Why Doesn't Catherine Care When I'm Limping?

I thought I broke our new dog Lola because I walked her too long the other morning-- she developed a bit of a limp-- but then we noticed the limp came and went without good reason, and she allowed me to touch every part of her right leg and there was nothing tender or injured . . . and then when she was playing with our friend's dog Sniffer, the limp disappeared, and today she was leaping with all four feet in the air onto a squeaky toy and "killing it . . . and then I learned that apparently dogs are smart enough to "fake limp" when they are nervous and want attention and sympathy and once they settle in and gain confidence, they stop.

Two New Rules (for Dave)

My wife is growing her hair long because she says she needs to do it before she turns fifty . . . according to her, women over fifty usually don't wear their hair long (I didn't know this was a rule, but now that I think about it, it seems to hold true) and the boys and I were playing HORSE in my cousin's driveway this afternoon at a christening and I took an easy shot and my son Alex said if you take a shot so easy that everyone makes it, then the original shooter gets a letter-- I've never heard of this rule either, but it strikes me as an excellent addition, because HORSE can get rather slow and boring, and this speeds things up a bit (unless people take shots so difficult that no one can make them, including the shooter . . . but that's entertaining in it's own right).

Short and Sweet

Cat and I are celebrating 18 years of marriage tonight.

How Much Would You Pay NOT to Live in 1989?

I highly recommend The Indicator, a very short podcast that tells compelling economic stories, and this recent episode (Internet a la Carte) about a white paper (Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to Measure Changes in Well-being) that attempts to measure how people value free services on the internet is typical of the show-- it's a fascinating premise: asking people how much they would pay yearly not use a particular internet service and using this data to value the services-- but it also seems that the numbers are somehow skewed; Cardiff Garcia and Stacey Vanek Smith discuss this for a moment, but then the rest of the thinking is up to you . . . there is  definitely something weird about the median values and how much time people spend on each service . . . it seems as if social media is undervalued, especially since the companies that provide these services are worth so much money, but perhaps social media is just a guilty pleasure and could easily be replaced by disco dancing, roller-blading, duck-pin bowling, gin, or latch-hook . . . anyway, these are the numbers-- they are strange but interesting, especially since if you paid for all of these services, you'd be out quite a bit of cash:

1) All Search Engines $17, 500

2) All Email  $8,5 00

3) All Maps  $3, 500

4) All Video  $1,100

5) All E-Commerce  $850

6) All Social Media  $322.

Dog Daze

We are settling in to the reality of having a puppy in the house . . . she raced outside this morning to do her business and I went to pick it up with a plastic bag but when I grabbed the poop, despite wearing a bag on my hand, it felt a bit more moist and visceral than I remembered . . . and then I realized the bag had a hole in it and I had reached through the hole and grabbed the poop with my bare hand . . . yuck . . . then Catherine came home at lunch to more poop on the rug and some chewing of our kitchen stool . ..  but Lola has already learned to sit and come and she's walking on the leash fairly well, so she's moving along (and I got up at 5 AM this morning to walk her and train her and then got a late start to work and totally forgot that I promised to drive a colleague who lives in my town and has a car in the shop; I was so focused on puppy training that I didn't remember that I was supposed to pick him up until I pulled into the school lot-- I called him to apologize and he told me he grabbed an Uber . . . but I did remember to drive him home, so I did him exactly 50% of the promised favor: which is still failing).

Frittering Away the Moments That Make Up the Dull Day (While Waiting For the Damn Game to Come On)

I think it's a crying shame that we folks on the East Coast have to stay up so late to watch the NBA play-offs . . . the league is losing out on loads of potential fans (because they never see the end of any of the games . . . or at least my kids don't, they can't function on a school day with that kind of sleep deprivation) and the league hasn't scheduled a single day game for the entire finals, they should at least put the potential (and probably improbable) game seven in Super Bowl like time slot.

Lola Learns to Stroll Around the Neighborhood

Wandering around the neighborhood listening to podcasts is far more fun when you have a furry companion.

New Dog!

We adopted a dog today from the APAWS Shelter in West Windsor; Lola is part Rhodesian Ridgeback, part who knows what, and entirely sweet and cute-- she's a bit overwhelmed to be out of the shelter but hopefully she'll settle in quickly . . . and it's nice to have a dog in the house again.

Dave Put His Magic (Loogie) Touch on the Lyrics

My buddy and fellow English teacher Bob (the leader sing and bassist extraordinaire of the Faculty Follies band) wrote the first few stanzas of "EB Cafeteria," to the tune of "Hotel California" and I added a couple of mundane verses at the end, but then I had a brilliant idea and found the seed of a narrative within the subtext of the song-- I was worried Bob wouldn't be into me taking his masterpiece down this road, but as usual, he was willing and ready to sing anything, no matter how gross and absurd (and at the end of the song, I got to improvise a guitar solo-- which was a little scary in front of such a huge crowd, but everything ended right in time-- lyrics below, you'll be able to tell which verses I am responsible for.)

EB Cafeteria

Down a walkway in D-hall

Fluorescent light in my hair

Warm smell of fajitas, rising up through the air

Up ahead, in the distance, the doors, opened wide

Make sure you have  a late pass, if you want to get inside

Better get through the doorway

Before the second bell

Wait in line for some fixins

To fill your Taco bowl shell

Lunch lady grabs a ladle, And she scoops you some lunch

Wait, it’s 10:38, so I guess it's more like a brunch

Welcome to the EB cafeteria

Such an open space, you can stuff your face

Plenty to eat at the EB cafeteria

A potluck surprise, would you like some fries?

TVs near the ceiling, a juice box on ice

We are all just prisoners here of our cellular device

Clean the crumbs off your table and get ready for the feast

you’re just about to take a bite,

when your friend decides to sneeze!

Your lunch is covered with mucous and a stray nose hair.

You’ve got nothing else to eat, it just isn’t fair.

You could glom a few french fries, Beg for m&m's

Or you could make the best of it,

And wipe away the phlegm.

Welcome to the EB cafeteria

Such an open space, for an acquired taste

Hella big eats at the EB cafeteria

A potluck surprise, would you like some fries?

Dave Loves It When a Plan Comes Together

For the Faculty Follies, the house band usually does all new song parodies, but I demanded we resuscitate one song: "PSAT" (which is done to the tune of "YMCA") because I wanted one moment to happen-- so Bob added some new lyrics, and I explained to our new band member Young Allie exactly what I needed from her . . . Bob would sing the lyrics, "PSAT/ it's fun to guess on the PSAT/ you can narrow the choices to one in three/ then choose a letter . . ." and then I wanted Allie to step to the microphone and complete the line with the phrase "May I suggest C!" and she nailed it, with perfect timing and enunciation, which made me incredibly happy (you can see this moment for yourself, if you go 40 seconds in but I need to find some better quality video, so you can see just how ecstatic I am that my plan came together).

Dave Makes a Split Second Decision (on Stage)

Last night, I got as close to being a rock star as I ever will-- I played guitar in the Faculty Follies House Band in front of nearly a thousand screaming fans-- and at the start of "Detention" (played to the tune of Charlie Puth's "Attention") I exhibited a rare moment of aplomb and competence . . . I had twisted too many knobs on my amplifier and turned on too many effect pedals and the sound coming out of my speaker was an infinite sequence of echoes, but instead of forging ahead, I stopped playing, calmly clicked off my delay pedal with my foot, and then started again, with a much better sound . . . this is the only song that Bob and I didn't write-- the director of the event, Liz, penned this one and the lyrics are great so I've included them below.

Detention (To “Attention” by Charlie Puth)

You’ve been wanderin’, wanderin’, wanderin’, wanderin’
strolling through the halls . . .

And you knew you’d be, knew you’d be, knew you’d be late to class

Now your teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad, teacher’s mad -
he’s writing you up

So you take the slip, tear it, and you throw it in the trash.

I know you’ve been in trouble, often before

Like that one time when you cut study hall

And now they’re all up on you, They’ve called your mom

But you act like you just don’t care at all...

You must want detention or maybe ISS?

Maybe you just hate the thought of reading Beowulf

You must want detention,  because you’re here again

Don’t you come to this office enough?

You’ve been on your phone on your phone on your phone
checking on your streaks

When your teacher told you to put it in your bag

You blew her off blew her off blew her off
until she said she’d write you up

Then you threw a fit, made a scene and called her an old hag

I know Snapchat’s important  And Instagram

But can’t you wait until it’s passing time?

Cause now they’re all up on you, calling your dad

Telling him that you just crossed the line.

You must want detention  Or maybe ISS?

Maybe you just hate the thought of doing one more proof

You must want detention  Cause you’re here again

So what the heck should we do with you?

You must want detention Or maybe ISS?

Maybe you just hate the thought of doing one more proof

You must want detention Cause you’re here again

So what the heck should we do with you?

Imitation: The Sincerest Form of Something

Today was "Dress Like a Teacher Day" at East Brunswick High School, and two lovely young ladies abandoned all fashion sense and dressed like me-- slacks with 2% spandex, a golf shirt, funky sandals, and thick framed black glasses (and one lady went so far as to carry an identical coffee cup, a copy of Hamlet, and she painted on a mascara goatee) but though the costumes were cute and we took some funny photos together, the scary part was that the two of them could also emulate all my mannerisms, body language, and tone of voice-- they went upstairs and regaled the other English teachers with stories of Syria, my incorrigible son Ian, and students with no sense of personal space-- and did it with my particular manner and eloquence (or lack thereof).

Contrasting Food Stuff Juxtaposition

The directions on the Colavita rigatoni are too ambiguous: "cook to desired tenderness," while the sign on the bathroom at Tacoria Mexican Kitchen in New Brunswick is way too specific: "El Bano; Where Tacos Go to Rest."

Dave Makes a Radical Change and the Consensus is: Genius!

Last Friday I made a radical kitchen move that took twelve years to discover: I moved all of our mismatched tupperware-type plastic containers and lids from the lazy-susan corner cabinet (where they caused me undue stress and frustration because I had to bend over and spin the lazy-susan in order to find what I was looking for and I could never tell which tops matched which containers, a visual problem that no amount of practice could improve) to the big, deep, and easily accessible pots and pans drawer by the stove, and I put the pots and lids and colanders on the lazy-susan, where they are easy to see and grab and even my wife and children agreed that this radical change was brilliant, because now you get a comfortable, birds-eye view of the plastic containers, so you can size up the lids and match them to the proper container . . . and I will sadly concede that I might not have an idea this good for the rest of my days.

A Story With No Moral (But Plenty of Splattering)

Alex punched Ian in the back when he came up the stairs because Ian was being annoying about how much money he had made doing gardening work for my wife, so I explained to Alex that it was a free country and Ian could say what he liked about how much money he made, and Alex could answer him back or be the bigger person and choose to ignore him, but he couldn't hit him; then I got in the shower and heard some screaming but decided I would let them figure it out-- there's nothing more ridiculous than a wet, angry dad in a towel trying to discipline his children-- and when I finally got downstairs to hear the story, I noticed there was red crap all over the cabinet and ceiling and this was because Ian was cutting some strawberries and Alex wanted some but Ian told him to wait until he was done cutting them-- he wasn't keen to give him any because Alex had recently punched him in the back-- and so Alex put Ian in a headlock but then remembered that he wasn't supposed to get physical with his younger brother, so to express his rage in a nonviolent matter, he threw some strawberries at the cabinet and they splattered onto the ceiling-- but, though he admitted this was very stupid, he pointed out that it was better than hitting his brother, which was probably true (and while I was annoyed with him for a moment, once I heard my wife yelling at him for throwing strawberries instead of punching his brother, I had to laugh . . . and though we tried to make him clean up the mess, he wasn't tall enough to reach the splatter . . . so maybe it would be easier for everyone if instead of sublimating, Alex just went back to punching Ian).

Comedy = Women to the Rescue/ Tragedy = Just Men

If you're dismayed by the state of the state, I highly recommend you read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, a conservative classic from 1987 that open-minded liberals and conservatives will enjoy because of the tone, it's quaintly intellectual (and quite crotchety and moralistic) by today's inanely polarized realpolitik standards of political discourse; Bloom is not afraid to actually say something and then back it up logically . . . and even his dated attack on the raw power of rock music will ring true to those old enough to remember when rock music meant something; I'll do a full review once I finish, but I was struck by his analysis of sex roles and Shakespeare-- Bloom pragmatically discusses the costs of feminism, of making both sexes the same, of stripping them of their mysticism and their courtship contrasts-- we know the benefits of feminism, of course: more brains in the economy and higher education; more empowered women; women that don't have to depend on men; women that can pursue a career as ambitiously as they can motherhood and childbirth; women that can participate fully in politics-- not just behind the scenes-- but Bloom also describes what it lost when we blend these worlds and these sex roles, and he uses Shakespeare to help; he explains that the difference between a Shakespearean comedy and a Shakespearean tragedy is that in the comedies, when the men are inadequate at restoring a civilized and peaceful order to things, the women dress as men, leave their feminine world, sort things, and then return to their feminine roles-- but with a sense of delicious irony in that these roles are simply there to make civilization operate and sometimes they need to be broken by clever women that can play the part of men better than men can (Portia from The Merchant of Venice is the perfect example) but once the sexes are mixed together and uniform, whether as soldiers or lawyers or pilots or statesmen, then there is no civilized feminine world to come to the rescue (Hillary Clinton is the perfect example-- she needed some savvy woman to edit her "basket of deplorables" speech) and this is incredibly evident in Hamlet . . . if Ophelia was a bit zanier and clever, instead of depressed and broken, she might have disguised herself as a man, befriended Hamlet and Horatio, exacted a less violent revenge on her meddling dad, and mopped the rottenness right out of Castle Elsinore . . . but woe is me (and her) as that was not to be . . . and now that I've expressed myself fully, I'll get back to cleaning the sink.

Yelling After a Quiet Place

Another rainy day, and my wife and I had no desire to endure the crass humor of Deadpool 2, so instead we took the kids to see A Quiet Place; I certainly recommend the movie for family viewing: it will keep you on the edge of your seat and it's also artfully done (although there are a few plot holes that gape as wide as the aliens viscous yawning earholes) but my family's favorite part of the movie was that I missed the fact that one of the characters is deaf-- I thought the Abbot gang learned sign language during the course of this quiet apocalypse and missed the fact that not only is the character in the movie deaf, but Millicent Simmonds, the actress, is deaf in real life as well; so there was a whole lot of yelling at me after the film ended, when they realized I missed this very important plot point. . . I attribute this to the fact that due to the silent nature of this story, the audience is required to be unusually quiet for the duration, and I like to talk during movies: ask lots of questions, make clever jokes, inquire about motive and plot, and generally interact with the folks around me . . . this keeps me from spacing out and missing significant stuff (although I did whisper to my son Ian a few times about the nail in the staircase, which someone really needed to pound flat) but the fact that I missed this apparently most evident piece of the puzzle gave my family so much pleasure that I'm glad it happened (though I really need to watch the movie again now that know this).

Thanks, CIA!

Jazz is the abstract expressionist version of music (and, improbably, the CIA helped promote this primarily theoretical art form which mainly grooves and meditates on the shapes and intervals and sequences of raw sound and rhythm, rather than the more traditional narrative arc framed by verses and choruses).

Testing 1,2,3 . . . 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11

We did our Faculty Follies soundcheck today and then, while we were up on stage and everything was miked up through the PA and the soundboard, we were able to run through our six song set several times, and I learned that anytime you see and hear a live band in an auditorium or large hall and it goes off without a hitch, there was a lot of preparation to get that to happen.

Giving a F*ck About Not Giving a F*ck

Mark Manson's breezy, philosophical and surprisingly profound millennial self-help guide The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life might be less surprising if you're a cynical Generation X'er like me: life is pain, so don't try to avoid it-- just focus and prioritize on problems you can solve or at least take a crack at . . . avoid distractions, lower the bar, figure out what you truly value and stop comparing yourself to everyone else on social media, stop obsessing about all the things and instead give a fuck about a few things that you truly deem important and forget the rest . . . I've built a happy life on these precepts-- I give a fuck about spending time with my wife and kids and playing guitar/recording music/podcasts and reading books and writing this blog and coaching soccer and doing as many sports as I can with my kids and colleagues and trying to get together with friends to drink beer-- and though these things often stress me out and beat up my body and mind, I know that I value social interaction and physical and mental exercise more than I do money and expensive items and political power and this will always be the case: Manson has just learned this-- he recognizes that after a peripatetic tour of the world that included 55 different countries, that visiting a few countries opens your mind and changes your perspective, but the 51st and 52nd country don't add much to the experience . . . and sometimes lack of choice and commitment is the best choice of all, because certain things can only be experienced when you live in the same place for five years or ten years; anyway, the book is full of crude language and entertaining anecdotes, and it's such a quick read that you won't even realizing you're examining your values and your philosophy of life until you've turned the last page (and it might be a sneaky way to get your children to read something deep-- I just gave it to my son Alex and he read 25 pages and came downstairs all excited about how much he likes it-- especially the story of Charles Bukowski).

Lyrics We Wrote

Today, I was obsessed with finding some song parody lyrics from the last Faculty Follies house band performance three years previous ("It's Fun to Guess on the P.S.A.T.) but I searched all my different Google drives and looked at Word files in various locations, hard and cloud-like, but I had no luck . . . and then a co-worker thought back three years ago, remembered that out boss introduced me to Evernote, and I checked there and found the file: digital mystery solved (but I worry how many platforms I will go through and how much digital detritus will collect int he next ten years . . . and then there's the passwords, all those ever-shifting passwords).

Playception!

So everyone with even a modicum of education knows that there is a play-within-a-play at the center of Shakespeare's Hamlet-- The Murder of Gonzago-- and some might remember that Hamlet has asked the players to insert into this play-within-a-play a "speech of some dozen or sixteen lines" which Hamlet has written, with the express intention to emulate his father's murder so as to spook his Uncle Claudius . . . so Hamlet has inserted a smaller play into the play-within-the-play, so essentially a play-within-the-play-within-the-play and tomorrow, when we discuss this scene in class, I've written a sixteen line play about this play-within-the-play-within-the-play, which I will premier while we are discussing Hamlet's inserted lines, and thus my piece will be a play-within-the-play-within-the-play-within-the-play . . . I told the kids that some people like this sort of meta-drama (myself included) and everyone else can go watch Macbeth.

Warning: Pedantry Ahead

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing (especially when it resides in my head) so I'm warning you ahead of time: I just learned that when you say a process has a "steep learning curve" you actually mean that the process is easy to learn-- because as you move along the x-axis of time, you zoom up the steep y-axis of learning proficiency, and before you know it, you can make brownies . . . if you want to say that something is difficult to learn, you say it has a "long and shallow learning curve," thus as you move along the x-axis of time, you barely go up at all on the y-axis of learning-- ten years later, you're middling fair at the oboe-- so I'm begging you, please don't say the phrase "steep learning curve" anywhere within my earshot, because my inner pedant is lying in wait, ready to pounce and explain this silliness, and, as much as I'd like to, I don't think I can control the impulse (although I've been doing great with the whole "lie" and "lay" fiasco, I heard several people screw it up royally on Friday and didn't say a word . . . but this "learning curve" thing is too rich to pass up).

Brotherly Love/Fatherly Rage

I guest-coached my older son Alex's travel soccer game today and they were short-handed (short-footed?) and so my younger son Ian had to guest-play on the team to give them 11 players; we were in North Plainfield, playing a scrappy Hispanic team and there was only one ref instead of the usual three, and this ref pretty much took a laissez faire approach to calling the game (except offsides, he called a goal back on a play that was clearly not offsides) and the other team took advantage of this-- they elbowed, grabbed, tossed, and two-handed pushed our players often (frequently after the play was over) and when our sweeper was grabbed by the shoulder and chucked and then the ref called a penalty kick on our team, I ran out onto the field to complain and he immediately red-carded me and sent me packing . . . I then had to get phone updates and watch the game from afar and it just got worse and worse, one of our players got elbowed so hard it bruised his ribs, and the opposing coach screamed at him to get up and insisted he was faking the injury and delaying the game-- at this point, our team was ahead 2 - 1 but the other team had 18 players and our 11 were exhausted and banged up, and the attack was pretty much relentless, corner kick after corner kick, cross after cross, and then my younger son Ian got two-handed shoved to the ground by an opposing player, and his older brother Alex ran to his rescue and punched the kid in the stomach, and a general melee erupted, the opposing coach ran onto the field and may have pushed one of our folks (a high school senior that was running the lines, a sibling to our sweeper) and, luckily, the ref actually listened to my younger son when he explained what happened and give the kid who pushed him down a yellow card . . . and moments later, the ref blew the long whistle to signal the end of the game, an epic and epically ugly win for the Eagles, with no subs and a lot of insanity (and I will say that after the game, the North Plainfield parents that I talked to were quite nice and quick to forgive me for getting a red card-- and apparently they apologized to our parents for some of the rough play on the part of their players-- and they certainly understood just how high emotions run during a soccer game, but I'm going to really try to calm down and take some deep breaths-- God only knows if I'll even be able to coach my own team tomorrow, or if I'll be suspended or something).

Good (Enough) Friday

In the end, this will be the day that it all happened ( if we're talking about 6 AM basketball, 7:30 AM folder review with the Rutgers guy, the teaching of  Hamlet . . . including some phenomenal acting by yours truly, a summative review with my boss, book club, an Uber ride into New Brunswick for more socializing, and a brisk walk back to Highland Park . . . I will be the first to admit that this is far too much of everything for one Friday and I'm glad to be back in the confines of my safe American home).

The First Rule of Book Club

I finished the classic Ursula Le Guin science-fiction novel The Lathe of Heaven earlier this week but I can't discuss my thoughts about it until Book Club tomorrow afternoon . . . because the first (and only) rule of Book Club is that you don't talk about the Book Club Book until Book Club.

A Significant Amount

What percentage of the passenger seat in my car is Jalapeno Chip seasoning?

Easily Distracted = Easily Amused

I had trouble writing my sentence today because of all the ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong.

Not My Purview

Sunday morning, I got on my bike and rode across town to the 5K Volunteer Meeting; received my Volunteer t-shirt and little cardboard STOP sign and yellow police tape; was informed that I was in no way deputized as a sheriff or officer of the law and if there was any trouble at my intersection to call the police and that I should NOT attempt to actually stop and arrest any bull-headed drivers who made their way onto the course and then I made my way to 7th and Park to put up my police tape and man my post; I was stationed at a secluded intersection about three quarters of the way through the course and I only had to blockade one street with police tape as the other side of the street bordered on a stream; then I sipped my coffee and chatted with the family across the way, who were out with the kids waiting for the runners and in a few minutes they came through, sporadically at first, and then en masse and I cheered on the folks I knew (including my wife!) and had no trouble with traffic . . . until things started petering out and a woman with a thick accent (Russian?) wanted to know when she could pull her car out of her driveway because she had to get to an appointment and I told her to ask the police over at the next intersection and she said she had asked them and they said that she couldn't leave until all the people in the race came through-- she would know because there was a police vehicle bringing up the rear . . . and I told the woman that if she came my way, I could lift the police tape and she could shoot up 7th but she was going to get stopped at the other end, on Abbot, because the runners were looping around and I could see why she was getting annoyed because we were getting down to the end and people were walking and pushing strollers, one guy was wearing a dinosaur suit, and there seemed to be no end to it and so she said to me, "These people are not running . . . can you tell them to go faster? To start running?" and I informed her that I didn't think I had the authority to enforce any kind of pace on the runners and her answer to that was, "This running . . . I don't even understand it" and then she got in her car, pulled out of her driveway and came my way, against the grain of the race; the police at 8th and Park yelled at me to stop her, so I waved my little cardboard STOP sign at her but she drove right by me and made it two blocks, to the 5th and Park intersection and the police pulled her over there and gave her the business and she had to wait there until the bitter end . . . I'm glad no one was injured but I'm also glad that I saw some action and had a chance to use my signage, though it was to no avail.

The Grand Budapest Florida Hotel Project

The Florida Project is streaming for free on Amazon Prime right now and it's a sad and magical movie, a trashy, rundown, one-step-away-from-homeless version of The Grand Budapest Hotel . . . a six year old girl (Moonee) and her urchin-like friends have weird, slightly dangerous, and almost completely unmonitored adventures in the impoverished shadow of the Magic Kingdom, while Moonee's very young mom-- a tattooed recently unemployed exotic dancer-- tries to make ends meet; Willem Dafoe plays the hotel manager of the Magic Castle, a cheap hotel that mainly serves as way-station for folks that can't afford better housing, and his job is impossible-- especially when actual tourists show up and want to stay at the place; the movie's rhythm is the beat of a child's brain on summer vacation: every day is epic, every day is a chance to meet new people and do new things, then routines are established, and all of this is oblivious to the adult world, which is proceeding at a different, harsher pace . . . I loved it: ten ice cream cones out of ten.

Hey Man, Stop Blowin' Up My White Font Spot

I was covering a physics class last week and a nerdy kid offered me some valuable information on how to cheat the word count on an assignment (and word count is one of the stipulations of the college writing class I teach, their synthesis essays have to be at least 1500 words) and his method is brilliant:

1) you check the word count on the assignment and you're a bit short but you've got nothing else to say;

2) so you type a random sentence-- which contains no spelling mistakes-- then copy/paste this sentence enough times that you've met the word count requirement for the assignment;

3) then shrink these random copied sentences a bit so they don't take up much space and they are difficult to find;

4) then select these extra random sentences and change the font color to white . . . so the teacher can't see them but your word count now meets the requirements (and the other students were NOT happy that this kid told me about this method, so obviously kids have been doing this).

Dave Comes in First Place for First World Problems

My outdoor ping-pong table is arriving for pick-up at Sears tomorrow . . . one day after our Cuatro de Mayo Happy Hour (I guess we'll have to make do with corn-hole).

Catherine Goes Rogue

I arrived home from work today at 3 PM and noticed that my wife's car was parked in front of the house; at first I imagined the worst (my father underwent heart surgery yesterday-- successfully-- but I figured something might have gone horribly wrong) but I didn't walk in to bad news . . . I walked in to no news at all, and no sign of my wife; then I figured she got sick and took a half day, so I went upstairs to see if she was sleeping-- but no Catherine-- so then I figured the car was broken, but I went outside and the CRV turned over . . . so I called her school to ask if she was there and the secretary said she was in her classroom teaching . . . and that she had walked to school (a little over two miles) in order to get some exercise, a possibility I hadn't considered because of the unseasonable heat (and she walked home as well: impressive, but I told her to leave a note the next time it's 92 degrees she decides to go walkabout).

Dave Turns Catherine Into Dave

My wife called me yesterday on her way home from work to point out that she was filling up the gas tank in the CRV-- the tank was getting low (though the light was not on yet) and we were switching cars today and she wanted to "get credit" for doing the right thing and leaving me a car with a full tank of gas . . . now Catherine has always been a stoic sort of person who does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, she's never needed her ego stroked to behave morally, but I think I've changed her for the better and made her more like me; I pointed this out to her and told her I had already filled up the van and did not call her for credit-- I just did it because it's the right thing to do-- and she told me that she really hates filling the car up with gas so it was a special favor and thus deserving of "credit" and I agreed, of course-- we should all get credit for our good deeds . . . otherwise, why do them?-- but I also reminded her how annoyed she gets when I demand credit and applause for doing mundane tasks, such as the dishes (I don't like to get my hands moist) or cooking dinner (monitoring more than two burners stresses me out) or weeding the yard (bending over is annoying) or any of the other mundane tasks I complete . . . so this psychological egoism is a good sign, as I often feel that Catherine is directing my moral compass towards a more righteous angle, but perhaps my amoral magnetism is disrupting her poles.

Will Dave Use SoD as a Reference?

We are starting to prepare for our Cuatro de Mayo happy hour on Friday and I'm going to infuse some tequila with hot peppers; I have referred to the notes from last year, but the question is: will I use the advice in the sentence and the comments?

Dave Avoids Being an Awkward Racist

Fourth period today, I was far afield, covering an honors physics class in J Hall; the class was full of 11th graders and I teach mainly seniors, but I recognized a couple of younger siblings-- and then one younger sibling recognized me: a tall African-American kid said that I taught his older brother Callan and we talked about him for a moment and then I got the students working on their assignment (something to do with the speed of sound and the speed of light and car antennas) and I noticed that the other African-American kid in the class not only looked like the tall kid that said I taught his brother, but he also looked like the older brother Callan . . . but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to fall into the stereotypical "they all look alike" trope . . . so I kept my mouth shut about the resemblance, but then towards the end of the period I realized that I hadn't taken attendance yet, so I read the roster aloud and checked off who was present and it turned out the that the two African-American kids in the class were identical twins . . . so not only did they look like the older black kid that I taught, but they looked exactly like each other.

Dave Does the Math

We celebrated my grandmother's 96th birthday today (we celebrated a bit early-- her actual birthday is Tuesday but she's looking good so I think she's going to make it) and she's now twice my age (I'm 48) and I won't be double my older son's age for twenty years (he's 14) and I won't double my younger son's age for 22 years (he'll be 13 in a month) and my friend Brady (who's 47) and just had a daughter won't double her age for 47 years!

Early Goals Ease a Hangover . . .

I was a little foggy this morning because Catherine and I attended a raucous dance party last night, so I was especially happy when my travel soccer team took an early 4 - 0 lead in our game . . . Ian scored two quick goals, perhaps because he has extra energy due to his grounding (caused by poor academics . . . he's got no phone, he's not allowed to hang out with friends this weekend, and he's supposed to mulch the garden-- Catherine sent him out to do so on Thursday after school, but  when she went to check on his progress, she found him taking a nap in the sun . . . as long as he keeps scoring early goals and making my life as a coach less stressful, I'm fine with him catching zzz's wherever he can).

Scott Pruitt, You Are My Nemesis

If there's one thing that you can be certain of around here, it's that I despise Scott Pruitt and the new episode of Embedded has not helped matters . . . it's a deep dive into Pruitt's personality, politics and policy tactics and now his fervent passion for rolling back environmental rules and regulations, his desire to bring back coal, and his apparent disdain for science and the mission of the EPA make perfect sense: he's a brainwashed Bible-thumping religious fundamentalist who doubts the science behind climate change and doesn't think evolution is a true thing . . . now it's perfectly legal in America to believe the Bible is literally the word of God (and it's also perfectly legal to believe the Koran is the word of God) but I do not think anyone who think these things should head up a scientific agency designed to protect the air, water, and forests of nations from externalities created by business and the government; this is an agency for the people and he's taking it back, in the name of God, he's carving out space for religion in the public square, and he's going to set things straight again and let the earth be under the dominion of man, to be reaped and raped and domineered-- just like the Bible suggests; he worries about how the radical left worships the earth and the environment, instead of an angry anthropomorphic God, and is another Republican loon racing us towards the brink of environmental disaster; so this guy is anathema, my absolute nemesis . . . weird and joyless and and fighting for the same thing that radical Islam wants-- a government reflective of an ancient book-- it’s ironic (though Pruitt seems too literal to understand irony) and he’s far more dangerous and awful than Trump himself-- because Pruitt has beliefs and principles, while (hopefully) Trump is just a showman and doesn't actually believe anything . . . so maybe he'll fire Pruitt soon enough, when all the corruption shakes out (although I could care less about that stuff-- he should be fired for dismantling an agency that is based on science) and beyond the religious stuff, which will put things into context, the podcast also details a few of the cases that Pruitt pursued: as attorney general in Oklahoma, he managed to stop a classic environmental externality case right in its tracks . . . the Illinois River and water basin in Oklahoma was getting polluted by chickenshit running downstream from Arkansas, and Pruitt did his best to delay and then essentially negate the case that Oklahoma had against Arkansas . . . the case is still pending, eight years later and (ironically . . . but again, Pruitt would be too stupid to appreciate this) Pruitt is now on the other side of the case and could force Arkansas to comply and push the case along, but that ain't gonna happen . . . anyway, the guy famous for suing the EPA and not protecting his state from polluted waterways is now the guy in charge of the EPA . . . there's plenty more to this and I suggest you do some research and then send a letter to your Congressman about this Sunday-school-teacher gone rogue (there's a nice bit in the podcast where Cory Booker takes him on) and I'm going to try to forget about all this shit, because I just ordered an outdoor ping-pong table for our backyard and I'm very excited (and while I know consumption is a problem and making this durable ping-pong table used up many valuable resources, I also think it will keep me and the kids at home in the yard for many days and nights, so we'll drive less and consume less fossil fuels).

Trump and Ryan: Two Peas in a Pod?

Lots of farm stuff going on now in Congress-- The Indicator covers the labor drought . . . this is probably my favorite thing that Trump has (inadvertently) done; his tough stance on immigration and work visas has made it so American farms can't find workers (though they've raised wages) and so some American farmers are moving their farms to Mexico because it's easier to find labor there-- this affects local American economies negatively, of course, because we're not selling fertilizer and chemicals and tractors locally, but perhaps this farmland will remain as open space, perhaps we won't use as much water, perhaps Mexico will benefit from the jobs, and perhaps we'll be more inexplicably tied in a global economy, which will help destroy borders, nations, loyalty to flags, xenophobia, and lots of other awful things that our on the rise . . . so The Donald doesn't know what he's doing, but maybe he's undermining the very thing he stands for, which makes me happy; the folks on The Weeds are not very happy about the new work requirements attached to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program . . . food stamps) because it's going to arbitrarily kick a bunch of people off the program-- but this seems to be Paul Ryan's dream, to deny poor people benefits (even if it costs more in bureaucracy execute his policy than the actual dispersal of said benefits) and the bill does nothing to change the ridiculous nature of farm subsidies . . . and that's the real nutritional problem in our country, poor people have access to plenty of calories (and are actually more likely to be obese than starving, but healthy food is expensive and mainly unsubsidized) -- if you want an overview of that situation, read this article, but for those of you who want the Cliffnotes, here is Marion Nestle:

"If you were to create a MyPlate meal that matched where the government historically aimed its subsidies, you’d get a lecture from your doctor. More than three-quarters of your plate would be taken up by a massive corn fritter (80 percent of benefits go to corn, grains and soy oil). You’d have a Dixie cup of milk (dairy gets 3 percent), a hamburger the size of a half dollar (livestock: 2 percent), two peas (fruits and vegetables: 0.45 percent) and an after-dinner cigarette (tobacco: 2 percent). Oh, and a really big linen napkin (cotton: 13 percent) to dab your lips."

Lost and Foundering

Take a look at the picture above and see if you can find the bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee . . . and now imagine that you are me: I took a look at that tableau on Saturday morning, could not find the coffee, proceeded to search the house high and low for a bag of caffeinated coffee-- the pantry, the downstairs shelves, the lazy susan in the lower cupboard, etc.-- and then surmised that we had no more coffee (and I wasn't going to wake my wife up to ask if we did) and so I angrily went to the grocery store to buy some . . . when my wife woke up and she heard my tale of woe, she immediately pointed to the blue bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee, and this threw my brain into a cognitive fit, until I rationalized and realized that I was standing to the right of the coffeemaker when I looked at the counter and rashly decided we were out of coffee, so the big bag of ground coffee was behind the coffeemaker . . . and it's impossible to see something if it's behind something else, or so I convinced myself; after I drank my coffee, I went to Home Depot and bought a tree, three bags of topsoil and a canister of deer repellent granules, and it was really windy, which made it difficult to push my orange flatbed cart through the parking lot, because the tree kept falling over, but I finally made it to the car, loaded the tree in the back on top of the bags of soil and then drove away, only to have my path blocked by a large white canister, rolling along across the pavement, blown by the strong wind-- so I got out of the car to move this random obstruction and it turned out to be the deer repellent I had purchased-- I had not noticed it had fallen off my cart-- the wind was obviously the culprit-- and I had apparently forgotten all about my purchase in the three minutes between the check-out line and the loading of the car . . . so I considered myself lucky, because the canister was for my wife, and if I came home with it unaccounted for-- when I had obviously purchased it (it was on the receipt) after the whole coffee fiasco, she might have wondered about my ability to live a fruitful and independent life without her support.

I Feel Fine . . .

I had a salad for lunch today, but it was more exciting than usual because while I was ingesting aforementioned greens, my colleagues informed me that the romaine lettuce was most likely infected with E. coli.

Laura Roslin and Walter White: Separated at Birth?

We just finished watching Breaking Bad as a family and then we hyper-jumped right into Battlestar Galactica . . . these are two of my favorite shows and it's really fun to rewatch them with the kids, especially because they notice things that I missed (and the first time Catherine and I watched these shows, we were sleep deprived and logy because of these very same kids) and while I will claim responsibility for the juxtapostion of these two platinum era masterpieces, Ian is the one who first noticed that Walter White and Laura Roslin are two sides of the same coin, and I'd like to add my two cents as to why:

1) at the outset of each story, both characters are diagnosed with cancer;

2) they are both involved in education and both seem to have greater aspirations;

3) they are both thrown into positions of power far beyond their purview and they both adapt and become calculating and effective leaders;

4) the looming threat of imminent death from cancer makes them assume a different kind of logic when assessing problems-- because they know how to take themselves out of the picture;

5) both shows hinge on a yin-and-yang duality-- the Walter White/Jesse Pinkman rollercoaster relationship and the Laura Roslin/ Commander Adama philosophical and tactical discussions.

The Test 109: Girls, They Want to Have Guns

This week on The Test, I barrage the ladies with a battery of questions and assault them with a slew of incendiary statistics and they stand their ground . . . Cunningham and Stacey may not be much with numbers, but they sure as shit know their guns.

SoD Celebrates SOD!

Sentence of Dave (affectionately known as SoD) would like to take a moment on this lovely spring Saturday to applaud that lowly chunk of dirt and grass known as "sod" . . . we had a tree removed from the front lawn last year and the tree removal guys left a big hole filled with stump grindings, and this morning I fixed up our wheelbarrow, illegally dumped some stump grindings over the cliff at the park (thus clearing the hole a bit) and went to Home Depot to buy some topsoil and grass seed, but when I was at Home Depot, I noticed they had a big pile of sod slices ($4.48 a slice) and so I bought two of them and after I put some top soil down, I tossed two slices of sod atop the soil, and voila . . . instant grass!-- so though archetypal Western villain Liberty Valance uses the term "sodbuster" in vitriolic and derogatory manner, that's because he's the kind of guy that lives "wherever he hangs his hat," and obviously has never maintained a lawn . . . sod, Liberty, is the horticultural miracle that could keep you from pushing daisies at such a young age, sod.

Dave Kills It At Book Club

This afternoon I attended my first English department book club and it was all that I imagined and more; I got to share my literary opinions with the many beautiful ladies of our department and at first it was like a dream: they were absolutely smitten with my analysis of Fredrik Backman's Swedish hockey novel Beartown . . . I was the only man in the room and I'm very manly: I know a lot about coaching sports and the secret ways of men-- the ladies were properly fascinated with my perspicacity:


















then-- in honor of my first book club ever-- I performed some prop comedy-- when we were about to start our discussion in earnest, I said I had to go out to my car because I had forgotten my notes and when I returned, I was holding a manila folder thick with notes and Post-its, a palimpsest of papers that looked like they were written by a crazy person (think Carrie in Homeland) and Stacey said, "You have a folder of notes?" and I said, "Of course" and I started arranging all the notes and charts and post-its on the floor, while mumbling things like "Holy cow, I have so much to say about this book . . . what should I start with?" and after a minute of paper shuffling and manspreading of my notes, someone surmised that this was my version of a book-club-joke and we all laughed (I laughed the most) and I told them that I had my students create all the crazy notes and charts and post-its . . .  I put the names of the people in the book on the board, told them a few themes, suggested that they emulate my handwriting, and let them go to town . . . it was a lot of preparation for a two minute bit, but it was well worth it;

then we actually got into the meat of the discussion and it was a lot of fun but also a bit heated-- I determined that the novel was a well-crafted story about factions, groups, and their effect on the community but I thought the hockey stuff was heavy-handed and not particularly enlightening (Art of Fielding is a much better literary sports novel . . . the tone of Beartown reminds me of Any Given Sunday, which is a good movie, but not a good football movie) but then we got into a loud and vociferous debate about the resolution, which Backman left ambiguous on purpose-- which makes me think he is sort of douchey and annoying . . . and I wondered if this was a meta-book, designed to get people riled up at book club, which sent me to the place I did not want to go-- loud and didactic and refractory . . . and the ladies reacted accordingly:




but 

we worked it out in the end, and while I can't recommend this book wholeheartedly (I think it's a little contrived and manipulative, and it feels like it's written by someone who has researched a bit about hockey but has never played the sport-- which the end notes confirm) I will wholeheartedly recommend book club, it was fun and intellectually exhausting, and dialogue like this is the only way that we can avoid what Beartown is really about . . . the fact that it's easier to choose a side in a conflict and stick to that side no matter what . . . but book club makes you deal with the difficulty-- which is hard-- the difficulty of listening to other people's opinions and really considering them-- it would be easier to read the book in solitude "because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time" and it would be easier to "seek out facts that conform to what we want to believe" but when you're at book club with a bunch of beautiful ladies, it's hard to "dehumanize our enemy" because they are so charming and lovely (and you work with them) and you have to really reconsider what your thoughts . . . so I can't wait for the next one (and I'm going to come up with another prop comedy bit to get a quick laugh . . . if anyone has an idea, send it to me in secret).

Noam Says It's Okay to be Anti-American

I've been chewing and chomping on Chomsky lately, and while his writings are spicy and might give you mental indigestion, they are also very very tasty; I just finished Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth and Power, and in typical Chomsky fashion, he makes you reevaluate the established hierarchies and hegemonies and truly makes you wonder if we need to dismantle every structure of power before we can actually have a working democracy . . . here are a few of his thoughts on how the powers that be are keeping the electorate in line and preventing too much democracy, which would be a threat to richest and most politically connected constituency:

1) if someone in Italy criticizes the government or policy or Berlusconi, they're not considered anti-Italian, but if you criticize corporate power and/or state/corporate capture/capitalist politics, then you're against the society and you are "anti-American," which is a highly unusual term for a democratic country . . . usually terms like this are used in totalitarian regimes . . . anti-Soviet, for example;

2) Alan Greenspan has praised "worker insecurity" in keeping the economy humming, because insecure workers don't unionize or negotiate or ask for raises and benefits, and American salaries have been stagnant for a LONG time, despite the fact that corporations have tons of liquid assets; this insecurity can result in more and more borrowing . . . which is certainly a feature, not a bug, for the financial industries;

3) Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the original instigators of this global plutonomy, they were really good at enriching the very wealthy and letting everyone else suffer . . . those two leaders were much less concerned with looking out for American and British middle-class consumers and much more concerned with financialization rules (and lack thereof) that would allow the richest sector of the global economy to profit;

4) rich people make a lot of money through dividends and capital gains, the rest of the society does not...  and tax law has been written to favor making money through dividends and capital gains (and the estate tax has been revised to favor the wealthy as well . . .. more fodder for Chomsky)

5) joblessness is a far more devastating problem than any economic indicator or stock index, and workers have lost the ability to negotiate, form unions, and collectively bargain-- many many people in our country work in a job without benefits or security or a union . . . thank God I'm a teacher;

6) Reagan started this whole business of too big to fail and too big to jail-- he increased the size of the federal deficit by subsidizing and bailing out the banking and savings and loan industries after several financial crashes caused by deregulation-- if big business knows it will be bailed out by a business- friendly government, than it will take extra risks, of course, and taxpayers will foot the bill;

7) for every dollar spent by labor union lobbyists, corporations spend $34 . . . business lobbying is ubiquitous and has caused cronyism and undemocratic policy that even a conservative thinker can recognize;

8) Citizens United and corporate personhood give more rights to corporations in Mexico than it does to undocumented aliens that do work in the United States . . . the Supreme Court justices "are put in by reactionary presidents, who get in there because they're funded by business";

9) people should spend ten minutes thinking about presidential elections and decide which candidate's policy benefits them more and then vote accordingly- there should be no two-year media bonanza-- and then people should get back to what works: community programs, local programs and active dedicated popular movements;

10) running for office in the U.S. is "fabulously expensive" so only political positioned that can draw finance can be presented to voters . . . so much of the most important political discussion is ignored;

11) organized labor is the one force that can fight corporate and government tyranny, and the anti-labor and anti-union sentiment in America is strong, so the rich and powerful should have no trouble keeping the rabble in line;

12) one of the best ways to control people is by "fabricating consumers" and making sure everyone feels like they need something new . . . whether it's getting women to smoke in the 1930s or making you think you need a new phone, fabricating these wants is a great way to keep people from worrying about democracy and policy;

13) his last principle of how to concentrate wealth and power and destroy democracy is the scariest: marginalize the population-- he cites a Martin Gilens study that shows that policy is uncorrelated with public attitudes and that 70 percent of the population has no influence on policy and government . . . they might as well live in another country . . .

so it's hard to read this logic and be pro-American . . . but the one thing that we are tops at is freedom of speech, so maybe people need to start thinking that being anti-American is more American than being pro-American.

Will Dave Remain a Hero Once Dinner is Served?

I'd like to note for posterity that I've been fairly heroic on the homefront the past couple of days: today I planted my second apple tree, so not only am I saving the environment in that matter (trees are carbon sinks and help with particulate matter and global warming) but in three or four years time, I'll be abrogating the supply chain and eating local apples; in addition, last night I went grocery shopping and bought the ingredients for a recipe that Catherine once made that I really liked (Turkey Kofte with Apple Raita and Spinach)  and I'm in the middle of making it right now (sort of . . . I'm taking a well-deserved beer break) and I'm really cruising along (although I did screw up last night, I bought shitty spinach, so Catherine has to stop at the store today to buy good spinach, but to make up for that, I just mushed up the spices and oil and garlic and tomato paste and parsley with ground turkey in a big bowl with my bare hands, which is very heroic of me, because I don't like to get my hands moist) and all these chores are filler, because my most epic deed happened yesterday, when I broke the malevolent dish cycle that had us in it's evil suffocating taloned grip-- day after day, there were so many dirty dishes in our sink that even when we ran the dishwasher in the afternoon, there was still a sinkful of filthy, slimy dishes in the morning, and these morning dishes persevered until the next afternoon . . . so yesterday after school, the kids and I emptied and ran the dishwasher twice (and I cleaned some pots and pans) and this Herculean effort was enough to clean the stables, as they said in ancient Greece, and while I'm feeling quite proud about all this, I'm also considering the fact that this delicious recipe is going to be one of those meals that my kids try and then one of them is going to cavalierly say, "I don't really like it" and because I've done all this good stuff, I'm going to get all indignant and righteous and lose my shit and beat that child with my clogs (and the other child, seeing this violence, will eat the food, of course . . . but will he eat it because he likes it, or because he doesn't want to get beaten with a clog?)

Three Cheers for Tax Day? Not With This EPA

Noam Chomsky thinks our attitude about tax day is analogous to our attitude about our democracy; if we had a democracy that was in any way representative of what the general population wanted, then tax day would be celebratory, a day where we knew we were funding programs and activities that we generally agreed were going to make our country a better place-- but instead it is a "day of mourning" when an "alien power" steals your hard-earned money and uses it to further the interests of richest constituency; one of my favorite podcasts, The Indicator, falls right in line with this attitude . . . and I share this general anger-- I don't think we need to increase military spending and build more nuclear warheads-- and, like the vast majority of Americans (74%) I think the country should "do whatever it takes" to protect the environment, but the EPA, an agency that protects all Americans with its policies-- rich, poor, middle class-- is being dismantled and defunded; I know I sound like General Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, but this is the only air and water w ehave, and I don't want my precious bodily fluids polluted (I also don't want to start a shooting war, so I'm not exactly like General Ripper) and if you want to get angry about where are tax dollars are not going, then listen to this episode of The Daily  . . . Scott Pruitt and Trump are doing their best to aggressively roll back emissions standards (so much so that even the automakers are worried because it may make them need to make different, cleaner cars for California, which has strict emissions standards . . . even though, ironically, it was automakers that wanted less regulation on emissions and lobbied this administration to do so, despite the fact that we bailed the automakers out with our tax dollars and so own these industries as a country but have no say in how they proceed) and so you've got a real lack of democracy-- the majority of the people want clean air, but a small minority (businesses that pollute) want less regulations and the ability to pollute with impunity, and our tax dollars are going to the latter, to enrich a tiny segment while the externalities affect the masses . . . all you can do is vote for taxes on gas (hooray New Jersey!) and push for state emissions legislation like California, while we wait out this absurd EPA agenda (and plant trees).

The Birds and the Trees

I forgot to put up yesterday's post, which details all the tools I used to plant an apple tree in my front yard (I had to remove a weeping cherry first) and-- because of the monsoon-like rainstorm today-- I was a bit nervous at school that I would arrive home to find my tree floating in a neighbor's yard, but apparently I did a good job with my hole and my soil and my mulching, and the tree was still standing straight and tall; I did a little research and learned that I need to plant another apple tree in my front yard (I've got a spot picked out) and it will cross-pollinate with my Braeburn tree--  Fuji or Gala or Honeycrisp are compatible cross-pollinators, I went on some sort of Match.com for apple trees site-- and then under the cover of night, the trees will pull their roots from the ground and slowly walk towards each other and engage in sexual intercourse . . . with any luck, I should be eating front-yard apples in three or four years: I will keep you posted.

Game of Tools

I used five different tools for my gardening projects this weekend-- five!-- I wanted to remove an anemic weeping cherry tree from the ground and plant something new, and I wanted to transplant a fargesia clumping bamboo plant from one spot to another . . . here is my list of tools:

1) hedge clippers on the weeping cherry (because I couldn't get close enough to the tree to dig around it, so I had to clip off all the branches)

2) a pick-ax (to try to break up the soil and roots around the tree)

3) three different shovels . . . because I broke two of them trying to pry the bamboo plant out of the ground;

4) an ax . . . I couldn't cut through the weeping cherry roots with a shovel blade;

5) and the fifth tool, of course, is me!

The Test 108: Game of Names

This week on The Test, Stacey begins with some crystal clear instructions on how to play her name-game- mash-up, but Cunningham and I don't really follow  . . . until (ever so slowly) we figure it out; ultimately, in a brilliant reversal, I hijack the test . . . odd puppet!

Let's Continue What Henry Ford Started

Is there anyone who still thinks working five days in a row is a good idea?

Dave is Foiled Again (by Computers and a Woman)

At our school, we have a number of chromebook carts-- they are incredibly cumbersome and heavy computer carts that house and charge 30 chromebooks-- and the etiquette is that the last person to have the cart needs to make sure all the chromebooks are in their proper slots and plugged in; this is a nightmare because high school students are animals, they just chuck them in any slot-- even if there's already a chromebook residing there-- and they rarely plug them in (and some teachers are vigilant about making the students sign out a particular chromebook and then monitoring that number, but I'm too lazy to deal with that kind of clerical work, so I just end up calling my students uncivilized animals and then I deal with the aftermath . . . in some ways it's easier and more fun than being vigilant) and almost all of the chromebook carts have been impressed into service for PARCC testing but I still have my special cart for the College Writing class, and my friend and colleague Stacey asked to borrow the cart this afternoon and I graciously agreed to bring it up to her room once my Creative Writing class was finished with the chromebooks; my students did their typical crappy job putting the chromebooks back in the cart, but I figured it didn't matter because I was bringing the cart up to Stacey and her students would have to get it organized at the end of the day; I was very proud of this clever ruse but at the end of period 10, when one of Stacey's students brought the cart back to my room, it was a total mess-- chromebooks unplugged, a couple of slots left empty, a couple of slots doubled up, cords all over the place . . . so I publicly shamed Stacey on a group text we had going and said she was "so rude" for not following the chromebook cart etiquette . . . but she retaliated by saying she ended up not using the chromebooks and simply returned the cart in the same state as when I had brought it to her . . . so in a cunning reversal, I ended up publicly shaming myself . . . but I still wonder about this case, which was a bit like a game of hot potato . . . because while she didn't technically use the chromebooks, the cart was in her possession last; I think this is one of those situations where the letter of the law and the spirit of the law don't quite jibe (and I'm pretty sure everyone else in the department is on Stacey's side in this instance, especially because I had malicious intent).

Juxtapostion That Foreshadows Something Bad

The literary term "juxtaposition" is a favorite of sophomores the world over, mainly because it applies to nearly any two things placed side-by-side that elicit some sort of irony or contrast . . . it's easy to identify, sounds smart, and-- along with foreshadowing-- it's the most popular term thrown about by wannabe high school literary scholars . . . but sometimes things are hackneyed and cliche for good reason, and a really excellent ironic juxtaposition is a wonderful thing: my wife and I are watching Breaking Bad with the kids and we finally got to season 5 and my two favorite episodes: "Dead Freight" and "Buyout"; during "Dead Freight," Walter, Mike, Pinkman and Todd engineer a methylamine train heist-- a heist that will occur unbeknowst to the train conductor-- and despite a few hiccups and a lot of stressful moments, they pull it off with great success-- until the last moments of the episode, when the gang pays a very heavy price for their actions . . . the next episode deals with the aftermath, and features the greatest dinner scene in TV history, the first time that Pinkman, Skyler and Walt really sit down together and interact-- the tension is so unbearable it's funny-- Pinkman tries to make small talk in an absolutely untenable situation . . . even if you've never seen Breaking Bad and don't want to commit to five seasons, you can watch these two episodes as a stand-alone unit, they are magical, awkward, and capture everything great about the show.