Winds of Change

Princess is growing up.

Here's how I know:

1. Change of Name: I am no longer "Mommy," "Mama," or even "Mom."  I am "Mother."  As in, "Mother, could you please tell Dexy not to disturb me while I am playing with my ponies?"  Additionally, Sven has become "Father."  She feels it's more sophisticated.

2. Big words: Princess has decided that she has to use the hardest word she knows for everything.  Unfortunately, in the way of four-year-olds, she has decided that the existence of a harder word negates the existence of an easy one.  Hence the following conversation:

Me: Princess, you can be quiet and let your brother sleep, or you can go downstairs.  Those are your choices.

Princess: Mother, those aren't choices.  You don't give me any choices.

Me: Princess, I just gave you two choices: be quiet or go downstairs.

Princess: Mother, those aren't CHOICES, those are OPTIONS.

Me: sigh

3. Teacher: Princess is now smarter than anyone else in our family, and most people not in our family.  She demonstrates her intelligence by teaching everyone else.  I hope it is to my credit that "teaching" to her means "giving a lot of verbal praise and encouragement."  Yesterday, I saw Princess teach a mother cat how to nurse.  It went like this:

Princess: Okay, Mama Cat, your kittens are right here.  Lie down and let them crawl over to you.  That's it, very good.  Oh, very good!  Now they're all getting a drink.  Okay, now this one's finished, so I'm going to take her and go play.  Is that all right?  (Cat meows)  Thank you, Mama Cat.

Then, as Princess walked by me with the tiny kitten in her arms, I heard her say, "Kitten, I like your attitude."

Don't we all.

Manning It Up

I have noticed, in recent months, a disturbing trend.

Manscape, bromance, mantrum, manorexia.  These terms are, of course, the "male" versions of various nouns and verbs.

Manscape: when a man grooms his face.

Bromance: when two dudes have a close, totally non-gay friendship that involves manly sharing of confidences and occasional shameful tears.

Mantrum: when a man throws a tantrum.

Manorexia: when a man has anorexia.

Here's my problem, particularly with the last two: none of these words were previously defined as female-only, so to designate a special word for the "man" version implies that the "regular" version is, in fact, a female version, which is totally unfair.

Mantrum, for example, really chaps my burrito.  Because only women and small children throw tantrums, right?  If a man throws a tantrum, we have to have a special word for it, because men are ordinarily so stoic and calm that the throwing of a tantrum is an event worthy of word coinage.

You cannot see, but I hope you can sense, my eyeballs rolling into the back of my head at the absurdity of this logic.  Because the media, in its J-Lo induced frenzy to coin the new "hot phrase," is using the monkey/typewriter method: they're typing a bunch of poop and then throwing it at us to see what sticks.  Here are some of the other non-words we've been plagued with recently:

Nappetizer: when you take a nap right before bedtime.

Nontree: when you order an appetizer as your meal.

Staycation: when you stay at home instead of going out of town.

None of these are new concepts, right?  So what the media is basically doing here is taking an existing concept, coining a word, and then publishing an article about it claiming it is a "trend," hence the cute new word.

So here's my report on the latest trend: "Mannaptrums."  Here's my new report:

HOUSTON - Style watchers are reporting a new trend in male behavior, called "Mannaptrums."  Businesses and corporations, in response to this growing trend among males aged 29-54, are installing mannaptrum counselors and scheduled down time to deal with the problem.

"A mannaptrum," explains Shirley McDoody, someone who works here in some capacity, "is when a man gets sleepy and then he gets cranky and needs a nap.  Clearly, this is a detriment to the business world, so the mannaptrum counseling and intervention is a nap designed to circumvent the possible business-hampering tantrum."

"I think it's great," says Sven Folksypants, a teacher, father, and devastatingly handsome man-about-town.  "Now that I have a word for this, I can get away with telling my wife that I have to do it.  Hopefully they won't ever have a womannaptrum, because then the floor wouldn't ever get vacuumed."


I think it's going to catch on.

No, I want this.

 I want a theremin.




A theremin is a musical instrument that emits radio waves.  When the player moves his or her hands within the field, the pitch that is emitted changes, as does the volume.  So you are basically making music by waving your hands around and not touching anything.  I think it is really cool.  And affordable!

All I Want for Christmas is TB

Yes, Folksy Fans, it's August, which means that the holidays are just around the corner.  Since I know you are all sitting there, in front of your computers, pen poised over paper, dying to know what I want for Christmas, I thought I would share it with you.

Memory.

No, not memories, I have plenty of those, thank you very much.  I'm not talking about some sappy, Walton-esque, perfect dream of a holiday that makes me mist up with tears when I'm old and grey and all of the children are gone and it's just me and a cat named Bootsie who eyes me with a somehow knowing glance as if calculating my net worth and the distance I would have to crawl to reach the telephone.

Memory.  Specifically, computer memory.

When I bought my beloved MacBook, the salesperson tried to talk me into an upgrade that would double the capacity of my hard drive.

"If you use your computer for media, especially video, you're going to want that memory," he argued.

"Trust me," I chuckled knowingly.  "250 gigs of memory will do me just fine."

I hope that salesperson refrained from shaking his head and clucking his tongue as I walked away, because he clearly understood what I did not: HD video, higher resolution cameras, and an iTunes account means that now I am down to my last 10 gigs.  A mere 10 episodes of Saturday Night Live stand between myself and the oblivion of a full hard drive.

This happened because of the magic of iTunes and instant gratification.  Why get in the car, go to Wal-Mart, search through fourteen separate bargain bins and 84 shelves of randomly arranged DVD's on the off chance that they have the movie I want, when a quick search of iTunes shows me they have it, often for the same price or cheaper?

"Piff," Sven spats, "twaddle.  What if your hard drive crashes, huh?" he asks, sorting through the 268 loose DVD's on the couch, attempting to find our fourth copy of "Sponge Bob Watches Dora."

"Well," I reason, "that's why I have a backup drive."

"And how often can you watch movies on your computer?" he further queries, taking the DVD to the DVD repair station to attempt to resurface away the skips and freezes.

"Pretty often," I reply.  "And if it's on my computer, I can put it on the iPod and we can take it to restaurants for the kids."

"That's true," he concedes.  "Still," he continues, allowing his righteous anger to inflame him again, "It's ridiculous to spend that much money on something that isn't really there."

"Daddy," Princess interrupts, "have you seen the My Little Pony movie?"

"No, baby," Sven replies.  "It's lost."  I wisely don't say anything.

Since it would be completely ridiculous for me to buy a new computer when this one is only three years old, the solution, clearly, is thusly: give Sven sole use of our current backup hard disk, the one with a paltry 320GB of storage, and purchase, for me, a portable hard drive with at least one TB of memory.

"TB" is the abbreviation for terabyte, or one trillion bytes of storage.  That's 1,000GB, or four times the capacity of my computer.

You're right.  It probably isn't enough.

Divisions.

Introverts vs. extroverts.

Faith-based vs. scientific.

Musical vs. visual.

Procrastinators vs. nerds.

Luke vs. Han.

Humor loving vs. evil.

Political vs. sincere.

Considerate vs. inconsiderate.

Selfless vs. self-involved.

Mountain lovers vs. water lovers.

Desert lovers vs. normal people.

Red vs. blue.

Agoraphobes vs. claustrophobes.

Hermits vs. gadflies.

Dreamer vs. goal-oriented

Which are you?

Read this.

This is seriously hilarious.

http://elizabethbanksblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/funniest-thing-ive-read-in-eternity.html

Recipe: Double Pumpkin Bread

I generally don't post recipes, being domestically challenged, but there are a couple of things I make really well.  My pumpkin bread is one of the few things I feel I can really call "mine;" this is really my recipe.  I got the basic recipe from our ward Relief Society cookbook, but experimented until I came up with this one.  It is very rich and cake-like, with less fat than traditional pumpkin bread.

Preheat oven to 350 (for muffins) or 325 (for bread).

Sift together:
3 cups white flour (or 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour)
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
(1 tsp. ginger, 1 tsp. dried orange peel, optional but recommended particularly for whole wheat recipe)
3 cups sugar

Add:
2 15-oz cans pumpkin (3 & 3/4 cups canned pumpkin)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 whole eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix well until completely blended.  Pour into muffin cups or loaf pans; fill about 1/2-2/3 to the top.  I use Pam Baking spray, or grease and flour pans.  (For muffins, I actually prefer not to use the little paper muffin cups, because it won't form that nice crisp crust.)  Bake, cool, and eat.

Trust me.  It is awesome.  Happy baking.

Strange Dichotomy

As long time and faithful readers of my blog know (all seven of you), I am both a frequent traveller and an abysmal housekeeper.

Would it surprise you to know that, when we travel, I am meticulous about keeping things neat and tidy?

It surprises me.  Hotels are where you are supposed to "let loose," flush inappropriate things down the toilet, roast goats in the trash can, etc.  Not me.  Sitting here now, in my luxurious king-sized room at the Radisson Hotel in Branson, MO, I can see the following:

1. All of the children's toys are neatly stowed in their respective toy bags.

2. All of the clean clothing is still neatly folded inside the suitcases and/or chest of drawers.

3. All of the dirty clothing is in the collapsible laundry basket that I brought with me from home.  That's right.  I brought a laundry basket on vacation.

The bathroom floor is dry.  The toothbrushes are lined up neatly on the counter by the sink.  The garbage is stowed in a bag, ready for the housekeeper to take away.  The massive balloon spider acquired today by Princess is keeping a solitary watch from the neat-as-a-pin desk.  In short, the room is orderly, organized, and utterly alien.

Not only that, but my car is clean.  I just went down five floors to the car, where I took a giant ziploc bag and emptied the day's smoothie cups and candy wrappers and discarded them.  Ordinarily, I clean my car when the trash level reaches the window and obstructs my view.

What is wrong with me?  Why can't I trash hotel rooms and clean up my own house?  It's a moral failing, I guess.  Perhaps I should hire a cleaning person.  If I knew someone was coming to my house to clean it, I'd be so mortified that they would see it dirty that I'd get it clean.

Crazy.