You know you’re almost thirty when. . . December 20, 2009
Posted by tedbrassfield in Uncategorized.Tags: christmas, friends, meridian hill park, rudolph, sledding
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Holiday parties involve small children;
Your cousin turns thirty-something;
Friends gather together for a photo and ask that a second shot to be taken;
You don’t quite understand how a rounded snow mass ended up separating upon contact with your shoulder (indoors), but you have a sneaking suspicion that it might involve youthful exuberance;
You approach sledding down cement stairs that level out into a cement wall with an appropriate amount of trepidation;
Or perhaps you don’t;
(Some people really didn’t);
And you have learned that intoxicated snow shoveling is far less unpleasant than the sober job–though it may lead to significantly more pain the next morning.
And you know that you are almost-30 and a dedicated tinkerer when you decide to DIY your own Rudolph:
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from She and me!
On Women and Cooking. . . December 15, 2009
Posted by tedbrassfield in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
I find that most online reading is, at best, the intellectual equivalent of a US Candy bar: bland and not memorable. I frequently look back across an hour or two and realize that a) the time is gone, and b) I have virtually no retention of what I have read. Perhaps this has to do with how I am reading, or perhaps it is the medium, but in many cases, it may be the content.
Moving forward, I think that I need to stop reading Slate–or at least anything by Hanna Rosin or Emily Bazelon. Not because these authors necessarily fall into that trap, but rather because I completely fail to connect with what they are attempting to communicate and it irritates me to no end.
The latest example? Ms. Rosin’s screed against men in the kitchen. As a famous jailor once said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Okay, so she and her husband can’t effectively talk about cooking. He notices ways to improve technique (such as properly sealing foil when using it to steam food so that the steam doesn’t escape) and nags her about it. She alluded to similar critiques regarding his household cleaning techniques.
And then there is the example of how she marked a recipe, collected the ingredients, and then, while she was taking the children to a party, he had the nerve to cook the dish. In response, she physically attacked him (threw the cookbook at him)!
Failure to communicate–he likely thought that she wanted to eat this particular dish.
Here’s what really set me off:
But for those of us who like to cook, who are attached to this traditionally female, primal way of showing love, the intrusion [of men into the kitchen] is a problem. . . .
The problem is more subtle and at least half my fault. Before we had kids, we both loved to cook and did it prodigiously and with great joy. After we had kids, everything changed. When we got home from work, we had the choice of cooking or hanging out with the kids. I always chose the kids. When I did cook, it was out of a sense of duty and obligation, while he continued to feel the joy.
At least half your fault, Ms. Rosin???
The problem seems to lie in your own internal conflict. On the one hand, you are “attached to this traditionally female, primal way of showing love.” On the other hand, you “always chose the kids,” and cook “out of a sense of duty and obligation.” Pick a side, distinguish between the activities (cooking the hobby and cooking the task of getting food on the table), or just do something, anything! Because it was your choice that left your husband to fill in the kitchen gap (you don’t suggest that HE said, “hey honey, would you play with the kids? I want to play with the new induction hob”), not a mutual decision arrived at through discussion (unsurprising, given your inability to communicate elsewhere in this piece).
Women in my cohort won’t face this problem. Very few of them fell in love with cooking–too busy with telescopes, logic games, and soccer practice, I suppose. Consequently, very few of them can cook and very few of the remainder express any desire to do more food prep than it takes to organize the take out menus. Nevertheless, some of the time, prep must be done (though not to the extent of pureeing bay leaves), and on those occasions: the right kitchen gadget might help a novice get the job done.
A new wrinkle in city services December 14, 2009
Posted by tedbrassfield in Uncategorized.Tags: d.c., dmv, frustration, parking, She
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Adjacent to our brownstone sits another large, unimpressive, multi-unit residential building. I have never been inside, but from the outside, the building appears merely to block some of our northerly view toward Logan circle. What makes this address remarkable is not the building itself, but instead the contrast between the building’s unremarkable enterence and the obscenely large amount of space set off by a pair of “No Parking or Standing Any Time: Entrance” signs. This directive is routinely ignored and vehicles are often parked in the designated swath.
And so it was earlier this weekend when She, having borrowed the car in a one-woman attempt to jump start our consumer-based economic recovery, discovered a large parking space slightly offset from our front door. What luck! She didn’t even have to practice her parallel parking. (Truth be told, it is rather difficult to park a vehicle with a gearbox that almost always fails to properly engage in reverse.)
And, lo and behold, for the first time ever: we were ticketed. I am serious, I have never seen a ticket on any vehicle near our apartment. I’ve never even seen a parking officer on 13th Street! But, there it was, a shiny white piece of paper on the windshield.
Now, I’ve been through the ticket procedure numerous times. There are various irregularities with this ticket such that it would probably be dismissed were I to go to an in-person hearing. But, surprisingly, it is less costly to park in a “no standing anytime” zone than to have failed to move the vehicle for street sweeping. And proceeding with an in-person hearing would probably end up taking 3-4 hours out of my day. So, I decided to pay the ticket online.
There is no record of the ticket in the system. The helpful script notes that it may take 20 days to enter a new record into the system.
But, I think, the fine will double if I don’t pay it within 30 days.
I know that the latter refers to calendar days, but the former could easily be business days (this is, after all, Washington D.C.) Is it just me, or is there a clear incentive for the city to devote its resources to a) writing tickets; b) cashing mailed checks; c) mailing notices that payment was not received within 30 days, so the fine has doubled; and NOT d) making it easy for me to avoid the doubled fine by quickly uploading ticket information into the central database so that I can pay online?
A Question for Skeptics December 14, 2009
Posted by tedbrassfield in Uncategorized.Tags: climate change, Copenhagen, environment, LED, palin, skeptic
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Recently, I have been thinking a lot about skepticism: what does it mean to be skeptical, what makes for legitimate skepticism, etc. I believe that skepticism can be a good and healthy thing–the very act of reasoning out a theory helps a person to better understand that idea, as well as the various values that surround it. As a small child, I marveled at the logistical impracticality that Santa would face in driving his sleigh from house to house, all over the world. What if a kid couldn’t fall asleep–how would Santa detect this state from a distance and reroute his trip on the fly? It simply seemed too far fetched. Eventually I determined that Santa must subcontract with local service providers, a determination that did not in any way impact the joy I felt opening presents on Christmas morning. After all, Santa still knew that I had been relatively good throughout the year. I say relatively, as surely Santa understood the challenge to ‘goodness’ posed by my ever-so-difficult brother.
These days, I am always a little dubious about moral proclamations by politicians. (Me thinks thou dost protest too much.) All too often, those screaming at the top of their lungs (whether Spitzer or Foley, Edwards or Sanford, Haggard) do so because they feel guilty about their own actions and seek redemption through the damnation of others. They simply want to protect their current position.
Like farm conglomerates and the high fructose corn syrup commercials. Or the oil companies and their alternative energy research–the budget for which can be dwarfed by the money they spend advertising such research. Or the alcohol, tobacco, and firearm lobbies and their “have a hell of a lot of fun with our products, but use them responsibly” work.
Fine, I get what they are doing and why they are doing it.
And I get why some people may be skeptical of global climate change. But I don’t understand their reasoning.
Here are the two main lines of thought, as I understand them:
1. The climate really isn’t changing. A bunch of scientists and media types get grant money for studying and talking about important issues, so they have made up this idea of climate change in order to keep the cash cow flowing. If they convince enough people of their lies, X will happen.
2. Climate patterns ARE changing, but human beings have nothing to do with it. A bunch of scientists and media types get grant money for studying and talking about important issues, so they have made up this idea of human-caused climate change in order to keep the cash cow flowing. If they convince enough people of their lies, X will happen.
Okay, skeptics: what is X?
That’s what I don’t get. Is X that you might have to pay more for gas b/c a tax will be imposed that will help pay for retrofitting power plants & diversifying our energy sources (which, consequently, would lessen the stranglehold that various anti-American regimes have over our country because we are dependent upon foreign oil?) Since at least Reagan (as a skeptic, perhaps I shouldn’t credit stories of a time before my own birth), every serious presidential candidate has promised us independence from foreign oil–given that we haven’t found a lot of new oil here in the US, perhaps we ought to investigate alternative sources of energy. . . a process that will cost money, but will be spent on US jobs, US education, good things, no?
Or is X that “they” are going to take away your truck, forbid you from flying, and confiscate your land? I really don’t see how this would happen, as those liberal elites probably fly more than you do and understand that their grant money won’t flow without your tax dollars to pay for it (of course, most grant money isn’t coming from the feds, but rather from private foundations, but that is a different issue.)
What is the real problem with weaning us from foreign oil? Is it that this sort of thing shouldn’t be government mandated? Well, cases of lead poisoning have gone way down since the government mandated that cars must run with unleaded gas. Oh. Maybe that is it. The catalytic converter caused the collapse of the US Auto Industry, and you are afraid of the same thing happening on a larger scale?
What is wrong with trying to leave clean open space for our children and grandchildren? With cleaner oceans, teaming with life. Going with the second line of though for a second–why not pay US scientists to find out a way for humans to make the environment better? Why not have an Apollo program for positive human-caused climate change?
Most security papers that I have read suggest that fresh water will be a primary cause of international conflict in the coming century. Climate change might impact the availability of fresh, clean water worldwide. Why not devote some of the Pentagon’s budget toward preventing THAT catastrophe? I understand domino theory and why we spent a lot of money to prop up unstable regimes for decades. We also spent a lot of money on R&D which led to everything from garage door openers to GPS. And don’t forget that the highway system was created–in part–to transport troops across the country. . . and at the same time, we enjoyed prosperity unprecedented in human history.
Amazing new opportunities will come out of alternative energy research, out of adopting energy efficient technologies in our homes and businesses. . . What do we have to lose by encouraging this type of investment?
Hell, by installing LED street lights, Ann Arbor, MI will save millions of dollars over the next decade. Those are dollars that can be used to pay the city’s pension obligations, or to make safer playgrounds for kids, or to reduce property taxes.
I just don’t understand why this is so wrong! Please, I would love for a climate change skeptic to explain this to me.
