The Little Words Mean the Most

There was a burn

11 PM. Steady snow. Perfect. Two tall piles of cut brush await. All that remains this AM...

Your nose, in quotes

i drape my work area in quotes. Inspiring things my clients have said. Good advice from the psychologically sound. Micro pep talks. change the quotes often. go to my grave guided by them. Quotes are perfect for the human condition. We live in fear. We'd prefer to be happy. Quotes help.

must be defeating my amgydala (the so-called "lizard brain," the earliest dollop of a brain stem) in hand-to-hand combat. Quotes help reduce the fuzzy-headed complications of the ad hoc, uncontrollable, messy business we call "living in the modern world" ... to something like a formula.

Balancing ax

Sometimes the best life lessons come in the smallest of time packages. Laura (wrote those books about the prairie)'s sister, Maria (the one in West Side Story), and I were talking about our New Year's weight loss and physical improvement plans. Maria said that balancing on one leg was amazingly healthful, something we'd both experienced in yoga class. She also gave me an easy way to think about doing it: "Do it while you brush your teeth." I have an electric toothbrush with a 2-minute timer. For one minute, I stand on one leg. Then I switch. It's easy. And I enjoy the feeling! I suspect I have a stork in my genome.

Snow approaches

The forecast is snow tomorrow, the next day, the day after that. Which means I burn brush safely. Wearing winter gear: thermals, lined boots, such. Drinking dark beer thrust into snow banks: tonight's entrant, Toxic Sludge, a "black" IPA from Blue Point Brewing (located on Ponce Island, NY). Ignore the scary label. Enjoy.

How to properly eat a kiwi

And, when I say "properly" I mean wearing a tuxedo (male) or a gown (occasionally male) and using a SPOON to scoop out the meat.

Here's what I learned last year in New Zealand, exporter of the fruit: you do NOT peel a kiwi. Peeling leaves you with a mutilated, slimy mass on your hands (literally). Instead, you do what New Zealanders do: you cut a ripe kiwi in half and spoon out the guts. There's far less waste. And you don't get the slime on your fingers, so there's no mess, either.

Where did Americans get the idea that kiwis require peeling? Anyhoo, I was checking out at my local supermarket. The cashier and I got talking about clementines, which are finally arriving at the big US stores ripe and juicy. From somewhere. Spain. Mars.

She told me that she puts clementines out in a bowl on her counter for her granddaughters, ages 2 and 4, to freely take. "It's the first thing they see for a snack." And they love them, because they can peel the clemmies easily, without adult intervention. Empowering?

The woman also puts out kiwis for her grandkids. I asked her, "Who peels the kiwis?" Since there are knives involved, she does. I mentioned (we were into eye contact by that point), "That's not how the natives actually eat them."

And there, in Danielson, CT, I told her what I'd learned in New Zealand in 2010: you don't peel kiwis; you scoop them out, unpeeled. She was delighted: peeling a kiwi is annoying and sloppy. Another lousy job repealed.

Final geek fact: the kiwi fruit is not native to New Zealand. The fruit was imported from Asia. Yet New Zealanders ARE adoringly called kiwis ... for the flightless bird. While I was in Chicago with the Joyaux daughters, 7-year-old Julie Poolie and I invented a song. It goes like this: "The [some extinct species goes here] is the best flightless bird in the world. Yes, it is. Yes, it is." It's like a pirate song. Only nice, no harm meant.

Mistress Anne

Somewhere there is a team of scientists headed to Paul and Anne's house, to study the most delightful (yet real) kids in America: twins Max and Julie Poolie, Lily Monique, and first born Madeleine. Anne left her good job at a big ad firm to raise the family. And she has produced a work of art. Anne delivered a stern "gather round, you bunch" speech to her kids AND me (I'm so proud) before we all trooped off to eat dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. "Now, listen. That includes you, Tom. I don't want any of you acting like dopes tonight." The truth was, the kids ended up better behaved then the adults, after a few rounds of champagne and wine.

What the museum had to say

SocMed2

Socialized medicine? I wish. Social media.

SocMed 1

The REAL Lord of the Rings

Simone found this handful of bead rings at the Art Institute of Chicago, rated one of the 10 best museum stores in the world.