tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69321808058841799962024-03-13T21:42:43.699-07:00Felice Prager Writes FunnyExperience the unique and highly entertaining writing style of Felice Prager.Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-81008562949313956612013-11-13T12:39:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:19:56.919-07:00Waiting for a Better Excuse - Fear of the Run-on SentenceDear Mrs. Prager, <br />
I know you told us to go home yesterday and study the homonym and most commonly mixed up word list for a test today which was going to count for twenty-five percent of our grade this marking period and I had every intention of doing just that because you know how much I think about good grades and doing well so I can go to college and make something of myself and feel good about myself and make my parents proud of me so I got home and had some water and some carrot sticks because I am on a diet and I walked right past the chocolate cake that my mother made for my aunt's birthday and then I went into my bedroom to start studying because I really needed to because the whole list was so confusing and like I said I wanted to get a really good grade so I opened my notebook to the pages with the notes I took in class when you explained each of the homonyms and commonly mixed up words and I read the first one which was <b>desert/dessert</b> and I remembered what you said about the one you eat having two S's like two servings and I closed my eyes to force it into my head so I wouldn't forget it on the big test and all I could think about was not <b>desert/dessert</b> but the chocolate cake which my mother made for my aunt's birthday which I passed in the kitchen when I got my carrot sticks and water and I opened my eyes and I sat there sweating and breathing heavy because I didn't want to eat but I really wanted to eat some chocolate cake and I decided to go on to the next one on your list which was weight/wait and I knew the one with eight in it said how many pounds I wanted to lose so I closed my eyes to force it into my head and all I saw was the chocolate cake which my mother made for my aunt's birthday so I opened my eyes and I was sweating real hard now so I went to the next one which was waste/waist and I remembered you told us to make up tricks that work for us when we're trying to remember things and I looked at <b>waste/waist</b> and saw the little "i" in the middle of the one which meant the middle of my body kind of waist and wondered if I could lose enough weight so I could have a tiny tiny waist and I closed my eyes to try to force <b>waste/waist</b> into my head and there waiting for me in my brain was that chocolate cake dessert that my mother made for my aunt's birthday which made me stop forcing things into my head earlier when I was trying to remember <b>desert/dessert</b> and <b>weight/wait</b> and I opened my eyes real quick so I wouldn't think about the chocolate cake again that my mother made for my aunt's birthday and my mother makes the best chocolate cake and it's hard not to think about it when she makes it and the smell of her chocolate cake is all around the house and I looked at the list once again so I would get a good grade on the test and found the fourth set was <b>their/there/they're</b> and I looked at the examples I wrote to remember how to tell them apart and the first sentence example was "They brought their lunch" which made me think about supper because I skipped lunch and all I had since I had the Slim Shake for breakfast was the water and carrot sticks I had when I got home and THEY'RE not enough to fill anyone up so I started to sweat and shake and I went to the kitchen to have just one more carrot stick and some water and I couldn't help it because I swear a force greater than myself just took over my hand and forced me to drag my finger across the chocolate frosting and I sucked it off and then I fixed the mess I made with the frosting and I also grabbed a cookie on the <b>way/weigh</b> out of the kitchen <b>which/witch</b> was the official <b>way/weigh </b>of me ending the diet and this <b>made/maid</b> me sweat and feel horrible about myself because<b> I/eye</b> didn't really want to end the diet and<b> I/eye</b> did really want a thin <b>waist/waste</b> and<b> I/eye</b> wanted to lose <b>weight/wait</b> more than anything in the world except maybe doing well on <b>your/yore</b> test and I couldn't stop thinking of the chocolate cake that my mother <b>made/maid</b> <b>for/four</b> <b>dessert/desert</b> because it was my <b>aunt's/ant's</b> birthday and she was coming <b>to/too/two</b> dinner at <b>our/hour</b> house in an <b>hour/our</b> and now the cake was messed up and I broke my diet and <b>I/eye</b> was all sorts of depressed and I started to cry and I fell asleep and the next thing I <b>knew/new</b> was my mother was waking me up for my <b>aunt's/ant's</b> party and we stayed up really late celebrating with my <b>aunt/ant</b> <b>so/sew</b> <b>I/eye</b> never got to finish the studying and <b>I/eye</b> hope <b>you/ewe</b> can find it in <b>your/you're/yore</b> heart to give me another day <b>to/two/too</b> study because I<b>/eye</b> <b>know/no I/eye</b> can pass if <b>you/ewe</b> give me another chance oh please oh please and<b> I/eye</b> stay out of the kitchen and stop thinking about the chocolate cake that my mother made for my <b>aunt's/ant's</b> birthday. Oh please, oh please say yes, oh please. <b>You/ewe</b> don't <b>know/no</b> how it <b>would/wood</b> make a difference to my grade and my parents wouldn't get mad at me and <b>I/eye</b> wouldn't lose my phone and my parents wouldn't get on my case about being lazy and talking on the phone<b> too/to/two</b> much and daydreaming and sleeping my life away and everything <b>would/wood</b> <b>be/bee</b> nice and all and I<b>/eye know/no</b> <b>you/ewe</b> will say yes because <b>you/ewe</b> are my favorite teacher<b> I/eye</b> ever had ever <b>for/four/fore</b> always and always <b>I/eye</b> swear.<br />
From <b>your/you're/yore</b> favorite student, <br />
Kimberly Heather Jennifer Melissa Miracle Crystal Sunshine Smith <br />
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Originally published at the Irascible Professor: <a href="http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-17-02.htm">http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-05-17-02.htm</a><br />
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©2002 by Felice Prager. All Rights ReservedFelice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-29358868499568003622013-06-03T07:29:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:21:04.853-07:00Xeriscaping - A Blooming Backyard Desert<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SOI_Ax8HfHI/AAAAAAAAAJA/p5UJ11f3NJc/s1600-h/100_0619.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251829398105455730" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SOI_Ax8HfHI/AAAAAAAAAJA/p5UJ11f3NJc/s320/100_0619.JPG" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="color: #003333;">To some, a garden must be lush and green with flowers, plants, manicured lawns, bushes, hedges, and trees. We had one of those when we lived in New Jersey. Our chores included mowing, raking, trimming, removing weeds, and maintaining. It was a labor of love, and it looked beautiful. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">When we moved to Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, however, we were aware that maintaining a garden would be nearly impossible. How could we get color in a backyard when water was a commodity and daily temperatures would burn most plants? </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">But when we built our house, the landscapers we hired tried to re-create New Jersey in our backyard – and we tried to maintain it. We had a lawn that we mowed when it was 110 degrees F. in the shade. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">We filled bare patches with grass seed where the sun burned the old. We planted things only to realize that if something isn’t indigenous to the area, it’s difficult to keep it alive. We installed a drip-irrigation system, but one by one, our bushes and plants died. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Then we had a revelation. We decided that since we saw beauty in the desert, we would focus on that instead of trying to re-create what worked in another part of the country. We would have a picture-postcard desert paradise right in our own backyard. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">The concept is called xeriscaping. The idea is to decrease the harsh effects of the desert climate and increase energy efficiency by understanding the challenges and options available. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">We opted for the most minimalistic approach. We wanted our yard to look natural – like the desert it used to be before man stepped in. We wanted people to see our yard as a continuation of the desert arroyos adjacent to it. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">We started by removing the lawn. It was not environmentally correct by any stretch of the imagination to use so much water. In its place, we decorated with sand, stones, and boulders. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">We transplanted cacti that had outgrown pots and put them into the ground. We did research and learned which plants required full sunlight and which required shade or defused sunlight. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">I opted for plants that needed little or no watering. The concept was that if it needed more than a bucket a month, it didn’t fit into the plan. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">In fact, after planting the cacti, I became very aware of when we had rain or lacked it. I watered each plant (during the hot summer) on the first of the month – unless it had rained. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">What I noticed over time was that I rarely had to water anything if it belonged in the desert. Natural rainfall was enough. Overwatering tended to rot the plants’ roots. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Cacti that grew just a little in pots, grew huge in the ground. Some even flowered, which hadn’t when they lived in pots. What started as rocks and some little plants is now a cactus garden of enviable proportions. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Many cacti also have another positive trait. If a cactus becomes overgrown, you can carefully remove a piece of it and plant it elsewhere. These cuttings grow into brand-new plants. In fact, if someone is visiting and comments on my cactus garden, I say, “Which is your favorite?” and I send them home with a cutting from it. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Like most Arizonans, we also have a swimming pool, which most of us who live in the desert find to be a necessity when it’s 115 degrees F. outside. Having xeriscaping helps me feel less guilty about the water a pool uses. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">My favorite of all my plants is my cereus in the front of my house. When we planted it about 20 years ago, it was roughly 18 inches high and had only one stalk. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">I have a photo somewhere of my sons standing next to it on the first day of school – both pretty miserable because vacation is over. In the photo, both boys are taller than the plant was at the time. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Today, the plant is taller than my house and has about 20 arms. I watch this plant more than all the others. It often gets scattered buds on the various arms. As these become larger, they bloom. The last time the cereus flowered, we had 61 flowers – yes, I counted – a few opened every night. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">It takes about 10 days from start to finish for one bud to become a flower. The flower opens slowly at sunset into a five-inch white flower. I’ve read that bats like them. In the morning, bees are drinking their last taste of nectar, and by about 8 a.m., when the sun is on them, they have completed their life cycle. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">One morning, I went out to get the newspaper and there was one flower opened. As I stood and admired it, a new neighbor walked by with her dog. She asked me what type of plant it was and I told her. She said that she planned to relandscape her property with a more natural look than the previous owners had. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">Later that day, I went to her house and handed her a small cutting from my cereus plant. I explained the plant’s history, and together we planted it in her front yard. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #003333;">When she asked me what she had to do to keep it alive, I told her the truth: “Leave it alone. Admire it. Appreciate the beauty of the de</span><span style="color: #003333;">sert.”</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #003333;">©2008 by Felice Prager. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003333;">(Originally published by the Christian Science Monitor - September 22, 2008.)</span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-25124177891094973402013-05-13T10:03:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:13:43.690-07:00Mom Goes On The Line<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black;">I received three e-mails from my mother today. This is unusual because until today, my mother didn't own a computer. She's watched me work on my assorted computers that occupy my office and my kids’ bedrooms. For us, computers are a way of life. For my mother, computers have been frightening machines that collect way too much dust. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">The first e-mail from my mother said, "Believe it or not---I'm on the line. It took a long time. Call you later. Mom." I figured by "on the line" she meant "online" and laughed at her interpretation. As a little girl, I remember my mother putting someone on hold by saying, “hold the line.” Then again, to my mother, there was a phone line, a clothes line, and A-line dresses. “Online” was never a concept she learned. “Online” just happened. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">“Welcome to the club,” I replied in my e-mail. “Have fun exploring.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">The second e-mail came several hours later. It said, "I'm just learning, so don1t mind the mistakes. I bought a Dell like you suggested. Eventually I!ll know what I!m doing. gIVE mE A lITTLE tIME. Love you- Mom." This was all written in the subject line of the email. The body of the email was empty. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">With a little interpretation, I saw what my mother did. So used to typing on a Smith Corona keyboard, she let her fingers decide which keys to press instead of looking at the keyboard to see the computerized differences. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I didn't want to burst my mother's bubble and tell her that she might never know what she's doing on a computer. So I sent her a reply explaining that the apostrophe and quotation marks are not over the 1 and 8 anymore like they used to be on her old Smith Corona typewriters. I explained where they were and a few other intricacies of the newer keyboard. Then I told her that the message didn't belong in the subject line. I told her where to put it. I told her to have fun and explore this new cyber-world. I told her about bookmarking favorite places, using a virus scanner, avoiding pornography, and other simple things. I worried that I was putting too much into an e-mail, but then again, I had wished I knew someone when I started out using mine who could walk me through the tough stuff. I told her I hoped the beginning is interesting and relatively easy for her. I told her not to be afraid. I told her that unless she messed around and tried to upgrade the inside of her computer like I do, she'd be fine. I don't think she'll try to see what's inside the box. And if she does, which I doubt she will, I can fix it for her. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I also sent her a second email with some links to some of my published work online, things she has never read because she could not access them without a computer. My mother has seen most of my print publications; until now she has missed everything on the Internet. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">When I was in elementary school, my mother was one of the few moms who worked outside the home. In the late fifties and early sixties, other mothers stayed home. Mine worked because she had no choice. Life sometimes forces us to make those decisions. Some mothers made cookies; I don’t have any memories of my mother baking. Instead, my mother typed my school reports for me.</span><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">In my case, the situation was ideal. The office where my mother worked was across the street from my school. She was often able to coordinate her lunch with mine, and I was none the worse for it. I always had a ride to school, and for lunch, we would visit a local coffee shop and eat grilled cheese sandwiches together. I'd have my chocolate egg cream; she would have her black coffee, no sugar.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">It was so long ago, but I can still visualize her office with the modern machines that impressed me so much back then. I have always liked machines. This probably explains why I love my computers so much and why my sons had no arguments when it came to purchasing Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Playstation, Xbox, and the other game machines they have wanted. The only problem for my sons was getting Mom to stop playing so they could. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">In my youth at my mother’s office, I liked trying to figure out how her machines worked. My mother's office had great modern machines such as assorted electric typewriters, phones with five lines, a manual adding machine with a slot machine-like pull arm, and a Xerox machine that needed pink paper placed on top of white paper all placed in a hard plastic sleeve just to make one copy. These copies were always too dark or too light and looked nothing like the original, but there was no alternative and I was the only one I knew who could ask her mother to make copies of things. My mother never said no since she was in charge of ordering supplies at this office. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I remember when I took typing in high school, a required course for all academic students going on to college or secretarial school, and I finally made it to 40 words per minute; my mother was doing 65 words or more at the time. She never made mistakes. I tested her once at 80 words and no errors. She was an incredible typist. In those days, fixing errors required specialized typewriter erasers that tended to rip the paper if pressed too hard against the print. Sometimes it required starting from scratch. In those days, carbon paper made barely readable copies, and they served the purpose because if another copy was needed, my mother would type it again. In those days, my mother typed the addresses, one at a time, on the letterhead and on the envelopes. Billing clients took several days. In those days, my mother was the master of her trade. She typed fast and rarely made an error that she couldn't fix with ease. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">My mother’s third e-mail was a reply to the one I had sent filled with, what I thought, were helpful hints. It was also written completely in the subject line. “Why did they move the apostrophe and quotation marks? There was nothing wrong with where they were. I’m going to write Dell a letter about it. Love Mom.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Today, my mother took a big step. She is on the road to being computer literate in a world very alien to the one where she had been a super star. With as much tact as I could muster, I told my mom where to find the apostrophe and the quotation marks, and she told me, in a 21st century e-mail, what I could do with them. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">©1998 by Felice Prager. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">This essay has been published in several places including <i>The Front Porch, Sasee Magazine, </i>and <i>Chicken Soup for the Working Mom's Soul. </i><i>aka MODERN MACHINES. </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">Republished In 2006 and 2012 in Memory of Marcella S. Klein<i>.</i></span></div>
Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-75113646184916704182013-04-15T08:50:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:14:33.755-07:00Neglected Disabilities<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEd24OK7mSI/AAAAAAAAABI/0rbD-EIZ87M/s1600-h/Looking+Out.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208262202325965090" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEd24OK7mSI/AAAAAAAAABI/0rbD-EIZ87M/s320/Looking+Out.JPG" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a>It was about four PM. I was home alone. I was sitting on the bed that used to belong to my son before he got married and moved to another state. Three of my five cats were looking out the window, and I was watching them as they stalked a bougainvillea leaf as it was being moved by a breeze.<br />
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I am easily entertained. Some have referred to me as a cheap date.<br />
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I had opened the window so the cats could smell “spring.” They like how "spring" smells. Then the bougainvillea leaf started moving in the breeze and the entertainment began. The cats were darting back and forth in front of the window as the thin red leaf caught bursts of air. I was tempted to go outside, retrieve the leaf, and bring it inside for them to tear to shreds, but I knew my cats were having more fun watching and chasing the leaf, and giving them the leaf would simply end the game too soon.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, the cats stopped short and assumed the position of fear and distress. Their hair stuck up. Their ears were alert. Then they scooted under the bed.<br />
<br />
I then heard the source of their fear and distress as well. Clackity clackity clackity clackity. (That is my best attempt at onomatopoeia.) A young boy was coming down the hill on his skateboard. Each time the wheels hit a sidewalk seam, the board went clackity clackity clackity clackity.<br />
<br />
What made the occurrence significant was the fact that the boy on the board was simultaneously talking on his cell phone while navigating the hill. I know the kid because I used to tutor him. He had been labeled ADD, and his mom had come to me for help. He was a very nice kid and well behaved, but he tended to prefer watching bougainvillea leaves float in the breeze rather than watching his math teacher create math magic on the white board.<br />
<br />
It made me think. Since I am unable to drive my car and talk on my cell phone at the same time, I found it interesting that my ex-student with a documented disability could balance on a skateboard going downhill fast -- occasionally jumping a curb -; while simultaneously talking on his phone. Yet, despite all the hours of quality one-on-one tutoring he had, he probably is still counting on his fingers and toes. I also know in my heart that he will go through life unable to deal with fractions, despite my best efforts.<br />
<br />
We all have things we can't do. I could never climb the ropes in PE class. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get my arms and legs to work together well enough to conquer the task. There was no disability I could find to get me out of rope climbing in PE, and the best I could do was feign a sprained ankle -- complete with a doctor's note. I was stumped by calculus but the best I could do was major in English because I couldn't claim a calculus disability. Though I could memorize the Gettysburg Address in third grade, memorizing the correct lyrics to songs has always been a burden. Yet, there is no disability that keeps me from being embarrassed at karaoke bars.<br />
<br />
I have a million of these undiagnosed but very real (to me) disabilities. We all have them. The difference is that we only hear about the ones written about in books. Call them whatever you want -- disabilities, gaps, shorts. We may all have them; some of us just deal with them better than others, I suppose.<br />
<br />
I am now going to reveal a handful of my undiagnosed disabilities just to prove my point. The important thing to remember is that I, Felice Prager, am a survivor. Despite my shortcomings, I am choosing to see success despite my deficiencies. You probably are, too. You just don't know it yet.<br />
<br />
<b>CLWEAS</b> – aka <b>Can't Leave Well Enough Alone Syndrome</b>. Those who have <b>CLWEAS</b> don't know when to stop. They tend to pick the scab until it is infected. They tend to want to get to the root of something even if it means the need for a plumber or electrician in the end. They nag their kids to the point of insanity. They say things like, "Do you want more?" and fill a dish despite a negative response. They call too often and when the calls aren't answered, they write letters and send gifts. When they help their sons move into an apartment, they buy enough tea and chicken soup mix to last several decades just in case of flu of epidemic proportions. Tea bags and chicken soup have indefinite shelf lives. When it comes to education, a person with <b>CLWEAS</b> will check answers obsessively and possibly not hand in the exam fearing there is an error that was missed. As a writer, proofreading becomes an activity that never ends. Rewriting is inevitable.<br />
<br />
<b>CPITWS</b> – aka <b>Can't Pee in the Woods Syndrome</b>. Those who have <b>CPITWS</b> avoid camping trips, exploring the wilderness, and car trips on roads that post signs like "Next Stop: 50 miles."<br />
<br />
<b>WDIPTDTS</b> – aka <b>Where Did I Put That Damn Thing Syndrome</b>. Also Known as <b>WDIPTDTAS</b> -- <b>Where Did I Put That Damn Thing Again Syndrome</b>. This condition tends to eat up a lot of time and is one of the most frustrating disabilities. A person puts something down in a very logical place and then it disappears. It happens with earring backs, notes, lists, bills, credit cards, homework, documents of major importance, $50 bills, and eyebrow tweezers. People with <b>WDIPTDTS</b> and <b>WDIPTDTAS</b> are firm believers in conspiracy theories and know that the physics theory that matter cannot be created or destroyed blah blah blah is a fallacy – and have dozens of backless earrings to prove it.<br />
<br />
<b>IJHTHAFFD</b> – aka <b>I Just Have to Have Another Furry Friend Disorder</b>. This condition is best detected in the home. Just count the pets. If it goes beyond two or three, <b>IJHTHAFFD</b> may be at the root.<br />
<br />
(An aside: Yesterday, while planting a few cacti in my backyard, I found a hole under our mesquite tree. From experience, I knew the hole was either the home of a snake, a rodent, or a rabbit. I thought: "Six foot rattler!" since we have had those in the past, so I ran like the wind for the garden hose, attached the power nozzle, and got close enough to spray into the hole but not close enough to get eaten. I also had my cell phone ready so I could call the snake police. The snake police are number one on my speed dial. Then a baby bunny popped out. It was two inches -- newborn, probably. And it was sopping wet. I felt so bad. I ran to get lettuce and carrots while the baby bunny dried off in the sun. When I got back, another baby bunny had joined it. I named them Jack and Jennifer. I scattered the lettuce and carrots and kept saying things like, "I’m so sorry! Now go back in your hole so your mommy can find you." I took a picture with my cell phone and sent it to my son -- the one who used to take scorpions and centipedes outside instead of killing them because "they are beneficial, mom." He wrote back and said, "Since you almost killed them, you should keep them." I didn’t respond since I like furry faces but I know jackrabbits don't make good pets -- we've done bunnies before and the only thing I remember is that they create a lot of poop and then they eat it. I went outside this morning to inspect the bunny hole, and it seems that Jennifer and Jack Rabbit have two other siblings: Jillian and Bob. All is well. They like lettuce but prefer what falls off the mesquite tree. ANYWAY, I looked up Sonoran Desert bunnies online and it said that 80% of them are dead within a year -- their life expectancy being two years -- because they get eaten by almost everything. Sometimes, people who think bunnies are snakes tend to drown them. End of aside.)<br />
<br />
<b>TTMS</b> – aka <b>Talk To Machines Syndrome</b>. Those who have <b>TTMS </b>tend to see inanimate objects as audiences. They think what they say to machines will change things. They tend to personify. They are often not aware that they are doing this and have been known to say things like, "Come on, finish perking!" to coffee machines and "Please don't freeze!" to computers. Some suffering from <b>TTMS </b>have said that the inanimate objects have menacing personalities and tend to be vindictive.<br />
<br />
<b>DCFBD</b> – aka <b>Diet Coke for Breakfast Disability</b>. This is sometimes referred to as "Do as I say, not what I drink." People with <b>DCFBD </b>know it is not healthy. They don't care. They are even known to finish off the warm, flat can of Diet Coke that was left on their desk the night before.<br />
<br />
<b>SATDS </b>– aka <b>Share All The Details Syndrome</b>. People who have <b>SATDS</b> tend to tell a story, include all the details, and leave nothing out -- even when they are not asked. The syndrome tends to waste time, keep a person from staying on task, and alienates friends and relatives.<br />
<br />
<b>OMGOMGOMGS</b> – aka as <b>Oh, My God! Oh, My God! Oh My God! Syndrome</b>. This occurs when a large insect or arachnid is in the vicinity of the person afflicted. They get up on furniture and scream, "Oh, My God! Oh, My God! Oh My God!" until a brave person comes in and smashes the creature. These people often suffer from <b>SATDS,</b> with a twist. When they Share all the Details, the insects and arachnids get larger with each telling of the tale. In the end, the insect or arachnid takes on the appearance of the supernatural and develop menacing personalities similar to those in <b>TTMS.</b><br />
<br />
<b>IIDWIDIWFIS</b> – aka <b>If I Don’t Write It Down, I Will Forget It Syndrome</b>. These people have very good memories. The problem is that they can't remember what they need to know when they need it. They function well with lists but tend to also suffer from <b>WDIPTDTS </b>-- so they cannot remember where they put the list.<br />
<br />
<b>CRWTISFD </b>– aka<b> Can't Remember What The Initials Stood For Disability</b>. Those who have <b>CRWTISFD</b> can spout off initials like ADD, ADHD, SCUBA, and MRSA, but cannot remember what the initials represent. In fact, they often ask those using the initials what they stand for, but they have known to become indignant when others ask them to translate initials into real words.<br />
<br />
There are many other syndromes, deficiencies, and disabilities. Some are mild and some are severe. With all of them, it depends on the degree to which a person has it and how well they learn to cope. I am doing well with mine. I just take it a day at a time. I inhale and exhale and always have my trusty hose by my side along with my cell phone. But don’t ask me to use both of them at the same time. I'm having a tough time with <b>CDTTAONMHHITS</b> -- aka <b>Can't Do Two Things At Once No Matter How Hard I Try Syndrome.<br />
</b><br />
<br />
<b>© 2002 by Felice Prager. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This essay, any part of this essay, or any item on this blog may not be used in any form without the author's express written permission.</b><br />
<br />
(This essay originally appeared at The Irascible Professor - http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-04-11-08.htm)Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-70214401033163160312013-04-01T10:25:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:11:26.770-07:00Big Stupid Bad Day<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEd-k-K7mbI/AAAAAAAAACQ/HnYnuP8mQuU/s1600-h/toilet.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208270667706505650" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEd-k-K7mbI/AAAAAAAAACQ/HnYnuP8mQuU/s200/toilet.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div align="center">
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day</div>
<div align="center">
<br />
Bad<br />
Headache<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Outa<br />
Ink<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Outa<br />
Stamps<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Lost<br />
Ideas<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Forgot<br />
Sunblock<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Phone<br />
Ringing<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Another<br />
Survey<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Deadline<br />
Approaches<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Not<br />
Writing<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Not<br />
Creative<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Nobody<br />
Loves Me<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Furball<br />
Kitty<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Black and<br />
Blue Mark<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Broken<br />
Water Heater<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Sparking<br />
Hairdryer<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Missed </div>
<div align="center">
Appointment<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Sneezing<br />
Coughing<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Have a</div>
<div align="center">
Fever<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Can't Find</div>
<div align="center">
Keys<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Burnt<br />
Dinner<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
We Don't<br />
Deliver<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Disgusting</div>
<div align="center">
Cold Sore<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Zit<br />
Bad<br />
Day </div>
<div align="center">
<br /></div>
<div align="center">
Watery<br />
Eyes<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
The Mailman<br />
Cometh<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
No<br />
Check Yet<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Emailed<br />
Accounting<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Be<br />
Patient<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Cost of<br />
Gas<br />
Bad<br />
Day</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
Tank's</div>
<div align="center">
On Empty</div>
<div align="center">
Bad</div>
<div align="center">
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Your Server<br />
Is Down<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Nothing<br />
Fits<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Chocolate<br />
Stains<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
White<br />
Carpet<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Evil<br />
Email<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Did My<br />
Taxes<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
No<br />
Refund<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
We Owe<br />
Plenty<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Eating<br />
Pretzels<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Eating<br />
Pasta<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Eating<br />
Everything<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Flat<br />
Tire<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Waited<br />
An Hour<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Record<br />
Heat<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Bad<br />
Hair Day<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Raining<br />
Buckets<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Roof<br />
Leaking<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
No</div>
<div align="center">
Repairmen<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Not<br />
Fair<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Back to<br />
Bed<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
Big<br />
Stupid<br />
Bad<br />
Day<br />
<br />
-------<br />
<br />
<b>Copyright 2001. Felice Prager. All rights reserved. <b>Distribution via linking, mailing list, disk, or any other form is prohibited without permission of the author under U.S. copyright law.</b></b></div>
Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-83728899652750990302013-03-31T10:45:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:22:35.713-07:00Waiting for the Big "O"<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEWMe3CDrcI/AAAAAAAAAAw/pFQaN1fXeX8/s1600-h/hyundai+windshield.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5207723005920390594" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEWMe3CDrcI/AAAAAAAAAAw/pFQaN1fXeX8/s320/hyundai+windshield.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: arial;">(An Excerpt from </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Waiting in the Wrong Line - available at Amazon.com - links follow article.</i>)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">The car is pulled to the side of a narrow dirt road almost hidden by overgrown foliage. A beautiful white sandy beach can be seen from the car through a small clearing, and waves are relentlessly eroding the shoreline. We are on the island of St. Martin in the West Indies. We are on our honeymoon.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
<br />
And we’ve been fighting all week.<br />
<br />
We have battled in restaurants.<br />
<br />
We have bickered on the beach.<br />
<br />
We have brawled in the waves.<br />
<br />
Strangers hear us coming and going.<br />
<br />
Strangers want to remain strangers.<br />
<br />
Right now we are sitting in a rented car on the side of a dirt road almost hidden by overgrown foliage, and we have drawn a bright red boundary line down the middle of the front seat.<br />
<br />
I am so mad. It is at least 90 degrees outside, but you can see the steam coming out of my ears, seeping out of the car, rising from the roof of our rented car. If this were a cartoon, there would be horns growing out of the roof of our car and a devil’s tail would be coming out of the exhaust pipe. The car would be rocking with body parts being thrown from the car windows.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, to make the week just perfect, our rental car is the lemon of all rental cars. The air conditioning doesn’t work. The radio is not attached. There is gum stuck on the driver’s side of the windshield and a spring is coming out of the passenger seat, right under my behind.<br />
<br />
When we point this out to the rental agent, he says, with a thick accent, “Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”<br />
<br />
And, “Hey, Maan, it be all we got,” is all we’ve heard all week.<br />
<br />
Orange juice with breakfast? “Papaya today. Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”<br />
<br />
Hot water in the shower? “Cold showers. Hey, Maan, it be all we got.”<br />
<br />
This has not been a good week.<br />
<br />
Of the three pieces of luggage we put on board the airplane, only two came off. The one we can’t find has my asthma medicine and my brand new expensive bathing suit in it. It took me a month to find that bathing suit, to find one that fit just right and was so comfortable and sexy. The lost piece of luggage also has my husband’s Tums. My asthma medicine is secondary. My new bathing suit doesn’t matter. My husband’s Tums? He’s a basket case!<br />
<br />
“What am I going to do without Tums?” my husband frets.<br />
<br />
I stare at him, wheezing, desperately trying to fill my lungs with air, hoping I can find an island pharmacist who will make a long distance call to my pulmonary specialist. I say, without a hint of nastiness, “Maybe you should lay off the spicy food this week.”<br />
<br />
To which my husband agonizes, “I won’t make it without Tums!”<br />
<br />
To which I reply in oxygen-poor gasps, tugging at my bathing suit that I had to buy from the store in the lobby, even though it is too small, “I guess you’ll have to live with heartburn, honey.”<br />
<br />
It’s been a tough week.<br />
<br />
Now we’re sitting in the rented car, on the side of a dirt road. I am tugging at my too-small bathing suit. I am wheezing. My husband has heartburn. We haven’t had a good cup of coffee in a week. And we are both pissed. We are pissed at the car. We are pissed at the hotel. And we are really pissed at each other. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br />
My husband gets up this morning and says, “Let’s fix this vacation now.” <br />
<br />
I nod my head, somewhat skeptically, but I agree. We need a quick fix for this honeymoon in hell.<br />
<br />
My husband goes to the lobby to talk to the concierge. He comes back an hour later and he’s bubbling. He’s found a perfect place for us to go. He’s waving a hand drawn map. He says it’s going to be great.<br />
<br />
I’m already upset.<br />
<br />
Nothing on this island could possibly bring this level of excitement.<br />
<br />
Then he starts, “The concierge says it’s called Orient Beach. It’s on the other side of the island. It will take about an hour to get there. It’s a nude beach.” My husband’s rambling now. “All the movie stars go there. Very private.” he continues.<br />
<br />
“A nude beach?” I ask. “Why’d he tell you about it?”<br />
<br />
“Well, we got to talking about surfing, and then he told me,” he answers. “And he said there were great waves.”<br />
<br />
Surfing.<br />
<br />
Great waves.<br />
<br />
I should have read the scribbling in the sand dune.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” the concierge says to the boy who spent the summer of his freshman year in high school painting his mother’s house to earn money to buy his first long board.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” he says to the teen who hid surfing magazines under the mattress, to look at the waves, not the girls in the string bikinis.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” he says to the college student who memorizedEndless Summer.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” he says to the young adult who watched surfing specials on television instead of the Super Bowl.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” he says to the homeowner who wanted to decorate our living room around a poster called Sunset at Doheny.<br />
<br />
“Great waves,” he says to the man I married who I have never seen on a surfboard.<br />
<br />
My husband tells me “nude beach” and “movie stars,” expecting me to react with, “Wow, what a wonderful, fabulous, original idea you have,” and all he gets is a nasty look from me.<br />
<br />
Being the wonderful sport that I am, and wanting to try to salvage this semi-miserable honeymoon in paradise, I decide to go along with it. We grab towels and sun block. My husband hands me the map, and we’re on our way to a beautiful nude beach where movie stars hang out, which just by coincidence has great waves.<br />
<br />
We drive for an hour. The island is very green, very lush, and extremely humid. It is early when we leave. For miles we drive never seeing another vehicle. We pass many other beaches. The sand is white. The water rushing to the shore comes in long, lingering pushes against the sand. I imagine myself lying in the sand at the water’s edge. There are no people on these beaches.<br />
<br />
We are, for the first time this week, chatting peacefully. We are even laughing. My husband doesn’t have heartburn and I am not wheezing. With some distance between the hotel room and us, this vacation is starting to look more memorable. I’m starting to think that maybe, for once, my husband has had a good idea that won’t turn into the Nightmare in the Caribbean.<br />
<br />
Then I see the sign: Orient Beach.<br />
<br />
The sign is large. It is brightly colored. Orient Beach.<br />
<br />
Our day is about to be an adventure in paradise. “I got you here,” I announce, crumbling the hand written map and throwing it in the back seat.<br />
<br />
My husband looks around. He looks at the sign. “This isn’t Orient Beach,” he says.<br />
<br />
“Yes, it is,” I answer, pointing to the sign, “Orient Beach.”<br />
<br />
“Nope,” he says. “This is Rient Beach. We want Orient Beach.”<br />
<br />
“It is Orient Beach,” I continue, not having a clue what he is trying to say.<br />
<br />
“Rient Beach,” he argues.<br />
<br />
Now there’s an explanation here, an artistic interpretation. Imagine the word “Rient.” From the top of the “R” start an “O”. Bring it up and around the back of the “R” so that it looks like a giant “O” going around the word “Rient.” It is very clear to me. I can’t see the confusion.<br />
<br />
I get out of the car.<br />
<br />
“Get back in the car! This isn’t Orient Beach,” he says. He leans over the back of the seat and retrieves the map I just crumbled. “Why did you crumble this?” he mumbles. “I’ll get us there.”<br />
<br />
“We are there,” I say. “Look at me.” He looks up.<br />
<br />
As if my arm is a giant, thick, bold, black magic marker I am dramatizing the big “O” with my arm. I am drawing a giant “O” in the air. “See O … rient. ORIENT. See it? Don’t you see the “O”? Come on, think outside the box.” I am standing there drawing this giant “O” over and overagain in the air for my husband’s benefit.<br />
<br />
“Get back in the car,” he says.<br />
<br />
I go up to the billboard. I point to the “O” and draw a giant circle one more time.<br />
<br />
“Get back in the car,” he says.<br />
<br />
I go back to the car. I am standing next to his window. “Think of a giant ‘O.’ Now put the word ‘range’ in it. What have you got?”<br />
<br />
Expecting to hear, “Orange,” all I get is, “Get in the car.”<br />
<br />
“Orange,” I say. “Think ‘O’ plus ‘range’ is ‘orange.’”<br />
<br />
He says nothing.<br />
<br />
I try again. “Imagine the word ‘liver’ with a giant ‘O’ around it?”<br />
<br />
“In the car,” he says louder.<br />
<br />
I get louder, not liking the bossy tone he’s delivering. “Oliver. Think: ‘O’ plus ‘liver’ is Oliver!”<br />
<br />
I push myself up on the hood, blocking the driver’s view. I am visibly enraged. With my finger, I write on the filthy windshield, “vulate.” Then I add the giant “O.” I am screaming. “Think. ‘O’ plus ‘vulate’ is ovulate.”<br />
<br />
He has stopped talking.<br />
<br />
“‘rgasm.’ ‘O’ plus ‘rgasm.’ Think!” I am writing “orgasm” across the windshield.<br />
Screaming, “verload,” I yell and write. “‘O’ plus ‘verload,’ ‘OVERLOAD’.” I am now screaming over the engine. If anyone is hiding in the bushes, they’ve all jumped into the sea in fear of the mad woman on top of the hood of the car giving a spelling lesson to a baboon who can drive.<br />
<br />
I get down from the hood. I open the car door get in, glaring at him, “You are such an AF!” I say.<br />
<br />
“You mean ASS?” he says, trying to correct me.<br />
<br />
“No,” I say. “You are an AF! ‘A.’ ‘F.’ ‘AF’.”<br />
<br />
“What is an AF?” he asks.<br />
<br />
“Sam, ‘AF’ with a big ‘O’ going around it. YOU ARE AN AF!” I say.<br />
<br />
I turn my body away from him and stare out the window, trying to get a view of the great waves before we leave Rient Beach.<br />
<br />
And then he shuts off the ignition.<br />
<br />
“Oaf,” he says. “I am an oaf.” He meekly smiles, staring through the windshield with the words “orgasm” and “ovulate” and “overload” written in the filth.<br />
<br />
I don’t say anything. We both silently get out of the car, grabbing our share of gear from the trunk and head toward the beach, and I swear, as we pass the “Orient Beach” sign, my husband says, “Ya know, that’s a really cool logo.”</span><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;">©2002, Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. This blog is copyright protected. No item on this blog, including this essay or any photographs, may be used without the author's express written permission. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;">The Contents of this blog – including all photographs – are COPYRIGHT PROTECTED and may NOT be used, distributed, shared, emailed, or copied in any form without the written consent of the author/photographer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Originally Published In <i>Traveler’s Tales – Whose Panties Are These?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;">Also Published at CommonTies.com and Sasee Magazine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;">To purchase WAITING IN THE WRONG LINE, follow the links at <a href="http://www.feliceprager.com/">http://www.feliceprager.com</a> </span></div>
Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-61014674135721201352013-03-23T14:02:00.000-07:002013-03-23T08:10:39.580-07:00Please consider purchasing my books:<br />
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<br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>NEGOTIABLE </i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>AND </i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>NON-NEGOTIABLE </i></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>NEGOTIATIONS</i></b></span><br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">BY</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: red;">FELICE PRAGER</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; layout-grid-mode: line;">A PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF GENUINE LOVE AND <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; layout-grid-mode: line;">UNBELIEVABLE IMPERTURBABILITY</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 38pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">QUIZ IT: ARIZONA</span></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">101 Fun
Facts About </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Grand
Canyon State</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 28pt;">TurboCharge </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 28pt;">Your Brain</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">Fun-Injected Challenges </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">To Power Up Your Mind</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">Fun-Injected Challenges </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">To Power Up Your Mind</span></b></div>
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Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-87063787955579882852012-08-01T09:26:00.001-07:002012-08-01T09:26:00.913-07:00The Switch<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209179084061686850" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEq4xwzkPEI/AAAAAAAAAEY/NqPNr167clA/s320/image005.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEq4O-AahCI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/38kgdd04uBc/s1600-h/image007.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209178486309815330" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SEq4O-AahCI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/38kgdd04uBc/s320/image007.jpg" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" /></a>My husband says, “Turn it off already!”<br />
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<div><div>I tell him, “They forgot to install an on-off switch when I came off the assembly line.”</div><br />
<div>He mumbles something about the mold breaking when I fell off the conveyor belt, but soon forgives my inability to stay focused. He sees my shortcomings as a source of income.</div><br />
<div>The truth is, even if I could turn it off, I don’t know if I would.</div><br />
<div>At night when I’m in bed, my husband asks, “Are you concentrating, Felice? Are you with me? Are you here?”</div><br />
<div>I tell him I am. I wave from my corner of the galaxy.</div><br />
<div>“You’re writing in your head again, aren’t you?” he asks. </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>I reply, “Faster. Faster. A little to the left.” </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>The cop says, “Lady, do you know how fast you were going?” I don’t think it would convince a jury of my peers if the officer wrote on the speeding ticket, “Defendant said her mind was going a million miles a minute. She was developing a plot.” </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>In my house, food is never undercooked, cakes chew like cookies, and I never ask anyone how they want their meat cooked because I cannot guarantee results anyway. </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>I don’t know what the big deal is. I keep things under control. I pay bills early so they won’t be late. I never miss a deadline. I compensate for my distractions by being incredibly neurotic. My mind may be somewhere else, but my body is in the right place at the right time. I never forget a comma, but sometimes I forget directions or my makeup. </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>“I couldn’t help it,” I say. “I was writing.” </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>When my kids introduce me, they say, “This is my mom. She lives on another planet.” </div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div>Once my older son said, “This is my mom. She talks to pretend people.” Someone in Hollywood heard it, changed the quote a little and got very rich. </div><div><br />
</div><div>If the conversation is at Point A, I’m at Point K. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I’ve been told I should pay better attention. I've also been told my segues are indicative of bad manners. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I have a friend who puts up with me. She says I entertain her. When she introduces me, she says, “Felice is somewhat circular in a semi-direct way.” She isn’t offended by my inability to stay on subject. </div><div><br />
</div><br />
<div>If you were on the perfect wave, would you stop surfing? If you found a gentle, intoxicating breeze, would you go to the indoor mall? If you were on a swing and you thought you were going to go over the top, would you stop pumping? </div><div><br />
</div><br />
<div>I have to go grocery shopping today, but first, I’m going to sit down at the computer for just five minutes. It may be five hours. </div><div><br />
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<div>Did you say something?</div><div></div><br />
<div><em>----</em></div><div></div><div><strong>Writer’s Digest Chronicle’s Winner December 2005</strong></div><div><strong></strong></div><div>The Contents of these pages – including all photographs – are COPYRIGHT PROTECTED and may NOT be used or copied without the consent of the website owner and/or author/photographer. </div></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-11820858083166541272012-04-01T08:50:00.000-07:002012-04-01T08:50:00.556-07:00The Motherhood of the Traveling Norton Anthologies<span style="color:#000000;">My house is a mess of piles. There is the pile of stuff for our future garage sale that is still in the discussion stage because my husband says it is not worth the effort. There is the pile of stuff we are donating to Vietnam Veterans of America because no one would want to buy any of it at a garage sale. There is the pile of stuff that Vietnam Veterans of America will not want which will go to the junk collector who I have to pay to haul it away. There is the pile of my younger son’s stuff that we said we would keep until he moves out of the dorm and has an apartment of his own. There is the pile of my older son’s stuff that he asked us to store for him until he has a house with a basement. And there are piles of books everywhere.<br /><br />Our two sons are both going to college and have moved out, and my husband and I are scaling down. We are not sure what we are going to do going forward, but we are officially Empty Nesters now, and we are trying to see our way through to the next phase of our lives together. If anyone asks, we are just cleaning up and clearing out.<br /><br />My next-door neighbor commented that she did not think one house could hold so much stuff. She waxes toward polite and I could see she was holding her tongue, wanting to say “garbage” instead of “stuff.”<br /><br />When we moved from New Jersey to Arizona twenty years ago, we paid a moving company something like $8000 to move our old piles of stuff from there to here. We already had a lot of stuff. We put it all into labeled boxes that identified into which room the stuff would be moved on moving day. If we were nothing else, we were organized. We were proud of ourselves after the first night in our new home because we had all our boxes unloaded and out at the curb for the city’s pick up service. The stuff we moved went into closets, into cupboards, into drawers, into the garage, into cabinets, and onto shelves. Some of these items, we put away and never looked at again.<br /><br />Among our stuff were my husband’s and my college textbooks. I am not sure exactly why, but at that time in our lives, neither of us could part with them. Maybe it was that some of the books were among the most expensive books we had ever owned or would own, but I don’t think that was it. Maybe saving them was as a remembrance of a time gone by but not forgotten. I don’t think that was it either. We just did not want to give away our books. And it was more than our college books. There were my teaching texts, my husband’s Star Trek and real science books. There were baby books, children’s books, chapter books, adolescent books, and grown up books. There were two sets of encyclopedias and many assorted types of dictionaries. There were books that we had read and books we had bought but could never quite get into. We simply liked having a lot of books around. Originally, they sat on shelves with books of similar subjects, but eventually, the nicely stacked books had books on top of them because that’s where they fit. I also thought in the early days that perhaps someday my sons could use my books. I had been an English teacher, so it made sense to me that my textbooks and anthologies would come in handy. Maybe they could be resources. Maybe they could use the notes I had written in the margins, gems spoken by my professors or thought up by me.<br /><br />Okay, I was delusional, but not as deluded as my husband who somehow thought anyone would want to look at his business course texts or his copies of <em>The Flea, Fanny Hill,</em> and <em>The Adventures of Samurai Pussy Cat.<br /><br /></em>That was before computers, and the world has changed so much in what seems to me like a heartbeat.<br /><br />Last week, when my son was doing his final packing for the dorm, I thoughtfully handed him my cleanest, and what I thought was, my best dictionary, to which my son replied, “Duh, Mom. Dictionary.com.” He did take his <em>Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life</em> and the screenplay to Monty <em>Python and the Holy Grail,</em> but he did not need a dictionary. On Thursday, this son sent me this text message: “$472 bks picked up fr bkstore & pd on credit card. waiting f/mon. to get eng101 texts. also got a cable f/printer & jelly beans.”<br /><br />So, in the last few weeks, I’ve been creating piles, and trying to come to terms with my life as it is now.<br /><br />Last night, I addressed our books.<br /><br />I sat down at one of the piles. That pile had my <em>Norton’s Anthology of American Literature</em>, my <em>Norton’s Anthology of English Literature</em>, my <em>Norton’s Anthology of World Masterpieces</em>, and my paperback set of the complete works of William Shakespeare, and I flipped through the pages. I had not looked at any of these since the middle 1970s. In the cover of one fat book, there was a big pink heart with my initials and “loves RL.” “RL” was crossed out and “MD” was written above it. I cannot remember who “RL” or ”MD” were, but when I got to another volume, there was another heart with my initials and “SS” in it this time. There was plenty of highlighting in each text, but I had no memory of ever reading anything that had been highlighted, and I had no idea how I ever read such small print anyway. I showed my husband who said, “Get a magnifying glass.” My impressive margin notes included, “Today’s list: 1. Call Mom. 2. Get tampons & Clearasil. 3. Finish essay. 4. Buy TAB. 5. Fix flat.” On another page, there was something about Eudora Welty and then the words, “He loves me. He loves me not,” with some daisies drawn in the margins and finally the words, “HE LOVES ME!” On another page, there was an arrow to a poem by e.e.cummings with the words “very cool” written next to it. If memory serves me, and that is debatable these days, that’s the poem I copied from the Internet a few years ago and pasted into a card I gave to my son and daughter-in-law on their wedding day. There were other scribbles in other margins, but they were mostly either illegible, lists, or things about when various assignments were due. There were also more hearts and more initials.<br /><br />Finally, I grew bored of looking through proof that I was an airhead 30 years ago. I am so glad I grew out of that stage of my life. I moved the books to the pile of things we are just not sure about yet, and I joined my husband on the couch. I did not want to miss a minute of <em>Dancing with the Stars.<br /></em><br />©2006 by Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved.</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">A version of this originally appeared at The Irascible Professor.</span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-46456572825922444232012-02-01T08:20:00.000-07:002012-02-01T08:20:00.747-07:00I'm Easy!<a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SIIIKd7cf8I/AAAAAAAAAGw/3-Qb_JdOoMU/s1600-h/100_4175.JPG"><span style="color:#000000;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224747493628870594" border="0" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SIIIKd7cf8I/AAAAAAAAAGw/3-Qb_JdOoMU/s320/100_4175.JPG" /></span></a><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My husband always tells people I'm difficult to buy presents for. He says he can't do anything right even when he's trying to do something special and unique. He says I don't give good hints. He says all these things about my weird taste.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">There's no truth to anything he says. I'm easy. I'm so easy that EVERY husband should have a wife as easy as I am.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">You see, I have a Red Jeep Wrangler. It's not my first Wrangler and it definitely won't be my last. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The Wrangler is a great vehicle. It's not a car even though the guy at the carwash charges me as if it is. It's not a truck. It's not an SUV. It's not a Mom Mobile. It's a Wrangler, and Wranglers are in a class unto themselves. Nothing else comes close to them, even though many try. In fact, even the Jeep manufactures are trying to change the specs on this classic vehicle. Unfortunately for them, the diehard Jeep owners who are considering a newer Jeep have been known to go into a dealership and ask them to put in crank windows instead of electric and to remove the new fancy features in order to bring their new Jeep back to its classic heritage. I am one of those people.<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><span style="color:#000000;">Let me tell you about my Wrangler, and with it, I will tell you how easy I am when it comes to buying presents for me.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Flashback to Valentine's Day 1998: My current Wrangler was a month old.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Chocolate?" my husband asked.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Gloss black grill guard," I replied. "The guy at the off-road place in the airpark knows which one I want."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Flashback to Birthday, 1998:<br /></span><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Chocolate?" my husband asked.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Deluxe sport handles and black mesh light guards," I replied. "I folded down the pages in the catalog in the bathroom. There's a coupon with a discount, too."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Flashback to Anniversary, 1998:<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Chocolate?" my husband asked.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Front and rear slush mats," I replied. "And a black leather t-style hood bra."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The list goes on.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I'm so easy. All my husband has to do is pull into the off-road place or dial an 800 number, and my present is a done deal.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">If they make it for a Wrangler, I've got it or I want it. I have dreams about light bars, side bars, air intake scoops, and safari snorkels. My husband knows this because I wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him about these dreams.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Are you sleeping?"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"I was."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"I had another dream!"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Let me guess. Was it about Jeep accessories?"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">To put it simply, if my husband wants to buy me a present, without asking and ruining the surprise, all he has to do is buy more bells and whistles for my Wrangler. And if he's concerned about which accessory to buy, all he has to do is pay attention when I retell my dreams to him. I'm so easy.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I take excellent care of my Wrangler. My son's best friend always tells me he knows it's me in the red Wrangler coming down the road even though there are so many red Wranglers these days because he needs sunglasses from the shine. No one's Wrangler shines like mine. My 98 Wrangler could pass for brand new. If you have a cool Wrangler, it doesn't come without responsibility.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">For Mother's Day last year, when he asked me what I wanted because I never give him hints or leave him lists, I told him he could wax my Wrangler. He was happy. I was thrilled. Soooo easy.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Unfortunately, my Wrangler obsession has created a monster. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My husband thought he could take our sons camping using my Wrangler. That included taking it off-road and getting it dirty.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">It turned into an ugly scene. I stamped my feet and acted indignant, but he convinced me that taking his Mustang off-road was just dumb and dangerous.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"We can't do 45 degree angles in a Mustang," he said. "We'll get stuck....or killed! You wouldn't want your children killed in an off-road accident because we took a sports car instead of the appropriate 4-wheel drive Wrangler. Would you?"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">So, I gave in.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">When they returned, he said I "RUINED THEIR TRIP." That's in quotes because that's exactly what he said. I was home minding my own business, looking at off-road websites on the Internet, enjoying the air conditioning of my home and sipping iced tea, and I "RUINED THEIR TRIP."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">It seems he was so afraid of getting my Wrangler dirty or (gasp!) scratching it, that he took the turns "like a wimp" and avoided all the "cool, macho trails" that all the other Wranglers were taking.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Which is why, a month ago, my husband traded in his Mustang for a second Wrangler. We are now officially a two-Jeep family.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">His is a new, very hot color. It's this dark reddish color, but at dusk, it looks brown, and in the sun it looks plum. I forget what they called the color. It's unimportant. I think it is sienna or sierra or something like that. What is important is that my husband is happy.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">He pulled his Wrangler into the garage next to mine on the day he brought it home and sang, "My Wrangler is taller than your Wrangler."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I wanted to hurt him, but I am not a violent person, so I just gave him a dirty look and said something about the color being sort of girlie.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">This did not affect his mood. He and my younger son then took out the tape measure and proved it. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Two inches taller, in fact.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Of course it was; the tread on my tires has worn down. Mine is the old Wrangler. Mine is the used Wrangler. My Wrangler has been offroad. My Wrangler is in need of new tires.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My husband still looks at my Wrangler and sulks, though. In spite of his Wrangler's extra height, he still says, "You've got the cool Wrangler because you have all that neat stuff on it which I bought for you."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I've told him he'll have to wait like I did and start dressing up his Wrangler as holiday presents.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">His birthday is next month. I think the first thing I'll get him a very cool aluminum front bumper I saw at the off-road place. I won't even ask him for hints. Or maybe we'll just pull into the off-road place in our separate but unequal Wranglers, and I'll let him pick out the one he wants.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">And when it's my turn for the next present, I think I'll start having dreams about six-inch lift kits or roof racks. Hmmmm….a roof rack. After all, it just isn't right having both the oldest AND the shortest Wrangler in the family.<br /><br />----end</span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-83071743079655514022012-01-15T09:10:00.001-07:002012-01-15T09:10:00.790-07:00The Math-Challenged Dieter<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SFfykDwm7DI/AAAAAAAAAGI/DLLrmJKFWnE/s1600-h/chicken+soup+cartoon.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212901795003034674" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SFfykDwm7DI/AAAAAAAAAGI/DLLrmJKFWnE/s320/chicken+soup+cartoon.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
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<div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SFfnfLvDJLI/AAAAAAAAAF4/Xfvl_qBcou0/s1600-h/100_4267.JPG"></a><span style="color: black;">I received a phone call from the health and beauty reporter at a local newspaper. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"I read your essay in <em>Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul,</em> and I thought I could get an expert quote and some feedback from you about a theory I'm researching," she said. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">The essay she was referring to is cute and easy to read, and I had sold it a few times to a few different periodicals before the <em>Chicken Soup</em> folks sent me a contract. The article does not make me an expert. In fact, I have written a lot about the success I had dieting and have made a little pocket change from it, but it still does not make me an expert. Losing a lot of weight just gave me a reason to shop for new clothes. According to this reporter, however, being in a <em>Chicken Soup</em> book made me worthy of being interviewed.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">What she needed from me was a quote. "I'm doing a story about how the math part of dieting makes it hard for people to lose weight if they aren't good at math. I think everything that people count from calories to steps can intimidate people who want to lose weight. I'm looking for someone who can say something about how numbers make losing weight difficult. Maybe you know someone who failed at dieting because she hated counting how many calories or carbs she was eating. Maybe someone didn't like measuring portions or weighing food."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"I don't think being good or bad at math has anything to do with losing weight," I said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Experts say it does," she said. "Experts in the health and beauty field say it is why so many people fail at diets. They hate math. They hate numbers. So the diets don't work!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">It's kind of scary thinking there's a group of people out there who believe that being bad at arithmetic is going to lead a person to an inevitable fate: Permanent Irreversible Fatness.<br />
My mind started wandering, as it often does when I'm talking to silly people about silly things. I envision the new topic on news broadcasts being "PIF – Permanent Irreversible Fatness – the disease that goes after those who never learned to add and subtract without using their fingers. Details at 5!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">I returned to the regularly scheduled broadcast as the reporter continued, "They've just discovered that counting calories helps you lose weight!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Are you serious?" I asked her. I was referring to the "just discovered" part of her statement, but in retrospect, I think she thought it was news to me.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"If you count calories and keep your caloric intake low, according to the experts," she repeated in a new and more serious way, "a person will lose weight! If you don’t count calories, you will fail at your diet."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"That's not new," I told her.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Well, it's a new theory," she replied.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"It's not new," I repeated.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Well, it doesn't matter if it's new or not," she said, "because if you're bad at math, then you can't keep track of calories and you're going to be fat."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">I was wheezing at this point. There's something about comments like this that sets off my asthma more than a field of pollen-producing plants. I reached for my inhaler and started scribbling down her comments because I knew there was an article in this conversation. I was thinking that sooner or later, the health and beauty experts would be pointing their fingers at math teachers across America, saying, "You are the cause of a generation of fat people. Billy is FAT because BILLY CAN’T ADD!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"So what you're saying is that if you can't add, you will lack success in dieting?"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Yupper, you have to be good at math to keep track of all those calories, carbs, or whatever you’re counting. That's what the experts say. If you can't keep track of sit-ups and crunches, you're doomed."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Does it work backwards?" I asked her.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"I don't understand," she replied.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Well if you're bad at math right from the start, does that mean you'll be fat. If you're fat, does it mean that you're predetermined to be bad at math? Is it commutative?"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Which one is commutative again?" she asked.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">I didn't answer her.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"So can I quote you?" she asked.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"I didn't say anything to be quoted yet," I said, "but if you need a quote, try this: 'I don't agree with your theory. It doesn't make sense. It's silly. Losing weight has nothing to do with being able to add or subtract or even do long division. Dieting isn't about math, it's about really wanting to lose weight. It's about not putting garbage in your mouth. It's about exercise. It's about self-control. Not math. Plus, you can buy a calculator for under five bucks if you are really mathematically impaired.'"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Yeah, but the experts say that it's hard to remember to keep track and write everything down," she said.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Like I said," I repeated. "If you want to lose weight, whether you have to add, write something down, or maybe keep track of how many sit ups you do, if someone really wants to, the person will figure out a way. It has nothing to do with math."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"So you don't think it’s harder to lose weight if you're bad at math? You don't think being bad at math makes a difference?"</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"You can quote me on that," I said. "One thing has nothing to do with the other."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"But. I mean if you're on a diet and you want to lose weight, when you have to count all those calories, and keep track, like it makes it so hard for some people."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">"Then those people can go on a low carb diet," I told her, "because all you have to do is count up to twenty at first to stay under twenty carb limit at the Induction Phase, and some of the lowest carb foods have zero carbs. Zero carbs means zero math."</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">My humor was wasted on her.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">- - -</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">©2002, Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. This blog is copyright protected. No item on this blog, including this essay or any photographs, may be used without the author's express written permission. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">This essay originally appeared at the Irascible Professor - April 10, 2007. </span></div></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-28377066432147827502012-01-01T15:14:00.001-07:002012-01-01T15:14:00.937-07:00I Jumped the Biggest Turtle<img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216691501189557138" border="0" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SGVpR_cz65I/AAAAAAAAAGo/5Ex8GOEL4JY/s320/100_3787.JPG" /><span style="color:#000000;">Some of us have the eye. Some of us have the ear. Some of us have both. When we hear or see them, they give us that fingernails-across-the-chalkboard sensation. They can be found on TV, on the Internet, in advertisements, in magazines, and in newspapers. Without mentioning names, they have even been found in love letters. We who have the eye, the ear, or both vow we will not be part of it. We will strive for perfection. We take oaths in secret societies and grumble a lot. We will respect the language. We will follow the rules and not stray. We swear against the use of word shortcuts and emoticons. We will not succumb to the mass hysteria of abbreviated laziness. We will not substitute "u" for "you", "r" for "are", or "luv" for "love". We will not type "cuz", "prolly", or "w/o". Our writing will be without phrases like "CUL8er", "imho", and "brb". We will not follow the crowd. If we have to, we will stand out in the hurricane sharing the same grammar umbrella. Perhaps we will drown, get blown away, get pneumonia, or at least get very wet. So be it when the argument has grammar rules as the foundation. </span><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My name is Felice and I am a grammarholic.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Hello, Felice.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Lately I have been getting hives because of commas and enunciation. It does not take much to set off the allergic reaction. Sometimes it can be capital letters. Sometimes it can be spelling. This time, all I needed was one innocent, unsuspecting student who mumbled, almost incoherently, </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Grammar is dumb."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Grammar is not dumb," I replied with the same "is not" "is too" "is not" mentality I used when I was her age. Grammar criticism reduces me to my most infantile state. I pout. I kick things. I thrash around on the floor. I go off on tangents and become incoherent.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Using proper grammar, proper spelling, and proper enunciation make a big difference in the meaning of what you're trying to communicate and how others see you," I expounded. "What you say or write is often the first impression people may have of you." An experienced educator should have known better. She would have realized that I had turned off this student right there, but I could not leave it alone. Not me! I had to pick. I had to probe. I had to turn a tiny booboo into a major wound. I had to make a point to an unreceptive audience in spite of my better judgment. With that, I continued to enlighten this puzzled pre-teen whose specialty is four-word sentences, Orlando Bloom trivia, and mascara application. I used examples which I have had stored within the minutiae of my mind forever. I suppose it's kind of like the word "minutia", a word I would have gotten right on the SATs had it come up. It did not, and for the last three decades, I have tried to throw "minutia" into every conversation about minutiae that I possibly can. This time I was using a storehouse of sentences I had collected about misplaced letters and commas.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">First, I wrote this in blue on the white board. I wrote the comma in red:<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Fetch the paper, boy! Fetch the paperboy!<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Do you see the difference?" I asked her.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Fetch?" she asked. "What's fetch?"<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Don't you have a dog? Haven't you ever asked a dog to fetch something?"<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I like cats," she said. "Cats don't fetch."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I erased the sentences, and I wrote another example:<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Felice was a lighthouse keeper. Felice was a light housekeeper.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yeah, so?" she said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Look at them carefully," I responded.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I don't see the difference," she said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I explained the difference.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">She sighed and looked at the clock.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"My mother has a maid," she said. "You should get a maid."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I can't afford a maid," I told her.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I showed her another:<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I jumped the biggest hurdle. I jumped the biggest turtle.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I don't get it," she said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Read them out loud to me," I instructed.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I jumped the biggest hurdle. I jumped the biggest turtle," she quickly muttered without distinction.<br />They both sounded the same the way she read them.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Enunciate the words," I instructed.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Enunciate?" she said. "Is that like Email?"<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Pronounce the words clearly," I clarified.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"I jumped the biggest hurdle. I jumped the biggest turtle," she said again.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">They both still sounded the same.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I read them to her making sure I exaggerated the words that could be confused.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"That's what I said," she whined.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"No, you didn't."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yes, I did."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I looked at the clock and sighed.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Try this one," I suggested.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">What is that in the road ahead? What is that in the road, a head?<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yeah, so?" she said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Read them both."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">She did.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Enunciate! Pause when you see a comma," I said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">She gave me a look.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">My own children often give me the same look.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I sometimes give my children that same look.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I am not allowed to give that look to my students.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Work with me," I said. "Read the sentences clearly."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"So there's a head in the road. Big deal," she said. "Can't we do something else? This is boring."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Life is boring," I said profoundly. "I'm trying to teach you something valuable."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Is it time to go yet?" she asked.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"One more," I told her. "Then you can leave."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Can you see anybody there? Can you see any body there?<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"They're the same," she said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"No, they're not," I said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yes, they are," she replied. "Anybody. Any body. Same thing. You're really obsessing about the same thing."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"No, I'm not," I said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yes, you are," she replied. "Anybody. Any body. You're making something out of nothing."<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"No, I'm not," I said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Yes, you are," she replied.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I think I scared her when I started to cry.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">© 2004 Felice Prager </span></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-3166145420286848442011-12-01T06:06:00.001-07:002011-12-01T06:06:00.389-07:00QUIZ IT: ARIZONA<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SrsD5Hhs56I/AAAAAAAAAM0/MR9zIXJJovk/s1600-h/ArizonaCvr_REV.jpg"></a><br />
<div align="center"><span style="font-size: 180%;">QUIZ IT: ARIZONA <br />
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BY FELICE PRAGER <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SrrIudlMtOI/AAAAAAAAAMs/WTMUFJU8-K4/s1600-h/ArizonaCvr_REV.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5384837005015037154" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SrrIudlMtOI/AAAAAAAAAMs/WTMUFJU8-K4/s320/ArizonaCvr_REV.jpg" style="display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 226px;" /></a><br />
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QUIZ IT: ARIZONA <br />
is a fun and fact-filled book for the visitor to the Grand Canyon State and the Arizonan alike.</div><br />
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QUIZ IT: ARIZONA <br />
includes amusing and fascinating information about the state of Arizona ranging from a town called Why to an original Diamondbacks owner who is an avid Yankee fan to Muhammad Ali to the Make a Wish Foundation to Famous Good Guys and Bad Guys to Giant Saguaros and Incredible Insects and Arachnids.</div><br />
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QUIZ IT: ARIZONA <br />
is an entertaining trip through the unique state of Arizona with a few laughs and without being a formal guidebook.</div><br />
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EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONS FROM <br />
QUIZ IT: ARIZONA: </div><div align="center"><br />
"Standin’ on the Corner" Park in Winslow, Arizona was built in honor of what famous situation? </div><br />
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Where in Arizona can you make plans to meet someone on the corner of Ho and Hum and take a walk down Easy Street? </div><br />
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Who or what is Kokopelli? </div><br />
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On June 6, 1936, the first barrel of this product produced in the United States rolled off the production line in Nogales, Arizona. What product was this? </div><br />
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In what town in Arizona can you find The Satisfied Frog, The Town Dump, The Lazy Lizard, The Horny Toad, Big Earl’s Greasy Eats, Hammerhead Jack’s, and Big Bronco Wild West Emporium? </div><br />
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Why does Arizona opt out of Daylight Saving Time? </div><br />
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What toy did John Lloyd Wright, son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright invent?<br />
In regard to Arizona, what do Barry Bonds, David Spade, Amanda Brown, and Brenda Strong have in common? </div><br />
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This Arizonan was the first woman to rob a stagecoach, escaped from jail, and was a writer for Cosmopolitan magazine. Who was she? </div><br />
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Who is Arizona's Digital Goddess? </div><br />
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and MUCH more……. </div><br />
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<span style="font-size: 180%;">PURCHASE YOUR COPY TODAY!</span></div><br />
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.quizitarizona.com/">http://www.QuizItArizona.com</a></div><br />
<div align="center"></div><br />
<div align="center">Also available on Amazon - paperback and Kindle.<br />
Be sure to purchase the second edition. <br />
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©2009 Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. No Portion of this Page may be copied or used in any format without the Author's Written Consent.</div><div align="center"><br />
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<div align="center"></div><strong></strong>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-59363155206934197092011-10-01T16:16:00.000-07:002011-10-01T16:16:00.513-07:00Blame it all on the bloomers<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKS-0IpGS8I/AAAAAAAAAIg/CrHgKcmeBYo/s1600-h/bluebloomers.gif"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234518469793696706" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKS-0IpGS8I/AAAAAAAAAIg/CrHgKcmeBYo/s320/bluebloomers.gif" /></a><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Perhaps there are women who grew up in the 1950s and '60s who have fond memories of gym class. They may tell wonderful anecdotes of bonding with other women while running track, climbing ropes, jumping over the pommel horse, and playing basketball. But when I think of those days, I start to hyperventilate and require a quick dose of reality. So I call my oldest girlfriend, and she reminds me that I no longer have to wear my blue bloomers.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Physical education was a school requirement in the 1960s. Five days a week, we had to dress out for PE. That meant we had to wear our blue bloomers, white sneakers, and white socks.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The "bloomers" were the gym suit our school required. It was a cornflower-blue cotton thing with an elastic waist and snap closures. I never understood the color choice, since the school colors were orange and black. I could have dealt with black much better.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The gym suits were carried at a local store. Every September, the store had an increase in sales because groups of moaning teenage girls would flock into the store to purchase the uniform.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The boys didn't have to wear uniforms for PE. They wore black gym shorts and a school T-shirt. The year after I graduated, the school approved black shorts and a school T-shirt for senior girls. But that was too late for me. I wore my blue bloomers until the week before I graduated.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Once the suit was purchased, we had to sew our names over the right chest pocket, using white thread. My gym teachers would not let us abbreviate our names, which wasn't a problem for me, but Anastasia Karchanaski and Katherine Philipowizc were not happy.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">On my first attempt at the sewing project, I carefully spelled my name over the pocket with my ballpoint pen and began to sew. Midway through the project, my girlfriend came to visit. Seeing what I was doing, she mentioned that her mother had given her uniform to her father's tailor to sew on her name.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">She looked down at my attempt and said, "Uh-oh!" Apparently, I had written my name over the wrong pocket. For the entire year, my name was sewn over one pocket and written in dark ink over the other. I wasn't the only one who made that mistake, though; many other girls also had their names sewn over one pocket and written over the other.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Sneakers were another issue. The teachers wanted us to make sure they stayed white, so we had to polish them with white shoe polish. If our white sneakers were soiled from use, we were supposed to polish both the cloth and rubber portions of the shoes to make sure they looked new. I actually polished my sneakers several times, but only because I wanted them to appear as if they had been dirty – even though they never were. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br />We were supposed to launder our uniforms weekly. I never did. I made it my goal never to sweat in class because we were given only five minutes to change and shower. There was no way I could change and shower in such a short amount of time.<br /><br />Once a year we square-danced in PE class. The movable wall that separated the boys' gym from the girls' gym was pulled back. We were paired off. Then we would honor our partners, do-si-do, and allemande right and left in our never-been-laundered blue gym suits while we tried to avoid stepping on our partners' toes with the whiter-than-white sneakers.<br /><br />My girlfriends and I tried every way we could think of to break the PE class rules. For instance, we tried to keep our stockings on under our uniforms and socks because it was such a difficult task to put them back on – especially when they were stretched out. That worked until the teacher tapped me on the shoulder one day and said, "Miss Klein, you have a run in your leg."<br /><br />We also cheated at anything that required counting. President Kennedy's Council on Physical Fitness publicized its national goals, but the numbers coming from my gym class were flawed. When we did sit-ups, for example, one girl held another girl's ankles and counted. It wasn't unusual for the counting to sound like this: "1, 2, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 25, 31..."<br />I really disliked gym. Had it not been for the written tests, I'm not sure I would have passed.<br /><br />We had the same rotation of activities each year. Once winter began, I knew I would have to contend with gymnastics. I watched girls gracefully approach the balance beam, placing one foot in front of the other, pointing their toes. I had a hard time not falling off. I watched girls on the uneven bars. I excelled at hanging by my legs, upside down, saying, "But Miss Lee, I'm dizzy and I'm going to throw up."<br /><br />It was not as if I wasn't athletic. I swam well enough to become a lifeguard. I could ride a bike. I could skate. I just wasn't good at gym. Maybe it was the cornflower-blue bloomers<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">©2005 Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Versions of this article appeared at CSMonitor.com and Loti.com.</span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-11017571181527682832011-09-15T18:16:00.002-07:002011-09-15T18:16:00.045-07:00"Kewl Ur Jets! This Aint Skool."<span style="color:#000000;">Yesterday, I saw the words <em>fued</em> and <em>occured</em> in the headline of a very popular Internet provider's news page. I looked them up in the dictionary to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. I was right. They were spelled wrong.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">This morning on a major news station on TV, the moving news banner at the bottom of the screen included the word truely. I knew without checking that they didn't even take the time to reread the text.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I see errors like these and I start screaming, "Proofread! Proofread!" as the rest of the world is screaming, "Kewl Ur Jets! This Aint Skool." No matter what I do, no matter how much I try, I open my eyes and I see them. They stick out on the page like chocolate stains on a white wedding gown. To me, they are as evident as a bad hair day. Right there in front of my eyes, they are yelling at me, "Hey, look at us! We're misspelled, and you can't do a thing about it!"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">In the back of my brain I'm thinking, "How did those people ever get their jobs?" I'm mentally wording sarcastic letters to the editor explaining that they can purchase a paperback dictionary for less than ten bucks. More importantly, I'm asking, "Doesn't anyone care anymore?"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I cannot tell a lie: I sweat the small stuff. True, I probably sweat more small stuff than ten or twenty people combined. I suppose correcting the spelling on my husband's love letters twenty years ago was proof of that. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">It also doesn't help that, in mixed company and on a regular basis, I yell at the TV every time someone mispronounces or misuses a word. "There is NO th in height, you moron!" Perhaps the fact that my kids introduce me as NM, NM being a shortened form of Neurotic Mom, should be a sign that I should lighten up a bit.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">But I can't.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">And I don't think I want to.<br /></span><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#000000;">OLD STAINS </span></div><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I wasn't always NM. There was a time when I was NT: Neurotic Teacher.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">In my first year of teaching, I prepared a list of words that bothered me when they were misspelled. I gave my students a copy of this list and told them I wouldn't tolerate these words misspelled in their work. (I said things like, "I won't tolerate…" when I was a teacher. It made me feel so powerful. The power of the red felt tip marker. The power of the old-fashioned grade book.)<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">However, with that word list, I didn't care if they glued the list to the back of the head of the person who sat in front of them. I just didn't want to see those words spelled incorrectly in my student's work. I explained the concept of first impressions to my students and told them that when representing themselves with the written word, it was fundamental to get it all right.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Take the word a lot. It's always two words, but many people incorrectly spell it as one. Knowing this, I'd have my students recite things like "A lot is always always always always always always always always always always always always TWO WORDS." And when someone spelled it wrong anyway, I'd go a little crazy. I'd dramatically jump up and down and bang my head against the wall. And then I'd plop a dictionary on the kid's desk. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Find alot!" I'd say. I'd watch the kid flip through the pages, and then eventually I'd hear, "Hey, Miss Klein, it's not here."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Of course, it's not there!" I'd dramatically emphasize. "It's not a word. It's TWO words."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Then I'd make the kid write a lot a few hundred times for practice - to help him remember for the next time.<br /><br />Nowadays, that would be considered corporal punishment, but when I taught, it was considered reinforcement. And it worked. By the end of the year, there wasn't a student in my class who would spell a lot wrong again.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">One day while I was still teaching, I went out for my 42-minute lunch break and ran into an ex-student at the deli where I got my coffee. By this time, he had become a CPA. </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Yo, Miss Klein," he said. "How ya doin? Ya know, you were wrong about a lot. It is one word."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"No, it's not," I said.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Yes, it is," he said.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Then he explained that he had written a report for his boss. His boss called him into his office, told him the report was excellent, but suggested that the next time he correct his spelling prior to submitting it. His boss had the two separate words a lot circled in red on his report.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">At that point, I realized I was fighting a terrible monster because a lot is always always always always always always always always always two words…unless your boss says it's not, especially if your boss is also the guy who writes your check.<br /></span><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#000000;">NEW STAINS<br /></span></div><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Fast forward to now. My kid comes home from school. "I have to memorize the demonstrative pronouns," he says. I dig up from the cobwebs of my brain the words this, that, these, and those. My kid shows me a sheet the teacher distributed from which to study. On it he has the title Demonstrative Pronouns. Then he has this, that, these, and there.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"THERE isn't a pronoun," I tell my kid. "It's an adverb. He should have had those on your list."<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Not according to my teacher," he says.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Want me to call him and explain demonstrative pronouns to him?" I ask.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"Please don't, Mom. Be a writer, not a teacher," he says.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"But he's teaching you wrong," I say.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">"I don't care," says my kid. "He's the one who gives me my grade. You hung up your grade book when I was born. Remember? "<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">He writes my check.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">He gives me my grade.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#000000;">FUTURE STAINS<br /></span></div><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My kids communicate with me at times via email and instant messages. We are a 21st Century Family. For instance, my younger son is saving for a drum set. I have to be honest; I haven't been doing a thing to help my kid in this direction. In fact, my house is already too noisy.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The other day I received an email from this son with an extended explanation and photos of a $500 set of blue drums. In the explanation was something about how drumming helps a student's math scores. He also mentioned that for a mere $59, silencing covers could be purchased and shipped with the drum set. I thought this method of persuasion was very creative on his part.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I sent my kid an email back with, "Nice drums. So how many lawns do you have to mow to get $500?"<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I sent him a second email, "Higher math scores are over-rated. When, in the real world, will you ever use calculus anyway?" I know my reply will come back to haunt me.<br /></span><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><span style="color:#000000;">As my sons get older, life has them spending more time with friends and less time with us. We pass in the night. I know this is the natural progression. I compensate by making great meals that teen aged boys can't pass up no matter how hard they try. Then we eat as a family, and we talk, laugh, discuss, and catch up on the little details they feel comfortable enough to share. Then they leave.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Computers and the Internet have kept us close. Just last week, I was sitting here writing, and an Instant Message popped up:<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Drums987: Ur fone wuz bz, NM. Im at ryans. Can i sleep over? His mom sez its ok w/her if its ok w/u.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I cringe at his ease at writing in Computer English and try to decipher what he's written. I take a deep breath. I try to recall the joy of childbirth. I try to recall all the hours that I spent reading to him. I think about the hours that I spent helping him with schoolwork. I try to remember all the essays I've proofread for him.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">SurfPrincess12345: I don't understand. That's not English. Spell it right for the answer you want.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Drums987: Ur such a pain, NM!!!!!!!!<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">SurfPrincess12345: Sleep where? I can't hear you. Spell it right.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Drums987: MOM! Why cant u b like other moms?<br /></span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">SurfPrincess12345: That would be so boring. Now, spell it right or come home!<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Drums987: U R such an NM.<br /></span><br /><div align="left"><span style="color:#000000;">SurfPrincess12345: So what else is new? Spell it right!<br /></span></div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Drums987: I wuv u A LOT. Don't you wuv me A LOT? A LOT IS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS 2 wds..<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">SurfPrincess12345: I wuv you, too. Call me in the morning.<br /></span><br /><div align="left"><span style="color:#000000;">It dawns on me that this is a battle I cannot win.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="color:#000000;">- - -</span></div><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">©2002 Felice Prager </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Originally Published at the Irascible Professor - </span><a href="http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-03-10-02.htm"><span style="color:#000000;">http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-03-10-02.htm</span></a><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-62420529832525404222011-08-30T09:00:00.000-07:002011-08-30T09:00:02.548-07:00Finding My Humor (Repost)<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SmImIaGvL5I/AAAAAAAAAME/ghadCCu8iTM/s1600-h/dovepeace.gif"><img style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 189px; height: 186px; float: right;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359888432412700562" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SmImIaGvL5I/AAAAAAAAAME/ghadCCu8iTM/s320/dovepeace.gif" /></a> <br />
<div align="left">(Note: This is the first column I wrote and sold after 9/11. <br />
<br />
<br />
Finding My Humor <br />
<br />
By Felice Prager <br />
<br />
</div><br />
<div align="left"> <br />
<span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);"><em><strong><span style="font-size:78%;">"I'm holding up well. We all are. I was home all of last week but tried to go into work today. I was able to get into the building, but we didn't have any power or phones, so I went home. It was pretty strange downtown. The smell of burning was everywhere and there were still ashes drifting around. Strangest thing was seeing the soldiers though. On my way home, I stopped by the deli where I get my breakfast every morning to make sure everyone was OK. They were a block closer and at street level. They were all fine. We hugged and cried. Very emotional. The building guy said ConEd was working grid by grid. I won't go into the city tomorrow but probably will try again Wednesday. I need to think of other things. How are you? Written anything lately? I could use a laugh."</span></strong></em> <br />
</span> <br />
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"><span style="color: rgb(51, 0, 51);font-size:78%;" >(Email from a close friend who worked near where the World Trade Center used to stand.)</span> </span></div><div align="left"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"></span></div><br />
<div align="left"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"> <br />
</span>Through dark clouds of smoke, I open my eyes slowly, take a deep breath, and decide I must go on. I must be wise. I must look ahead from the darkness and the horror. I must remember. I must be strong. </div><div align="left"><br />
I receive an email from my oldest friend who is still living in New Jersey. </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />
"Do you remember when we hid under your bed during the air raid drills when we were in second grade?" she asks. I was just telling my kid about that last night. Air raid drills. A hundred years ago. A different world ago. Wearing pedal pushers and Keds, giggling with my best friend as we played with dolls during a safety drill, beneath the lavender bed frill on my lavender carpet. "Your father brought us cookies," she writes. "And then he told us not to make crumbs because your mother would be mad." <br />
<br />
In my self-imposed solitary confinement, I must force myself to go out. I must not be alone. I must reach into my humanity and be part of the whole, not a piece floating on the edge. It is not a comfortable fit for me. With the world turned upside down, my thoughts have been squeezed beyond recognition and my heart has been emptied. <br />
<br />
My older son comes into my office with a gold pencil sharpener in his hands. It is a replica of the World Trade Center. We got it while visiting family back east in 1991. We took the Path train under the Hudson River into the city and went to the top of the tower. The helicopter he could see at eye level mesmerized my younger son, but he says he doesn’t remember the trip at all. He doesn't remember his comments about cars looking like Matchbox cars below. My older son remembers his ears popping in the elevator and that it took a long time to get up to the top. <br />
<br />
"Want this pencil sharpener for your desk?" he asks. "Maybe it will inspire you. Maybe it will help you write." <br />
<br />
Self-motivation drives writers in various ways. With me, I know what I have to do to get in the mood. I know what works for me. It usually doesn’t take much. I love what I do, so getting in the mood to do what I love isn’t difficult. When I’m not stimulated enough to be creative, I know tricks to get there. However, the occurrences in the world have sent me soaring downward, and like everyone else, I keep reaching for a lifeline, and my hand keeps missing it. I am drained of emotion and full of emotion. I am confused and angry. I have more emotions going through me than I can control, and I’m afraid. Beyond that, I feel guilty. <br />
<br />
I hear others talking, explaining, looking for words, "It’s hard," they say. "It’s just really hard." <br />
<br />
It is hard. <br />
<br />
"What do you remember most about New York?" I ask my husband. We haven’t lived there in more than a dozen years. "I mean besides the obvious. Besides the theater and the restaurants. Tell me some things you remember. I need something to hold onto. Tell me something funny you remember about New York." <br />
<br />
I am looking for my humor. In the turmoil and sadness, it’s been buried deeply, and I’m feeling guilty even trying to find it. Where I can usually find words and twist them into humor, there are none. My words are mundane and trite. My words are cliché. At best, my words fit poorly. <br />
<br />
"I remember when we you used to meet me in the city after work. Before the kids were born. When we used to go to the theater or dinner. You always insisted on wearing stupid shoes, and you always complained that you couldn’t walk because your feet hurt." <br />
<br />
I did wear stupid shoes. I couldn't walk. <br />
<br />
"That’s what you remember?" I ask him. <br />
<br />
"You wanted something funny," he says. <br />
<br />
"You find my foot pain funny?" I ask. "I wanted to look good for you. Those shoes were very fashionable." <br />
<br />
"You did look good," he says. "You looked great. You just had to stand still the whole time." <br />
<br />
I laugh and feel guilty laughing. <br />
<br />
We watch some TV. We see the haunting images. We sit in silence. <br />
<br />
"Remember the dessert at Windows on the World?" I ask. That was the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. "The best chocolate pecan praline mousse I have ever had." <br />
<br />
We watch a bit more and my younger son comes in the room. He has a picture he’s printed out from something he's seen online. "Look at this," he says. "It was in the news." He shows us a picture. "People are saying they see the image of the devil in the smoke." It's a picture of the enormous clouds of smoke when the towers fell and within the smoke, there are definite shapes. I squint my eyes and see how they can see the shape of a devil, but shake my head at the thought. <br />
<br />
My husband looks at the picture. "Adrienne Barbeau." He says. "That’s what I see." <br />
<br />
"Jenna Berman," says our younger son. "That’s what I see." <br />
<br />
"Who is Jenna Berman?" I ask. <br />
<br />
"Period Four. Near the door. Blonde. Hot." <br />
<br />
"Oh, he sees Jenna Berman in his Cheerios," my older son says. <br />
<br />
We look at each other and there is some levity, but it’s short lived. <br />
<br />
It's early in the morning, with the sun behind me. I head over roads with names like Squaw Peak and Dreamy Draw. I am in my Jeep. The top is pushed back. I see 200-year-old saguaros surrounded by concrete growing out of modern cement structures. I see pencil palm trees soaring above the world. I see architecture, crisp, new, and inventive. I am speeding. My foot is pushing, pushing, pushing on the pedal. The wind is blowing my hair into a river flowing behind me. The adrenaline is pumping me up to the place I need to be. <br />
<br />
While driving with my senses in overdrive, I know I am going to get there. I will get my drug. I will have a great day of writing once again. I hope. My pad on the passenger seat with the pen in my hand, I am driving one handed, scribbling thoughts, words, sentences. I am getting past all the dysfunctional places I hate thinking about and getting those words onto paper. Whether or not I will be able to read them later is questionable, but it doesn't matter. <br />
<br />
I’m sitting at a red light behind a white Dodge Grand Caravan. I can see through its rear window that the driver is a blonde woman and that there are two bouncing toddlers in the backseat. The children are not in car seats and from the height of each of their bounces, I can tell that they aren’t wearing seatbelts. The woman is putting on mascara with her head bent, keeping her cell phone tight between her shoulder and her ear. The traffic light turns green. She continues talking on the phone and applying her makeup while she drives through the intersection. She is drinking a can of Coke without a straw. I watch her bring the can to her mouth several times, tilting her head back to take a drink, presumably taking her eyes off the road. Every few minutes, I also see this multi-tasking wonder woman turn her head 180 degrees to yell at her children. She’s driving above the speed limit, and she is not staying in her lane. <br />
<br />
Very out of character, I don’t get angry. <br />
<br />
I’m singing again where I haven’t been able to sing. I’m harmonizing with Dave Matthews, occasionally getting a whole stanza of lyrics right. I’m bopping, even if slightly out of rhythm. With my blinker as warning, I calmly pull past the Caravan of Confusion. I don’t even give the driver of the Caravan the finger. Instead, I wave the small American flag I have on the passenger seat. She points to the flag on her car and gives me the thumbs up sign. <br />
<br />
The volume on my CD player is on high, front and back speakers are pumping, woofers and subwoofers are earning their keep, and I can’t wait to get home. There are words screaming out of my head. I can’t scribble them down fast enough at the red lights. I can’t save the thoughts. They’re spilling out of my ears and out of my mouth. They’re sweet. They’re ripe. They taste so delicious. I want to seal my mouth shut so I don’t lose any of them. My heart is thumping. My head is screaming. The fear of losing them is panicking me. Gotta write. Gotta write. <br />
<br />
I get home and write for hours. When I read back what I've written, I'm very disappointed, but at least there are words. <br />
<br />
My younger son comes into my office after school. "I came up with a great way for you to support our economy," he says. "It's your patriotic duty. It's the American thing to do." <br />
<br />
He puts a catalog in front of me. There are a bunch of tee shirts on the page. "I want this one," he says. The tee shirt is black with white lettering. It says, "What if the Hokey-Pokey IS really what it's all about!" <br />
<br />
"Well?" he asks. "Can I have it? It's for America. It will help improve our economy." <br />
<br />
I give him one of those looks that mothers reserve for sons. It's a look that can be interpreted many ways. My son interprets it internally and leaves my office, but he's laughing. "I knew you'd like that shirt," he says as he leaves the room. <br />
<br />
I'm looking for my humor and it's appearing in small doses and on tee shirts in catalogs. <br />
<br />
My humor is coming back. <br />
<br />
But it’s hard. <br />
<br />
It’s just really hard. <br />
<br />
<br />
©2001 by Felice Prager. <br />
</div><br />
Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-2491778837828147592011-07-01T08:46:00.000-07:002011-07-01T08:46:00.708-07:00Getting on the List<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SIIOzNSSXMI/AAAAAAAAAG4/EPmZxqK2Ess/s1600-h/100_3567.JPG"><span style="color:#000000;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224754790605675714" border="0" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SIIOzNSSXMI/AAAAAAAAAG4/EPmZxqK2Ess/s320/100_3567.JPG" /></span></a><span style="color:#000000;">Normally, my cats leave fur and furballs in their wake as signs that they are alive and well. Occasionally, I will see them stampeding down the hall after an unsuspecting moth that inadvertently flew through an open door. A few weeks ago, I watched as ButtercupOfTunafish sat by my closed front door, waiting patiently while a scorpion pushed its way through the tight seal into our cool, air-conditioned home; then she smashed it. However, since the release of the Cat Challenge List, my cats have been hiding under beds. They are depressed and embarrassed because their score was too low to make the list.<br /><br />It is all my fault.<br /><br />I have considered hiding under the bed with my cats.<br /><br />Several months ago, my inner cat woman wanted to know where my five furry felines ranked compared to other cats. In other words, I wanted to know if I was providing my cats with the best home available. I decided to test them.<br /><br />Over the years, I have tried to provide my cats with the best possible stimulation. I talk to my cats and include them in family activities. They have the best learning toys including a five-foot high, multi-level condominium. They even have a box filled with shiny wrapping paper that will not tear. I hide treats in the box so the cats can find them. My house may look like a jungle, but my priority is providing the best possible learning environment for my kitties.<br /><br />On test day, Samson, ButtercupOfTunafish, CleopatraQueenOfDenial, and Zorro let me test them. Peaches, on the other hand, did not cooperate; she would not leave her food bowl long enough to take the test. Peaches likes to eat. She excels in eating. She does not excel in testing or cooperating. (Peaches is large, but we call her extra medium so as not to affect her self-esteem. Peaches always feels good about herself.)<br /><br />Thus, four cats took the test out of a possible five. That is the information I used in my evaluation. I did not consider how the cats actually performed on the test; I just used the fact that they took it.<br /><br />This is similar to the method used in NEWSWEEK’s “Best American High Schools” list. I figured if the method was good enough for NEWSWEEK, then it was good enough for my cats. </span><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The formula for the “Best American High Schools” list was created by Jay Mathews, a Washington Post reporter and NEWSWEEK contributing editor; he has been creating this list for NEWSWEEK since 1998. According to Mathews, “We take the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or Cambridge tests given at a school in May, and divide by the number of seniors graduating in May or June.” That is the only data used to determine placement on the list. Performance on each test was not a factor. According to Mathews, “If I could quantify all those other things in a meaningful way, I would give it a try. But teacher quality, extracurricular activities and other important factors are too subjective for a ranked list. Participation in challenging courses, on the other hand, can be counted.” Mathews claims, “I decided not to count passing rates in the way schools had done in the past because I found that most American high schools kept those rates artificially high by allowing only top students to take the courses. In some other instances, they opened the courses to all but encouraged only the best students to take the tests.”</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">With my cats, I permitted all of the cats to take the test since all are permitted to participate in the advanced stimulation I provide. I did not count their performance on the tests. I just counted who took the test vs. how many cats I have. If only Peaches would have participated, my cats would have been at the top of the list. However, twenty percent of my cats chose to nibble on Tasty Feast instead. Twenty percent of my cats slept with her face in the food bowl.</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Mathews has also stated that, “Test scores, the usual way of rating schools, are in nearly every case a measure of parental wealth and education, not good teaching. Every study shows that if your parents fill their house with books, include you in conversations and take you to plays and museums, you tend to score well on standardized tests even if your school is not the best.” </span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">According to Mathews, my cats have an unfair advantage. I tend to go overboard when it comes to parenting. I spend money on stimulating cat toys before I spend money on things for myself.</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">When Mathews was asked why famous public schools (Stuyvesant in New York City, Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax County, Virginia, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois., or Whitney High in Cerritos, California) are not included on his list, Mathews reply was: “We do not include any magnet or charter high school that draws such a high concentration of top students that its average SAT or ACT score significantly exceeds the highest average for any normal-enrollment school in the country. This year, that meant such schools had to have an average SAT score below 1,300 on the reading and math sections, or an average ACT score below 27, to be included on the list…The high-performing schools we have excluded from the list all have great teachers, but research indicates that high SAT and ACT averages are much more an indication of the affluence of the students' parents.”</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">If Mathews was creating the Cat Challenge List, I suppose my home would have been disqualified. Not only do I provide my cats with extra stimulation, but I am a licensed teacher. Right there, my cats have an unfair advantage. Plus, it is a well-known fact that my cats are innately smart which further disqualifies them. I picked them out. They were the most active kitties in each of their respective litters. CleopatraQueenOfDenial tried to climb out of her cage right before our eyes and got to the top before her siblings! </span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Mathews had more rules and regulations for his NEWSWEEK list, but as soon as I realized my cats would be disqualified because of me, I stopped reading. I did not read the part about how many AP teachers disapprove of Mathew’s list. I did not read the part about all the think tanks that have made public statements denouncing Mathews’ findings. I did not read about how poorer school districts are paying the test fees for their students. I just tore up the magazine and stuffed each page into the cats’ shiny paper box for them to rip apart. They liked this. They came out from under the bed to show how they feel about my choice of reading material.</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">One more thing: as for labeling high schools the “best” in America, Mathews offered this explanation, “My list of best film directors may depend on Academy Award nominations. Yours may be based on ticket sales. I have been very clear about what I am measuring in these schools.”</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Using Mathews’ logic, I have decided to create my own “best” list for my cats. I will judge them on how close they snuggle with me at night. The closer they snuggle, the higher they will be on the list.</span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Last night, Samson slept on my pillow above my head, CleopatraQueenOfDenial slept by my feet, Zorro slept on my left side, and ButtercupOfTunafish slept on my right side. Peaches slept right on my chest. It was hard to breathe, but I know she felt bad about the food bowl thing, so she chose to participate this time and I did not push her off.<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18728337/site/newsweek/"><span style="color:#000000;">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18728337/site/newsweek/</span></a><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18754326/site/newsweek/"><span style="color:#000000;">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18754326/site/newsweek/</span></a></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#000000;">(Originally Published by The Irascible Professor - May 2007)</span></em></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-3478654670536925422011-05-15T01:37:00.000-07:002011-05-15T01:37:00.124-07:00Careers that Begin with "P"<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SGAPszCGN3I/AAAAAAAAAGg/S768-uaDYAA/s1600-h/toilet.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215185630782699378" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SGAPszCGN3I/AAAAAAAAAGg/S768-uaDYAA/s320/toilet.jpg" /></a> Mike the Plumber helped me unclog my water heater last week. When Mike replaced our old water heater in 2001, he explained that routine maintenance would extend our water heater’s life up to ten years. This amounted to attaching a hose to the bottom of the water heater and letting the water drain down our driveway for 30 seconds a month. Neither my husband nor I routinely maintained the water heater, so when Mike had to poke a wire into the clog of sediment, and the wet sediment sprayed all over him, I felt a little guilty. I got him several towels to wipe off the gunk. I offered him a beer, but he settled for a Coke. I offered to wash his shirt, but he said it wasn’t necessary because he always brings an extra one. While Mike wiped his face and got the sediment out of his hair and ears, we talked about our children. Mike has been our plumber for years; our kids went to the same schools.<br /><br /><p>Mike told me the latest dilemma in his daughters’ lives has been about their majors. Mike said that his older daughter, who will be graduating in the spring, has decided she hates her major. He said she is very stressed about it and nothing he says to her seems to help. His younger daughter is equally stressed because she has to declare her major at the end of next semester and has not figured out what she wants to do.<br /></p><br /><p>I made Mike feel a little better when I told him that my sons were running pretty much parallel with his daughters. One son has told us he is not thrilled with his major with just another lap to go, and the other son is also undecided.<br /></p><br /><p>"What made you decide to be a plumber," I asked.</p><br /><p>Mike told me when he went to college, he got a degree in anatomy because he wanted to be a doctor. By the time he got his undergraduate degree, he realized he did not want to spend any more time in a classroom, so he became a policeman. Then he got married and his daughters were born. After he was shot once in his shoulder -- he showed me the scar when he was changing his shirt -- his wife made it abundantly clear that, if he ever wanted to see his daughters again, he would find a career that did not require dodging bullets. Twenty years ago, a friend who owned a plumbing company offered Mike a job.<br /></p><br /><p>I asked Mike if he was happy doing what he does. He said he liked almost everything about it -- except when his clients do not maintain their water heaters.<br /></p><br /><p>Then, Mike asked, "Did you always want to be a writer?"<br /></p><br /><p>I shared my story: When I told my parents that I wanted to write for The Tonight Show, the response I got was, "Be a teacher. Teachers have jobs." Their logic was that it was more likely that I would get married and have babies than it would be to get a job writing for Johnny Carson. With teaching, they said, I would always have a career to fall back on. I did what my parents suggested, taught English for a bunch of years, had my children, and never ever ever wanted to fall back on education. I started writing while my kids were at school each day, and except for the obligatory rejection letters, it wasn't a half bad way to make a terrible living.<br /></p><br /><p>I told Mike that my husband had a different dream. Having grown up near the beach, he told his parents he wanted to go to the University of Hawaii to major in marine biology. His parents said, "Major in business. If you go to school anywhere near a beach, you will wind up surfing all day and never get a degree." There may have been some truth to that.<br /></p><br /><p>When I asked Mike what advice he has given his daughters, he laughed and said, "I don’t give them advice. They don't listen to me anyway." That sounded familiar. What Mike and I realized, however, was that we actually have given our children the same advice: "Do what you love, and if you can't do what you love, then love what you do." Unfortunately, this falls short of actually pointing someone in a direction, so it is probably no better than the advice we got from our parents.<br /></p><br /><p>After Mike left, I went on the internet and started investigating college majors and career choices. Many university websites have valuable information that is supposed to help a student pinpoint his or her direction. I decided that if I were making choices for myself, a website would not help me much.<br /></p><br /><p>Then I did a little more digging and found some information that I thought was pertinent to kids and adults who are confused about their futures. I learned that:<br /></p><br /><ul><br /><li>Country singer, Garth Brooks, has a degree in marketing.<br /></li><br /><li>Frank Capra, director of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, and It Happened One Night had a degree in chemical engineering.<br /></li><br /><li>Roger Corman, director of many films, including the original film version of The Little Shop of Horrors, received an industrial engineering degree from Stanford.<br /></li><br /><li>Howard Cosell was a labor lawyer before becoming a sportscaster.<br /></li><br /><li>Oscar Hammerstein II received a law degree from Columbia University Law School, but gave that up to write the lyrics for such musicals as The Sound of Music and Show Boat.<br />TV host, Montel Williams, is a highly decorated former Naval engineer and Naval intelligence officer.<br /></li><br /><li>Ashton Kutcher of Hey, Dude! Where's My Car? and That 70s Show majored in biochemical engineering.<br /></li><br /><li>Weird Al Yankovitz got his degree in architecture.<br /></li></ul><br /><p>Those are just a few of the examples I found. There were pages of them. I figured those few made my point.<br /></p><br /><p>Last night, my younger son, who is living in a dorm at his college, called me with a whole week’s worth of things to tell me:<br /></p><br /><p>First, his English professor liked his paper so much that she thinks it might be publishable. He said at first he thought that was a sign that maybe journalism might be a good major for him until he realized he really doesn't like to write.<br /></p><br /><p>Second, he thinks he is going to drop calculus because even though he did well in calculus in high school, he thinks he is already in over his head and maybe he should have listened to us when we suggested taking an easier math class his first semester.<br /></p><br /><p>Third, his roommate accidentally flushed the plastic thing that holds the toilet paper down the toilet. Realizing that when the plumber got there and found the plastic thing inside the toilet, that they might have to pay for the repair, they decided to fix it themselves. They went online and found a site about how to fix toilets. They shut off the water, unscrewed the toilet from the floor, and managed to pull out the toilet paper holder. While reaching up into the toilet, something rubber crumbled in my son's hand. He thought it might be a gasket or something, but he was not sure. They reattached the toilet anyway, and when they turned on the water, the gasketless toilet leaked. They called maintenance. When maintenance fixed the toilet, there was no charge since the repairman just assumed the leak came from wear and not from inexperienced, computer-educated plumbers.<br /></p><br /><p>I told my son about my experience with Mike the Plumber and about his daughters' dilemmas. My son said he still does not know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he thought it was cool that he could handle a plumbing emergency. Then he added, "I’m up to "P" this week. Hey, maybe, when I grow up, I'll be a paramedic, a plumber, or a pirate."<br /></p><br /><p>It made sense to me, but then again, I am his mother. </p><br /><p>- - - - - </p><br /><p>©2002, Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. This blog is copyright protected. No item on this blog, including this essay or any photographs, may be used without the author's express written permission. </p><br /><p>(Originally published at the Irascible Professor - <a href="http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-10-30-06.htm">http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-10-30-06.htm</a> )</p>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-47296140350002354342011-04-01T16:06:00.000-07:002011-04-01T16:06:00.461-07:00Just the Fax<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SmjubVfst4I/AAAAAAAAAMM/RTHOitTqfn8/s1600-h/bagel.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 127px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 95px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361797509778552706" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SmjubVfst4I/AAAAAAAAAMM/RTHOitTqfn8/s320/bagel.jpg" /></a><br />Just the Fax<br />by Felice Prager<br /><br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Hello. Lotsa Lox Restaurant. Home of the Giant Bagel. How may I help you?<br /><br />Jennifer: Hi! Is this the restaurant with the giant bagel in the window?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Yes, it is. We're the Home of the Giant Bagel.<br /><br />Jennifer: Can you fax me a menu?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Excuse me?<br /><br />Jennifer: Can you fax me a menu?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Oh, fax you a menu!<br /><br />Jennifer: Well, can you?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Sorry, that would be impossible.<br /><br />Jennifer: Impossible?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Yes, impossible.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why is it impossible?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't have a fax machine.<br /><br />Jennifer: You don't have a fax machine?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: That's what I said.<br /><br />Jennifer: How can you not have a fax machine?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: We just don't.<br /><br />Jennifer: Everyone has a fax machine.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Apparently that's not true.<br /><br />Jennifer: Excuse me?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: I said, "Apparently, that's not true."<br /><br />Jennifer: Why not?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't have one.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why not?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't need one.<br /><br />Jennifer: Everyone needs one.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: We don't.<br /><br />Jennifer: Well, you apparently do.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: No, we don't.<br /><br />Jennifer: Yes, you do.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Why do you say that?<br /><br />Jennifer: Because if you had one, you could fax me a menu.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Well, next time you're here, you can pick up a menu.<br /><br />Jennifer: Can you have your delivery boy drop one off?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Sorry.<br /><br />Jennifer: Sorry?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Yeah, we can't have our delivery boy drop one off.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why not?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't have a delivery boy.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why not?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't deliver.<br /><br />Jennifer: You don't deliver?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: That's what I said.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why not?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Because we don't.<br /><br />Jennifer: You should.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Oh, yeah?<br /><br />Jennifer: Yeah. How can you make any money if you don't deliver?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: We make lots of money.<br /><br />Jennifer: How?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: People come HERE to eat.<br /><br />Jennifer: Excuse me?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: People come here to eat.<br /><br />Jennifer: They do?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Yes, they do.<br /><br />Jennifer: Why?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Maybe because we don't deliver.<br /><br />Jennifer: I guess that makes sense.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: It does to me.<br /><br />Jennifer: No fax. No delivery. The next thing you'll tell me is you need reservations.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Normally.<br /><br />Jennifer: I don't know how places like yours can stay open.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: We've been here for fifteen years.<br /><br />Jennifer: No kidding.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: No kidding. We've been in business for fifteen years.<br /><br />Jennifer: My boss wants a bagel for lunch.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: You can come pick one up.<br /><br />Jennifer: He also wants me to be here to answer his phone.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: I'm sorry I can't help you.<br /><br />Jennifer: He's gonna be mad if I leave the phones. He might even fire me.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: I can't help you.<br /><br />Jennifer: Hey, are you hiring?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Hiring?<br /><br />Jennifer: Yeah. A girl has to think ahead. I think I'd like to work for you. Do you have any openings?<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: We're always looking for people willing to work hard.<br /><br />Jennifer: Well that's me!<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: Come on by then and pick up an application.<br /><br />Jennifer: I can't do that. My boss wants me to answer the phone.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: You can stop by after work.<br /><br />Jennifer: Hey, I have a better idea.<br /><br />Lotsa Lox Restaurant: What's that?<br /><br />Jennifer: Can you fax me an application!Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-65622063261486245452011-03-15T09:52:00.000-07:002011-03-15T09:52:00.211-07:00Bedroom Battlefield - CAT WARS!<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKMUeK67c3I/AAAAAAAAAIQ/7YKQXBr78zk/s1600-h/Cartoon+Cats+in+a+Bowl.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234049700494799730" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKMUeK67c3I/AAAAAAAAAIQ/7YKQXBr78zk/s320/Cartoon+Cats+in+a+Bowl.jpg" /></a><br /><p>Their hissing takes me from deep, comforting sleep to sudden, unwanted consciousness. It isn't an unusual sound for this time of night in my home. Cat Wars have commenced in the bathroom adjacent to our bedroom. On some nights, I sleep right through these battle cries. On other nights, they wake me. The sounds never affect my husband’s sleep pattern. He hears nothing, or at least he pretends with enough skill to fool me. </p><br /><p>The battlefield isn't always in the bathroom. Often it is in our family room on top of the couch. On occasion, it's in one of our children's bedrooms. Sometimes it's in the kitchen. It all depends on where the cats decided to stop, drop, and snuggle in for the night. There are nights when they snuggle under the blanket. There are nights when they end their day between our pillows. If UPS or Fedex has made a delivery, bedtime often begins within the emptied carton. </p><br /><p>Like human siblings, brother and sister cat have devoted their lives to antagonizing each other over the littlest details of their feline existence. Mostly it's about which cat has the better place to sleep. I've sat and observed two content sleeping kitties become Cat Commandos From the Third Dimension in the matter of nanoseconds over who has the better set of legs to snuggle against. </p><br /><p>Tonight they are fighting over a sink. We have two sinks in our bathroom; my husband has claimed the one next to the medicine cabinet as his, and I have the other. The sinks are identical, although I am sure mine is considerably cleaner. Each cat has settled into a sink. Each cat has curled up in a ball and has snuggled in for the night. At least that is how I left them when I got into bed, closed the light, and left the world behind me a few hours ago. Tonight, Mr. Cat is in my sink and Mrs. Cat is in my husband's sink. When I left them so I could snuggle into the space where I end my day, all was fine in their feline world. They were purring in semi-consciousness, dreaming of bugs, mice, catnip, canned dinner, and a full water bowl.</p><br /><p>But a few hours have passed, and I am brought to consciousness by the sound of hissing. I get out of bed to make sure they are not doing something questionable, destructive, or potentially dangerous. It's a Mom thing. My mom-gene never shuts down, not even for the cats. </p><br /><p>I go into the bathroom and observe Mr. Cat standing over Mrs. Cat. He is swatting her on the head with his clawless paw. There is no fear in each of his swats as Mrs. Cat hisses at her clawless, clueless brother, showing her teeth, and making it very clear that tonight she is sleeping in Daddy's sink and she is definitely not in the mood to play this game. She has no intention of moving. She is bigger than her brother. I believe it is referred to as being large-boned, or maybe it is her need to satisfy her Inner Cat Woman by filling her stomach again and again and again with gourmet treats and table scraps. In the world of feeling good about oneself, we refer to her as extra-medium rather than large or pleasantly plump. We do not want to injure her over-inflated self-esteem. </p><br /><p>I decide the cats are safe, and I leave them to settle their own Cat Disputes. I have learned the hard way, with scars to prove it, that playing referee is a lesson in futility. As I am about to shut the light in the bathroom, I notice Mr. Cat swat Mrs. Cat one more time. Mrs. Cat rises to her feet, arches her back, lets out a loud hiss, and chases Mr. Cat through my legs, out of the bathroom, and down the hallway to the children's bedrooms. </p><br /><p>As I cuddle under the blankets, the cats re-enter our bedroom, leaping over the bed, one still in mad pursuit of the other. I cannot see who is the chaser and who is the chasee, but I do hear my husband mumble something about cats belonging outdoors where God intended them and how good they would look stuffed. I have also heard my husband, on occasion, threaten the cats that he was going to give them back to those nice people who placed the "Free to a Good Home" advertisement. I have heard him mutter, "This isn't a good home. I'll just ask for my money back." These cats were "Free to a Good Home" almost a decade ago. I would hate to burst my husband's bubble by telling him that even if there had been a warranty, it has more than expired. Besides, I remember very clearly that he picked them out and that he had wanted a third, but ours were the only two left. I also have seen him whispering sweet nothings into both cats’ ears telling them that Mommy doesn’t love them half as much as he does. </p><br /><p>Tonight, I just ignore him as the cats leap over the bed a second time. I pound my pillow to get the shape right and try to fall back to sleep on my side of the bed. I pull more than my share of the blanket to my side of the bed. It might be my imagination, but I think I hear my husband hiss. </p><br /><div>© 1995 Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Originally published by Cat Fancy Magazine.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-92153915745997731322011-03-01T12:42:00.000-07:002011-03-01T12:42:00.079-07:00Keeping Your Sanity - 20 Road Rules for Teen Drivers<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKM6e2JxPdI/AAAAAAAAAIY/iy6-OU2OXQE/s1600-h/100_1212.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234091493541625298" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKM6e2JxPdI/AAAAAAAAAIY/iy6-OU2OXQE/s320/100_1212.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, teenage drivers have the highest death rates per mile driven among all age groups, followed by elderly drivers and young adult males. In addition, most studies of motor vehicle crashes involving young people focus on drivers. However, much of the problem involves young people traveling as passengers.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My older son had the days counted from his 12th birthday. Two years before my other son turned 16, he knew his birthday was going to fall on a Sunday, which meant he would have to wait one additional day to get his driver's license. Although I did not have the days counted, I knew the event would come sooner rather than later, and I also knew I would never be fully prepared. </span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The idea that my sons would be driving two-ton vehicles on highways where people had fatal accidents was mind-numbing. Whenever I heard about an accident, especially an accident with fatalities and especially when they involved teens, I found myself hyperventilating and hoping the state I live in would change the driver's age before my sons reached it.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">They didn't. They talk about it a lot, but they have never actually done anything about it.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Nevertheless, my husband and I decided that we would rather have our sons driving than have them as passengers in another teen's vehicle. We knew our sons were responsible. They got good grades and could be trusted. We did not know about their friends. Unless our sons lost that trust, I knew they would be driving at the earliest legal driving age.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">There are parents I know who withhold the driving privilege with their own children for a variety of reasons. My husband and I did not feel that was necessary. However, we wanted to reinforce in as many ways as possible that driving is a privilege and not a right, and that the driving privilege can be taken away.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">I also knew that, for my own peace of mind, I would have to set guidelines before they were driving, and there could be no deviation from the rules. Thus, I created my set of "road rules," which would let me rest a little easier when my sons were out in traffic. The following are the rules which have helped me relax a bit and have kept my hair from turning completely gray – so far:<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">The Rules</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">1. The car is not for "joy riding." If you break this rule even one time, the "joy" of driving will be so far off in the distance that even the best telescope with wide angle and telephoto lenses won't be able to get a picture of it.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">2. "See this credit card with your name on it, my son whom I love? It is my peace-of-mind credit card. It has a small credit limit on it. It is for emergencies only. You can define an emergency as the car breaking down or your boss being out of the country on pay day. An emergency is not, "I really had to have that CD." The credit card is not for purchasing gasoline unless you reimburse me the moment you get home. In addition, child who was ripped from my loins, if there is a balance on the credit card, it better be car-related. Oh yes, and you're paying it. And you will pay it completely before you have permission to drive again.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">3. This is a five-passenger vehicle. There are five seat belts for five passengers. Do the math. And when you drive Dad's pickup, the back of the truck is not for passengers. That includes your best friend's dog.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">4. Curfews are to be strictly adhered to. Call if an emergency keeps you out past your curfew. "Allison was mad at me and we had to work it out" is not one of those emergencies.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">5. You have a cell phone. Keep it with you, and keep it charged. Do not use it when you drive. Pull off the road to use it. Keep us informed of where you are, and if your plans change, let us know. We will do the same for you.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">6. Fighting with your brother? You punched him? In the stomach? And then he tripped you? Gee, I don't know any adults who drive cars who still do that. Do you?<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">7. You have such a cool bedroom, and there are so many great things in it. It's a good thing it doesn't look like a pigsty. I don't know a single pig that has a driver's license.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">8. You want a car of your own? Now tell me one more time about why you must sleep until noon instead of getting a part-time job. I always forget your reasons. They are so creative. (We will negotiate the purchase of a vehicle when you are working – not before. And, in case you forget, school work comes first.)<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">9. Tell me one more time why you got that "D" in Algebra? There is something wrong with that algebraic equation when it comes to driving.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">10. You wouldn't break your poor mother's heart by doing one of those illegal things. Good. I didn't think you would.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">11. Notice my light is still on, Honey? That's because I worry, even though you are a mature, levelheaded, young adult. It's not that I don't trust you. It's all the other nuts out there on the road that I don't trust.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">12. No racing, practical jokes or giving your girlfriend driving lessons. Let your girlfriend's parents pay for driving lessons just like we did.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">13. He who drives, contributes. If you can't afford gas money for some unexplainable reason, you can contribute in the category of Hard Labor. I am a great taskmaster. Our lawn is very long and the house needs a coat of paint. The gutters must be cleaned out occasionally, and that tree in the backyard needs trimming.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">14. A ticket for speeding? Hand over the keys.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">15. If you have a vehicle of your own, it is your responsibility to keep it in good shape. Oil changes, tire rotations and lube jobs are up to you. (We'll remind you if you forget.)<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">16. Don't leave me with an almost empty tank.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">17. No one likes a dirty vehicle – inside and outside – especially your parents.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">18. Are you tired? If you're tired, I don't want you behind the wheel. Call me – for any reason – and I will come and get you. And I won't ask questions. That's a promise.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">19. You know how we always tell you how proud you make us when you do things well? Good. Remember that.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">20. There are no exceptions to any of these rules. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">©1998. All Rights Reserved.</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Originally Published by IParenting - </span>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-91910898582736025352011-02-15T18:54:00.000-07:002011-02-15T18:54:00.160-07:00Real Life 101<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKDw07D6ofI/AAAAAAAAAH4/AOKXK0IO6RI/s1600-h/image005.gif"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233447559002497522" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SKDw07D6ofI/AAAAAAAAAH4/AOKXK0IO6RI/s320/image005.gif" /></strong></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>The moon must have been void or maybe Mercury was retrograde these last few months. That is how my older brother used to explain mechanical breakdowns during his astrology phase. That was in the days before computers, so I never actually looked up what void and retrograde meant. However, if it took the moon being void and Mercury being retrograde for mechanical problems thirty years ago, based on the list of repairs my son has had to endure, maybe Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune are also retrograde or void or just spinning out of control in another galaxy.<br /><br /></strong></span><div><p><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>Since June, every time my cell phone has rung and caller ID has told me it was my younger son, I have been answering with, "What broke now?" It is a joke, of course, and he knows I am kidding, but since he moved out of his dorm and into his own apartment, he has been plagued by real life's little inconveniences. In my son's case, though, I have been trying to act like a cheerleader so it won't get him down, because I truly believe he has had more than his fair share. Without attending a single lecture or lab, he has already learned volumes about surviving in a world where, if you don’t stand up for yourself, you might be stepped on and squished. Welcome to the School of Hard Knocks.<br /></strong></span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>My son found the apartment on his own. Where I would have neurotically used a checklist of pros and cons to determine which apartment was best, my son, who tends to learn things the hard way, opted to do it his way. He showed me the piece of paper on which he took notes. These notes consisted of details about rent, amenities, and square footage plus the words “Good Karma” and “Bad Karma” written next to each complex he visited. He eventually opted to move to a place called the Bali Lanai because it had new wood floors, was being completely renovated, was within biking distance of campus, and because Bali Lanai sort of sounded like Dalai Lama, which in and of itself has to be the Best Karma of all.<br /></strong></span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>During the weeks preceding his move, he was excitedly nervous. This was a giant step. He lived in the dorm last year with a roommate. Now it was just him with his pet tortoise. He prepared by shopping for furniture and packing up his belongings. I prepared by shopping for bathroom and kitchen things a person needs to start out and by mentally planning how I would decorate my new guest room.<br /></strong></span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>When we saw the apartment the first time, there were workers all over the property. They were renovating what seemed to be a severely run-down complex. They were putting on a new roof and painting the walls. The pool at the complex was getting a complete overhaul. They were re-landscaping and repaving. According to the leasing agent, as each old tenant moved out, the vacated apartment got new carpeting, new appliances, fresh paint, new screens, and new countertops. As an incentive to sign a lease, the first month's rent was free.</strong></span></p><br /><br /><p><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>My husband and I helped him move. I was put in charge of getting his kitchen and bathroom in order, and my husband and son lifted and hauled hand-me-down furniture, boxes, and some new furniture he purchased that they would assemble. I put a huge effort into pulling in my mothering reins and not hovering, the theory being that a college education doesn't just take place in a classroom.<br /></strong></span></p><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>My son has been on his own for two months, connected to us via instant messages, text messages, and occasional visits to do laundry at my house because he doesn't want to waste his quarters in the dirty washing machines and driers that management hasn't gotten around to replacing yet. The following are the life lessons my son has learned in the last sixty days:<br /><br />Roaches 101 – No matter how much paint is put on walls, how many cans of insecticide are sprayed, how much roach bait is placed in your cabinets, how many products you store in plastic containers, and no matter what they said at the leasing office about pre-treating the apartment for potential insects, roaches will be your co-tenants. They and several generations of their friends and relatives will not sign the lease or pay rent, but they will inspect everything you have in your cabinets and show up whenever you have company. Eventually, you will be able to crush a roach from 30 feet by flinging a shoe at it. You will also have nightmares about the vengeance of roaches larger than Godzilla, and you may awaken with a roach on your face.<br /><br />Air conditioning 101 – The air conditioning unit will not be working on the day you move in. The temperature on moving day will be 115 degrees. The maintenance man will eventually fix your air conditioning by replacing the compressor, but he will ignore 25 years of rust in the drip pan. Eventually, on another 115-degree day, the air conditioner unit will leak all over your new vinyl floors (that looked like real wood to a 20 year old.) It will take management ten additional days to repair the leak because the part needed will no longer be made. The repair will require cutting out a section from your ceiling. Replacing the ceiling will take another month, mostly because the walls have to dry out, and you cannot be home to let the dry wall guy in because you have classes, labs, and a job so you can pay the rent for your luxury apartment.<br /><br />Plumbing 101 – When you take your first shower, you will find it odd that it takes about three hours for the water to drain from the tub. The Liquid Plumber your mother provides won't break through the clog. The handyman will quickly try to repair it because your dad is there helping you unpack and build your new Ikea bed, desk, and futon and because your mom is hovering over him, tapping her toe on the floor and mumbling about who she will call if it is not immediately fixed. The handyman's snake will break while in the pipe. A licensed plumber will be called who gets the snake out and sort of clears the drain. When you see the plumber the next day, he will say, "Hey, your apartment was NOTHING, man! We had to remove the floor in the other apartment with the backed up drainpipe in order to replace the section of pipe that was clogged. Lucky you!"<br /><br />Plumbing 102 – Sooner or later, after two months of showering, the clog will back up again, and unless you let the repairmen rip out your bathroom, you may be showering in water up to your ankles until the lease is up.<br /><br />Ikea 101 – This course is also called You Get What You Pay For 101. The odds that you have to make several trips back to the Ikea on the other side of town in rush hour traffic are high. Even though you thought you had the right boxes, two of the five bed boxes in their warehouse-like setup were for a queen-sized bed and the other three were for a full-sized bed. They were marked correctly but they were put in the wrong bins and you assumed the people at Ikea were good at furniture filing. The bed will be partially built when you realize the error, forcing you to disassemble the bed because you started building the bed and then realized it was too large for the mattress you purchased. You will have to admit to your mother that she was right about keeping all the receipts.<br /><br />Hanging Things 101 – Hanging even the simplest of things will require several trips to Home Depot and taking extensive notes about how to drill into concrete walls and what anchors to use You will learn that anchors aren't just for boats.<br /><br />Landscape Crew and Floor Installation 101 – Landscapers always start their mowing at 5 AM on the first morning you have no work or classes and you can sleep late. On the second morning you can sleep a bit later, they will begin renovating the apartment above you that involves ripping up the old floor and putting in a new one. With the renovation, the roaches upstairs will move into your apartment.<br /><br />Friends 101 – Your best friend will help you move. He will help put together lamps and furniture, and he will keep you company on your many trips to Ikea. Your other friends will arrive to help after all the work is done and head right to your refrigerator.<br /><br />Roommates 101 – Sometimes having a roommate is better than living alone and sometimes living alone is better than having a roommate. There are no right answers with this one. When you complain about it either way, your mother will cross her eyes and quote Gilda Radner: "It's ALWAYS something."<br /><br />Cooking and Shopping for One 101 – It takes awhile to learn how to shop and cook for one. If you really think it through, you will become adept at cooking several courses in one pan and making several different main courses from the same ingredients. You will know that rice and spaghetti can be made in bulk and have a long refrigerator shelf life. You will accept all leftovers and doggie bags. And when your mom calls and says, "I’m making a roast. Wanna join us?" you will gladly accept her offer.<br /><br />Pets and Leases 101 – If you decide to sneak a new kitten into your apartment (that requires a deposit on cats and dogs,) you will eventually have to fork over $300, especially if your new kitten likes to sit on the windowsill looking out and the apartment leasing agent happens to see him.<br /><br />Parents 101- If you are lucky, they will be a phone call away and will happily be there to help keep your spirits up when Life 101 gets tough. They may offer to take you out to eat and listen to all your tales of woe about apartment life. Yet, when it gets so bad that you consider moving back in with them, don't be surprised if they don't start doing cartwheels.<br /></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong>© 2008 Felice Prager</strong></span></p>(Originally published by the Irascible Professor.)<br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:100%;color:#000000;"><strong></strong></span></div></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-24751221856275004712011-02-01T12:37:00.000-07:002011-02-01T12:37:00.378-07:00Whajaget?<p align="center"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SMQwsxxakuI/AAAAAAAAAIw/NsHB2hdDJDQ/s1600-h/tightrope.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243369411999077090" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SMQwsxxakuI/AAAAAAAAAIw/NsHB2hdDJDQ/s320/tightrope.jpg" /></a></p><p><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong></strong></em></span></p><p><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="color:#000000;">“But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”</span><br /><br /></span></em><span style="color:#000000;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Ronald Reagan</span></em><br /><br />When my son was in first grade, his report card included a form from his Physical Education teacher with information such as how fast he ran the mile and how far he could jump. To gain perspective before I state the obvious, this son has grown to be a physically fit adult and has black belts in Karate and Shinkendo. Yet, according to the form, my son’s time was far below the lowest acceptable level for a six-year-old child. What was equally strange was that he had an S (for Satisfactory) on his report card in Physical Education.<br /><br />We decided to meet with the Physical Education teacher because not only did he include the form, but he announced the students’ running times to the class and told all the children that anyone with my son’s time should practice running all the time so they could get faster. My son was spending a lot of time running around my living room for no apparent reason.<br /><br />The Physical Education teacher, probably because he had never had a parent conference over a first grader’s mile running time before, didn’t share much with us at the conference. In fact, we were positive he didn’t even know who our son was.<br /><br />To comfort our child, we tried to give him an adult outlook about the his lack of Superman abilities. “When you’re a grownup,” I said, “no one is going to stop you on the street and ask you how fast you can run the mile.”<br /><br />My husband added, “Your teacher is a jerk.”<br /><br />My sons have usually excelled in school academically. With one son now in college and one in high school, I know the math and science is much more difficult than anything I ever had to learn. As an educator with a specialty in English, I know my sons write much better than I did at their age. Regardless, I also know sometimes their grades and their achievements don’t match up.<br /><br />For instance, at the French III level, my younger son should be able to speak some French. He knows a handful of nouns and can conjugate a few verbs, but he has chosen not to take French IV this year because, in his words, “If I get a real teacher, I’m sunk.” Yet, his grades have been consistently A’s in this course. When I asked him how he managed the grade, his answer was, “Extra credit.” Apparently, the teacher traded points for classroom donations. My son said he donated glue, pens, markers, notebooks, rulers, and an old unused lesson plan book he found in my closet.<br /><br />To be fair, this son also has had teachers who made him work very hard for grades. His Chemistry teacher had him working and studying until the sun came up most of last year. His Algebra teacher rewarded his hard work accordingly. He consistently has difficult, challenging reading and writing assignments in his English classes including assignments during summer break.<br /><br />Yet, as we know, all grades are not created with the same set of standards. Nor are all teachers.<br /><br />At one point several years ago, I considered getting my certification to teach in Arizona. It was a weak moment; it was fleeting in nature. However, I did go through the effort of collecting the documentation that proved I went to college, graduated with honors, and went on to have a successful teaching career in another state. When my college transcript arrived, my son looked at my grades over my shoulder.<br /><br />“Whajaget in Spanish?” my son asked.<br /><br />“A’s,” I answered, folding up the actual report of my grades (which weren’t all A’s.)<br /><br />“Were they weighted A’s?” my son asked.<br /><br />“We didn’t have weighted grades back then,” I answered. “We didn’t have digital scales to weigh them. It was the pre-computer age and all we knew how to do was divide and go to the hundredths column.”<br /><br />Later in the day, I found my son looking at my transcript which I’d left on my desk. “You didn’t get all A’s,” he said. “I see B’s here. This isn’t straight A’s. You’ve been lying to me all my life.”<br /><br />I smiled coyly. “I got A’s in what matters.”<br /><br />“I guess Philosophy mattered more than Biology,” he said. “I guess Advanced Writing mattered more than Shakespeare.”<br /><br />This brings me to my point:<br /><br />I recently had surgery. A mammogram showed some abnormalities, so I was forced to find a breast cancer surgeon. The doctor I found had outstanding doctor and patient recommendations, excellent manners, and took a great deal of time discussing my case with me. When she asked me if I had any questions, I said, “Just one. Whajaget in Breasts?”<br /><br />I have a way of making people stop and scratch their heads.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">“What did I get in Breasts?” she repeated.<br /><br />“Yes, what grade did you get in Breasts?”<br /><br />“Oh,” she smiled at an excessively nervous patient. “I got an A.”<br /><br />“Was it weighted?” I asked.<br /><br />She smiled at me. “You’re in good hands. And the odds are in your favor. I also got an A in Statistics.”<br /><br />When I called my son at work a few days after the surgery to tell him that the results from the biopsy were back and the growths were benign, my son’s reaction was, “Benign is the good one. Right?”<br /><br />“Yeah, that’s the good one,” I answered. Then I added, “By the way, whajaget on the verbal section of your SAT’s?”<br /><br />----end</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">©1990 by Felice Prager. All rights reserved.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;"></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Originally published by the Irascible Professor.</span> </p>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-1020235854282323572011-01-15T14:00:00.000-07:002011-01-15T14:00:00.251-07:00Counting to a Billion<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SE1jId6lYaI/AAAAAAAAAEo/qkQOQUlil9Q/s1600-h/snail.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209929341057982882" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/SE1jId6lYaI/AAAAAAAAAEo/qkQOQUlil9Q/s320/snail.jpg" /></a>I received a very peculiar phone call last week. The man’s voice sounded unusually similar to that of my Great Uncle Seymour, which is why I didn’t hang up in the first place. The call started with, “Hello, Sir or Madam,” (At this point, I had a hunch it might have been a recording, but I was committed.) “You have just won one billion dollars!”<br /><br />At the words, “one billion dollars,” my latent listening skills went into over-drive.<br /><br />“Yes, you, Sir or Madam, have won a billion dollars! All you have to do to keep your winnings is stop everything you’re doing the minute the money arrives at your front door and count it, one bill at a time to check for accuracy. The money will not be yours to spend or invest until you, Sir or Madam, have counted every single one dollar bill in the billion that will be shipped to your home, office, or alternate address. There will be a C.O.D. charge for postage and handling which we will charge to your credit card. Please, Sir or Madam, at the sound of the tone, provide us with your name, address, telephone number, credit card number with the expiration date, social security number, and your mother’s maiden name. Thank you and congratulations, Sir or Madam. This has been your lucky day. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.”<br /><br />Okay, now before anyone begins to think I was born yesterday, I didn’t fall for the scam. And I knew I was in error thinking it was my Great Uncle Seymour. He still tries to slip me a twenty-dollar bill every time I see him at a relative’s wedding, but I know he’s on a fixed income, so a billion dollars is really pushing it.<br /><br />The phone call did make me think, however. The idea of winning a billion dollars simply by counting it began to fester in my brain. Things often fester in my brain.<br /><br />So I started doing the math. I used a calculator to check for accuracy.<br /><br />I made the assumption that I did, in fact, win that billion dollars. And, as in the phone call, it would be mine only after it was counted. I would do this alone without assistants or a money-weighing machine. I would be diligent and efficient, taking no breaks. I would count until I was finished.<br /><br />I figured I could count a bill a second. That seemed reasonable. In a minute I could count $60, which would be $3600 in an hour. I kept multiplying. $3600 per hour times 24 hours would be $86,400 per day. If I continued for 365 days, I’d be at $31,536,000 at the end of the first year.<br /><br />Thirty-one and a half million dollars and I still haven’t slept, eaten, showered, used the phone, paid my bills, paid my income tax, or gone to the bathroom! But those would be only minor inconveniences. I’d have a billion dollars waiting for me! Yippee! A billion dollars would be mine. I’d drive expensive cars and eat in the finest of restaurants. I’d have a maid! I’d be doing the Dance of<br />Joy in my mansion on my own island in the South Pacific.<br /><br />Back to counting one bill at a time, one bill per second.<br /><br />At five years I’d have counted out $157,680,000.<br /><br />At ten years, I would be at $315,360,000.<br /><br />At twenty years, I’d be more than halfway there, having counted $630,720,000.<br /><br />I figured it would take a little less than 32 years to get to a billion dollars. The year would be 2032, and the money would finally be mine.<br /><br />True, I’d have a Charley horse from sitting so long, my hair would be gray, my hands would be permanently cramped, I’d have developed a nervous twitch, and I’d be over seventy years old, but the money would be mine.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I’d also have stopped writing for 32 years. This, more than any of my bodily functions, would be a major problem. I might get the label of the world’s most efficient procrastinator. People might say I deliberately counted the money just to avoid facing the day-to-day struggles of being a writer.<br /><br />But the money would be mine.<br /><br />Yesterday I had a thought. If I typed a word a second without a break, I’d have a billion words written in 32 years. Then I was thinking I could type really short words like “a” and “an” and “it” and “in” and be done in half the time. Then maybe, I could finish my novel. I could even write another novel, or even two more novels.<br /><br />The idea of typing a billion words began to fester in my brain. Things often fester in my brain.<br /><br />* * *<br />©2002, Felice Prager. All Rights Reserved. This blog is copyright protected. No item on this blog, including this essay or any photographs, may be used without the author's express written permission.<br /><br />(The Contents of this blog – including all photographs – are COPYRIGHT PROTECTED and may NOT be used, distributed, or copied without the consent of the author or photographer.)Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6932180805884179996.post-25274094230357669232011-01-01T07:00:00.000-07:002011-01-01T07:00:00.812-07:00Close Encounters of the Canine Kind by Felice Prager<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/St3kRaTch_I/AAAAAAAAAM8/7gu0WyRGdrM/s1600-h/Sam,+Tiffany,+and+Jeff.jpg"><span style="color:#000000;"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 149px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394718916429514738" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WgrcbWRgypc/St3kRaTch_I/AAAAAAAAAM8/7gu0WyRGdrM/s200/Sam,+Tiffany,+and+Jeff.jpg" /></span></a><span style="color:#000000;"><br /></span><div><span style="color:#000000;">CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE CANINE KIND</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">My Dog, The Matchmaker</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">by Felice Prager</span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#000000;">My dog, Tiffany, a large white Samoyed, greeted me at the door as she always did with her leash in her mouth. I was already drenched from the storm we were having. It had been raining for days with no end in sight. My hair was matted down, and all I really wanted to do was jump in the shower and warm up. However, walking Tiffany was necessary and part of the responsibility that comes with dog ownership, although it was not what I wanted to do at that moment. I attached Tiffany’s red leash and rushed her downstairs on the elevator hoping we would make it to the curb on time without my excited dog having an accident. It was embarrassing when that happened.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Typical of my dog, when it was raining, she took the most time to find just the right spot to do her thing. I kept saying. "Hurry up, Tif! I’m freezing. Look at my hair! I’m drenched. Come on, Tiffany. Get done already." She continued to sniff every rock, every tree, and every puddle.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Just then, I saw Sam’s car coming down the boulevard. We had been introduced by mutual friends who lived in the same building as we lived in several weeks before and nothing had come of it, but I thought I saw a hint of interest in him. I was definitely interested. He was handsome and tall and from the few words we exchanged, he seemed intelligent and interesting. I tugged Tiffany back behind a bunch of trees and hid. "Come on, Tif," I said quietly, "I like this guy. I look horrible. Help me hide. Don’t bark. Shhhh. Be a good girl." Together we spied as Sam parked his red Prelude at the curb and ran toward our building with his attaché case held over his head.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">That’s when I formulated my plan: I was going to "accidentally" bump into Sam while I was running out of the high-rise apartment building to the curb with Tiffany while he was parking his car. Only this time, my hair would be perfect and I would not be sopping wet.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I began my vigil from my 18th floor apartment window on the first sunny day after the storm. I arrived home from work and waited for Sam to pull up to the curb. As I saw his car approaching, I ran like a maniac to the elevator with Tiffany. Yet, when I got to the street, Sam was not there.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">No matter how hard I tried, I kept missing him each day. I would get to the curb and see that he had parked his car and was nowhere in sight. We never bumped into each other. Time after time, I would grab Tiffany’s leash and attach it, but the elevator was too slow for me to accidentally run into this guy I liked and wanted to know better. Or the elevator would stop at every floor for other passengers.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">I decided it might be more effective if I were already walking Tiffany when he parked his car. I sort of knew what time he got home. Tiffany had to be walked anyway. What difference did it make, as long as my hair looked good? I would call to him, "Sam, hi. We were introduced by Jerry and Maddy at their party last month. Remember?"<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. I walked Tiffany for hours and never timed it correctly. It seemed Sam’s schedule had changed, or maybe he had a business meeting --- or a new girlfriend who was eating into my courtship time with him.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Then, one day, as I was taking Tiffany downstairs for a walk on a different schedule, the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, and Sam stepped in. He was as handsome as I had remembered.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Hey," he said. He seemed genuinely happy to see me again.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Hi!" I responded, totally forgetting my planned conversation. I had practiced it in front of the mirror for the occasion when our paths crossed.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"What a great dog. What’s her name?" he said.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Tiffany," I said. Conversation was a foreign language to me.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">With that, he bent over to pet her. "Hey, Tiffany! You are a pretty girl. Is Mom taking you for a walk?"<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Tiffany jumped up and grabbed onto his leg. The elevator stopped at the lobby where we both were planning to get out, but Sam couldn’t move. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">My dog would not let go of his leg. I kept apologizing. He kept saying it was okay. And Tiffany held onto Sam’s leg, not letting him move an inch.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Then the door closed, and the elevator started going up again.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">At this point, Tiffany let go of Sam’s leg, rolled on her back, and spread her legs.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"Bad, Tiffany!" I said with a complete lack of sincerity.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">"It’s okay," Sam said. "I guess she didn’t want me to leave." If he only knew!<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Sam and I rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor. Other people got on. </span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">Then the elevator started its descent again. When we reached the lobby again, Tiffany pulled me off. Sam followed. We walked together for a long time on the boulevard that afternoon. At one point, Sam asked for the leash and he ran with Tiffany giving her a great workout.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">We were married several months later.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">That was twenty-five years and several pets ago. When asked how we met, Sam tells people, "Get this! We met on an elevator. Her dog grabbed my leg and never let go." I have never let on that this was a planned canine encounter and Tiffany was my accomplice.<br /></span></div><br /><div><span style="color:#000000;">(A version of this essay appears in <em>Chicken Soup for the Soup - What I Learned from the Dog.)</em></span></div><br /><div><em><span style="color:#000000;"></span></em></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:78%;color:#000000;">©2000 by Felice Prager. No part of this essay may be used in print, online, or in any format without the WRITTEN permission from the author.</span></strong></div>Felice Pragerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969958919479611870noreply@blogger.com