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| Do You Read In The Bathtub?
October 3, 2009 at 12:30 pm
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| Among readers there is always one conversation that is quick to have people take sides - do you read in the bathtub? Once you say yes it then goes on to more questions - what do you read in the bathtub? Do you read magazines or books? Paperback or hardcover. Do you *gasp* read library books in the tub? Personally, I'm all about reading books while soaking in the bath. Preferably with a cold drink at hand. (The drink varies - sometimes it's water, gingerale or perhaps even a nice Chardonnay.) I've rung in a couple of New Year's Eves in the bathtub with a delightfully trashy romance novel, an ice-bucket with a bottle of wine in it and lots and lots of bubbles. I highly recommend it. It's much more relaxing than trying to find a cab at 1am. Before you ask, no I've never dropped a book in the tub. (I have dropped a glass of wine in the tub though, I just convinced myself that it was a spa treatment and poured myself another.) I have gotten a few drops on pages or the covers which is enough to make some bibliophiles gasp. That isn't to say that I don't have a few rules for bathtub reading. Sassymonkey's Rules for Bathtub Reading Rule #1: It doesn't matter it if it is paperback or hardcover but I must be able to hold it open with one hand. No Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. No Harry Potter books after Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This also rules out magazines. They are just too large to read in the tub and I think you are asking for trouble in the form of soggy pages if you try. Rule #2: No library books. I'm sure I've broken this rule a time or two (sometimes they are really, really good and it's hard to put them down). While I've never dropped a book in the tub I don't want to change it. Me and Murphy's Law have a longstanding relationship, which brings us to.... Rule #3: Don't read anything in the tub that you can't replace. That precious-to-you signed copy? No. That long out of print book? No. That copy of Pride and Prejudice that you stole from your grandmother's bookshelf? No. Rule #4: Don't bring anything into the tub that you think you are going to want to take notes on. Or add lots of post-it flags to. Balancing a book is risky enough, you don't to add paper, pens and post-its to that do you? No, I didn't think so. Rule #5: Keep a towel within easy reach. I know that seems obvious but there's a difference between a towel being within easy reach when are standing and getting out of the tub and when you are actually lying down in the tub. Ah ha! You see what I'm saying. Rule #6: This should go without saying but just in case...no iPhones, Kindles, Sony Readers or whatever electronic device you use to read e-books in the tub. Reading a physical book tempts fate enough. Step away from the electronics. Rule #7: All bathtub must be fun. That book you are forcing yourself to read for your bookclub or because your mother-in-law loaned it to you? Nope. Reading for class? No. Rule #8: Relax. If you are anxious about dropping the book in the tub just don't do it. The point of reading in the tub, for me at least, is that I get to relax and de-stress. If it stressed you out just don't do it. Now, I know that I'm not the only person who reads in that tub. I know that many, many of your do it. So I went on a hunt for tub reading stories. When I was Just a Kid lets us peek into people's childhoods. Author Nancy O'Dell admits that she used to read in the tub until the water was cold. Crystal blogs at Not My Steps and wonders where can a mother of seven read is she doesn't read in the bathtub. Reading in the bathtub during a tornado warning isn't quite what I have in mind when I think of bathtub reading but hey, if you have to hide in there anyway... But I think my favourite bathtub reading story I found was this one from rglawe at that Big Universe Blog. I can still remember that day in first grade, when Mrs. Anderson brought a bathtub into our classroom, filled with soft, red pillows and loads of easy readers. It was an old fashioned, white tub with claw feet – nothing like I had ever seen in our home. Still, I wonder where she found it and how she managed to bring it to school. What a fabulous treat it was to take a turn reading in the bathtub. Two at a time.
Raise your hand if you are jealous that you didn't have a bathtub full of cushions and books in your first grade classroom? *thrusts hand into the air* Do you read in the bathtub? Do you have rules for bathtub reading? |
| Penelope Trunk Says Miscarriage Tweet All Part of Having Asperger's Syndrome
October 3, 2009 at 11:42 am
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| On September 21, 2009, Penelope Trunk, a divorced mother of two, aka The Brazen Careerist, was sitting in a board meeting when she realized she was having a miscarriage. Penelope decided to tweet the workplace event. 
To hear Penelope explain it, she had no idea that people would take offense at her personal feelings about the miscarriage. That may sound unbelievable until you realize that Penelope has Asperger's Disorder, something she decided to share with her readers this week. People often tell me that I should write career advice for people with Asperger Syndrome. This is because I am surrounded by people who have Asperger's, and I have it myself. Please, do not tell me I don't have it. First of all, it looks very different in men and women, and most of you have experience with men. Second, I'm way more weird in person than I am on the blog. And surely you thought it was the other way around. So, anyway, the reason I'm good at giving career advice is because I had to learn things systematically, which helps me break it down for everyone else. Gail Hawkins is recognized as an international authority on helping "Aspies" enter the workforce. She founded the Hawkins Institute in Toronto, Canada in 1995, just one year after Asperger's Disorder became a "standardized diagnosis." With funding from the Canadian government, people who are diagnosed with Asperger's can participate in the Institute's three-year program that provides job counseling and placement. Hawkins says there is no similar service in the states. Hawkins has never met Penelope Trunk and until today, had never read her blog. However, in preparation for our interview, Hawkins said she read several entries and found it "very Asperger." In particular, Hawkins said Trunk's problem with food is very typical with women with Asperger's. Given a choice, I eat a Power Bar for every meal and snack, (two= a meal, one= a snack,) and I hate if the store is out of both peanut butter and vanilla. I don't like variety, even in Power Bars. Hawkins understands why many might be surprised that someone as successful as Penelope Trunk has Asperger's. "Asperger's is a spectrum disorder. Some people on the spectrum are closer to autistic behavior and others are high functioning," she explained. "It is not uncommon for someone with Asperger's to be a good writer with a sarcastic, dry sense of humor." What is it like to work with someone who has Asperger's? Hawkins says it's important to remember that people with Asperger's have individual personalities but they are hardwired in such a way that they miss social cues. "They operate in black and white. It's either all this way or that way. Yes or No. There's no room for maybes." Hawkins also says there are two extremes of Asperger's in the workplace. There's the person who misses all the information that typically floats through the ether in the workplace. As a result, unless someone tells them information directly, they miss all the stuff that is obvious to everyone else. Then there's the other type of person with Asperger's who inserts themselves in every conversation in the workplace, never understanding when they have said enough. "You'll rarely find someone with Asperger's in management, unless they are managing a team of computer types, because managing requires judgment in decision making and most people with Asperger's don't have that ability." Hawkins says most physicians who have Asperger's are surgeons or in research, and she says other careers where someone with Asperger's is likely to succeed include: actuaries, accountants, artists and musicians." As a writer/columnist/blogger, it is Trunk's ability to ignore social cues that makes her such an engaging writer. She says things that many of us think but would never dare to say. Our social filters won't allow us to go there. Without those filters, Trunk's writing has a freedom that many of us lack. So, to all of you who think the twitter was outrageous, think about this: Most miscarriages happen at work. Twenty-five percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Seventy-five percent of women who are of child-bearing age are working. Most miscarriages run their course over weeks. Even if you are someone who wanted the baby and are devastated by the loss, you're not going to sit in bed for weeks. You are going to pick up your life and get back to it, which includes going back to work. This means that there are thousands of miscarriages in progress, at work, on any given day. That we don't acknowledge this is absurd. That it is such a common occurrence and no one thinks it's okay to talk about is terrible for women. For more on working with people with Asperger's:
My Asperger's Child: Dealing with Asperger Employees:What Employers Need To Know
Aspie Teacher:WhyYou Need A Mentor At Work
Zikkir: Working with Asperger's Elana writes about business culture at FunnyBusiness |
| The Decision to Give Up an Adopted Child: An Adoptee's Take
October 3, 2009 at 8:09 am
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| Like many other people, I was mildly horrified at the thought of a woman who would take the responsibility of taking care of a child, and then when times got tough, abandon the child. But unlike many others, the first thought that didn't come to mind was "monster." Anita Tedaldi's husband was perfectly rational in his reluctance to have his wife tell their story to a high-profile television network and to have it posted on the Today website. He knew that while the family might have made the right decision for them, many who have not either faced the same situation would judge. And oh boy, we did. We judge because we are under the delusion that love conquers all, that if we love hard enough, it will quell all the harsh and difficult realities we face: What happens if we have a hard time bonding with a child? What happens when the child, who does not have the same ethno-cultural background as us, comes to us with questions we do not know how to answer? While I'm still not that comfortable with Tedaldi's decision, in the long run, she did that child a huge favor. As an adoptee, a black woman who was raised by a white family, I have been on the receiving end of bonding difficulties, of cultural confusion and the harsh reality that even though you might be legally bound to your family members, the fact that you are not their 'blood' makes a huge difference. First, I have to say that I love my parents. My parents, despite their confusion with my penchant for metal music culture, tattoos and my lack of desire to get married, love me. I have always been very opinionated and very fervent in my political beliefs and even though every time my dad and I get together we can talk about politics for hours and hours, there is a distance. I love spending time with my mom, and even though I am going to be 40 this year, I am still in awe about how much I love spending time getting to know her - not as "Mommy," which I still call her - but as a woman. A woman who adopted two black children before she was 30. A woman whom I believe, made a big mistake. They always went out of their way to make me and my older sister, who is biracial and was adopted a couple of years before me, their daughters. Despite having two boys of their own, and when I was ten, a little sister, they made us feel like we were their 'own.' But the distance was always there. I do not have a relationship with my extended family on either side. They never made me or my older sister feel like we were part of the family. When I was about eleven, my grandfather, my dad's father, called us 'savages.' When I was thirteen, an uncle told my parents that they should have never adopted me and that I was never to step into his house again. I never spoke to either of them again. My grandpa died about 15 years ago and I couldn't even cry at his funeral. I have another uncle whom I realized a couple of months ago, I had never even had a conversation with. He has never directly spoken to me. My parents never defended me. They never spoke up for me or my sister. They never considered the environment in which we grew up in, which was in a rural environment in Eastern Ontario, Canada with neighbors who hated us - partly because my parents had more money than they did, partly because my parents were not riddled with alcohol problems and were together, but also because they had two black kids. They never encouraged us to question or to fight back when we were called racial epithets, or school 'friends' who told us that their parents did not want me in their house, or when we couldn't be friends anymore, had things thrown at us / beaten up at school, racist teachers that dismissed me as 'slow' and encouraged my parents to put me in a Special Education class. I wasn't slow, but it took until I was in my twenties, applied and got accepted into University to prove them - and myself - otherwise. I also learned at a very early age - five, I believe - that my parents were incapable of helping me. That I had to learn how to defend myself. So no, love is not enough. You can love a child and bring a child into your home, but you have to realize your weaknesses. I believe that the Tedaldi's family thought that love was enough - they could get past the emotional incapability the child had by being abandoned on the side of the road, but they couldn't. They thought that there would be no resentment from their children from bringing a child into their home, a child from another culture, but it didn't happen. Again, I'm a grown-ass woman and I wonder if my older brothers, both whom I have had a good relationship with, resent me and my sister. Because I write about Race & Ethnicity for BlogHer, I'm going to riff on the race factor. I had a conversation with a lovely woman last weekend who is also a Trans-racial adoptee, and I admitted that while I genuinely love my parents, I did not think that white people should adopt non-white children. Because...... Love is not enough. We live in a society where as much as we would like to be deluded that it doesn't, race is a factor in our everyday interactions with people. I've had people on BlogHer try to tear me a 'new one,' try to tell me that I am racist because I will not hesitate in pointing this fact out to them. Besides, having somewhat supportive, eccentric and funny as hell parents, I have learned that while they love me...... They do not know me. Unless you have walked in a person's shoes, you cannot understand what happens to them when they walk out of your house every morning. Love is not going to ease the pain that your child feels because their parents do not look like them, and cannot understand them. Love, while yes, provides a good home, food on the table and an opportunity to discover things in life that had they not been adopted, most likely they would have never experienced, is not enough. My childhood is a contradiction. I remember playing with my eldest brother, who went out of his way to create games and stories to keep me and my other siblings occupied while my mom needed some time to herself. I remember the cross-country car trips across Canada we used to take as a family. I remember my grandmother teaching me how to bake bread and when she babysat us, and every afternoon we would have an English 'tea' like she used to have as a child growing up in London. I cherish those times, and I am lucky to have them. But the pain from my childhood is what I remember the most. Not because I want to, but because it has impacted the most vulnerable, emotional parts of my adult life. I feel alone, even though I have tons of cousins, nieces and nephews. My nieces and nephews look at me with their big blue and green eyes and their blond hair, treat me as though.... even though on paper I am supposed to be related to them, they know, and I know, that we are not. I do not trust people, I do not really love anyone. I cannot commit to even buying a carpet, for goodness sake, thinking that it will suddenly be taken away from me. Or even worse, it will abandon me. That, despite my guilt for writing this - why I cry while writing this - is why I think that even though we might judge the Tedaldi's decision, perhaps it was the right one for them. Life is not fair, especially for the sweet boy D, but also for his parents. And perhaps they learned that despite what society tells us, love isn't enough. |
| September Gardening: The Botany of Desire, Lawn Reform Coalition, Compost and more
October 3, 2009 at 8:06 am
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| An early fall Saturday is hopefully perfect for getting out the garden and getting some real work done, but we all need to return inside for a break or two. Spend this time checking out some the highlights from many of the gardening blogs: In The News:
Andrea Bellamy, from Heavy Petal, had a chance to preview the Michael Pollan Special that will be playing on PBS later this fall: The Botany of Desire. Subtitled "A Plant's Eye View of the World," The Botany of Desire is based on the best-selling Michael Pollan book of the same name. It examines the unique relationship between humans and plants, with the premise that plants use us for their purposes just as we use them. Linking our fundamental desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control with the plants that gratify them — the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato — The Botany of Desire shows that humans are intricately woven into the web of nature, not standing outside it, as so many of us like to believe.
 Susan Harris at Sustainable Gardening is one of the creators of the Lawn Reform Coalition. They are still looking for links to articles that support their basic practices of
- refraining from using synthetic fertilizers and feeding turf grasses with lawn clippings, clover and compost.
- refraining from using broad-spectrum insecticides and fungidices
- treating weeds by growing a thick healthy lawn and overseeding in the fall.
- allowing lawns to go dormant in the height of summer and winter instead of forcing growth through watering.
- mowing grass at a height of 3"- not shorter to cut down on weeds and maintain moisture in the soil.
- reduce the amount of lawn to only those places where their low growth, walkability, and toughness are required. In all other parts of a landscape, plant more sustainable plants.
At Away to Garden, Margaret shares tips for overwintering tender plants. I like her first tip best:
No two gardeners' potential places to stash such treasures will match in temperature or humidity, so when I say the basement works well here, your cellar might not. I have identified my best spots by experimenting, and by killing many things in the process. But every year I score another victory or two because I don't let failure stop me.
(Isn't all gardening like that?) But she's take you through, plant type or plant-by-plant to discuss how to try to save some of the tenuous wonders of your summer garden for next year. COMPOST:
I got a lot out reading Daisy's analysis of a summer of compost challenges. The woodier items in her compost did not break down well, but she's giving them more time -a whole nother year. But her main challenge: My main goal was to add in papers of many kinds - papers and cardboards that are food-tainted or otherwise unsuitable for recycling. Take pizza boxes, for example. The lids are usually contaminated with bits of pizza sauce and spices. Advice from the Interwebs said this: tear these lids in strips, soak them to further break down the fibers, and then bury them in the compost. The cardboard circles from the frozen Tombstone can go this route, too. Further experiments: the wrappers from butter/margarine sticks (hoping such small amounts of dairy won't cause a problem), waxy wrappers from orange dreamsicles, an occasional paper towel.
Coopette was also talking compost: of the worm kind. At a local workshop, she learned how to build her own, and shared the instructions for making your own worm composter (PDF download) from CAG Oxfordshire. In fact, anything stackable can be made into a DIY wormery. The bottom tray needs to have no holes in the bottom, so it collects the worm 'tea' that drains out. You can fit a tap if you want too, but you could also just tip the liquid out as and when necessary. The upper trays need to have holes drilled into the bottom so that liquid drains down and the worms can move through the trays.
And at Garden Rant, there is a guest rant by Roy Mastronauro entitled: Make Compost, Not Garbage where he explains that the landfill is just a stinkier, less efficient form of composting. And we should have as little to do with adding items to the landfill as possible: You like dirt, you keep your eyes out for sales on soil amendments. Once in a while, you might buy a bag of it. Meanwhile, you're trying to figure out the best way to deal with your leaves this fall, all those weeds you pulled. "They've got seed heads," you say. If your damned garden was so precious, you wouldn't have let the thing go to seed in the first place, would you? Compost the stuff, give your plants the nutrients, and let them crowd out the weeds.
And other news: Stuart Robinson pointed out that the 2009 Blotanical Awards are up and you can vote on them. Judging will be held from 1500 blogs in categories such as Best Garden Blog, and Blog You'd Most Like an Invite From. Nickie at Girl Gone Gardening wonders if there my be a silver lining in the dry summer she's had: Oddly enough, the lack of rain has been joined with a lack of squash bugs. I did not see a SINGLE squash bug this year when normally there are overwhelming numbers of them. I wonder if the lack of rain this year has anything to do with that or if there happens to be another explanation floating around. But anyway, I wish the rain would hold off so I could get some dirt hauled, spinach planted, mulch lain down, and strawberries dug up and shipped out.
At All The Dirt on Gardening, Molly Day discusses the Monarch butterfly caterpillars in her garden. Debra Roby blogs her creative life at A Stitch in Time and her journey to fitness at Weight for Deb. |
| Food: Ten Healthy Fun Ideas for October
October 3, 2009 at 8:00 am
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| Only 83 more days until Christmas but only 28 more days to revel in the autumn joy that is October. So let's get on with it, shall we? I've got 10 ideas for making the most of October in fun or frugal or inventive or some times silly ways. The world is our oyster pumpkin! Fried Green Tomatoes! Watch the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, then cook some! Answer the question, Why do we eat green tomatoes in the fall and not in the summer? (Hint: the answer has something to do with the seasons. Not sure? The secret answer is at the bottom of this post.) Cook Something Outdoors Okay, on a grill if need be but maybe a grill at a nearby park, or a state park. The point is, get out of the living room, get out of the house, get out of the neighborhood, get out of the city, GET OUT. Build a little fire, lighter fluid is allowed but if you have a magnifying glass on a sunny day, it does wonders. (We pack one in our outdoor cooking toolbox, for all the times we forget to bring along matches.) S'mores? That counts! Via Who's heard about the new single-serving coffees from Starbucks? It's a buck a pop so 1000 times more expensive than home-brewed but 1/3 the cost of a latte. It's worth one expresso shot, just to see. Celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving Does your sister-in-law insist on Thanksgiving at her house every year? That means SHE gets all the leftovers and we all know that the leftovers are the best part of Thanksgiving. Instead, celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, October 12 -- but wait, don't hesitate to push it back a day or two to the weekend, many Canadians do too. Michael Pollan for Kids Begin a conversation inside your own family about the pressing food issues of today. You might even pick up a copy of Michael Pollan's new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids: Secrets Behind What You Eat. Then visit the grocery store to survey the perimeter for 'whole foods' like fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy. Then check out the inside aisles to show how many foods are processed. Try to find whole foods in the inside aisles, like bins of oatmeal, frozen vegetables. How do we tell the difference between a 'whole food' and a processed food product? Fruits & Vegetables are COOL Yes, they are! But in the U.S., beginning a year ago now, fruits and vegetables and some other foods are subject to COOL (Country of Origin Labels) legislation. So while you're at the grocery with the kids, or even on your own, check the produce aisle. Strawberries are long out of season in the U.S., where do the ones at the grocery store come from? What about the winter squash? Pumpkin Seeds What to do with the seeds from your Halloween pumpkin? Make toasted pumpkin seeds, of course! I love the three ways to toast pumpkin seeds from Heidi Swanson at 101 Cookbooks. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Oh I used to love this movie! Maybe you'll need a little treat to nibble on while watching? Maybe Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, say, or Pumpkin Ice Cream. But It's Still Apple Season, Too Have you ever made a homemade apple pie? Practice up now, before Thanksgiving and then you'll be a superstar. I also love the idea of these Apple Chips. Pick a Cupboard, Any Cupboard Okay this one is less than fun but you'll just FEEL so much better. Empty a cupboard, clean it, then put back ONLY what you've used in the last year. Haven't used it? Good Will, the basement or hold a cupboard swap with a few neighbors. And you?
And you, what's your favorite fun and healthy food activity this month? Leave an idea, a recipe or a link to a recipe in the comments! More Ideas?
Food: Ten Healthy Fun Ideas for July
Food: Ten Healthy Fun Ideas for August
Food: Ten Healthy Fun Ideas for September Oh right. Why do we eat green tomatoes in the fall and not the summer?
Upripe tomatoes are collected just before or just after the first freeze, when they have a particular sweetness and -- more than that -- we don't want them to go to waste. So Fried Green Tomatoes are a late-in-the-season specialty, not a first-of-the-season treat. So there! This October, just like last October, BlogHer food editor Alanna Kellogg is addicted to Apple Butter made with apple cider (no sugar!) and cooked for a long, loooooong time. | | | 
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