977, we added Smithsonian to our house magazine rack. Our old friend, Reader's Digest, rejoined our household during Sarah's growing up years together with ZooBooks and Highlights. At the zenith of our home ownership, we added Consumer Reports.
One of the few things I dislike about our current nomadic existence is our inability to subscribe to magazines. Today, I buy only one magazine each month: Real Simple which is the modernized 21st century home making magazine for today's working woman. (While I don't work for pay anymore, I appreciate the 'Zen' quality of this magazine.) When in Arizona, I fill my periodical addiction with pre-read mags which I buy for about $.25 each.
Sometimes, I find really old magazines which today seem archaic in their attitudes toward women. Sarah and I read a 1961 version of 'Good Housekeeping' over Christmas. Jackie Kennedy was prominently featured as well as Velveeta cheese recipes, and my favorite, the Letter to the Editor from the tobacco industry defending their product and asserting there was no link between cancer and cigarettes. Just an aside, in December of 1952, Reader's Digest published "Cancer by the Carton" the first widely disseminated anti-tobacco information to the public.
My magazines have migrated to the throne room because even as much as I love them, they have been squeezed out of the living area by my electronics. Since the remodel has started, we've been reduced to one bathroom, and I can tell my tendency to 'camp out' in the throne room with my magazines is one of the many things sitting on Drake's very last nerve. It's my fervent hope magazines survive in print. If they don't, I may have to dedicate a tablet to the bathroom magazine rack even if it will be a poor substitute. Perhaps holographic technology could sway me away from ink and paper. Until then, I'm going to cling to my 20th century magazine vibes.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Memories
Cicero said, "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." I've been thinking about the role memories play in our lives for several days now. This contemplation is all about turning 65 in September as well as my aunt dying this week. Patricia Ann Myers Nichols was my mother's youngest sister and the last person of that family. Her life, my mother's life, my other aunt's life as well as their parents' lives are now in my memory as well as the memories of my two cousins. Additionally, for the past year, I've been functioning as my 88 year old mother-in-law's editor. She's writing her memoirs, and she's written more than thirty of memories about her life.
My mother used to try and tell me as I aged family would become more important. Truthfully, I just just nodded and said, "Yeah, sure." At the time, I was racing headlong into my own life. In my 20's and early 30's I worked incredibly long hours. In an average week I clocked more than 60 hours at work. Weeks where there was some 'fire' to put out, the hours stretched even longer. When I wasn't working, there was fun, friends, traveling, and fooling around with personal real estate. We moved every few years into another house during our time in Houston. We didn't know what we were doing was called 'flipping' back then. I didn't have any time to devote to or any real interest in my mother's generation or my grandmother's generation.
It wasn't until our own 'next generation' arrived in my mid 30's that I began to have a glimmer of what my mother was trying to express. She was talking about memories. We create memories, and we pass on the ones created previously within our circle of family and friends. It's why the study of personal genealogy has become such a big business. When you trace your family tree, you don't focus on dates of birth and death so much as trying to glean facts which can bring a person two or three generations back from yourself to life. Did they fight in a war? What kind of job did they do? Where did they come from?
I joke about my own Cherokee heritage. "We were here to greet you when you white people arrived." The ultimate irony is my grandmother was ashamed of being a Cherokee while my Swiss-American grandfather reveled in everything about American Indians. My middle aunt, Ahnawake, (yes, the one sister in the family who didn't have coal black hair and eyes, had the Indian name) became the most educated person in the family. As she took American history classes at the university, it startled her when she realized her own elementary school educated, laborer father knew more about the history of American Indians than the professors of her classes. That's another personal family story; what memories are really composed of. Is it true or not? It really doesn't matter. The point of the memory tale is my grandfather was self-educated and smart.
As an entire generation dies out either physically or mentally, the only thing left of them are the memories they have passed on. Sure, there's furniture and trinkets, but those are not the essence of the person. I cherish my mother and mother-in-law's furniture and possessions in my house but less for the items than for the stories they represent. For example, the rocking chair in my bedroom was a gift from my daughter's great grandparents to her grandmother commemorating my birth. Families don't have to be either rich or important to have stories attached to possessions. The quilt hanging on the quilt rack was made by Drake's great-grandmother during the Great Depression from the scraps she saved after making the choir robes for the First Methodist Church choir of Vienna, West Virginia.
In the program, 'Roots', family stories are often garbled or not quite factually true. Sergeants become Colonels, rascals are sanitized, or even deleted in family memories. Family tensions and estrangements kill the memory trail. A constant theme in the African American family genealogy is the complete vaporization of family. One legacy of slavery is it killed generations of family memories. The real lesson is you are a very lucky person if you have memories to pass along. If you don't share them, you lose them, and when your family stories are lost, you lose not only the people in the stories but you also lose irreplaceable parts of yourself.
My mother used to try and tell me as I aged family would become more important. Truthfully, I just just nodded and said, "Yeah, sure." At the time, I was racing headlong into my own life. In my 20's and early 30's I worked incredibly long hours. In an average week I clocked more than 60 hours at work. Weeks where there was some 'fire' to put out, the hours stretched even longer. When I wasn't working, there was fun, friends, traveling, and fooling around with personal real estate. We moved every few years into another house during our time in Houston. We didn't know what we were doing was called 'flipping' back then. I didn't have any time to devote to or any real interest in my mother's generation or my grandmother's generation.
It wasn't until our own 'next generation' arrived in my mid 30's that I began to have a glimmer of what my mother was trying to express. She was talking about memories. We create memories, and we pass on the ones created previously within our circle of family and friends. It's why the study of personal genealogy has become such a big business. When you trace your family tree, you don't focus on dates of birth and death so much as trying to glean facts which can bring a person two or three generations back from yourself to life. Did they fight in a war? What kind of job did they do? Where did they come from?
I joke about my own Cherokee heritage. "We were here to greet you when you white people arrived." The ultimate irony is my grandmother was ashamed of being a Cherokee while my Swiss-American grandfather reveled in everything about American Indians. My middle aunt, Ahnawake, (yes, the one sister in the family who didn't have coal black hair and eyes, had the Indian name) became the most educated person in the family. As she took American history classes at the university, it startled her when she realized her own elementary school educated, laborer father knew more about the history of American Indians than the professors of her classes. That's another personal family story; what memories are really composed of. Is it true or not? It really doesn't matter. The point of the memory tale is my grandfather was self-educated and smart.
As an entire generation dies out either physically or mentally, the only thing left of them are the memories they have passed on. Sure, there's furniture and trinkets, but those are not the essence of the person. I cherish my mother and mother-in-law's furniture and possessions in my house but less for the items than for the stories they represent. For example, the rocking chair in my bedroom was a gift from my daughter's great grandparents to her grandmother commemorating my birth. Families don't have to be either rich or important to have stories attached to possessions. The quilt hanging on the quilt rack was made by Drake's great-grandmother during the Great Depression from the scraps she saved after making the choir robes for the First Methodist Church choir of Vienna, West Virginia.
In the program, 'Roots', family stories are often garbled or not quite factually true. Sergeants become Colonels, rascals are sanitized, or even deleted in family memories. Family tensions and estrangements kill the memory trail. A constant theme in the African American family genealogy is the complete vaporization of family. One legacy of slavery is it killed generations of family memories. The real lesson is you are a very lucky person if you have memories to pass along. If you don't share them, you lose them, and when your family stories are lost, you lose not only the people in the stories but you also lose irreplaceable parts of yourself.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
What's my Super Power? SUPERTASTER!
We celebrated our fifth, sixth or seventh Austin Christmas with the Wilson's (our son-in-law's parents). I've lost track. We all decided when Jay and Sarah got together that, as parents, we didn't want them to have to choose which side of the family to spend Christmas with. Slowly, we've built extended family traditions over the years.
We just completed this year's Christmas holiday during which we celebrated two birthdays (Jeff and Kit), enjoyed our Christmas surprises, saw the new Star War's movie - didn't that sucker seem REALLY familiar? - as well as ate our way through several of Austin's really great restaurants. (Can anyone say, 'Tacodeli'?) We shopped, drank wine, watched football, and we played our traditional table game, Scatagories, as well as we learned a new one called Hanabi, which is a Japanese game based on cooperation. Sarah faithfully did her yoga routines - she and Jay begin every work day with a yoga routine. The rest of us just admired her dedication while we drank another cup of coffee. Poor Jay was slammed with Austin allergies which really caught him off guard; he's had zero symptoms in NYC. His suffering was the only downer of the holiday.
Kit, Sarah, and I are each responsible for one meal over the holiday, and I think Sarah, and her sou chef, Jay, won this year hands down: Home made spicy Italian sausage lasagna, Caesar salad with home made Caesar dressing and hot fresh bread. Kit was the runner-up with this wonderful salmon she baked. I came in a distant third, as expected. I threatened beans and cornbread for my meal this year, and everyone (except Drake) thought I should have just plugged in my crock pot and gone to bean town. Instead I made turkey, gravy, and a bunch of sides with yeast rolls. Next year, folks, no matter what Drake thinks, I'm making 15 beans and all the cornbread you can eat.
So, we were sitting around one evening after dinner chit chatting when Kit announced she was a supertaster. We were all intrigued. Apparently, she and Jeff attended a dinner party during which the 'party' game was laying a slip of paper on your tongue. If you are a supertaster, the strip will taste incredibly bitter. Naturally, all of us were bouncing up and down on our chairs totally ready to taste our paper slip.
Kit handed them out, and everyone was like, "So, what's the deal, this tastes like a piece of typing paper." Except for me: I was making faces and saying, "Gag me, yuck. You can't taste this? It's so totally bitter. Water, water, I need water!" Yep, I'M A SUPERTASTER!
This actually started me understanding why I find most red wines bitter as well as certain coffee brands. I can tell instantly if Drake is palming Safeway brand coffee off on me because to me it has this perfectly bitter finish. Sarah postulated the reason I never met a sweet I didn't like is because the sugar in desserts leaveneds bitterness in the other ingredients. I think it's also why I drink my coffee with both sugar and cream.
Next, I wondered if there was any science behind this supertaster business. According to Scientific American, supertasters actually have more taste buds and experience flavors more intensely. We live in a 'neon tasting world' while for the rest of you, taste is pastel. Approximately 15% of Americans are supertasters. The Wall Street Journal interviewed a psychology professor, Linda Bartoshuk, at the University of Florida who has pioneered studies in smell and taste. In her experiments, she discovered a group of people who could perceive bitterness others couldn't. The professor named these people 'supertasters'. She also found more women than men, more Asian-Americans and African-Americans than Caucasians are supertasters. It's sort of a no-brainer a big percentage of professional chefs are supertasters.
On the downside, supertasters have a higher risk of colon cancer because those green, leafy veggies which fight off that disease are often our last food choice. We also tend to eat too much salt which blocks bitterness. I'm just glad I still find dark chocolate (up to a point) palatable. Many supertasters dislike it along with hard liquor, and citrus (too sour). Never hand me a Starbucks coffee because it's always bitter to me. On the other hand, Dunkin Donuts or Tim Horton coffee each have a smooth finish on my palate.
You too can take a supertaster test. The hard way is to dye your tongue blue with food coloring. Then, lay one of those paper reinforcement rings on it and count the 'pink' bumps - each of those bumps contain hundreds of actual tastebuds. Ordinary people have around 15 or so 'bumps' inside the ring. Supertasters have over 30. Less than 15? You're the polar opposite of a supertaster - most food is very bland and unexciting to you. The easy test involves sending off for taster strips you lay on your tongue. Fortunately, Kit had tester strips, so we didn't have to break out the blue food coloring.
There's some interesting scientific studies happening which seem to indicate that supertasters are able to ward off upper respiratory infections, like sinus infections, more readily. Another theory is some humans developed this high sensitivity to bitterness as a check against consuming poisonous plants which are often bitter. I'll bet those pre-historic nomadic tribes which roamed around gathering edible plants all had a supertaster who helped sort out what was safe to eat, and what was not.
With Kit and I both being supertasters, our family is way above average in supertaster numbers. The jury is still out as to whether of not supertasting is genetic. However, neither of our children are supertasters, but then, neither are their fathers. Who knows? Nobody, apparently. On the upside, we supertasters don't just perceive bitterness in foods, but we also have a heightened appreciation of the 'good' tastes too. Armed with my new self knowledge, it explains my love affair with food, and why I like to try new foods.
Finally, Sarah turned to me at the conclusion of our supertaster test and said, "You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you?" I just smiled and said, "You bet. I'm a supertaster, and you're not!"
We just completed this year's Christmas holiday during which we celebrated two birthdays (Jeff and Kit), enjoyed our Christmas surprises, saw the new Star War's movie - didn't that sucker seem REALLY familiar? - as well as ate our way through several of Austin's really great restaurants. (Can anyone say, 'Tacodeli'?) We shopped, drank wine, watched football, and we played our traditional table game, Scatagories, as well as we learned a new one called Hanabi, which is a Japanese game based on cooperation. Sarah faithfully did her yoga routines - she and Jay begin every work day with a yoga routine. The rest of us just admired her dedication while we drank another cup of coffee. Poor Jay was slammed with Austin allergies which really caught him off guard; he's had zero symptoms in NYC. His suffering was the only downer of the holiday.
Kit, Sarah, and I are each responsible for one meal over the holiday, and I think Sarah, and her sou chef, Jay, won this year hands down: Home made spicy Italian sausage lasagna, Caesar salad with home made Caesar dressing and hot fresh bread. Kit was the runner-up with this wonderful salmon she baked. I came in a distant third, as expected. I threatened beans and cornbread for my meal this year, and everyone (except Drake) thought I should have just plugged in my crock pot and gone to bean town. Instead I made turkey, gravy, and a bunch of sides with yeast rolls. Next year, folks, no matter what Drake thinks, I'm making 15 beans and all the cornbread you can eat.
So, we were sitting around one evening after dinner chit chatting when Kit announced she was a supertaster. We were all intrigued. Apparently, she and Jeff attended a dinner party during which the 'party' game was laying a slip of paper on your tongue. If you are a supertaster, the strip will taste incredibly bitter. Naturally, all of us were bouncing up and down on our chairs totally ready to taste our paper slip.
Kit handed them out, and everyone was like, "So, what's the deal, this tastes like a piece of typing paper." Except for me: I was making faces and saying, "Gag me, yuck. You can't taste this? It's so totally bitter. Water, water, I need water!" Yep, I'M A SUPERTASTER!
This actually started me understanding why I find most red wines bitter as well as certain coffee brands. I can tell instantly if Drake is palming Safeway brand coffee off on me because to me it has this perfectly bitter finish. Sarah postulated the reason I never met a sweet I didn't like is because the sugar in desserts leaveneds bitterness in the other ingredients. I think it's also why I drink my coffee with both sugar and cream.
Next, I wondered if there was any science behind this supertaster business. According to Scientific American, supertasters actually have more taste buds and experience flavors more intensely. We live in a 'neon tasting world' while for the rest of you, taste is pastel. Approximately 15% of Americans are supertasters. The Wall Street Journal interviewed a psychology professor, Linda Bartoshuk, at the University of Florida who has pioneered studies in smell and taste. In her experiments, she discovered a group of people who could perceive bitterness others couldn't. The professor named these people 'supertasters'. She also found more women than men, more Asian-Americans and African-Americans than Caucasians are supertasters. It's sort of a no-brainer a big percentage of professional chefs are supertasters.
On the downside, supertasters have a higher risk of colon cancer because those green, leafy veggies which fight off that disease are often our last food choice. We also tend to eat too much salt which blocks bitterness. I'm just glad I still find dark chocolate (up to a point) palatable. Many supertasters dislike it along with hard liquor, and citrus (too sour). Never hand me a Starbucks coffee because it's always bitter to me. On the other hand, Dunkin Donuts or Tim Horton coffee each have a smooth finish on my palate.
You too can take a supertaster test. The hard way is to dye your tongue blue with food coloring. Then, lay one of those paper reinforcement rings on it and count the 'pink' bumps - each of those bumps contain hundreds of actual tastebuds. Ordinary people have around 15 or so 'bumps' inside the ring. Supertasters have over 30. Less than 15? You're the polar opposite of a supertaster - most food is very bland and unexciting to you. The easy test involves sending off for taster strips you lay on your tongue. Fortunately, Kit had tester strips, so we didn't have to break out the blue food coloring.There's some interesting scientific studies happening which seem to indicate that supertasters are able to ward off upper respiratory infections, like sinus infections, more readily. Another theory is some humans developed this high sensitivity to bitterness as a check against consuming poisonous plants which are often bitter. I'll bet those pre-historic nomadic tribes which roamed around gathering edible plants all had a supertaster who helped sort out what was safe to eat, and what was not.
With Kit and I both being supertasters, our family is way above average in supertaster numbers. The jury is still out as to whether of not supertasting is genetic. However, neither of our children are supertasters, but then, neither are their fathers. Who knows? Nobody, apparently. On the upside, we supertasters don't just perceive bitterness in foods, but we also have a heightened appreciation of the 'good' tastes too. Armed with my new self knowledge, it explains my love affair with food, and why I like to try new foods.
Finally, Sarah turned to me at the conclusion of our supertaster test and said, "You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you?" I just smiled and said, "You bet. I'm a supertaster, and you're not!"
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