Tag: math

Thinking about

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Jarvis's First Birthday Party
Walnut Creek Park, from Jarvis’s party last weekend.

On my mind lately:

Pernicious gender roles and the natural disadvantages of being a woman, thanks to this (fascinating) book, Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine. Rachel S. recommended to me, and I’m glad she did. It’s making me want to fight The System. And to have seven girl children who all grow up to be theoretical physicists and aerospace engineers.

How nice it is to have just one dog for a while. (Rainer got adopted!) Pyrrha might miss him, but she also might really love being an only child.

Thomas Jefferson: Not a total tool. Pretty useful to the founding of this country and all. And just as complex as everyone else is; it’s silly to think of Founding Fathers as these changeless demigods. (Also reading American Sphinx, by Joseph J. Ellis, which is good, albeit his incorrect, vociferous assertion that the whole Sally Hemings thing never happened.)

Inescapable damp air.

What if I had been good at math?

Does anyone take the GOP seriously anymore?

Semi-related: This quote that Guion shared with me from Bishop John Shelby Spong:

The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.

 

 

Things I want to do in theory

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Source: Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

Here are some things I want to do in theory, meaning, as soon as I actually tried to do them, I would be a.) very mad at myself, b.) tearful, c.) ashamed, or d.) all of the above.

  1. Adopt a cat! (No, not really. Cats, like 50-gallon aquariums, are very nice to look at, but no one really wants to take care of them. Plus, most cats are mean and their poop is making us all schizophrenic.)
  2. Run 10 miles! (Running is for masochists. And it is bad for you.)
  3. Shave off all my hair! (Beth: Are you crying about father? Jo: My hair…)
  4. Grow out all my hair! (Very quickly, I start to look like this. This is also what you get when you type “homeschool hair” into Google image search.)
  5. Live on a farm in the middle of nowhere! (Can I live on a farm that’s near civilization? Do those exist? I’m scared of the darkness in the woods.)
  6. Raise sheep! (Sheep are actually quite gross. Ever tried to pet one? I dare you. If the woolly grease doesn’t get you, the ticks will.)
  7. Take a remedial math class! (I should do this one, but it would make me very much point b, above.)
  8. Train our future dog to compete in agility! (Agility is hard, y’all. Plus, I’m not competitive or aggressive enough to hang with the humans involved in it.)
  9. Re-upholster furniture! (Despite what the Life List says, this sounds like a terrible, terrible idea. I’d rather buy a new chair.)
  10. Do a split! (That is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious, self.)

Happy Friday! Guion comes home tomorrow night! Can’t wait.

A small sampling of things I cannot do

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Click for source.

Lent is all about reflection and about how we’re pretty much down in the dumps when we’re sans Savior. In accordance with that, here’s my seriously truncated list of things I cannot do.

I can’t:

  • Throw a football.
  • Do math above a fifth-grade level. (Probably. I haven’t tried. The only math I do on a regular basis is calculate tips, and sometimes I don’t even do that accurately.)
  • Eat chocolate without melting some portion of it into my clothes. Chocolate is really hard to get out of most fabric, kids. You’ve been warned.
  • Read anything, anywhere without looking for grammatical or punctuation errors.
  • Take politicians seriously.
  • Touch my toes. (Have you seen how long my legs are? I protest! They are too long!)
  • Dance.
  • Wear cable-knit sweaters. (But, really, who can? Welsh or Irish farmers may be the only ones.)
  • Pass a dog without wanting to pet it.
  • Watch war movies. See also: Talk about war movies.
  • Drive a manual transmission car. We got a 10-minute lesson from a car salesman in August, but I felt like we were all going to die in a jerky, fiery blaze the whole time I was behind the wheel and on the clutch.
  • Read music.
  • Watch golf for more than three minutes without crying out from desperate, desperate boredom.
  • Skateboard. Not that I’ve ever tried. Or have any desire to try. It is easily the most stressful form of transportation to observe.
  • Watch FOX News without my blood pressure spiking significantly.
  • Enjoy a trip to the mall.
  • Make crafts.
  • Hide my emotions from my face.
  • Open wine bottles without seriously messing up or losing the cork.
  • Let my feet touch the bottom of a slimy lake or river without wanting to vomit. I can walk barefoot on rocks in a stream all day long, but please, please don’t ask me to put them in the green slime. See: Trip to Rivanna swimming hole, circa summer 2010, in which I bailed and sat on a log near the very pregnant and beautiful Cate.
  • Kill animals or watch animals being killed. See also: Kill people or watch people being killed.
  • Tell a joke without making an allusion to Liz Lemon or a member of the Bluth family.

And these are just a FEW of them! I can’t do so many things. Lenten conclusion? Jesus is OK with this list.

Monday Snax

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Liz and Matt, getting married!
Liz, the beautiful bride.
Cocktail hour
A chilly, glamorous cocktail hour under the oaks.
Us
Us!

Our last wedding of 2011 was certainly one to remember: Matt and Liz got hitched at the gorgeous Castle Hill Cidery in Keswick and threw a lavish, memorable party for everyone. We love them so very much and are so delighted that they will be sticking around. Life in this town is way more exciting when it involves the two of them. More photos on Flickr!

Snax:

Meet Our Vendors: Polyface Farm Tour. We just started using Relay Foods for the first time and it’s a totally wonderful thing; you should be justifiably upset that it doesn’t exist yet in your town. Here, the Relay Foods staff takes a photo tour of Joel Salatin’s beautiful and much-lauded Polyface Farm. We just bought our first Polyface chicken this week! (Relay Living)

Farms Need People, Not Machines. Another great push to move away from factory farms and to raise employment levels. (The Atlantic)

How Manure-to-Energy Projects Make the Best of a Stinky Situation. Another factory farming-related issue: A fascinating initiative to make use of one of factory farming’s biggest and stinkiest problems. (Good)

Harry Moo-dini. If you ever thought cows were stupid, you need to watch this one. (Animals Being Di*ks)

American Gothic. Amazing. The now-famous man (the artist’s dentist!) looks none too pleased about it all. (All the Mountains)

American Modern. If pressed to describe the style I’d like to cultivate in my house one day, I think I would just have to point to this book and its pictures. (Cottage Farm)

The Cure for Math Anxiety Might Be in Your Head. Well, it’s good to know that my math phobia is grounded in mental instability. (Good)

Calligraphy Inspiration: Emilie Friday. Oh, to be that skilled with a flexible nib! (Oh So Beautiful Paper)

Why I Write. Why Orhan Pamuk, one of my recent favorites, writes. (Lit Drift)

Sundance Rings. Oh so pretty. (Unruly Things)

A Visual Anthropology of the Last Living Nomads in the World. Riveting photographs. It is hard to believe that there are still people who live like this in these places. (The Atlantic)