Desperate Times...

The success of this post depends on you, loyal readers. In order to get anything out of it, these two things must be true of you:
1) you do not follow National Geographic on twitter (in which case you will already know most of the information in this post, with the exception of the personal info), and
2) you are not squeamish.

There is a famous bug chef. And he looks categorically insane. National Geographic interviewed him and wrote an article in order to promote the re-release of a book that he originally wrote in 1998.

Having nothing more compelling to take up space on my blog, and thinking that someday we might be reduced to eating bugs, I decided to share this information with you.

I actually nearly ordered the book. Until I remembered the recent conversation I had with my Aunt Sherry, who was visiting Northwest Indiana to see Smokey Robinson. I was singing the praises of Morningstar Farms "fakin' bacon," and she asked, "You mean you would rather eat chemicals than pork?"

Yep.

So I thought twice about ordering the bug-eating book. I barely made it to the end of the article.

The crazy-looking bug chef (he intentionally looks crazy! When your book is already crazy enough, why do that to yourself??) contends that because the beef industry uses an unsustainable amount of land and water and produces a disproportionate amount of global warming, eating bugs is the way to go.

Other intel from the bug chef:

• It is dangerous to just start harvesting bugs from your backyard, due to pesticides. Order instead, he says, from a commercial joint that raises bugs for sale (in that case, what's the point, really, but continuing...)
• When harvesting bugs (in a remote location due to the backyard prohibition), use a "1 in 5" rule: only take a bug if there are 5 more around. This way, you lessen your impact on the ecosystem that produces the bugs.
• He doesn't say this one, but he says it's what he does, so I'm telling you to ALWAYS, ALWAYS tell your guests if you are feeding them bugs. He says grinding them up is a good way to help people come to terms with eating bugs.

Some of the recipes mentioned included chex mix with crickets, and waxworm cookies.

I think that on my long journey back to being carnivorous, I am more likely to start with chickens than with grasshoppers.

That having been said, if I am traveling in Mexico and someone offers me chocolate chapulines on a stick, I would say "when in Rome," only because I've never eaten them before.

So I nearly put this crazy man's cookbook on my Amazon wish list. But I didn't. National Geographic hits us with a shameless self-hyperlink that I actually may have blogged about before, a long time ago, but maybe not.

I think I'll stick with the article for now. If you start asking me to add things to my Amazon wish list for Christmastime, then maybe I'll rethink that.

Yeah, probably not.

Bon apetit, loyal readers!

It's a Lonely, Lonely Planet

After lambasting (yes, I used that word, just a tiny bit incorrectly, but this is still why Tom Skilling should propose to me) Lonely Planet for their weird-but-thanks-for-the-publicity-anyway report on the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, I later tweeted how happy I was that I had ridden on one of Lonely Planet's top 5 epic train journeys, the California Zephyr.

My lambasting is here.
Lonely Planet's story on the Springs Preserve is here.
The California Zephyr route is here.

Mere hours after that tweet, I was disappointed to find that I have stayed at ZERO of Lonely Planet's top 10 world airports. I had been confident that O'Hare would be on the list, but it wasn't. The airports are mostly in Asia, which is one of the four continents that I have yet to visit.

I have only been to one of their top 10 European train stations, too. I am disappointed that Barcelona Sants did not show up. The extremely expensive hotel there is where I stayed in the wake of September 11, 2001. Madrid Atocha didn't make the list, either. Neither did Zoo Station, and come on, when an entire U2 album is named after a train station, that station does deserve a mention.

This is why I should write for Lonely Planet. I judge them harshly now, but if they hired me, I wouldn't. Although...Oakland? OK, maybe not.

Admittedly, I am a collector of places (and things, but I'll talk more about things later in the summer). I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, although it's not advisable to compare your place-count (or your thing count) to that of other people, because we all have our own unique styles and experiences.

Top 10 lists, "best of" articles, and "1,000 things to do before you die" books are interesting because they are someone else's idea of what has value, and it is worthwhile for me to see whether I agree with the writers. It's fun to complain when I don't, and even more fun to congratulate myself when I do. More than that, however, they are motivational. For example, I have enjoyed both Venice Beach and the Mediterranean coast in southern France. If neither of them are on the list but the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare made it, exactly how amazing are those cliffs? And I resolve that one day, I will see them for myself.

Since I've only had five of Lonely Planet's 40 Amazing Experiences in Europe (requires a PDF download), I decided to turn my attention to National Geographic's "The World's Most Beautiful Places."

There are 100 of them on the list. I have been to 15, but two don't count, because they are the Mojave Desert and the Midwestern Plains. So, I have been to 13. The way I figure it, I have just a little more than half my life left. I should get to steppin'.

And I can.

Because check out what I took yesterday.

That's my INDEX finger, you cynics! 

And that, my lovely readers, is also The Chain. We have come a long way. Next stop (well, there may be some before then, but a stop that's coming soon): the Wigwams on route 66 in Holbrook. Watch for updates. xoxo

Oh, for the love...

Pictured below is the day's take:

Are you kidding me? The text is centered again? I should re-name my blog a 2nd time and call it "Centered Text." Anyway, as you can see it wasn't much, but it was honestly more than I expected. I ate only the Ferro Rocher (or whatever) and disposed of the rest, ever mindful of the Legend of the Poison Cupcake.

VD (yeah, I said it again) is a good day to examine the fourth chapter of National Geographic's brain special, "The Emotional Brain." This is the final chapter I will cover. The 5th chapter, "The Aging Brain" is not something that interests me, as I already know that our brains start preparing for death as soon as they reach maturity around the age of 24. Borrowed time, indeed. So, back to the emotions. 

There are only six, according to the scientists quoted in the booklet. They are fear, anger, sadness, joy, surprise, and disgust. An interesting factoid is that humans have what is called an "impact bias" by which we imagine events happening and predict that our reactions will be far more intense and long-lasting than they really are. The booklet also says that we humans underestimate our own resilience. 

On the joy front, 60% of people's predisposition toward joy is genetic (nature). The rest is born of our experiences (nurture). Things that increase happiness include: strong ties to family and friends. Charitable actions. Here's one of Miss Gokey's favorite quotables, verified in...well, blue and yellow text: EXPERIENCES MAKE US HAPPIER THAN POSSESSIONS DO. 

Miss Gokey always uses this as an excuse to take a trip instead of buying furniture, and I totally agree. Finally, older people tend to be more satisfied with their lives than younger people. 

Despite all of these happy facts, the brain, says Nat Geo, has a definite negativity bias. This is apparently evolutionary. We still feel a primal need to protect our family from a looming woolly mammoth. 

The booklet does go into love, but mostly lists the chemicals and brain regions it affects. Nothing good for your VD reading. So, that, over the course of several weeks, has been your brain. Enjoy it while you can, before a zombie comes to make it her/his lunch. 

I have a load of laundry to finish and new episode of Supernatural to enjoy. Although there is a piece of mail I keep waiting for that refuses to arrive (I called to check this afternoon, and it's going to be another two weeks yet), I did get something good in the mail today. If you don't know what it is, you just haven't been paying attention. 

Hopefully my Granny got something good in the mail today, too, from me. Today is her birthday, may it be a fun, productive, and memorable one filled with the kind of joy that lights up both sides of the brain. 

Achievement and Success

I was driving in to work today and I had a fleeting thought, which I've forgotten now, but some words that someone said to me came back to me in a flash and I thought about tweeting or posting on facebook, "What if some words you said to me were the most important words I ever heard, and you never even knew it?"

Yes, I know it's Friday night. I have NOT been drinking. In fact, I got a late start on the evening but am trying very hard to accomplish some things, and I think I've been succeeding, but we'll see. 

I skipped posting last night because I finally read the "Unconscious Brain" chapter of the National Geographic special, and after some lame excuse about how there is "difficulty...making black-and-white distinctions about states of the brain," the chapter covered Alien Hand Syndrome and drugs, then dedicated four whole spreads to sleeping and dreaming. Needless to say, immediately after finishing it, I fell asleep. I dreamed that Jodi and I were at a Denny's sharing a platter of pickle spears and some limp grilled cheese sandwiches. This is not the first time in recent memory that I have dreamed this. (The chapter informs us, by the way, that people who are actually hungry rarely dream of food or eating, and people who are thirsty don't dream of drinking.)

The most interesting part of the chapter was about intention and action. Apparently, if you research a political figure that you don't like and give a speech from their perspective, you will like them better afterwards. You will also TELL YOURSELF you didn't really mind them in the first place. The authors use this example to show that our brains will often act without processing first. Then, after the fact, our reasoning will think of ways to justify our actions by modifying our memories to make us think we intended all along to do the thing we have just done. Good job, brains. Good job. 

Today is an exciting day because we get to FLIP our calendar page in our Disaster Preparedness Calendar. We are supposed to buy one more can of meat, baby food if we have babies, and aspirin. Check, N/A and check!

Today is also an exciting day because I'm going to end this post by sharing images of the Chain. 

Please allow me to direct your attention to the location of the electrical outlet as compared to the end of the chain! Honestly, not that much time has passed, but those links disappear quite quickly!

In conclusion, I leave you with this week's winning chain links. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the magazine...

I misspoke and said the subject of the most recent chapter in the National Geographic special on our brains would be, "the subconscious mind," but it is not. It's "the unconscious mind," and so I haven't read it yet. The subconscious interests me much more than the unconscious. We all know that we can breathe and digest food without thinking about it. Let us take a moment to be extremely grateful for that fact.

A while ago, a Pinterest board called "infectious" invited me to pin to it due to my "Apocalypse" board. You can check out "infectious" here if you are on pinterest and into The Walking Dead and all that good stuff. There are some nice Zombie Valentine jokes and such.

Speaking of zombies.

Today in hour 6, I noticed an off-task student with a graphic novel in hand. He's an "A" student, and the graphic novel was Max Brooks's Recorded Attacks. Needless to say, I immediately swiped the book under the guise of confiscation to check it out and blog it in lieu of the brain special. In this way, the student was able to actually label about five of Europe's 49 or 50 countries. (When he fell to being a "D" student is difficult to say...)

Recorded Attacks maps and gives a graphic (by which I mean cartoon, not bloody) history of zombie infestation from the beginning of human time. The graphic depiction includes delicious MAPS and tidbits of actual history like Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, etc. After flipping through it, I approached my student and said to him, "Now explain to me how you are able to differentiate reality from fiction in your brain." There is only one word to describe his response. He stammered. "Uhhh...mmm...uhmm..."

From one row over and three seats behind him, one of the other two "A" students in the class piped up, "Hey! That's *my* book!" So I snatched it from D and waggled it in front of A (yes, he had >30 countries labeled at that point) and asked him the same question. He answered easily, "There's no such thing as zombies." I pointed out to A all of the savory geography/history bits in the book and then asked him a follow up question: "How can you be sure when you hand this book to a classmate that the classmate is able to keep reality separated from fiction in their head?" He answered easily, "I can't."

I informed him that if anyone included zombies in their upcoming narratives of the Roman Empire, I would seek him out and make him accountable for the error. He agreed and was happy to have the novel back. This may not be the most appropriate use of my class time, but it's kind of how I get things done.

And now the answer to the burning question that's on everyone's mind:
What happens when you pour vinegar into your ears?
Well, at first it's unpleasant. Then dizzying. Then, there is little to no effect. I am in fact supposed to be at a middle school basketball game right now, but I felt the need to pour more vinegar into my ears and relax in front of my replacement show for The Walking Dead season 2, which turns out to be Supernatural season 8.

Onward to the tea tree oil. I will avoid antibiotics yet!

The Unconscious Brain is coming soon, or perhaps a little story about How to Discipline a Gum-Chewer, My Version.

In the meantime, if you are still preparing for disaster, you're supposed to buy another can of meat/veggie soup, and some sunscreen.

Umami

Umami is a beefy flavor (which is of little interest to me), according to Chapter 2 of our National Geographic Special, Your Brain: A User's Guide. It is the fifth basic taste that has been added to sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

Chapter 2 is about perception, or the five senses. Aside from (or perhaps because of) umami, I kind of think National Geographic is making stuff up now. Is there really, for example, a "gustatory cortex?" I am certainly not going to claim that something does NOT exist just because I haven't heard of it. However, if I the reader am unlikely to have heard of it, the least the booklet could have done is link it to another cortex of which I have already heard.

Speaking of hearing, I am tuned in to the hydration station today because I have self-diagnosed an adult ear infection thanks to the absolute bombardment of my otherwise-iron immune system by stealthy tweenage germs during exam week. This is embarrassing because ear infections are for children.
:(
I am also surfing the "temporary avoidance of antibiotics" wave. According to Where There is no Doctor, earaches can be taken care of with water and vinegar. I'll let you all know how that goes. (Yes, I know. There *are* doctors here in Las Vegas, and good ones. I don't know where this hatred of visiting doctors comes from, but I feel like it's culturally appropriate. It may not be the doctor visit itself that I dread, but the waiting-room accouterments of hacking fellow patients and small wailing children.)

Chapter 2 also dedicates an entire little sidebar to synesthesia, otherwise known as, "I can see the music" syndrome, or seeing music as color. This reminds me of 1960s Grateful Dead followers, and although studies have shown that it does exist, I suspect that there may be something else going on besides just innocently listening to music. Be that as it may.

Late to the party, I only finished season 2 of The Walking Dead just last night. True to the mores of our time, during which many of us watch entire seasons of tv in just a few sittings, I am devastated that I will now have to find a new show with which to fill my time until season 3 pops up as available on netflix.

As to the activities to keep up with according to our 2013 disaster preparedness calendar, last Friday we were to have purchased an additional gallon of water, and a can of fruit. For our planning, we were to identify and discuss what kinds of disasters are most likely to occur and how they will affect our families and property.

Thursday: "The Subconscious Brain," your Friday shopping list, and a review of the vinegar technique. (If it doesn't work I'm going to try tea tree oil and if THAT doesn't work...)

In the meantime, I am doing a self-help thing. That's not like me, and it's rather embarrassing. I'll tell you all about it in the springtime, probably in May.

Happy healing!

Getting to Know Your Machinery,

it's still Christmas, and a Vocabulary Quiz!

Ready?

You know about my magazine problem. Well, my most recent guilty pleasure is the National Geographic special, Your Brain: A User's Guide. You may keep your comments to yourself right now, and thank me later. As for my own machine, I know it pretty well. I even have images of it to share with you so that you can see the inner workings of your second-favorite blogger.

 I made it through Chapter 1 of the User's Guide, "The Learning Brain." I really did. All I'm going to pass on to you is from one little sidebar, but if you want me to talk at you about axons and dendrites, I'd be more than happy to oblige. In the meantime, here are the tips the guide proposes for how to learn more efficiently:

- learn a new language
- listen to classical music
- do puzzles
- eat healthy foods (hold, please, the pizza man is here!)
- walk, jog, or cycle to keep that heart pumping blood up to your brain on a healthy basis

There you have it. The other interesting thing that I learned is that we are more intelligent today than we have been in the past because the world we live in is, get this..."more interesting" than the world of the past. Hmm.

On the Christmas front, I'd like to share an image of a truly heartfelt, thoughtful gift that I received from Amanda:

This, my loyal readers, is The Chain. Each link represents a day remaining in the school year. Certain links are emblazoned with inspirational words, which I have been hanging on my fridge:

I plan to liberally re-post my original image of the chain so that y'all can see the school year winding down, like I do. This time tomorrow, it will be exactly half over. It's simultaneously easy to believe, and hard to believe.

Now for the vocab. You may have noticed that this blog is not-quite-bicoastal. It is composed in Nevada and Indiana. I suppose that makes me a Battle-Born Hoosier. Is there a word for not-quite-bicoastal? Biregional? Bibiomal? Bistatial? Hmm.

This post has been about more than one thing. It may have been better to have broken it into two posts, but I treat my blog fodder like I treat my brain, with a use-it-or-lose-it attitude.

How can we pass along the cheer of the paper chain, before it gets lost in the grind?

Chars

Far be it from me to steal thunder from Don Belt and Jonas Bendiksen's article in National Geographic, but that's what I'm about to do. While searching in vain for some writing-prompt-fodder, I happened upon their story and my jaw dropped.

It's about...

Bangladesh.

I sent the article to the literacy specialist to have her figure out the FK/Lexile/whatever-we're-calling-it-these-days, but the end of the population unit passed before I received any feedback. Therefore, instead of having my students read and mark it for themselves, I verbally paraphrased/summarized it for them, and they were...quiet. I might even say rapt. A teacher's genuine amazement can sometimes do that to children.

Here's a summary of the summary I told the kids, generously peppered with large quoted chunks from the story.

The population of Bangladesh continues to grow, but "climate change (if you believe that sort of thing)" is causing the level of the ocean to eat the coastline. In the meantime, the country's three main rivers are constantly flooding, so, in an

ADAPT OR DIE

mentality, "hundreds of thousands" of people have become char dwellers. A char is a temporary island in the middle of a river. The river floods, and an island (char) appears. When the river floods again, the island disappears and another one pops up downstream. So...all of the people who live on char 1 pack up and haul  themselves to char 2. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Here's a quote:
"Ibrahim Khalilullah has lost track of how many times he's moved. 'Thirty? Forty?' he asks. 'Does it matter?' Actually those figures might be a bit low, as he estimates he's moved about once a year his whole life, and he's now over 60. Somehow, between all that moving, he and his wife raised seven children who 'never missed a meal,' he says proudly."
Abe's house is made of sections that can be disassembled and rebuilt in mere hours, and he always keeps the suitcases and legal documents within arms' reach.

He says: "We're all under pressure, but there's really no point to worry. This is our only option, to move from place to place to place. We farm this land for as long as we can, and then the river washes it away. No matter how much we worry, the ending is always the same."

Other news from Bangladesh: they have implemented a fairly successful grassroots family-planning program, and they have an intentional brain-drain because their main goal is to combat overpopulation by getting people out. The story ends when Bangladesh is compared to a little boy who fell asleep on a median in crazy urban traffic there.

Adapt or die.

This painfully heartwarming and inspirational tale of...well, real-life perennial disaster, can be found here.

In the meantime, since it may be my last chance ever to help my electors choose a president, I figured I would go and vote tonight. Here's proof:

Dear society, 

Take that. 
Love, 

One of the kids who falls asleep on medians. 

Can We Talk About the Weather?

Using NLV and Las Vegas's brilliant network of surface roads, I was able to meet up with Krista tonight, because apparently we are planning a trip together! I refuse to tell you anything about it until it happens (unless you already know about it), because it will be really good blog fodder and I want your anticipation to build all the way up through Thanksgiving. I bring this up because at the end of our visit/planning session, we discussed how late our blogs have been posting recently.

On my way home, I stopped at my trusty CVS for provisions and hair dye. They were out of my preferred color, "spiced truffle." They have apparently dropped the truffles in favor of the pralines. I hate fashion. I have met the pralines before. I have a special word for praline. I call it, "orange." Therefore, I'll keep this post short because I have an appointment with something called "medium golden mahogany brown." Seriously!?!? A.k.a. "chocolate carmel." Post-apocalypse I shall use my handy teacher scissors to cut off my hair myself and let my natural gray do its thang with reckless abandon.

Whist trolling the aisles at the CVS, a day late and a dollar short I came upon the September issue of National Geographic. Cover: "What's Up With the Weather?" Photo: Huge tornado that Tom Skilling would call, "ominous."

Apparently, there were 14 extreme weather events in the United States last year, more than there have ever been. Each cost at least a billion dollars in damage, and worldwide the cost of weather-related disasters totaled more than $150 billion.

Signs and omens, kids, signs and omens.

Other news from above-the-fold: avoid armadillos. Apparently they cause leprosy.

I have been put in charge of finding a writing prompt for next week's departmental assessment. There's a video. I used to have a nifty youtube downloader tool, but I no longer have that. You can see the video here, but the children can't. The poor, poor children will have to...ugh!...read. Most students agree that maps will go the way of the dinosaurs. Most students don't believe in the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

To their credit.

We're going to ask them to write about it.

I hope that they do a good job. Wish us luck.

A Little Help From My Friends

A few weeks back, Ms. Tye sent Miss Gokey a text message informing me about a series called Doomsday Preppers that she thought I would be interested in watching. Here's something you either know, because you live with and/or in close proximity (within 30 miles) of me, or you never would have guessed because my posts are of the couch-potato variety:

***I don't have TV.***

I have Netflix and the internet, and that is all that I will ever need for the remainder of my life. Gosh, I hope both of these things survive the destruction of the Grid. (Hahaha.) The Doomsday Preppers website is a goldmine of fascinating stories about people who are succeeding far more handily than I am at preparing for  various disaster scenarios. You can find out which disasters are trending on the website, as well.  At the time of writing, pandemic is the favorite, although personally I hold with the 15%. You can watch video clips from various episodes, etc. What a wonderful feast for our eyeballs! Many thanks to Tye and Gokey.

In other (but similar) news, I was happy yesterday when Jodi announced that Anderson Cooper was doing a show on how to survive the end of the world.

Seeing as ***I don't have TV,*** I had to do some digging in the webospheres to find any information about the show, but my mad googling skills eventually landed me here. Oddly enough, he interviews cast members for...Doomsday Preppers! It's a small world after all.

As you can see, Anderson starts out in a mobile earthquake shack. Sadly, you can only buy a mobile earthquake shack if you are a government agency or part of some other special organization. However, it seems to me like you can hire people to fasten all your stuff down so that it can survive intact in an 8.0.

To sum up the remainder of what I was able to gather from the website, you should just go here, to the American Red Cross website, which will give you information that you already know from your real (if you're Miss Gokey) or vicarious REI classes: Prepare an emergency kit. Have food and medications on hand so that you can get by for a while (Red Cross suggests two weeks, others including James Wesley Rawles prefer much longer) without outside help. Know what disasters are likely to occur where you live.
Make and practice a disaster plan, and my personal favorite: take a class!

I resolve to count my blessings. I thought, "How splendid would it be to get my 8th grade Explorations class trained at CPR?" My own CPR certification was *FREE* from the School of Which We Shall Not Speak. The school nurse just threw a dummy down onto the floor and the next thing you know, I had a little card. (I want to challenge my current school nurse to do the same.) Once a quarter, I was able to leave my co-taught class to practice my CPR skills on a dummy in a drill! Yeah, the class costs $90 IRL. Boo!
But there are plenty of PDFs to laminate and other free resources through the Red Cross website.

As I leave you to enjoy the best night of the week as I watch Ken Burns and knit, I recommend that you take a minute to watch Anderson don his chemical and biological weapon suit, a less potato-chip-baggy version of which was featured in Phase 7, which I mentioned earlier this week.

Here's the link: http://backstage.andersoncooper.com/post/18094282206/chemical-biological-warfare-training-suit

Oooh! I almost forgot! There's also a GIVEAWAY! Good luck!

And many thanks to my friends (including Na'he for the flintknapping...coming soooon!) for the tips and recommendations! Keep 'em coming. >:+D

All and Sundry

More for my fellow couch potatoes/global thinkers, with a shout-out for my cancer activists and campers, and the moment everyone's been waiting for: to see if I've thrown my knitting needles out the window. Haha.

First of all, in case you have not already clicked the link on facebook, National Geographic Education has an interesting post on their My Wonderful World blog about mental maps. Knowing that maps can deliver political messages can help us navigate (#1 on our Ten Essentials, remember) and can inform us about how the rest of the world thinks.

As you know, Americans are the ones freaking out about the end of the calendar this year. Maya themselves are not all that concerned about it. Other cultures have cast their lots, however, and gleaned their profits from the post-apocalypse marketplace. 

Netflix recommended the BBC series Survivors to me, and I enjoyed watching it. As fond as we Yankees are of our beloved conspiracies, this show goes above and beyond with the "it-was-an-inside-job" hypothesis. That's part of its charm. With endearing characters and a short first two seasons, I would definitely recommend it if you have to spend time laid up on your couch with a flu bug of your own. 

In fact, the flu bug seems to be the foreign market's favorite scenario for triggering the end of the world. Amanda was out of town for the weekend, and you know what that means: it's horror movie time! My horror movie choices this year, however, are affected by my desire to soak up as much hysteria as I possibly can. It is in that spirit that I chose an Argentine film called Phase 7 to keep me occupied on Friday evening. Coco and Pipi (who is pregnant) have been locked into their quarantined apartment with their neighbors. 

I appreciate this film because it's funny. More funny than scary. But interesting. One of the neighbors is himself a conspiracy theorist. There are bullets and cuss words and there is blood. There are also badly-translated subtitles and surprising plot twists. Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. Due to the subtitles, however, it is not a good idea to continue to try to knit while watching Phase 7.

Knitting is more of a Happy Thank You More Please activity.

On Saturday, I suffered an unfortunate total meltdown which ended with my tent being thrown in the trash. Last May, my tent was part of the shelter plan for my (turned around) high school Key Club's Relay for Life event. In the chaos of taking down the shelters, two rain flies got switched so that this weekend, when Miss Gokey and I made a (somewhat) valiant attempt to set it up at Lake Mead NRA, the rain fly in my tent bag was 1/3 the size of the tent. In my haste to disassemble everything and abort the camping mission, I ripped the (admittedly probably partially dry-rotted) tent in at least three places. I proceeded to act like an infant for at least 15 miles after that.

I swore off watching horror movies for the remainder of the weekend. If you don't like indie-film-style EXTREME close-ups during pretentious dialogue, the painfully heartwarming Happy Thank You More Please will not be for you. I award it a Netflix three-star for "I liked it."

Here is my Happy Thank You More Please progress on my practice somethingorother:

It's not pretty, but whatever it ends up being is going to keep me warm, whilst people who have no experience with knitting needles are going to have to either freeze, or find a store that carries cozy things to loot. Just sayin'. On that optimistic note, I bid you adieu until Thursday, when hopefully a more focused post will appear. 

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

This title, made famous by several characters on the Simpsons through the years, indicates that this post is dedicated to those readers of mine who are parents.

I'm not a parent myself, but as a teacher I have long been a reader and fan of juvenile fiction, as you know because I frequently link to HydroJen's Book Envy blog. The books that Jen reviews are for teenagers, as is the one that I'll talk about later. But first, in honor of my friend Beth's facebook posting asking for reading ideas that are appropriate for a younger audience...I would like to introduce you to Lauren Tarshis. This author writes a book series called, "I Survived..." [insert famous historical event like the Shark Attacks of 1916, the Sinking of the Titanic 1912, and the San Francisco Earthquake 1906, where I inserted the elipses.]

Conveniently, I have bracketed the three books that I personally read. My grown-up self is able to get through an entire Lauren Tarshis historical adventure novel in about half an hour. So far, in these three books, the hero characters have all been boys. (Hmm. That may decrease the interest factor for my friend Beth.) In fact, it rather struck me that in the Earthquake book, there were no women at all in the story.

In each of the books, the hero finds himself in the middle of a major historical event that ended some lives, but the hero comes out okay. What I enjoy about the books is the detail they include, and the fact that the hero holds on when he is close to losing hope, thanks to memories of loved ones and the encouragement offered by family.

The lexile score for the Lauren Tarshis books is about 610, marketed to ages 7-11. The lexile score for Empty by Suzanne Weyn is 790. The website suggests it for readers ages 12 to 100!

The concept behind Empty, which I mentioned in my The Walls Came Tumbling Down post, is that the world oil supply has been depleted. Teenage protagonists, both male and female, deal with a world at the outset of disaster. I would summarize the main point of this book as, "We've known forever that we would run out of this non-renewable resource. So why didn't anybody do anything about it?" I think that's a valid question posed at an appropriate time (the book was published just this month). I also LOVE the ending, but I refuse to be a plot-ruiner. Please consider my hyperlink to the book's amazon.com page a strong endorsement of the idea that this book should find its way to your shelf.

For the record, I and Mrs. Lovejoy are not the only ones asking our famous question. The social media informs me that National Geographic Education has been pondering it, as well. So, put the "When was the last time you got lost?" article in your #1 Essential: Navigation file.

National Geographic Weighs In

This beautiful article gives National Geographic's official stance on the end of the Mayan calendar.

Since most of you cannot invest the hour to watch the video linked in the article, 2012: Countdown to Armageddon, I watched it for you. It features a "young scientist" living my dream of traveling around the world being smart. It concludes with a timely message about the dangers of climate change, a popular ending for some, less popular with others.