Those Poor Egyptians

I’ve mentioned before that I teach Sunday school for two and three year olds. I’ve been doing it on and off for over 20 years. Most people don’t volunteer to teach these little ones, which is fine with me because I love them.

They are a delight. Once they get passed being afraid (which isn’t bad because they ask to sit on my lap and they snuggle—I miss when my own kids were snuggle bunnies), they are completely honest.

For example, (disclaimer—this one is from many years ago) I asked a little boy to sit in his chair. With sparkling eyes, he said, “Mrs. Keller, what if I say ‘no?’” I said, “Oh, sweetheart, if you say, ‘no,’ then I will have to tell your daddy.” He pondered that for half a second and then sat in his chair.

Then there are the three year olds who try to “shock” me. Of course, what shocks a three year old is not what shocks an adult. One of my favorites is when I pass out animals crackers.

3 year old: “Mrs. Keller, I hate cookies.”

Me: Oh, that’s too bad. Well, you don’t have to have any if you don’t want them.

3 year old, looking terribly indecisive, says nothing. At which point, I surreptitiously slid the child two animal crackers.

And there are the three year old misunderstandings of the world.

Me: There was going to be a famine in Egypt and the people would have nothing to eat.

3 year old: In Egypt they eat only skeletons

Me, trying to figure this out: What?

3 y.o.: They don’t have food. They eat bones.

Me, light coming on: Are you talking about mummies?

3 y.o nods, looking quite pleased with himself

Me: Mummifying is what they did with dead bodies. They didn’t eat them.

3yo, looking disappointed but resigned: Oh.

And, of course, I always have shoe/purse/jewelry bonding. No matter how shy, every two or three year old girl is eager to show you her shoes/purse/jewelry and discuss its merits. And I admit that I’ve worn certain earrings/necklaces/shoes because I knew that “my girls” would love it.

The Eleventh Plague

Do you know what I hate about the South?  It’s not the heat.  Okay, I don’t like the heat.  I sort of hate it—but in a I’m-so-much-tougher-than-this sort of way.  It’s the heat that makes steel magnolias out of tulip-type women like me.

The thing I really hate is the mosquitoes.  I know I’ve had numerous mosquito related posts, but finding a mosquito flying in the house in mid-November has got to be a sign of the apocalypse.  Seriously.  What else could it be but the Eleventh Plague?

If you think of mosquitoes as irritating insects, I guess you don’t understand the horror of it all.  But remember, mosquitoes are miniature vampires.  The only reason that they don’t make you undead is because they’re too small.  But here’s the thing, mosquitoes are changing their DNA.  The fact that they’re alive in mid-November is proof of that.  And they are changing their tactics—they’re organizing.  (I know because I can see the “just wait” in their sneering multi-focal eyes when they bite me.) While a single mosquito can’t make you undead on its own, a swarm is a different animal all together.  A swarm could suck you dry on the way to the mailbox, which is when they like to attack me.  I’m sure they’re all under our Southern magnolia tree waiting to strike.  The mosquito in the house today was just their advance guard.  It’s coming...the Eleventh Plague.  Beware the mosquito apocalypse.  Don’t say that you weren’t warned!

Writers' Quotes

My friend Andrew sent me some writers' quotes.  Here's one of them.  Thanks, Andrew!


The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say,
but what we are unable to say.
~Anais Nin

Gnashing of Teeth

Nothing quite equals the gnashing of teeth provoked by college registration.  The university assigns registration times to different groups of students.  Luke got up before 6 am to register for next semester (For reasons know only to the UTC system, Ariel registered at 1pm yesterday—I’m not sure why, they’re both sophomores. The fact that she had early reg time caused outrage earlier this week.  I assured Luke that it was because they university doesn’t want to disturb the delicate balance of the math psyche by making them set an alarm.  I know you think I’m joking, but Ariel will back me up.  For example, most of her math professors actually have bottles of prescription medication in lines across their desk. And it’s not antibiotics.)

Sorry for the digression. When I got up to make coffee, Luke was grumbling.  I asked how registration went.  He said that Organic Chemistry was already full at 6 am, and he couldn’t get into the class.  So, theoretically, sophomore Chem majors can’t get into the class.  It’s a sophomore class. And since UTC only offers O Chem 1 in the fall and O Chem 2 in the spring, you’d think they’d know how many students to expect.  I suggested Luke Force Add the class.  He said you can’t.  Fire laws limit the number of students in labs.  Oh, right.  Are the profs planning to fail a lot of students, and thus don’t need the extra labs?  If so, they should tell the students not to register for spring.  Of course, more likely they will add labs.  But why not do it before reg when it helps to plan your other classes? 

But I think I’ve discovered the answer.  Unlike math majors, who need their balance maintained, the university wants chemistry majors to learn flexibility.  After all, these are people who measure meticulously.  They tend to do everything precisely. At two, Luke had a fastidiously organized his sock drawer (even separated by day socks and night socks).  He was so tidy that when he and Ariel shared a room (they were very young), her idea of cleaning up was dumping her mess on Luke’s side so he’d clean it up.

In other words, the whole registration fiasco is really an attempt at character building by the university.  Hehe.  I suspect Luke won’t appreciate my interpretation. 

Fairy Rings

This time of year we get rain and warm, but not hot days.  That breeds mycelium (mushrooms).  Of course being an avid gardener, I pulled up all the fruiting bodies.  But across the street from our house is a big patch of grass that isn’t so faithfully tended.  And I’m glad.  Because when the conditions are just right, the fairy rings appear.  If you’ve never seen a fairy ring, it’s a circle of grass that’s perfectly outlined in mushrooms.  It’s really amazing, otherworldly actually.  It makes me want to put on fairy wings and dance.

 

Of course, I wouldn’t be a sweet little elfin fairy with a crinoline tutu.  I picture myself more as Holly Short from the Artemis Fowl books.  Holly may have wings, but she packs Neutrino 2000, can fly any ship with turbo thrusters, and take down a charging bull goblin without breaking a sweat.  Yep, that’s my kind of elfin fairy.

Here’s picture of a fairy ring.  It’s not the one across the street, which is actually better, but I don’t have a photo of it.

Study Buddy

I just finished helping my daughter study for a proofs exam.  Why? Because I was too tired to come up with an excuse for why I couldn’t help her study. 

My job as study-buddy is to hold up a flashcard and nod as she recites drivel to me.  If the drivel is vaguely related to what is scrawled on the card, I say “good.”  If the drivel seems unrelated, I say “yeah, maybe.”  Then she looks at the card and says, “That’s exactly what I said.”  And I say, “Oh, right.” I mean how am I supposed to know that a sideways swirl is actually an “R,” which isn’t really an “r” but is actually a “relation?”  (Maybe they’re second cousins once removed, but I didn’t ask.)

However, I did find a couple of interesting things like hUg.  Any math that involves hugs can’t be all bad.  And actually hUg stands for “h” union with “g” so it really is a kind of hug.  Which leads to the integral of e to the x, but I won’t go there.

There are other cool terms we studied and here’s what I think they should mean: supremums (super mums—moms who sacrifice their “down” time to help their daughters study) and infimums (sick mums—moms who stay up too late helping their daughters study).   

Then there’s the set theory thing with inverse images. I told her they looked like paramecium.  She was mildly offended that I’d “managed to taint” math with science.  Hmm. I’ll remember that for next time I want to get out of flashcard duty.  “Hey, Ar, the foot of this swirly R looks like a flagellum.”

Writers' Quotes

Writing, I think, is not apart from living.  
Writing is a kind of double living. 
 The writer experiences everything twice.  
Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. 


 ~Catherine Drinker Bowen