pear shaped

The Brits have a great slang phrase for something well planned that goes horribly wrong -- "it's gone pear-shaped." This purportedly originated in the Royal Air Force and was used to describe aerobatic loops that failed badly and ended up shaped like a pear.

I thought of this when I saw the meme pictured below (enlargement). Pears are one of the more anatomical fruits like peaches. They can sometimes look like buttocks or testicles.

unnecessary guilt

Saturday night before we went to bed, I told the Husband I would get up with Baby Danny and he should sleep because he'd had a long, exhausting day. Needless to say, I slept through when Danny started to fuss and the husband got up and fed him from my expressed milk reserve.

So I woke up after sleeping for about seven hours straight, the longest sleep I've had since before he was born. But I paid the price for it and woke up with painful tits about 5:30 am, and fortunately he was ready to feed again.

Then later on Sunday morning, when I was reading in a comfy chair -- which I usually do not do for this very reason -- I feel asleep once again. I slept for about two hours straight. I can't figure out why because I had a great night's sleep before.

So I felt terribly guilty all the rest of Sunday. The Husband told me I shouldn't be feeling that way, that he was happy to step in and take care of the baby. But still, I couldn't help feeling guilty, even though I wasn't sure why.

This guilt has to be an omen about something. If the kid holds up a gas station twenty years from now, I know it will be all my fault for sleeping in when he was an infant.

incredibly cute source

A reader emailed to ask where I found the incredibly cute group pictures of dogs I had used to illustrate several entries this past week. The answer is the Barkhaus website.

It's a Miami-based business that provides dog training and boarding facilities. I know nothing about them, but I saw some of their pictures on Reddit and thought they were incredibly cute. The pooches certainly look like they're having a great time.

If reincarnation is real, coming back as a dog would probably be pretty terrific. Except the butt sniffing part.

craving sauerkraut

When I was pregnant most recently, in my final weeks, I started to crave sauerkraut salad in the worst way. It's the only way I like sauerkraut -- I don't like it cooked nor hot -- but a salad sweetened with honey is wonderful.

When I was young and visited my grandparents in Pennsylvania for summers, my grandmother used to fix sauerkraut salads. She and my grandfather also took me to a sauerkraut festival several times. Needless to say, sauerkraut is very big in certain parts of Pennsylvania because of the many descendants of German and Eastern European cultures.

During my pregnancy cravings, I tried to find sauerkraut here in Australia but it just didn't taste right. It was in metal cans, which is not the right way to preserve it -- it should be in glass jars. I mentioned this in an email about two months ago to my favorite uncle who still lives in Pennsylvania, and he said he would send me a case the next time he went "up country" into sauerkraut domains.

Needless to say, his case arrived this week and I am thrilled. I whipped up a sauerkraut salad post haste and it tastes delicious. My husband and sons, however, reacted like I served pickled dog turds.

I was not offended. That means I can enjoy all of it myself and won't have to share.

I would never attempt to make sauerkraut, which is fermented cabbage. You need a stoneware crock to do it, which I don't have, and it stinks to high heaven while it's fermenting. Mercy shipments from back home are a much more realistic alternative.

sad but funny

Yesterday I took Baby Danny to visit the elderly woman in whose house we live. While sometimes she's not lucid during our visits, she was doing really well yesterday and made a big fuss over my bundle of joy.

The care home where she lives mixes some of the memory-impaired residents in with the ordinary residents, which I think is a very good idea. The non-impaired ones have something to do in helping watch over and entertain the memory-impaired folks.

One of the memory-impaired residents is only in her late sixties -- I'll call her Susan here -- and is otherwise quite physically active. For whatever reason, she often seems to be the most confused of the memory-impaired ones who are still conversant (some, sadly, are not).

All of the oldsters enjoyed saying hello to the baby. For whatever reason, Susan got it in her head that I had found Danny abandoned somewhere. Although some of the other residents tried to talk her out of that, it only seemed to make her more convinced he was a foundling child.

She finally piped down for a while and went into an uncommunicative mode, which often seems to happen with dementia sufferers. But then just as I was packing up my things and preparing to leave, Susan suddenly all but shouted at me "I'll give you $500 for that baby!" (In American dollars, that would convert to about $350.)

It's sad that she's so addled but at the same time I can't help but chuckle at the idea I would be interested in selling my child for a rather negligible sum. I shared this story with my husband and he's now taken to nicknaming the baby "Five Hundred."

interstitial lung disease

A childhood acquaintance of my husband has something called interstitial lung disease, which can roughly be described as a thickening and hardening of the lung tissue. He's in his late forties and already in a pretty advanced stage of the most severe variety, which typically has a prognosis of under five years of life.

The name of the malady was vaguely familiar to me so I looked it up to learn the above. In short, it's a pretty horrible thing to have and a terrible way to die. Patients in the end stage basically slowly suffocate to death because the lung tissue is no longer pliant enough to supply necessary oxygen to the sufferer even if the person is on a 100 percent oxygen supply.

The body is an extraordinarily complex machine that works beautifully when it's healthy but when it goes wrong, it can turn into a monster that attacks itself. While it certainly doesn't keep me awake at night, the idea of eventually having some kind of slow, lingering, horrible end is really disturbing.

There's something to be said for a sudden death in a plane crash. A few minutes of terror, followed by a few seconds of horrible pain, but then it's all over quickly. If you're really lucky, you black out before you even hit the ground.

dull jeopardy

If you're a Jeopardy! fan, you've probably read about or seen James Holzhauer, a current contestant who is winning record-breaking daily totals on the show. As of yesterday, he had won fourteen programs and crossed the million-dollar-winner mark, and has the highest-day record win of $131,127.

He now has the second-highest total winnings record on the program's regular show, and holds eight of the top ten slots for daily earnings. He's in fourth place for the total number of daily wins, but of course is still in active play.

I can't see the program here in Australia, of course, but I've watched some of his episodes after downloading them from filesharing sites.

Some critics have written about how he's good for the show while others have the opposite opinion. I don't know whether he's good or bad for the show's long-term prospects, but I will say he ends up being sort of boring rather quickly.

He is so phenomenally, incredibly good at the game that his competitors are just left gagging in his dust. He speeds through correct answer after answer like automaton and only very infrequently does a competitor get control of the board. Even though it's clear some of his opponents are very good players, they are no match for his computer-like brain and buzzer mastery.

His incredible success has led some to speculate that he's cheating, but when you think about it, that really would be close to impossible. The only way a contestant could cheat would be to know someone on the staff who gave him questions in advance, but that seems highly unlikely.

Good for him for doing so well. Hopefully he will do no long term harm to the program. That is, if can ever be stopped.

creepy cool

This gif is fantastic but sort of creepy at the same time (enlargement). This is the sort of thing that would've scared me silly when I was about five years old for whatever reason.

The animation is by Bill Domonkos, who does all sorts of way out there animated gifs. I bet he has some really interesting dreams.

charity shaming

Since the Notre Dame fire in Paris last week, a lot of people have stepped up and pledged donations to rebuild. Reportedly as much as $1 billion American has already been promised.

But now, some people are bitching about this on social media, saying the money should be given to "worthier" causes. You could call this charity shaming.

I'd like to know how much the bitching people have donated to the causes for which they advocate. I have a sneaking suspicion it's not a whole lot. If anything.

Charity should not be shamed. And one need not give to only one charity. If people feel moved to give money to a worthy cause, they should not be castigated for doing so.

Notre Dame is a world treasure. Yes, it's a church, but it's a whole lot more, too. It's one of the most important historic sites in all of Europe. And it's arguably one of France's top three landmarks, alongside the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, and it's a lot older than both of those.

I wonder if the bitcherati would be complaining so much if it was the Eiffel Tower, not Notre Dame, that was severely damaged. Would they be stamping their little digital feet in outrage if people pledged money to restore that, too?

happy easter

Happy Easter! I hope you're doing something memorable and special today.

James's father sent the two older boys big plastic eggs filled with sweets and treats. They're made from a bright iridescent greenish blue plastic that you can't help but notice.

When you hold one of the eggs in front of Baby Danny you can see him react and apparently try to focus on what it is but, alas, his eyes are not doing what he wants them to do. When you're a newborn, I wonder if it's like being constantly inebriated.

Hippity hoppity ho!

rereading redux

I've written here before about how I love to reread favorite books, rewatch favorite movies, and encore view favorite TV series four or five years after I've last consumed them. So I was intrigued to read this article currently running in The Atlantic with the title "People Underestimate How Fun It Is to Do the Same Thing Twice."

The piece focuses on a new study from the University of Chicago about perceptions of reading or seeing something all over again.

You see and read many things you missed when enjoying the material before. And you can have a more profound understanding of the whole work on a subsequent consumption. And you sometimes come to realize that you don't like it so much after a later read or watch.

I know on occasion when I've mentioned how I like to reread or rewatch, people act as if I've said something bizarre -- why would you want to do that? But just like you enjoy certain foods more than once or pieces of music or travel destinations, why can't reading and viewing be the same way. After all, why else do people buy and keep books and DVDs?

shitty knitting

My great aunt was my beloved grandfather's next older sister. She never married but adored children and was the kindest, sweetest, gentlest woman I have ever known. When I used to visit my grandparents for long periods during the summer, I spent a lot of time with her.

She was the one who taught me to sew, and I became a decent seamstress as a result. She attempted to teach me knitting and crochet but I was never good at either.

Sewing has a certain order and linearity that appeals to me. You are constructing a garment in some ways like you would build a house. Knitting and crochet, however, are a complex knotting exercise. If you vary the tension or the size of your stitches, you end up with a warped, mutant garment.

Several times during the most recent pregnancy, I tried to pick up knitting again. And once again I failed. I put it aside. If I decide to make any garment for Baby Danny, it will be sewn.

As for this image, I did not knit this. I could never master something like this.

healthy potholes

A heart patient in Nebraska was rushed to the hospital because of chest pains and an abnormally high heart rate. On the way, however, the ambulance hit a pothole.

What happened next seems like a medical miracle -- the pothole encounter caused the patient's heart race to zap back to normal. The racing heart problem was solved before he even saw a doctor.

Maybe that's how patients with racing hearts should be treated in the future. Skip the doctor and all the fancy equipment. Just bundle them into vehicles with spongy suspensions and then drive them at top speed over big potholes.

potent sperm

Genetic tests in the Netherlands have confirmed that a fertility doctor from Rotterdam fathered almost fifty children with patients who were tricked into believing their male partners were the actual dads. This duplicity was not discovered until after the doctor died and his motive remains unknown.

One explanation, obviously, would be the doctor was a narcissist and believed only he could father a better breed of infants. Or, he could have worried that the intended fathers may not impregnated the women so he substituted his "tested" sperm. Whatever the answer, it was a horrible thing to do.

There is a silver lining to this cloud, of course. Four dozen people now have a much larger family. For many, that will be a win.

le feu dans notre dame cathédrale

Like countless millions of people worldwide, I was sad to see to see Notre Dame cathedral on fire in Paris yesterday.

The drone shot seen below (enlargement) makes it appear the whole interior is gutted, which was really upsetting when I first saw it, but then I later saw interior shots after the fire showing the interior is still significantly intact. There must be some kind of dead space above the main sanctuary and below the actual roof.

During my last trip to Paris, more than ten years ago, for no particular reason, I wandered into Notre Dame in the later evening. The building was largely empty with only small clusters of people here and there. Then the mighty organ began to play Bach. People silently sat to listen, including me. It was an enchanting, memorable evening.

The cathedral will be restored, stronger and better than before. Vive la France.

is war essential?

I happened to read an interview with an academic who recently gave a series of prestigious lectures about the role of war in all of human history.

The interview's thrust is to establish "that war has been an essential part of human history." But the use of essential may be a problem. Synonyms for essential include mandatory and required.

Oxygen is essential for humans. It is mandatory. It is required. Humans cannot exist without it.

So could history exist without war? Of course. At the same time, I would agree that civilization, culture, progress and more advanced faster because of war. The interview provides a good example -- the rise of women after World War I. Rosie the Riveter would not stand down quietly.

But war is not mandatory to human development. Look at the explosion of digital life in the last decade. That has transformed society significantly but it did not grow out of war.

I'd like to think that society will evolve to a point where war becomes extinct. That way, we no longer need to worry about if war is essential to our survival.

Here, I use the first person plural hypothetically to indicate our species. You and I will be long dead when this actually happens.

aging faster

I happened on this article about the Olson twins, former child actors and now with their own successful clothing company. They are fraternal, not identical, twins. Like many fraternals, they looked identical when young but then not so when they reached adulthood.

IMHO, Ashley, seen below on the left, now looks several years younger than her sister Mary Kate on the right. The latter has had health and anorexia issues and is a heavy smoker. One can surmise they've taken their toll.

I'm always amazed by people my age who smoke. How many warnings do they need before they realize nothing good will come of their habit? I can understand older people who are still hooked on smoking because they were lured into it before all of the warnings. But if you're less than a senior, there's utterly no reason to be still smoking.

stranger than scifi

I've written here before about how I favor aggressive genetic research and gene editing if it results in eradication of human diseases and suffering, particularly when the victims are children.

But I can't think of a valid reason to allow something like this -- trying to make a monkey more intelligent by splicing in some human genes. That seems like experimenting for experiment's sake/. The fact that some of the simians apparently went insane is all the more reason to halt this kind of research.

This news seems like it could be backstory for Planet of the Apes to explain how the critters had a sudden leap in intelligence. Genetic research seems like a tube of toothpaste -- you can't put it back in once its out of the tube.

what about murals?

I've written before about the Confederate monument controversy. My take is to move them but not to hide nor destroy them.

But what about controversial murals? An article currently running in the New York Times magazine reports on a series of murals about George Washington at a high school in San Francisco that has caused heated public debate.

My take on this is that the murals should stay exactly where they are because they could be a powerful lesson about how history is often sanitized and distorted by one group at the expense of others. What better place for these murals then a high school?

They can learn about Washington, how the murals are alternatively accurate and inaccurate, at the same time they can learn about the danger of distorting history. They can also learn about the WPA and the Depression. They could also create their own mural to depict what they believe is a more accurate depiction of Washington's life.

In a phrase: what an opportunity! Ergo, the murals should stay exactly where they are.

the blackmailed killer

Consider the following: you are an upper middle class middle-aged professional male with no arrest record. You own a business and real estate.

You also happen to have a compulsion to strangle young women of a certain type. You've killed five women to date. You take a trophy off of each murdered woman -- specifically, a piece of jewelry. You've never been questioned or even identified as a possible suspect or person of interest by police.

The five trophies you've taken are locked in a strongbox safe in your home. One night when you're out of town, your home is burgled by several delinquents, one of whom is a heroin addict. They steal easily salable items and also the safe. They are not able to open the safe for a number of days but finally are able to do so. They find the trophies inside and realize the victim of their burglary is the unknown killer.

Rather than alert the police, the delinquents attempt to blackmail the killer. Fearing the burglars will expose him, the killer pays the blackmail money.

This is one of the plot lines in a novel I just finished reading. The reasoning the killer pays the blackmail is well established in character, so it is believable, but I wonder how many killers would do this.

If I was the killer, I'd call the blackmailer's bluff. The only way they can admit to having the trophies is that they committed the burglary. But how likely would the police be to believe them, considering they're the ones actually holding the evidence and the fact that the killer appears to be a law-abiding citizen above reproach?

I asked my husband and he said pretty much the same thing -- he would call the blackmailer's bluff. At least it's good to know that if we ever commit a crime together, our thinking will probably be on the same page.

The novel in question, by the way, is The Rottweiler by Ruth Rendell.

what, me worry?

Looking at the photo below of actress Lori Loughlin taken last week, you would never guess she's heading into federal court for her first appearance in her criminal prosecution as part of the college admissions scandal. She looks like she's heading to the People's Choice Awards or something.

Outside the courthouse, Loughlin was all smiling, waving to fans, signing autographs, and posing for photos with admirers. If it was all an act, she certainly is a better actress than many may have realized.

For her part, facing lesser charges, actress Felicity Huffman looked scared shitless outside the courthouse.

Loughlin might not be so cheery for her next court date. Yesterday, a week after her all-smiles appearance, she was charged in a second indictment for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. She faces a possible twenty years behind bars.

a nation of virgins

What surprised me about this article reporting that 10 percent of Japanese men at forty were still virgins was not that statistic. What surprised me is that it's much higher than the English-speaking countries of the US, the UK, and Australia, which is anywhere between 1 and 5 percent.

I would've thought the American and British rates were higher. The Japanese rate is higher for socioeconomic reasons. Does it have anything to do with the low prostitution population in comparison to the US and other countries -- the article doesn't say.

I do think unique aspects of Japanese culture are such that men would more likely be virgins voluntarily than in English-speaking cultures. But Japan should do something about this -- seriously -- because the country already has a ridiculously low birth rate and very restrictive immigration laws. A shrinking population is a serious long-term problem.

So fuck more, people. Particularly those of you in Japan. Here are some nice Japanese ladies who might be interested.

mercy

I happened to read a history magazine article offline about Mercy Otis Warren and found her life quite interesting. She was a prominent writer before, during, and after the American Revolution and widely read for her political views.

But it wasn't until more than a decade after the Revolution that her identity and gender was known. Everyone had previously thought the anonymous writer was a man.

I would love to know how she felt about the second-class status of women in her society. Was she enraged? Or was she so used to it that she actually defended male-only suffrage?

Arguably, she had more influence as a writer than she could have had she the right to vote or to run for office. But was it frustrating for her to be hidden entirely from public view so that she received no recognition for her work?

I want to read more about her but finding a biography will probably be a challenge here in Australia. Nonetheless, I will give it a whirl.

the sleeper

The husband, the boys, and I took Baby Danny out in his stroller around the block to get some air yesterday. A neighbor came out to say hi and admire the baby.

She asked three-year-old Tommy what he thought about having a new baby brother. Tombo considered this a moment and then responded with some disappointment, "he just sleeps."

Here he had all this hoopla and excitement about a new brother who turned out to be a small narcoleptic and crashing bore to boot.

I am reminded of a family story about when my uncle was three years old and out with his grandfather when they happened to meet President Eisenhower in his final months of office. Someone later asked my uncle what he thought about meeting the President and my unimpressed uncle replied "he's just an old man."

hot pockets humor

Whoever put this together has a wicked sense of humor. Hot Pockets are a semi-vile product ripe for laughs.

On a semi-related note, in the news coverage about the various wealthy parents facing criminal prosecution in the college admissions scandal currently in the headlines, one of the defendants is referred to as the "Hot Pockets heiress." I found that moniker both ironic and somehow very funny.

the dream thieves

Because my body is still churning with surplus hormones, I am still having vivid pregnancy dreams, but these should fade soon. Last night I had a whopper, a vivid dream wrapped up inside another vivid dream.

I dreamed that the Google streetview vehicles that drive all over the place photographing the inhabited surface of the earth are also secretly driven around in the middle of the night to capture people's dreams. This secret project is unknown to most people inside Google, including the corporate management, because it's run by a secret cabal of technologists from inside the company.

At that point in the first layer of dream, I "woke" to discover the Google vehicle was idling outside our house and had just recorded my dream, thus revealing the Google secret cabal thus knew I had discovered their secret. Then someone from Google called on the telephone to say that they had taken my husband and children's consciousness and would not return them until I agreed to allow the cabal to clean my consciousness of any knowledge of the secret plot.

I agreed and just when I climbed in the Google vehicle to have my brain vacuumed, I woke up. It was time to feed the baby.

a special kind of stupid

Over the weekend, two adult males in Arkansas -- a Southern US state -- were drinking and decided to have some fun. They took turns donning a bulletproof vest so they could shoot at each other.

While neither of them were seriously hurt, one did make a trip to a local emergency room because of a red mark caused when a bullet struck the vest.

There are so many ways this could have gone horribly wrong. A bulletproof vest only covers a body's trunk area. So either one could have been shot in the leg or arm and bled to death before arriving in an emergency room.

Or the victim could've been shot in the throat or head. Chances are that would be curtains right there.

Move over, Florida Man. Arkansas Man has entered the arena.

Unfortunately, neither man will be eligible for the vaunted Darwin Awards over this event. You have to end up killing yourself to receive a Darwin nomination. A near miss isn't good enough.

But there's still time.

abandoned places

Someone has assembled a terrific photograph gallery on Imgur with about forty images featuring various abandoned places around the world. Why are we humans so mesmerized by such places?

I suspect it's because we can imagine fantastic tales about their history. There is a storyteller trapped inside most of us.

The picture below (enlargement) shows an overgrown palace in Glinka, Poland, that was abandoned during the Communist era.

no more no way no how

I'm feeling a lot better today. This third delivery was my fastest, but it was also my most painful. This was likely due to the fact that Baby Danny was my largest newborn and then some -- 4.4 kilos or nearly ten pounds and height/length of 61 centimeters or slightly over 24 inches.

He's no fatter looking than an average newborn, just bigger. When we left the birthing center, we departed at the same time as an Asian couple with a smallish girl. Danny looked freakishly large in comparison.

With this said, even though the last hour of delivery was hell, I think I've bounced back faster with this pregnancy than the first two. Danny only woke up once each night since he's been home, so that helps, too.

In the final weeks of my pregnancy, James and I occasionally would wonder aloud together if we should try for a fourth child in hopes of having a girl. It was left as an open topic for future discussion.

But then I told my husband yesterday that three was my limit -- no more no way no how. I don't want to go through a delivery like that again. My ob/gyn suggested considering a Cesarean during my last regular checkup but I passed. Now I'm wondering if that may have been a mistake.

Needless to say, I don't need to know the answer. Three or so years from now, if we still want a fourth child, we'll adopt. That or steal someone's kid out of a supermarket cart.

poking my nose in

Just a very fast note to say the wee bairn and I are home again. I regret that I do not have an April Fool's joke for today because I've been a tad busy. I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with a more detailed entry. Happy April!