Readicide

I think I want this book.

Walk Score

Here’s a website worth checking out if you own a good pair of shoes and don’t mind using them once in a while. It’s called Walk Score and it gauges the pedestrian-friendliness of locations.

Type in any address or pair of cross streets in the U.S. (or Europe for that matter), and the site maps the area and plots the nearby recreational, commercial, cultural, and social amenities. Even better, for the quantitatively inclined, it assigns each location a walk score on a 0 to 100 scale.

The site doesn’t take weather, safety, topography (e.g. hills), or the characteristics of the street network into account. (To their credit, the site’s creators cheerfully admit to these shortcomings.) But in all, the walk scores are pretty much what you’d intuitively expect, providing a degree of confidence the site is getting it right. Here’s a sampling:

My house: 80
My work: 63
My mom's house: 77
My dad's house: 0
Kelly's work: 65
Kelly's parents: 2


thanks

Race Appearance Question

A white woman and a Chinese man (or switch the genders - it doesn't really matter) have a baby together in America.

Does that baby only look more Chinese than white to me because I live in a country where our majority race is white?

Would the same baby look more white than Chinese to the people around her if she was instead born in China?

Shapes, Figures and Excuses

I went jogging today. Well, sort of. I went out with the intention of jogging today. What actually happened was more of a walk/something-slow-that-resembles-jogging mix. In the end, it tells me that I'm out of shape! Yeah, yeah, there's the possibility there for a string of excuses - it's ninety degrees out today...I just had a baby - but I don't really want to hear them. I think I've been relying on excuses for a little too long, this time. It's starting to get a little annoying that I haven't lost any more weight. I lost a bunch in the first two weeks after E was born, and since then I've lost zip. Which basically tells me I've only lost pity weight and that for whatever reason, my body (stupidly and wrongly) believes it needs this last ten pounds for something.

So, I'm stepping up the effort. Not like I've just been sitting around doing nothing all this time - I just don't want to stay trapped in the I-just-had-a-baby mindset. Because I didn't just have a baby. I had a baby three months ago. And whereas "just" is a pretty relative term, it's not that relative to three full months.

'Tis the Season

There's something in the air lately that's been giving me watery eyes and a stuffy/runny nose. Blech. Not to mention the headaches, itchy eyes, and itchy skin. And I think that whatever it is has been bugging Eleanor, too, because she's having similar symptoms. It's making me dread going to Portland this weekend just a little bit because there's something at Kelly's parents' farm during the summers that my body doesn't like either. I'm hoping this trip is different, though, because in all other regards I'm really looking forward to the trip. I don't know how people with serious allergies do it! It's only been a couple days of little problems and I'm already super sick of it all!

Ten years. Count 'em. Ten.

Well, my reunion is coming up this summer. In just a couple weeks, actually. Whenever I mention that, people ask either if I'm going or if I'm excited about it - sometimes they ask me both questions. Well, yeah, I'm going - to part of it, anyway. I would go to the other part, but I have family obligations that day. Excited? No, I wouldn't say that. I don't really know why I'm going...other than I was invited. I'm not excited. I'm not curious. I'm not hoping to reconnect with old friends. I'm not planning revenge on any of the popular kids. I'm not even expecting to laugh at all the people who have gotten fat (not that I would do that...it just seems to be a common thing I've heard of women doing at their reunions lately). I'm just going, expecting to have a nice evening. Maybe I'll laugh with people about high school stories, probably some that I'd forgotten about, and maybe I'll find that I have more in common with people today than I used to. Who knows? I think one reason I'm sort of ambivalent about the whole ordeal is that I'm pretty different from the girl I was in high school and I feel like I fit into a totally different crowd now. These days, I'm more liberal, less pretentious, more settled, less naive, more calm and less narrow in my views of myself and the world. I drink and swear more and worry less about screwing up. I laugh more and say yes more and am less inclined to sit back and watch other people being cool, secretly wishing that could be me. But, then again, I have a different definition of cool, now, too.

Anyway, it's been ten whole years. Ten. And I feel pretty good about those ten years. Good enough, anyway, that I bought a ticket...and now look forward to buying a rockin' cocktail dress for the affair. I may not be going to compare myself against the other people there, but when the people who go for that purpose sit and compare themselves to me, or even compare me now to me then, I want them to have to think for a while first.

Weirdest Mail Ever

I received the weirdest, most random mail ever Wednesday: one ticket to the Indianapolis 500 practice, one ticket to the Indianapolis 500 qualifications, a lunch voucher for the 500 Festival, and a schedule of events for the Friends of the Festival Appreciation Day - events that occurred last month - in a hand-written envelope from Indianapolis.

1. I make fun of racing and, to a degree, people who watch it - mostly this is limited to serious fans. I'm just being honest here (sorry Dad...but FYI I never make fun of you). And in my defense, my making fun of people is never mean and is mostly just in my head.

2. These tickets were for an event that happened a month ago!

3. To my knowledge, I know no one who lives in Indianapolis, let alone Indiana.

4. My name was misspelled on the envelope - a misspelling I've never seen before: Angelar. But my last name, the name most people mess up, was fine. As was the rest of my address.

5. I looked up the return address on line (it was provided sans name). Nothing came up on the white pages reverse directory and Google maps street view showed a residential neighborhood.

6. There have been no weird or unexplained charges on my checking account or credit card.

7. On ebay, these month-old tickets would score me $10. Maybe.

It's a mystery! Is anyone out there who thinks they may have an answer or at least another clue?

Solutions?

Anyone know any good solutions for keeping my couches clean? Kelly likes the dogs on the couch and I like them to not get the couches dirty. I would much rather have no dogs on the couch ever, under any circumstances, but I'm willing to concede that most of the time. In the meantime, my couches are dirty...and I don't want to vacuum (or shampoo, which is what they really need) every day. Anyone have a magic wand?

???

And, for your reading entertainment, a selection from an eighth grade research paper on becoming a teacher:

"To make sure not a non praiseworthy human being just in case, because human beings would not want to have their children educated by a scandal."

I don't know what it means, but I think it's funny.

IQ

Kelly says I'm just generally unimpressed with things out of principle, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Lately, I've been unimpressed with Pranav Veera, this six-ear-old boy with an alleged IQ of 176. (By the way, each link I'm posting is a different news article about the kid.) I say "alleged" because I've been unable to find who performed his IQ test and which test was done - both of which can make a difference. The only reason this makes a difference to me is because of the "genius" activities he demonstrates in the media: reciting the alphabet backwards, listing presidents by number, stating days of the week by date. I grant you that these are not normal feats for a six-year-old child, but they're not completey abnormal feats for someone who has worked at memorizing such facts - because that's all it is: memorization. I also say "alleged" because news reports claim that he has a photographic memory, which would make something like reciting the alphabet backwards a piece of cake rather than a sign of genius.

Something else that puts me on guard about this kid's story is how so many sources compare him to Einstein, whose IQ was guessed to be around 160. Guessed. That's right, Einstein's IQ was never tested. We think we know it today based on guesses and nothing more. In reality, because of the subjectivity of IQ tests, there's no way we can be sure of Einstein's IQ.

I'm not completely discounting this child's aptitude, nor am I saying he should be treated as a normal, bratty little six-year-old. I'm saying we need to take this with a grain of salt because, until he does something with his intelligence like cure AIDS or put a man on Mars, he's not telling us anything we can't already find in presidential trivia books. And if someone out there actually does want him to accomplish something remarkable with his elevated IQ, they need to stop telling him how smart he is and start encouraging his self efficacy - because just being smart will get him nowhere if he knows nothing more about being smart than cheap parlor tricks on the Today Show.

I'm still alive.

I got in trouble today for not posting for a long time, so I thought I'd leave a brief comment to say that I'm still alive. Around Valentine's Day I got the flu, which stuck around for about three weeks, and then Kelly had a silly-crazy time at work for two weeks (their major, annual, on-air fundraising event) that I helped out with and totally threw off both our schedules. Then I had the last week at school before spring break, during which I tied up all my loose ends and finished grades and cleaned my room just in case I don't go back to work after spring break (you know, cuz of the baby), all of which kept me busy, busy, busy and at times at work for hours after I should've gone home.

But now things are starting to be normal again, which is nice because the baby could literally come any day now and it would be all right. I'll post something witty on here soon, assuming the normalcy continues, that is. If I go another month, assume it's the baby's fault. That way I don't get in trouble again. :-)

Don't hound me.

This morning on my way in to work, I drove next to a police car for a while. Actually, he started out driving behind me, no doubt running my license plate number for a good reason to pull me over on my morning commute, which would have really started my day off on the wrong foot. But, finding nothing, he moved on to the car next to me. And then to another car in our vicinity. He followed - closely - five cars in my little area of the freeway, (my guess is) checking their plates and making sure he didn't have a reason to turn on his stupid red and blue lights. Finding none, he sped off to his next unsuspecting victims...And I do mean "sped." Whereas all of us were going exactly the speed limit, he found it necessary to rush off, probably exceeding the speed limit by an easy ten miles per hour, knowing full well there was no one there to pull him over.

Not fair.

I firmly disagree with police seeking out reasons to punish people. If they want the American people to think of them as benevolent, caring individuals who serve and protect the public, then they should be fair in their practices. Don't hound me, looking for a reason to cite me. Find someone out beating his wife or shooting up a convenience store to harass.

Lucy, the Pup of Many Vet Visits

Yes, folks, we had to take Lucy to the vet again yesterday. She broke another nail off in the bed, leaving it sore and bleeding. She is, again, on pain killers and antibiotics. She is, again, wearing her cone. The people at the vet's office thought it was cute that she not only has her own cone, but that we've started decorating it with punk stickers - bands and the like.

We've started wondering if perhaps friends and family could purchase us credit at the vet's office for Christmas presents from now on. It's a gift that would surely get some use. I don't know if the office does that sort of thing, but it's worth a shot. Gift cards, perhaps? Or, really, I suppose people could just send us more punk stickers.

We wondered aloud while waiting for her to come out of the surgery room yesterday how we ended up with this accident-prone dog. Kelly blamed me because she picked me to want to come home with. I blame him because I think she got it from his genes (whereas me and Radley are the healthy, non-accident-prone ones in the family).

Fish

I'm half-watching a PBS documentary on fish right now (the TV is still on after watching an excellent documentary on Truman and I just haven't turned it off since I've been typing). I'm not paying any attention to this show, but it's hosted by a guy who used to be on MASH and it has some interestiing up-close pictures of fish. They're kinda gross looking and make me happy not to be a fish monger.

In other fish news, we've been giving Radley fish oil pills on recommendation from our vet. She said it may help his skin rash. I've found that he treats it like a pill - choking and gagging to get it down - if we just give it to him, even though it smells like fish (which we thought would be motivation for him to eat it). However, if I just drop it nonchalantly into his bowl, he eats it with the rest of his food. Lucy, on the other hand, begs for one and acts indignant if she doesn't get one if she notices that he got one and she didn't. Except she won't just eat it - she will even pick it out of her bowl and take it to the carpet to eat it like it's a treat.

Now this documentary is doing surgery on fish to tag them or something. I can't help but think how smelly it must have been to make this film.