I was out for a drink with three gal pals tonight after work, and talk turned to women and safety.
Debra mentioned she had stayed at work until 9-ish last night, and just as she was thinking about packing it in, she heard someone else leave her floor. The thought flashed through her mind: I'll just quickly unplug and tail-gate that guy out to the parking lot. However, one last email and a few minor clean ups at her desk later, and the moment was lost. Now she was alone in the building with a lot of dark space (okay, at least 15 feet, but still....) between the well-lit doorway of the building and her car. Should she phone security to walk her to her car?
Okay, folks, on the count of three... One, two, three... YES!
Ladies, ladies, ladies... can we talk?
Listen to your spidey sense. Listen to your spidey sense. Listen to your spidey sense.
If your spidey sense is saying, "The little shit is skipping school again," or "He's having an affair," or "I should call security to walk me to my car..."
PAY ATTENTION!
I could wax eloquent about how our culture downplays the role of female intuition as flaky and likely to land you a spot on a "Witches 'R Us" infomercial. I could cite statistics about who gets mugged and how they kinda knew they were being scoped before the fact. I could relay the latest email round of "Beware! Beware!" scare mail that snopes.com effectively debunks, but why?
Listen to me: listen to your belly. Don't worry what you might look like, who you might inconvenience, or who you might embarrass. Most of the time, when it all goes right, the only one at risk for all of the above is you.
If you ignore your belly, it could go very wrong.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
On The Fun Of Miscommunication
Kids are great at aural typos. Growing up in the Bronx, my friend Richard spent years thinking that an outrageously expensive item cost “a nominal egg.” (Say it out loud with a Bronx accent: you'll get it.) Emily once declared that her sister's "smelly button" was peeking out from under the edge of her shirt. For her part, on confronting a big splat of mashed potatoes on her plate, Kate declared with a sigh of despair that it was simply "too bunch," a pretty efficient hybrid of the concepts "too much" and a "whole bunch." I can't remember Mathias being prone to this, though. I guess growing up Third Child in a household with the "lose your breath, lose your turn" rule fully in force has a way of reinforcing the value of just pointing to what you want.
Just to be clear, kids don't have the market cornered on this behavior. I spent an hour one Sunday morning in profound confusion over the Reformed Presbyterian Church’s apparent endorsement of the practice of “exclusive sodomy.” Turns out they meant singing only psalms in corporate worship, a practice known as “exclusive psalmody.” Made for an interesting discussion group after the service, though.
Just to be clear, kids don't have the market cornered on this behavior. I spent an hour one Sunday morning in profound confusion over the Reformed Presbyterian Church’s apparent endorsement of the practice of “exclusive sodomy.” Turns out they meant singing only psalms in corporate worship, a practice known as “exclusive psalmody.” Made for an interesting discussion group after the service, though.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
On Industrial Design
I am a street-le
vel connoisseur of fine industrial design. The latest consumable to hit my A-list is our new double-walled stainless steel Bodum french press coffee maker. I tell you, a coffee pot that can't break and keeps the coffee hot in the container in which it was made is a good idea. When you add to that a properly placed handle that balances well in your hand when the pot is full of coffee... that becomes a great idea. But pile on top a spout that fires the coffee directly to the bulls-eye of what you were aiming for, with a spout length and angle that does not dribble all the way back to the kitchen? Freakin' brilliant. Is Bodum the Danish word for "apple"?
Also on my A-list: my KitchenAid mix-masher. And before you dash to the comment box to correct my typo, I do mean "masher." Kate decided it thus when, about 26 years ago, she watched me use one to make banana bread. It's quiet, powerful, well-balanced, and sized correctly for a woman's hand. It’s a pretty retro-robin's-egg-blue, and it doesn't have 39 speeds. It winds up to full speed gradually in your cookie batter so you don't get that explosion of flour in your face like you do with those 0-60 mph in one second brands. I'd buy a KitchenAid car if I could.
Of course, anywhere there's an A-list, there's a B-list. As follows:
1. Items ensconced in impenetrable plastic packaging. I once bought a pair of shears designed specifically to hack their way through that evil crap, but I couldn't get them out of the packaging so I threw them away.
2. Clothing labels that sneak up and bite you in the back of the neck just when you are too far down the road to turn around and pick a different sweater. First of all, they're sneaky and you don't notice them immediately. Secondly, some of the worst offenders are on clothes that parade themselves around in the "comfortable" section of Macy's. Sure, the blouse may be 1000-count pima Egyptian organic free-trade unscented biodegradable cotton, but that little label that reminds you how fat you are and that you're gonna pay $6 to get the thing dry-cleaned only? It's an amalgam of sand, poison oak, and scrap metal from the wreck of the Exxon Valdez.
What's on your A-list and B-list?
vel connoisseur of fine industrial design. The latest consumable to hit my A-list is our new double-walled stainless steel Bodum french press coffee maker. I tell you, a coffee pot that can't break and keeps the coffee hot in the container in which it was made is a good idea. When you add to that a properly placed handle that balances well in your hand when the pot is full of coffee... that becomes a great idea. But pile on top a spout that fires the coffee directly to the bulls-eye of what you were aiming for, with a spout length and angle that does not dribble all the way back to the kitchen? Freakin' brilliant. Is Bodum the Danish word for "apple"?Also on my A-list: my KitchenAid mix-masher. And before you dash to the comment box to correct my typo, I do mean "masher." Kate decided it thus when, about 26 years ago, she watched me use one to make banana bread. It's quiet, powerful, well-balanced, and sized correctly for a woman's hand. It’s a pretty retro-robin's-egg-blue, and it doesn't have 39 speeds. It winds up to full speed gradually in your cookie batter so you don't get that explosion of flour in your face like you do with those 0-60 mph in one second brands. I'd buy a KitchenAid car if I could.
Of course, anywhere there's an A-list, there's a B-list. As follows:
1. Items ensconced in impenetrable plastic packaging. I once bought a pair of shears designed specifically to hack their way through that evil crap, but I couldn't get them out of the packaging so I threw them away.
2. Clothing labels that sneak up and bite you in the back of the neck just when you are too far down the road to turn around and pick a different sweater. First of all, they're sneaky and you don't notice them immediately. Secondly, some of the worst offenders are on clothes that parade themselves around in the "comfortable" section of Macy's. Sure, the blouse may be 1000-count pima Egyptian organic free-trade unscented biodegradable cotton, but that little label that reminds you how fat you are and that you're gonna pay $6 to get the thing dry-cleaned only? It's an amalgam of sand, poison oak, and scrap metal from the wreck of the Exxon Valdez.
What's on your A-list and B-list?
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