why do you think?

While looking for something else, I happened on a short article on a website called Lifehacker with a title "Stop Answering Your Kid's Questions."

I agree with the piece's advice that, when your young child asks why, this could be a teaching moment where you respond to a query with "why do you think so?"

But when the child comes up with a very wrong answer, I don't think you should continue down that path. If you know the answer, then you can coax your child toward the right answer.

And when you don't know the answer, I recommend honesty — "I don't know. Let's look it up together." There's nothing wrong with appearing fallible in front of your own kid.

ode to joy

Members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra perform Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" alone and together. I found this tremendously moving, both sad and joyful at once.

I look forward to the day, hopefully not too far off, where we can all listen to this music wherever we want, in a crowded sidewalk cafe on an iPod or in a concert hall filled to capacity.

if you're stuck at home and bored

If you feel like you're under house arrest, cheer up! You only have three more months to go in your sentence.

But seriously. If you're looking for something constructive to do while sheltering in place, consider doing some volunteer work on your own computer for a prestigious library or archives.

Possible projects include transcribing Abraham Lincoln's original letters or tagging historic photos of America's highways.

This looks like a lot of fun and interesting, too.

1-800-hitman

Online darkweb sites that offer hitman services for the right price are overwhelmingly scams to separate people from their money, according to an academic study nearing completion.

This did not surprise me. The logistics of arranging an actual murder seem too complex, particularly for the prices quoted on various sites. And those willing to pay seem like such easy targets to scam.

Although this isn't described in the piece, a really unscrupulous operator of one of those websites could also engage in some extortion, too. Pretend you were going to kill someone but then come back and say that you'll turn over all the correspondence to the authorities unless they pay an additional $20,000.

all eyes on the king

My middle son had his shirt on inside out yesterday so I had him take it off to fix. When he was putting it back on, he announced that he didn't like anyone watching him while he dressed.

I replied that he would not have fared well if he was the King of France in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Back then, the monarch and his queen performed many functions before a crowd of elites — getting up, bathing, eating, and more. I remember when I was at Versailles, some public rooms had an elaborate thick railing across the middle of the room behind which the public stood to watch the king.

That would be like watching paint dry IMHO. I'd be tempted to call out some anti-royalist slogan. And then I'd spend more than a little time locked in some filthy prison somewhere, I am sure.

dryer sheet alternative

My uncle back in the United States said in an email that toilet paper is very hard to get there in supermarkets because of the coronavirus. He noted that laundry supplies are also particularly scarce as are things like dryer sheets.

He has a good supply of toilet paper and laundry soap but is running low on dryer sheets so asked if I knew of any workaround.

Indeed I do.

Take a sheet of aluminum foil about one foot by one foot square. Crumple into a loose ball about the size of a baseball. Put that into the dryer with the wet clothes and dry as usual.

The foil ball will prevent static buildup within the dryer as good as any dryer sheet. A lack of static will prevent most lint from collecting on clothes.

And if the foil ball remains loosely packed, it can be used again on another load, as long as it doesn't get too tight.

can you smell it?

Doctors around the world treating patients infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus have all noticed something: for many, the first symptom was not a scratchy throat or chills or a cough but, instead, losing the ability to smell and/or losing the ability to taste food.

Not all patients report this but, according to one informal study, somewhere around a third do.

I will admit that as soon as I read this, I sniffed my hands to see if I could smell the scented soap I had used. No problem there.

So, quick, smell your hand or your armpit or something. Can you smell it?

who's on first?

This is supposed to be the greatest comedy routine of all time. Abbott and Costello did it for many years. You can hear from the audience they find it very funny.

I have to admit this just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's an era thing or a generational thing.

we will endure

Between four and five percent of people living in Australia are British expats. Thus it's not surprising I've come to know since I've been here several who were survivors of the wartime blitz and later rocket attacks.

Most experienced the attacks while they were either children or teenagers, but I do know one, who I've written about here before, who lived through the Blitz while a young woman.

I remember asking one of them — I no longer remember which one — how they kept going when faced with the anxiety of knowing you could be killed — or your loved ones killed — at any time.

The respondent said, and I'm paraphrasing, that you have to focus on what is now, not what might be.

There are no shortage of doom-and-gloom predictions about the world's current crisis to be found in the media right now. We are probably not in for an easy few years ahead of us.

But that can't distract us or obsess us now. Focus on what needs to be done today and maybe glance ahead to tomorrow and the day after that. But don't kill yourself worrying about a month from now or a year from now or whatever.

Be aware that things may get worse — or even much worse — and prepare accordingly but don't obsess. Don't let worry rule your lives.

Back in the United States, I knew a few New Yorkers who experienced 9/11 first hand. They remembered the anxiety of wondering what the future would bring. But they also didn't let it overwhelm them.

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. But don't kill yourself wondering how the worst might play out.

It's like being on a plane — be aware of where the emergency exits are but don't get distracted by wondering what might happen that you need those exits.

We will endure. We will persevere. And then some day we will look back on these times and wonder how we got through it.

another nail in playboy's coffin

For decades, teenage boys the world around have adjourned to their beds with a flashlight and a copy of Playboy magazine. Alas, those days are over, because the print edition of the magazine is no more.

The publication will continue with an online presence. The move is being blamed on the coronavirus, but the magazine wasn't in a healthy place before that came along.

Men's magazines like Esquire and GQ have seen circulation numbers decline but they still manage to hold on. For whatever reason, Playboy could not.

Not everything lives forever, but the passing of an era is still a sad moment nevertheless.

dancing on the ceiling

The news has been increasingly grim this week. I needed an infusion of charming Americana and remembered this clip (seen below). The incredible part begins about two minutes in. Yes, everyone over the age of six can now figure out how this was done, but in its day, it was an amazing feat with some amazing feet.

is cold water handwashing okay?

Yesterday when we were doing handwashing, I was making sure the water had warmed up before my middle son lathered up. He asked why it's better to wash in warm water than cold water.

I told him what my MD grandfather always told me — certain harmful bacteria can be trapped in the natural oils on your skin. When you wash with cold water, you might not remove them, but warmer water will loosen the oils.

Afterwards, to make sure I was right, I checked online and learned I was. But I did find an interesting article in a back issue of Time that said cold water handwashing was okay.

Perhaps that's correct. But I'd rather err on the side of caution, particularly in this age of rampant viruses. Besides, it's more comfortable to wash in warm water IMHO.

lizzie borden took a knife...

A thirty-year-old Vermont woman has been charged with second-degree murder for allegedly slitting her boyfriend's throat from behind.

She reportedly admitted that she killed her boyfriend on Thursday night, then slept in her car early Friday, went to her father’s house to take a shower and change clothes, returned to her and her boyfriend's place, slept some more there in the same room as where his body lay, then called police the following day.

She claims she acted to protect herself after her boyfriend tried to choke her, but police say there was no physical evidence of such allegations.

Now I know I'm supposed to consider her innocent unless proven guilty, but I'll never be on her jury so I can admit her mugshot seen below positively creeps me out (enlargement). It looks like a still from a horror movie. You can almost hear a voiceover in an ominous voice as you look at it.

Averil had a perfect life as a preschool teacher, animal rescue volunteer, and bride to be. But then one night, something went very, very wrong. Terribly wrong. Horribly wrong. Until she had no choice other than to do something unspeakable.

tricky topic

Several online parenting forums I follow have had threads about what people are telling their kids about the coronavirus. The responses vary widely, based on age. Some suggest truth without a lot of detail, and that's the strategy my husband and I have been using.

They've been told there's a new sickness and we don't want to catch it because it might make us really sick. So that's why we've been avoiding people and public places we often go. And that's why we wash our hands regularly and use sanitizer.

But we haven't volunteered a lot of detailed information. You can't really explain contagion vectors and species jumping to a four-year-old. With our oldest son, who's now seven, I've been somewhat more detailed, explaining the difference between a bacterium and a virus and also how viruses work.

If they were both ten years older, then I don't think anything other than total candor and detail would be appropriate. A fourteen-year-old can fully explain how viruses replicate and mutate and how they're transmitted.

The big challenge, of course, will be if things get much, much worse. Then I think we'll have to sit each one down individually and explain the serious risks of associating with other people and why we have to be super diligent about cleaning.

They've independently asked several times about when we can visit their grandparents again. I've been honest in telling them we don't know and we'll just have to see how everybody is feeling with time.

straight gin

I learned some basic card games like Go Fish and Gin Rummy even before I started school. When my oldest son was four, I taught him several basic card games, too.

Some might think I was a horrible mother to do this. But I think cardplaying can sharpen the young mind and work on their strategy, number, and math skills.

With the boys stuck at home as we practice "social distancing," I taught my four-year-old middle son the basics of Straight Gin, the easiest variation of Gin-Rummy. He already knew his numbers and basic math, plus all his letters and can read basic text, so he took to cards as fast as his older brother did at his age.

The boys are separated by three years, but the middle son can definitely hold his own against his older brother now at Straight Gin. His only downfall that he has a tendency to whisper aloud to himself the cards that he holds.

He also has a little difficulty holding the cards without accidentally showing them. So he gets an A in his gameplaying skills but a C in his card shark skills.

the stolen corpse

Sometimes life imitates art. And sometimes life imitates comedy.

In California recently, a hearse arrived at a church to drop off a corpse. While the driver was inside, someone stole the hearse.

Problem was, another corpse was riding in the back of the hearse. So thief and corpse went off on a merry joyride. Authorities located the stolen and wrecked vehicle the next day with the stiff still inside.

The thief was able to steal the hearse rather easily because the driver apparently left the keys in the ignition.

This is one of those things that if happened to a member of your family, it would seem horrible. But if you're not related he the corpse, you might actually find it kind of funny.

You could see the plot of a dark comedy built around this. An ordinary Joe steals from the mob and invents the perfect cover — he'll fake his own death. He's drugged so he appears to be dead but is only in a deep sleep.

On the way to his funeral, however, as our hero rides inside the coffin sound asleep, the hearse is stolen. Hours later, after the vehicle is dumped, the protagonist rouses. He's trapped inside a coffin in the worst part of town. Complications ensue.

The picture below is not of the stolen hearse but what is alleged to be the world's fastest one.

sex with a coronavirus chaser

I was going to title this post "Love in the Time of Coronavirus" but then a quick Google search showed dozens of media outlets were already using it. That aside, what to do about sex and the coronavirus as infection numbers keep spiking?

If you're not married and not seeing anyone regularly, then per a wide variety of sources, you need to be very cautious.

If you're married or in a relationship, then you have to decide whether to carry on as usual or make changes. Husband and I very quickly decided to carry on as usual, because contamination within households is very common anyway. We're not abstaining from any of our usual bedroom activities.

Infection rates here down under are about the same per capita as in the United States. Our oldest son is now in school, which is expected to close imminently for several weeks, with an announcement to come within days.

So the five of us plan to stay at home as much as possible and avoid any crowded public places. A grocery store run is planned for once a week but early in the day before they're too crowded.

Neighborhood walks are still all right but trips to the playground will not be for group play. I usually visit the elder care home once a week where our homeowner lives but will forego that for the time being.

With all that extra time on our hands, nighttime bedroom activities will certainly help with tension relief and much more, so they will continue as always.

is it flu, cold, or coronavirus?

Perhaps because I'm rarely ill, I am once of those people who can never remember what the difference in symptoms is between a cold and the flu. Now with coronavirus a threat, I was all the more uncertain.

I found a great online symptom comparison guide to all three plus allergies at, of all places, the Business Insider webpage. I particularly like how the chart they composed gives you an instant picture of the differences.

When I was last in the supermarket, a lady near me sneezed loudly several times. My first thought was "shit, coronavirus." But reading the link above reminded me that sneezing is not one of the corona symptoms and a runny nose very rarely is.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't avoid a sneezy person, but you need to remember that a coughing person may be the real danger.

piss history

Our middle son, who turns four next week, piped up out of the blue in the car the other day and asked, "Mummy, when you flush the loo, where does it go?" A fascination with all things toilet is common among children his age.

I explained how the flushed water went through pipes to the public sewer system and traveled for miles until it reached a processing plant where it was made clean again.

And then for whatever reason, I started to explain a bit of trivia I knew — that in previous centuries, people saved their urine so it could be refined into saltpeter, which was then turned into gunpowder. That, in turn, could be used to make fireworks or gunpowder for cannons or guns.

As an aside, it's worth noting that the famous "shot heard around the world" that opened the Battle of Concord in 1775, which eventually set off America's war of independence, more likely than not was powered by human piss.

Back to my son — after our discussion, he wondered if we should start saving our urine so we could make our own gunpowder and then turn that into firecrackers. I had to then explain such an experiment could actually be dangerous because homemade gunpowder could be quite unstable. He then conceded the point.

Yes, those are antique chamberpots in the picture below.

Sentenced

Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced yesterday to 23 years in prison by a New York judge for sexual assault and rape. Given he's now 67 years old, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

He is also due to go on trial on similar charges soon in Los Angeles where, if found guilty, he will have more years added to his sentence.

The New York judge was not lenient in his sentencing. He gave Weinstein close to the maximum and also made the sentences concurrent.

It was a stunning yet poetic final chapter for a man who had done so much and had so much in his life. Yet he destroyed that all by centering his life on predation of powerless women.

An old proverb holds that you reap what you sow. Truer words were never spoken.

catch and kill

Last night I finished reading the new nonfiction book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, by Ronan Farrow.

The book did not turn out to be about what I thought it was. Nonetheless, I found it a very compelling read.

I thought it would be about movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's years long predatory and outright criminal behavior toward women. While there's a lot of that in the book, it's all after the fact and set against the backdrop of the author trying to report the true story when he was at NBC and constantly thwarted, both by the complicit network and spies hired by Weinstein.

I had no idea about the size and scope of the operation Weinstein deployed to protect himself. This included many prominent lawyers who had to be asking themselves if he was guilty of the crimes and predatory behavior he was trying to hide.

So I definitely recommend Catch and Kill. It's a very compelling read about a truly disturbing series of crimes and the years-long cover-ups.

crash!

Stock markets around the world crashed yesterday as trillions in capital value vanished into the ether. American stock markets plummeted, too, and have fallen roughly 20 percent in the last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw the largest daily point drop in history yesterday, falling more than 2,000 points for the first time ever. It was not the largest percentage drop of all time, however, and ranks eleventh on that list.

I saw a post on an investment forum yesterday where someone claimed to have liquidated everything in his/her portfolio during the day. Some thought the person was foolish while others thought he or she was brilliant.

Count me among those who would vote foolish. Panic selling in an imploding market is exactly why it's falling. Chicken Little investors are losing their heads.

Stock markets are cyclical. The market is heading down and may be depressed for a good while. But it will bounce back. It almost always does. Only one example comes to mind that violates this rule, and that's the Japanese stock market which has never returned to the levels seen just before their 1989 crash. That market, however, was wildly over valued.

So sit tight fellow investors and don't panic. When the market hits bottom, that's the time to buy. Remember the old rule — buy the panic, sell the euphoria.

we may all get it

I Skyped with my MD brother over the weekend and at one point the discussion turned to coronavirus. Because he's a shrink, he won't be pressed into service unless things get really, really bad and the ER has a staffing shortage at the hospital where he's affiliated.

He said that precautions are a good idea because the virus is so contagious and spreads so quickly, but that most who contract it won't be seriously sick, with the exception of the elderly. He recommended stocking up on supplies and food in case we have to quarantine at home.

He also noted that most of us will probably get it. Once it hits a country, some 25 to 75 percent of the population will be sickened at some point, but for most of us, it'll just seem like an ordinary flu.

Right now, there are 80 confirmed cases here in Australia. Infection totals are doubling approximately every six days, as is the case everywhere, so the rate of contagion is exponential.

It truly is amazing how fast this virus has spread throughout the world. More than half of all countries now have confirmed cases. Italy, which is thousands of miles from the epicenter in China, has more cases than any country save South Korea.

So read up on what you need to do to get ready and keep your eye on the news, particularly in your part of the world, wherever you might be. Stay safe.

the bobcut

For most of my life, ever since I was a little girl, I have worn my hair long. I don't think I have the right face for short hair. I also like how longer hair gives you a lot more hairstyle options.

My husband dislikes short hair on women. He also has an enmity toward certain hairstyles, most notably "the bobcut," particularly the style variety where the front is longer than in the back (see photo below).

While I agree I would look awful in that hairstyle, I think it's flattering to some women as long as the front is not too much longer than the back.

The husband also dislikes highlighted hair. I agree with him there, too. I think it looks fake and, for some reason, slightly trashy.

carla bley

I was listening to the legendary jazz composer and pianist Carla Bley on my iPod yesterday and Googled her to learn more about her. She's seen below with the guitarist Steve Swallow. Her signature look, with the wild hair partly obscuring her face, has not changed since the 1960s.

I was totally amazed to learn Bley was in her early eighties. I knew she wasn't a young woman but had no idea she was as old as she was. And, bless her, she's still working and creating and performing, having just released a new album.

cautious walking

Our youngest son will turn one year old at the end of this month. One of the most interesting thing about parenting for me, something I didn't even realize would happen until we had our second child, was that siblings will not mature at the same rate as each other.

Our two oldest, for instance, worked on their walking skills much earlier than their baby brother. For his part, however, baby brother was more verbal and more able to feed himself at an earlier age than his older brothers.

For whatever reason, baby Danny us much more cautious about walking. While his older brothers were able to walk without holding on to anything at eleven months, Danny is determined not to do that.

He seems to prefer standing to walking, too. He will pull himself up, while holding on to something, but will then not let go nor attempt to move.

Danny is also much more interested in having someone else carry him. He will slide from a standing position back to sitting and then hold up both arms to signal "carry me."

I should not sound like I'm complaining, however. Once he's comfortable walking, I'm sure he'll be like his older brothers and then walk with a vengeance, ready to go anywhere and everywhere at any time.

super tuesday

Another Super Tuesday has come and gone. For me, there were two news items of note. The first was how, once again, the so-called youth vote was consistently underwhelming.

Bernie Sanders did much worse than expected because young people, the core of his support, just did not turn out, and this on a night when some states saw record overall turnout among all voters.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both had strong youth support as candidates. But they also had solid voter support among other demographics. They did not pin all their hopes on youth turnout, likely knowing it is historically unreliable.

The second item of note from Tuesday night was Joe Biden's wife Jill. Not once but twice when vegan protesters tried to rush her husband while he was speaking, she physically blocked and subdued them.

She is a tiger wife and a badass warrior. Good for her.

young hemingway

I was reading something about Ernest Hemingway offline, and when I checked his bio online, I was reminded of what a looker he was when he was a young man. The picture below shows him in the hospital at age nineteen.

With that big smile, perfect teeth, and clean-cut good looks, he could be a modern day male model. Unfortunately, as he aged, his looks slipped more and more away from him until he was an old man. Age brought back his handsomeness.

I imagine his lost looks had something to do with his heavy drinking. His face looks both bloated and also sallow when he was in middle age. He was not as heavy a drinker as F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was positively pickled much of his adult life, but Hemingway was far more than a casual sipper in his own right.

Had Hemingway not committed suicide nor drank so much, it's conceivable he could have lived into the 1980s or even the 1990s.

under occupation

Last night, I finished reading Under Occupation by Alan Furst, a historical thriller set during the Nazi occupation of Paris with a story about the French Resistance. The book is terrific and highly recommended.

Under Occupation is the fifteenth thriller in Furst's "Night Soldiers" series. Set during the 1930s and 1940s in Europe, the books are all related by theme and occasionally by crossover supporting characters, but they can be read in any order.

I have read all of Furst's Night Soldier novels and some several times over. The stories are not intricate nor complex, but the real joy in his writing is the prose and atmosphere. He is much more than a genre writer. The books read like the best of literary fiction but also with the urgency and jeopardy of a good thriller.

If you've not read Furst before, Under Occupation would be a good place to start. Then again, any of the fifteen Night Soldiers books would be a good place to start.

corn sock queen

My father-in-law has treated corns on some toes on both of his feet. His doctor gave him some toe pad to wear on his toes like rings.

But he finds them uncomfortable to wear because they move around and feel like he has something trapped in his shoes. He needs to wear them, however, to keep the treated corns from becoming inflamed again and infected.

That gave me an idea — what about socks that had some padding on top of just the toes to protect them? I could not find such a critter online, however.

So I took one of my husband's socks to be a guinea pig. I made a small flat pad with some old fabric sewn in a sandwich with some felt. I quilted it all over, then sewed it like applique to the top of my husband's sock over the toes.

I then gave it to my father-in-law to test. He loved it. The sock provides padding but he can't feel anything different in the shoe. So I made him three pairs of the socks and he wears them all the time now.

His doctor thought they were a great idea and said I should patent them and start selling them. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not really interested in trying to get a patent and getting a corn sock business off the ground by finding automation to make the socks. Then there would be the selling and all of that.

Yes, I may be foregoing a future as a millionairess corn sock queen, but I can live with that. Devoting my life to making and peddling socks is not my idea of a good time.

lost

When the American TV series Lost first began airing in 2004, I was dancing in a club at night full time and doing some modeling during the day, so I had no time to watch it regularly. I saw a few of the first episodes but then couldn't keep up.

The husband had seen it a few times, too, at that time living here in Australia, but never became a regular viewer.

So we decided to watch it from the beginning as occasional night time viewing to see if we could get into it. We both got hooked pretty quickly and have now watched the first fifty-some episodes.

It is a very engaging program and keeps you hooked with both interesting character development and intriguing plot twists. The show is addictive and keeps you wanting more by throwing down new mysteries faster than older ones are solved.

My husband said the central female character Kate reminds him somewhat of me, not so much in her looks but in her mannerism and her personality. She's smart and feisty and clever and brave, so I'll take that as a compliment.