What's Your Fitness Age?

Our family got its final Christmas present today—Wii fitness. For those of you who have never used one, let’s just says it’s pretty cool. (Nintendo can send me a check any time they want to.) It focuses on five aspects of health: weight, aerobic exercise, balance, strength, and yoga. First it measures your body mass index. That went well. My weight is great for my age and height. Then, it checked my agility and balance. It gave me a “Wii Fit Age” of 47! That’s much older than I am—that’s Calvin’s age.

Needless to say, Calvin and the kids thought this was absolutely hilarious. I didn’t. Especially when the Wii said things like: “Do you fall walking down the street?” (No kidding!) Electronic insults are not something I need. It also said, “Agility is not your strength, do you feel unbalanced?” Hmmm, is that physical or mental balance? Perhaps their next Wii “game” will be Wii psychotherapist…“I see, explain what you mean by rip out my circuitry and feed it to your dog.”

Of course, I couldn’t accept my Wii fitness age. So, I did their training exercises. I rediscovered my center, apparently I lost it sometimes after my years of ballet and jazz dance in college. I also found out that yoga is my thing. I was rated “yoga trainer” on “The Tree” movement. I’m not sure if I’m an oak or a maple, but as long as I’m not a magnolia it works for me.

I also did ski jumping, running, slalom, tightrope walking (I fell to my death) and table balancing, which is rather like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. After all this, I had my Wii age reevaluated. This time I scored 35. Yep, I now have the agility, balance, and all-around health of a 35 year old. Twenty minutes of hard Wii work took 12 years off my age. It’s truly an amazing product. Either that, or I figured out how to use the Wii balance board. Nah. I think I took 12 years off.

This is me doing “The Tree.”

West Point

Ariel got another letter from West Point. Yes, that West Point. She also received a letter about six months ago inviting her and her parents to a dinner. This time it’s an Admissions Information Meeting. Maybe we should go, so they can see her. Now I have absolutely nothing against West Point—I think they’re great. The problem is that I can’t see my daughter (who probably weighs less than their packs, not counting the guns, uniforms, and boots) as a plebe.

After all, this is the girl who uses her free time to paint her fingernails in varying shades of sparkle-y. This is the daughter who can’t make conversation in the morning without an intravenous infusion of coffee. She’s the one who whines at the men in the house to “kill the gross spider in my bedroom.”

So why are they after her? Is she an expert marksman? Is she a superb leader of men—well, she can bark orders at her brother, but I don’t think that counts. I think I know why they’re interested. It’s the same reason she gets many letters from various (fill in the blank) Institutes of Technology. It’s about math and gender.

Ariel says, “They only want me because I’m a girl and I’m good at math—they want me as their token female.” She then waves the brochure from said institute under my nose and says, “Look at the cover of this one. There are two girls on it. You know why? Those are the only two girls in the whole university!”

“Yes, dear,” I say. “You’re right. It’s sexism or discrimination or something like that. Why don’t you make a nice pot of Earl Grey?”

Over tea, we eat chocolate and discuss Jane Austen. Then, she tries to explain to me “U-substitution and integration by parts” (which apparently undo the “chain rule”) in Calculus 2. I think she’s brought this on herself.


Please note: that is the Complete Illustrated Volume of the Works of Jane Austen! Try not to drool!!

Computer Imps

I know there are many of you out there who think computers are run by Microsoft via Windows, or Apple, or Linnux, or some other operative system that I’m not familiar with. But you are all wrong. (Yes, I sympathize with the Luddite movement.) The rumors have been flying for a while, but I found out the truth. Computers are run by imps. And Bill Gates’s “discovery” was not how to buy an operating system and make it work better. No, his “discovery” was how to capture and force miniature imps to do his bidding. The problem is that miniature imps are a peculiar kind of devil. They do their job (they’re chained to the mother board) most of the time. Some speculate that when they use their magic properly to make things appear on the screen, then, as a reward, they receive a shock to the pleasure sensors in their brain. Sounds reasonable.

But my interest is when the imp’s true nature asserts itself and the system runs haywire. You see eventually the imp gets bored with electrical heroin, and he (they’re all male) uses his powers for evil. This is when things get interesting. For example, you’re happily editing your novel, and then the system crashes. Bloop, blink, gone. Of course, you reboot your system. Then the imp presents you with two choices. Do you want the recovered document or the saved document? Hmm. I don’t know, do you? In the end, it doesn’t matter both are now flawed and the choice is illusory. And the errors are hidden in your 300 page novel—you’ll never find them, but the literary agent who requests it will read things like “And then, Miranda loaded her Uzi with a new round of ammo and took out all the literary agents in a three mile radius.” That’s imp humor. It also gets your book tossed into the rubbish more quickly than a New York minute.

I see your skepticism. But what else explains the blue screen of death. Or, my experience yesterday on tech support. I’m “chatting” with Rocco (chatting is a misnomer since we’re both typing). And Rocco is no Italian. Rocco clearly cannot communicate in English very well. There are missing words in his sentences—important things like verbs, articles, etc. Not to mention the misspellings. Plus, the speed with which Rocco types clearly indicates that he’s never completed Typing Tutor or Mavis Beacon’s Typing version 7. At any rate, Rocco takes me into the bowels of my computer. And we delete things. Deleting always makes me nervous—it seems akin to chopping off an arm. But, hey, Rocco told me to (I know, if Rocco told me to jump off a cliff…) After we finish our “session” and he explains what a wonderful, blessed, “powerful” customer I am, he tells me to shut down my computer, reboot, and everything will be peachy keen. Sure, right. I do it. Except, when I reboot, nothing has changed. My computer still misbehaves and ignores my pleas.

I accept this—after all, this is what happens more often than not. But then, today, for no apparent reason, my computer decided to be obedient. Why? The only explanation is the imp. And I think I figured out what happened. Yesterday, on tech support, the tech “told” the imp to get his act together or they were going to cut off his electrical heroin. The imp said, “So what?” But then, as he went into withdrawals, he decided that it was better to simply obey the requests of the laptop user—voila, my computer works again. It’s the only explanation. Really!

New Gadget

In case you haven't seen it yet, I have a new gadget on my blog. It's a visitor counter. In other words, it keeps track of how many visitors read my blog. I had a counter last year, but it crashed and I couldn't get it to work properly, so I deleted it. But now I miss it. I was getting about one hundred visits per week--and that really encourages me to blog. So, we'll see how many visitors I get now...

If My Hands are Filthy, It Must Be Spring

The green tops of daffodil stems have pushed their way through the hard ground. And I know that spring is still months away, but the gardener in me is beginning to salivate. Besides writing, there’s nothing I love more than getting my hands in the dirt. So, the only way to satisfy my need for dirt under my fingernails is to write about it.

Maybe love of gardening comes from a fascination with earthworms that I had when I was a girl. There’s nothing weirder than holding a wriggling worm. Nothing more magical than the way they chew up the soil and poop it out again. Sorry—but it’s true.

When Ariel was a little girl, she was captured by the same worm curiosity and for one delightful spring she had a worm box—we started with a couple of worms and ended up with a box of fat nightcrawlers.

But it’s not just the earthworms that enthrall me, it’s the beauty of seeing in the physical realm a spiritual reality. Every spring, things that seem dead and forgotten burst forth in a riot of color. They proclaim loudly the truth of the resurrection. First it’s the crocus. She blooms in yellows and purples so bright that it burns your eyes after the drab grays and browns of winter. Next, daffodils dressed like yellow bonneted-milk maids raise their faces to the sun. Then the hyacinths bloom. Their scent makes the rosebush blush in shame. Then the tulips rise up out of the ground, their stems bearing petalled flowers much too heavy for their skinny stems. And when a late winter storm hits and you think they’re surely ruined, you go outside on the next warm day and see the tulips drinking in the sun.

I’m tempted to go on and on about my flowers. But, of course, they don’t happen in a vacuum. I have to get my hands dirty. They need fertilizer. I have to battle their nasty enemies: aphids, mildews, beetles, etc. But more than anything I hate grubs. They remind me of creatures from Dante’s Inferno. I have nightmares about grubs. I can see their obese death-white bodies in my mind when I close my eyes. All they want to do is destroy my beloved plants and flowers.

The flowerbeds at our house are all new. When we bought our house, it was clear that no one had put any work into the yard in maybe fifty years. So, I put in flower beds. We wrote an IOU to the grass. But when the city dug up our yard to replace the sewage pipes last winter it became clear that we need to do something sooner rather than later since our yard was now littered with rocks. We raked, roto-tilled and planted seed. And a beautiful lawn of tall fescue graced our front yard. It was so emerald green you had to shield your eyes. Until…brown patch fungus took over. Pretty soon, our emerald green mat became a rug polka-dotted with brown spots. Within a month, the fungus and the Southern heat destroyed my lawn. Now it’s being over-run with Bermuda grass, which is beginning to look like a friend to me, despite the fact that I’ve always called it “Devil grass” and ripped it out with a passion to equal my hatred for grubs. But, if it actually survives and thrives, I may call it my “dear Devil grass,” or maybe “resurrection grass” since it goes dormant in the winter too. Hmm, I hope that doesn’t get me into theological problems… Maybe I’ll just call it Bermuda grass.

Watercolor Promise

When we moved here 2 1/2 years ago, Calvin promised me a watercolor for the space above our mantelpiece. Of course, he's been swamped ever since. But, over his vacation he got out his brushes, paints, and paper. Now, I have a beautiful watercolor above my fireplace.

I don't know if you've ever watched a watercolorist paint. It's almost too stressful for me. There is no margin for error. If you're an oil or acrylic painter and you make a mistake, you can always scrape it off and do it again. If you paint with watercolors and something goes wrong, you're stuck. It takes superb planning, boldness, and a willingness to improvise. (Clearly, I'll never be a watercolorist.)

To watch a real painter is an amazing experience. They take a blank piece of paper or canvas and draw on it. And that's interesting, but it doesn't really look like a drawing. Calvin says they're more like "guidelines," markers for the painter. Then, the artist applies the medium. Slowly, but surely, the paper comes alive--instead of adding something to the paper, it's like the paper is being removed and something living is revealed underneath.

I'm sorry to say that these posted pictures do not do the painting justice. The color is skewed, and all sense of vitality is gone. Partly is the fault of indoor lighting and not having the latest digital technology, and partly is the difficulty of reproducing art. I remember studying paintings in college and then seeing them in the gallery--it was like seeing two different things. But I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.

Loose Ends

The cold from Hades is still with me, though in an attenuated form. I can now think in complete sentences and can remember most of what the kids tell me. Though I still give them permission for all kinds of bizarre things—like playing Wii for no good reason. They’re going to be so sad when I’m back to my healthy “mean” self.

Since I’m a bit better, I attacked the ironing pile, which had “been fruitful and multiplied.” Normally, it’s Calvin’s clothes that doubled, but this time it’s Matt and Jacob’s. How many dress pants can two young teen boys wear? Because I only missed one week’s ironing, you’d think that the biggest number possible be would be four. But after six pairs, I stopped counting. I’m pretty sure that don’t even own that many pairs. The only explanation is ironing bin procreation.
I know some of you are wondering how long the single black sock lay in the middle of the floor. Not as long as I had anticipated. One unnamed Keller came and picked up the sock and said, “I read about this on your blog.” In between sneezes and hacking coughs, I said, “You mean you’ve walked over it multiple times and never noticed?” The Keller-who-will-not-be-named said, “Yes.”

This getting-work-done-by-mentioning-it-in-your-blog has some real possibilities. I’m not sure why this appears to be so effective. Is it peer pressure (my kids’ friends read my blog), the removal of blinders-based ignorance, or public humiliation? But in either case, the end result is the removal of the sock. This opens whole avenues of exploration. Imagine posting, “Person X’s room looks like ground zero,” and then later that day the room would like something out of House and Garden. Blogging may be the 21st century’s answer to nagging—except that it works! Yep, this opens all kind of new avenues. But then, I might be vulnerable to matricide—Matt and Jacob have been reading the Orestia, where Orestes murders his mother Clytemnestra because she murdered his father. I know the circumstances are different, but I can see public humiliation and murder being the same in the teenage mind. Maybe I’ll wait on posting about messy rooms, or maybe not…Bwahaha.

If you could imagine my laughter in the last sentence, you can easily hear the laughter the homeowner’s insurance agent made when Calvin asked if the heater circuit board was covered by our policy (see previous blog entries). The agent laughed derisively, “Of course, the heater’s not covered—it was flood damage.” Well, duh. Apparently, homeowner’s insurance is like health insurance—it’s great unless you have to use it.

But we’re thankful for the heater, especially now that it’s been so cold. It’s been in the teens even during the day. We’ve had snow too. Yesterday, there were big fat flakes like cotton balls that danced on the blustery winds. Today, the flakes are small and fluttery. And since the sun is shining, they look like glitter in the air.

Well, I’m beginning to ramble—I put down to sinus headache and too many bags of cough drops, so I’m going to end now that I’ve tied up all the loose ends in a neat bow.