The Pointy Meanderthal

Christmas Time Is Here By Golly!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:53:53 GMT

Fig. 545

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:29:22 GMT

DSC08584
Originally uploaded by meanderthal.

Yes, she'd rather have her fingers bitten off than tell us who her friends are (see fig. 545), but she likes going to school! Last night she had a 38.6° fever and I hadn't planned on letting her go to school today. But she woke lively and non-feverish and asked if she could go! She ran in. Still scraping my jaw off the ground.

Where did the "Transparency in Government" go?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:17:19 GMT

That guy who campaigned as someone who wanted to start a $2 billion world education fund? Nobel Peace Prize Laureate President Obama? He is chapping my hide with his sudden decision (no public debate, no testimony on the Hill, no discussion in the media--where is the transparency?) to send more troops to Afghanistan. Nicholas D. Kristof has absolutely the best op-ed I've seen on it.

T and A

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:16:31 GMT

I make myself tea at random times throughout the day, beginning with sticking a mug of water in the nuker. If I forget it in there and P finds it, that's designated as Stage One Abandonment. If I manage to get a teabag in it and then forget it, it's Stage Two Abandonment. Either way, it annoys. Me, because I coulda had a lovely cuppa, P because it's obviously a sign of Abandonment or dementiA. :)

(What, you expected something else? :p)

Why English Is Hard to Learn :)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:18:12 GMT

from: http://www.appleseeds.org/Eng-lang-difficulty.htm

Why English Is One of the Most Difficult Languages to Learn…

We polish Polish furniture.

He could lead if he got the lead out.

A farm can produce produce.

The dump was so full, it had to refuse refuse.

The soldier decided to desert in the desert.

The present is a good time to present the present.

At the Army base, a bass was painted on a bass drum.

A dove dove into the bushes.

I didn’t object to the object.

The insurance for the invalid was invalid.

The bandage was wound around the wound.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

The two were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when does are present.

They sent a sewer down to stitch a tear in the sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of Novocain injections, my lips got number.

I shed a tear over a tear in my shirt.

I had to subject the subject to a number of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friends?

I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:19:13 GMT

K's second performance for this year's Grootouder's Feest was stellar. I could be biased but believe she was the best of 32 Dikke Dik's. Now she's ready for CATS: The Musical! She waved her orange tail with style and cleaned her ears and ripped up paper and didn't smudge ker kittyface makeup (until shortly before dinner, if the truth be known). She has the beginnings of a fan club among the over-60's. BRAVO!

And then, far, far on the other side of the galaxy, there was the principal as MC. Deluded as to what constitutes an MC's duties, apparently. The job description he got read:

*must be able to induce sleep in at least half of the audience
- monotone droning required--experience narrating laboratory procedures in science films optimal
- must be able to read simple text directly from the page two days in a row
*must be able to convince those still awake that this is an academic venue, diapered "Nijntjes" onstage notwithstanding

WTH? Was he bracketing the excitement on purpose? Because otherwise there could be heart attacks (grandparents are old)? Or riots? (The 5 year old Mega Mindy's and the 3 year old pirates are ticking time bombs?) Or, god forfend, the parents and grandparents decide this isn't a serious enough school and go enroll the children elsewhere?

According to P, this is the norm in Belgium and that just floors me. Just fucking floors me. "WHAT?! Are there no Flemish playwrights? P's response: "Well of course. They just don't do theatre in school. School is just for academics." Unbelievable.

In English-speaking places, we mix a bit of theatre in. Professors are expected to entertain, not just to disseminate information. Wit is prized. The best lecturers open with a pertinent joke. Continental European academics, I hear, are different. Per P and my German neighbor, very often lectures consist of a professor reading published text right off of a page. U says only the highest level German profs are allowed to make jokes or otherwise be theatrical. Per P, Belgians just don't even do that.

I'm amazed.

Thank god they still have music and art in school here.

Thank god a kid can be a cat strutting and fretting upon the stage, however briefly, before the eulogist, I mean MC, drones on, though it would be nicer for them to experience being part of building the joy of a sustained theatrical production. If only there were a Flemish playwright as famous as Shakespeare...

P, you better get writing!

TherMOMeters

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:17:35 GMT

P/ Why don't you go to bed naked more often?
J/ I've explained this a zillion times. I have lots of surface area on my boobs so I lose a lot of heat there and get cold too easily.
P/ Earlier this year you did it a lot.
J/ In the summer, when it was hot!
P/ It wasn't that warm and you were.
J/ If it is warm enough then I'm nekkid.
P/ Do you take the temperature before you get in bed or what?
J/ (exasperated) MY BOOBS ARE THERMOMETERS!
P/ (nuzzling while giggling) Do I have a fever?

Updateville, with bad words

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:37:45 GMT

My daughter had a nightmare about skipping a grade. She was screaming that she didn't want to. Quite odd. There's one other (older) girl in her school who's done that and I saw them talking after school. Must have been some ideas getting planted. We have no desire to push that on her at the moment... although if it were going to happen, better now than later. I suppose it's time to schedule the talk with her teacher to find out if we should do some testing. If the entire reason she's going to school now is to socialize, and she refuses to do that with kids her age, there isn't much point, is there?

My Nederlands teacher has discovered I don't study. The B grade on the midterm didn't fool her. Bummer. The axe has fallen, loaded with the weight of extra exercises, an extra book, and lots of egging on. Good thing I've already gotten to level 24 on Aion and seen almost all the Kemono no Souja Erins.

My health is da bomb. Peter and Kaia have both gotten sick, twice, but not me. The secret of my health is vegetables, zinc and echinacea.* Maybe all that time before when I was the only sick one, I was building up some serious immunity. Or maybe that ever-shrinking bump in my neck is a leetle teeny health leprechaun. Fuck if I know.

*Despite all my efforts, it is nigh impossible to get my family to eat green vegetables. (The only green thing they will --no no, TMI... Better it's just me grossed out.) I will try veggie tempura tonight. Wish me luck.

My house is a total mess and I don't give a shit. We decided to stop having a cleaning lady and we are readjusting to a new filth setting. It's a -6. Some dials go to 0; ours goes to -6.

In class, I had to explain to a seething-with-repressed-rage-at-her-unhelpful-husband Chinese lady why my man helps with the housework despite him also being the sole breadwinner. I shrugged a lot and just said, " he lives there, too." Eloquent, non?

My Entertainment
House, MD "Known Unknowns" was so brilliantly written. I laughed so hard. The switcheroos were so Shakespearean. The characters had so much range to work with! But it also marked the first episode where I was SO very annoyed by the interruption of the diagnosis storyline. But that's the whole shtick of the show, can't lose it, right?

Dollhouse went to hell with the Dushku as mother episode. Joss, since when do you write hackneyed stereotypes? Bitchslap, yo!

Dexter is still good even with the ridiculously giant issues it's contending with; what makes a family a family is hard to illustrate in the context of a serial murderer's life--it's surreal but it's still working. Probably any less of an actor than John Lithgow and it would never fly. Still the most consistently good show on tv.

Aion is addicting. I still have no control over my keyboard half the time so I can't type hello without dying. Problem.

Kemono no Souja Erin is fun. For my midterm exam I had to read about extreme punishments at Japanese schools, and it's interesting to see this same overwrought sense of responsibility and punishment played out in the Erin world. Interesting and disturbing, but with fluffy animals.

Music Guitar is still fun. P says I'm going for it more. Feels like my voice is getting deeper. Maybe that's age?
Violin is out of tune and my efforts worsened that. Lame. Must seek help.

Sculpting Tried to do Kaia giggling and it's so far from the mark it is sad. Am leaving it in a corner of the kitchen so I can return to working on it but am hoping it gets kicked first.

Mental health Am not sleeping much. Am paranoid a lot. P thinks a psych consult might help. Am willing to go but doubt it would help (been there, so done that) so doubt it is worth going.

Before the Revolution

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:22:39 GMT

K was acting like a jerk and P told her that he thought she should be meaner in class and nicer at home.
K said, "I am all sweet in class because they are my people."
"What are we?" I asked.
"You are my maids."

On defining religion

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:02:41 GMT

K has seen all the pictures of Father Damian around and has been asking questions about religion and so forth. She absorbed it all and came out with many more questions which continue, but one definitive statement. "Ik word geen non." (I'm emphatically not becoming a nun.)

roleplaying Avatar: The Last Airbender

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:28:56 GMT

When I walked in the living room, I saw a stack of Kaia's favorite books next to Peter. I asked if she wanted to be read to. "No," I was informed. P and K were roleplaying Firelord Ozai and Azula. "Azula" had brought these books out as a "manual on how to kill the Avatar." Ha; god help me, I'm just proud of her imagination and that she even knew what a manual was. :)

Good thing she is nothing like Azula.

Beautiful Prose Alert- Andrew Miller

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:32:18 GMT

I dug out some books the other day to see if Frosty or Richard were interested
(cause we were having fun and sharing books is part of fun, of course).
While doing so, I came upon a book that was in a to-read pile that got swept into a drawer.
(Not to be shared. Yet.)
And it rocketh. (Probably more than Andrew WK who is just too weird yet intriguing. This person is paid to give motivational talks?)
I'm literally two pages into Andrew Miller's Casanova and already found two passages I had to read aloud to P.
God! The prose! Aaaaa! Bliss!

(easily) impressed here

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:07:54 GMT

Ughhh (Looking for Mr. Goodfeather)

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:40:45 GMT

Getting old means your tummy cares if you eat too many brownies. :(

How the Brain Processes Time

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:39:21 GMT

This is just TOO cool.

by Douglas Fox
from The New Scientist

THE MAN dangles on a cable hanging from an eight-storey-high tower. Suspended in a harness with his back to the ground, he sees only the face of the man above, who controls the winch that is lifting him to the top of the tower like a bundle of cargo. And then it happens. The cable suddenly unclips and he plummets towards the concrete below.

Panic sets in, but he's been given an assignment and so, fighting his fear of death, he stares at the instrument strapped to his wrist, before falling into the sweet embrace of a safety net. A team of scientists will spend weeks studying the results. ...www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.300-timewarp-how-your-brain-creates-the-fourth-dimension.html

Happy Birthday, Ursula Le Guin!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:53:17 GMT

You combine archaeology and science and ethics and help me reperceive the world. Thank you.

Updates:

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:06:58 GMT

Class: Last week, a wonderful Indian lady told us all how to make carrot pudding as her presentation. The directions and list of ingredients were suspiciously short, although attractive--& I will try anything to get K to eat more veggies--so I went for it. And it was so sweet as to be inedible, sadly. Like something out of a staypuff marshmallow man-baby's diaper. Definitely my fault for mistranslating. I think...

Apparently the teacher found the presentation a bit lacking, as today this lady had to do a bit more. She has a lovely face this woman, peeping out from her shawl, and is very bright. She excitedly listed common spices used for a wedding feast and then began a lengthy explanation of a food served there. She started by drawing shapes on the board. There was an oval, then a semi oval, and then she ripped out a page from her notebook. Then she started folding a paper airplane. I was starting to get the giggles, biting my knuckle off to keep from laughing. Little did I know! She was explaining how to make samosas, which she had also made and brought in and they were so good. Samosas. Oh soooooo good.

Mom: is in surgery right now. Hoping all is well.

Bro: comes tomorrow. Hope he enjoys life chez us.

Kaia: has a terrible mosquito bite allergy. Gets huge angry red welts that ooze fluid for days. Bought a mosquito net today. If it keeps raining like it has been and there are warm days, the bitches will be out looking for blood. Ain't getting none here. Poor kid has also been sick fighting off an ear infection. Still, her energy level is prodigious. Sent her to school today to tire them out.

Violin: Am tacking Bach's Minuet in G. Yeah, most of the song is in tatters on the floor, that's what tackling is. But still, FUN!

Life is good!

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:53:14 GMT

Just a quick list of the fun books and movies of late:

Diana Gabaldon's Echo in the Bone was wonderful. Been waiting a long time for the seventh book in her Outlander series and it was well worth the wait. Now here is a writer who knows how to present multiple points of view in the furtherance of an exciting plot and manages to bring new detail to a time in history that should have been old hat (the American Revolutionary War to an American ) --well, what isn't set in Scotand in 1980 --this is a time travel book, after all. The criticisms I've read about the book don't stand:

1."this is a collection of scraps, not a book, into which she snuck a Lord John Grey book" It's a fantastic book, streamlined, no repetitious bunk, and she writes Lord John Grey's voice particularly well.

2. "too many cliffhangers--we have to wait for the next story" Have these people ever read a Gabaldon? Every Outlander book of hers has a substantial cliffhanger. Now that she has more characters, as a saga will, over time, she has more cliffhangers.

3. "Claire's relationship with Lord Grey is unbelievable and out of character." In the very first book, Claire makes of herself a bigamist to save her neck from the British. She does it again here and that's out of character? So what if it's to a Brit? War makes strange bedfellows.

If you like escapist reading with accurate historical detail, give these books a go. Begin with the fourth. Perhaps the books improve with multiple points of view. :)

"District 9" is a fantastic movie. Ursula Le Guin could have written it. She writes often about the psychology of the dispossessed, giving us frameworks in which to reperceive the Other and, in so doing, apprehend ourselves. This movie does that very well. Peter Jackson's "King Kong" had aspects of this but here it's realized. Bravo!

"Humpday" was a very fun movie about two heterosexual, old college buddies who decide to fuck each other for art's sake--since that is one porn that has never been made. It is a movie about intimacy and boundaries and how we require others to perceive us. Low budget but good.

"Atlantis: The Lost Empire" was something I got for Kaia but really enjoyed the characters and writing. P noticed that it was produced by Joss Whedon. Mystery explained!

Gulfs- A Rant

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:30:59 GMT

It's been a while since the vast differences between American and Belgian cultures hit me.

In America, a racist group like Vlaams Belang would never have the support or money to blanket the countryside with its newspaper. It always surprises me when I get their paper. Yesterday I learned that the hairdresser on the corner, who's always been very rude to me, can't tell the difference between me and a much shorter Peruvian. I also saw how rude she was to the Peruvian. I bet she reads her Vlaams Belang paper cover to cover. I snarked to Peter that "you people all killed off your Jews and have forgotten what we look like." The inability to distinguish between people is freakish! I will never understand why even people I love, P and P's family, believe I have black hair--in America only people with actual black hair are thought of as having black hair. I have dark brown. My mom had black. I grew up knowing the difference. It's not like there are no foreigners in Belgium. There is ample opportunity for a Belg to learn more than one color. Yet the Belgian mind refuses. Perplexing and infuriating.

This morning I decided to give K some popcorn for her snacktime at school. She hasn't been eating her usual half PB&J for some time, and she won't touch the other options like raisins or fruit. And since popcorn is almost unheard of here--corn generally thought of as animal feed-- both K and P were suspicious. They called it "candy.' When a food is called candy, in my experience, the Jufs won't allow K to eat it. That's just nuts. Popcorn is corn, a simple carbohydrate with a lot of fiber. Even with a little butter and salt, it is more nutritious than snack foods like waffles. Only when we add sugar to it do we Americans call popcorn, "candy popcorn" or candied popcorn. But P maintains that normal popcorn is candy. Insane. Good ol' Jared Diamond probably has the answer for this one: the corn in the Americas has been grown for people for a much longer time and the American attitude reflects that. Europeans probably only relatively recently were introduced to strains of corns worth eating, so think of it as a special thing rather than just a carb. Still, infuriating!

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:12:14 GMT

There are three reasons I read fantasy: plot, new world creation and characters. If one aspect is strong it can help balance weaker elements. Robin Hobb's latest, the first of the Rain Wild Chronicles, is built within the Assassin/ and Liveship worlds and there is, sadly, nothing new here in terms of world creation. The characters are new and there are a few that are interesting, but she jumps between their points of view (and the dull ones') like a flea seeking a meal on a metal dog, such that you feel anemic rather than rooting for any particular one. The plot--well, although things happen for these new characters--nothing happens for the story arc. At the end of the Mad Ships, they were still trying to get the serpents into dragon form and by this book's end, that's still happening.
Very disappointing.

10 Things to Do in Vienna When You Have a Head

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:26:10 GMT

1. Definitely tour the Schönbrunn Palace. It will amaze. Just don't expect to be able to film your princess-gowned daughter dancing in the ballroom. Cameras are not allowed. Still, the dancing will amuse everyone.
2. Do the Labyrinth of the garden there. Lots of fun.
3. Go down backwards from the eagle in the Labyrinth playground. Avoid large painful bumps on the neck.
4. Go to the Prater and do lots of fun kermis rides.
5. Avoid the Haus der Musik. Half of the exhibits don't work and the others are too high for kids to reach.
6. Go to the Museum of Natural History and be blown away. The Empress ruled and ruled well and her consort only wanted to study natural history so she built him an Empire of Natural History. Most beautiful museum I have ever seen. Hugest collection I've ever seen. Just incredible.
(There's nothing like comparing the human penchant for the same green grass in front of our houses to a football-field-sized room full of different corals to make me feel like a member of The Most Intolerant Species.)
7. Go to the Schönbrunn again for the zoo.
8. Go to the Stadtpark for great playgrounds (just avoid the bathrooms).
9. Go see St. Stefan's Cathedral.
10. Meet very cool people with whom P plays WoW every night. Eat yummy Indian food with them.

Vienna tried to steal my head!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:48:35 GMT

I loved Vienna. Most of it. Not the Flackturm by the beautiful apartment (graciously loaned to us by P's friend). Was slightly amusing that it took some time to get our Viennese contacts to admit it existed. Evidentally this 16 story structure of solid concrete is part of the history everyone would rather forget. Who can blame them, considering that during WWII these things were topped with anti-aircraft guns and "jewheads" ? (That phrase really takes me back. It sounds like rabbit's foot, something we take for granted as not belonging to anything alive. So when I heard it in the restaurant I didn't hear it, if you know what I mean.) The locals recently tried to blow it up but stopped when they realized that the blast necessary to fell it would also topple an entire district of the city. So now they just pretend they aren't there, The Hate Towers in the Mist.

No, no. I am not so small-minded as to think of this the entire visit. Only when I fell off a cool eagle-shaped junglegym and did some kinda horrid somersault on steel cables and the side of my neck bulged out did I think the Flackturm was out for another jewhead.

Bad tower! Bad tower!

Insects from Another Planet

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:20:26 GMT

This morning K asked why we are alive. I told her that was a good question people have been asking a long time. I asked her what she thought. She said, "because we eat so much." While it showed she wanted to know what made something alive, it was interesting, too, from that other perspective. As a species, we rarely compare ourselves to vultures or dung beetles or their ilk, yet it is probable that we serve a similar purpose. We're not at all different.

When I see a bunch of insects I've never seen before, I think "this could be IT, this could be First Contact!" And only then do I smash the hell out of them. That's enlightenment, huh? Right up there with these scientists decimating an entire city of ants:

Salsa Verde for Salmon

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:58:36 GMT

Thanks to Cook, Eat, FRET I found a great way to serve salmon steaks. Funny Nashville lady's is for tuna so substituted dill for marjoram and orange zest for lemon. I served it with ricotta and spinach ravioli, where the salsa worked equally well.

1/2 cup of olive oil
2 finely minced garlic cloves
finely grated zest of 1 lemon and some orange
2 T roughly chopped capers
about 1/2 cup total of finely chopped flat leaf parsley and dill - heavier on the parsley (all to taste)
1/2 t sea salt
ground pepper

Recipe Heaven, Cloud #9

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:46:23 GMT

I discovered a new raft of cooking blogs. There's one woman who is trying to do at home what the best restaurants in the world manage with a giant staff and state of the art equipment. She's also an award-winning food writer. Alinea at Home is fascinating. I had no idea that real cooking could dirty so many dishes/pots/things and/or take so long. And then there's a snarky, sarcastic woman who puts up killer recipes. I had this one tonight and am still seeing the face of god. (With a Frown. Cause it wasn't fish.) And then there's Serious Eats, which reports on weirdness like orange juice, cereal and bacon cookies and restaurants that do weirdness like only serve meat from steers descended from one bull.