February 28, 2008

Science Lab 102 Exam

1. Place marbles on a large magnet, cover them with the contents of a dishwasher detergent pod, and subject it to an eerie light. Let sit for three days.

Will the light and detergent cause the marbles to become magnetic?

a) Yes

b) No

c) Depends on brand of dishwasher detergent.

d) Depends whether the light is regular or fluorescent.

Advanced: Now pour a gallon of water over the whole shebang. (Don’t worry that the experiment is taking place in your room on your dresser rather than under laboratory conditions.)

What happens?

a) The water makes the marbles magnetic.

b) The marbles are not magnetic, but are clean.

c) Water leaks through the floor into the basement, causing Mom to freak out.

d) Unsure; I abandoned the experiment to take Feathers out to jump on the trampoline.
*************************

Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: From The Mailbox 2: Water!

February 26, 2008

Forty-Wonderful

You know you’ve reached “a certain age” when your birthday breakfast in bed consists of a heaping bowl of Fiber One (43% of your daily fiber requirement), a cup of coffee, and the paper. And you’re completely content.

I lazed in the bed for twenty minutes while the boys got ready for school, and thus I missed this morning’s action. Finn placed salt in the sugar shaker, so Porter’s 1/2 cup of coffee was nasty. Finn learned this trick from Encylopedia of Immaturity which I touted in my gift guides, and he was quite proud of himself. I’m left wondering- since when did a kid need instructions to think up this prank?

Last night I decided that although Porter is tremendous fun, his hygiene is awful. After dinner we donned our bathing suits, climbed into the shower, and I coached him through the washing of the hair, the scrubbing of the face, and the complete soaping and rinsing of the body, including the armpits and feet. Unfortunately, there is no documentation. It turns out that even I have boundaries.

On my last day of forty-dom, I officially turned into my mother. After the boys left for school, I checked their rooms and found that Finn had three pair of shoes on the floor, rather than in the closet, dirty clothes strewn about, not in the hamper, and a jacket that he’s been told to hang up twice flung carelessly on his bed.

I was shaking with fury as I scooped up the entire mass and stuffed it into a grocery bag and hid it in my closet. I was calmer hours later when he began looking for his cleats for baseball, and confirmed to me that they were not in his closet where they should be. I didn’t hide my smugness as I offered to give them back for the incredible low price of one dollar. Each.

He has not yet discovered the other missing items, but will be shelling out thirteen more dollars if he intends to pay the ransom for the rest of his belongings.

Drew is generally quiet and and well behaved. Don’t let that lull you into thinking he’s an angel. Yesterday my bird-owner was the first one in the car after school and tattled breathlessly that “Drew has been saying WTF in the carpool line and so has his friend x.”

I handled this by taking Drew into my room when we got home, and asking him if he knew what “WTF” meant.

“It means ‘what the’ and a word that starts with ‘f’ and ends with ‘uck’ but it’s not ‘firetruck’,” he said.

“Does that sounds like something a Glamore should say?” I asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“I better not hear that you’ve said it again or I’m taking your iPod away for a month.”

His eyes got big. I can’t remember what his ears looked like before they had thin white cords sprouting from them, so this seemed to get the message across.

You were all so kind to be so concerned about Feathers. Happily, Feathers apparently spent a lonely night perched atop the kitchen light fixture and flew down the next morning while Finn was making sausage and scrambled eggs. Elvis got his own link to make up for the false accusation of bird swallowing. This provided us a wonderful opportunity to tout the importance of remembering that we are all innocent until proven guilty.

Porter wondered why we always think he’s guilty first, and Drew pointed out that it’s because he is.

“Guess you got a point there,” Porter said, and he finished eating his sausage with Feathers perched on his shoulder.

******************************

Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Movin’ On Down- From The De-luxe Apartment In The Sky  

February 25, 2008

The Mysterious Disappearance of Feathers

It’s been a gloomy evening chez Glamore. Porter was reading with Feathers perched on his shoulder, and somewhere along the way Feathers disappeared.

None of us was aware of the problem for several hours, as Porter was confident that Feathers had gone exploring and would soon return. I was in the kitchen fixing dinner when Porter came in, wearing only underwear and ski gloves, carrying a box which emitted scritches and tweets.

“Have you seen Feathers?” Porter asked.

“Isn’t she in the box?”

“No, this is Texas Ranger. I’m using him as bait to find Feathers.” He put the box on the ground and opened it, plucked Texas Ranger out and crooned, “Go find Feathers” in a high voice.

Texas Ranger wasn’t having any of it. He squawked and wriggled himself into the corner by the dishwasher and refused to move. It took Porter several minutes and a spatula to return him to the box and then his cage, per my command. I’m proud to report that I remembered to put the spatula into the dishwasher and avoided cooking with it.

We spent the rest of the evening looking for Feathers. Our search was hampered by Porter’s inability to remember precisely where he’d last seen her and the ongoing chaos of his room, which could hide a small bird for weeks.

Do you see a bird in here? We didn’t either.

On the positive side, his habit of creating parakeet playgrounds featuring pools of birdseed made it unlikely that Feathers would starve if she was wandering through the clutter.

Overview of playground, featuring Styrofoam all-you-can-eat birdseed buffet, slide, wine cork obstacle course, gold ring perch

Feathers playing on playground in happier days. She was particularly fond of sitting on my mom’s old bracelet which balanced on the tambourine.

It had been raining for most of the day so Elvis had spent a great deal of time indoors. This made me uneasy. When the birds first arrived, Elvis had snuffled around the birdcage quite a bit. One time he had wandered in Porter’s room while both birds were on the playground. Elvis sniffed them more in the manner of someone wondering what was for dinner than like he was greeting fellow family members. Since then, we’d emphasized that dog and birds were best kept apart.

I had special reason to be concerned.

Growing up, we adopted a dog named Peaches. We guessed that a crazy person had named him. He was shaggy and black with a ribbon of white at his throat, and looked like no particular breed. He most resembled Grover on Sesame Street, with more hair and four legs. He was a fabulous dog. That’s hard to believe based on this picture of him circa 1975.

It really doesn’t matter that you can’t see his face, as we couldn’t see it when looking at him either.

I could write loads about Peaches and his adventures: the time he humped the dog across the street and got stuck to her, the time he ate the plastic covering the newspaper and it came out his rear, completely whole, and so forth.

Our next door neighbors growing up had kids our age, and when the oldest was in fifth grade his class hatched a chick to learn about the miracle of nature. He won the raffle to keep the chick and raise it at home.

My sisters and I were so jealous. The baby chick was the size of a couple of cotton balls and super-cute. My neighbor called us to come outside so he could show her off. He made it clear that we weren’t to hug her, because we’d squeeze her too tight and suffocate her.

Although the baby chick was tiny, she was fast, so he’d fashioned a weensy chick leash out of dental floss and tied it to her leg. They paraded down their driveway at a fast clip and over to us. Aunt Su and I were wearing our matching maroon and yellow Izod sweaters in honor of the occasion. We oohed and ahed for about three seconds before Peaches darted from the bushes and swallowed the chick whole. There was nothing left but a small strand of dental floss protruding from Peaches’s mouth, but he quickly lapped that up as well.

We were stunned by that example of nature in action. It was years before I got over the image of Peaches hoovering up the chick as if it were a marshmallow.

I had no desire to see the scene repeated at my own home, but as we checked every room in the house and heard nary a tweet and no rustling feathers, I began examining Elvis more closely. I didn’t think he’d been appropriately hungry for dinner. Was that because he’d had an extra-special hors’d'oeuvre?

Feathers was larger than the baby chick had been, and Elvis is half the size of Peaches, so I theorized that Elvis would need at least two bites to finish off the bird. Surely that would leave blood, or at least pin feathers. I found no evidence of either around the house.

After dinner I resorted to prying Elvis’s mouth open. I saw no evidence of a birdie meal, and his breath, while rank, wasn’t particularly redolent of parakeet.

By bedtime Porter was upset over Feather’s disappearance. He was also outraged to learn that if he bought another parakeet he’d have to pay not only the $16.99 the bird cost, but also 8% sales tax, which added another $1.36 to the transaction.

Thus, in our nightly prayer we asked God to keep Feathers safe if she was still here on earth, and for help in finding her. Porter reminded God that Feathers likes to sit on a person’s shoulder while he’s reading so He could make proper arrangements if Feathers was already in Heaven. Then, at Porter’s insistence, I asked God to consider our city’s sales tax and strike it down if he found it unfair, Amen.

(I had already told Porter that this was a government issue, not a religious one, but he came back at me with “Ask and it will be given unto you” and I couldn’t get into a theological discussion with a missing bird and possible carcass somewhere in the house.)

Bill and I checked all the toilets, the laundry room, the basement, and every closet once more after the boys went to bed. No Feathers.

Missing: Feathers

Main Suspect: Elvis Glamore

I didn’t eat no parakeet

We’ve lost pets before (remember when we lost the hermit crabs while they were racing?) but Feathers has been much loved.

Updates as they occur.

*************************

One year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: What To Buy? Don’t Axe Me

Also, I’d forgotten that the hermit crab post contains a diatribe helpful suggestions from someone who is really devoted to her hermit crabs, and even makes them homemade food!

February 22, 2008

Still Cool

The fashions were awful during my high school and college years, but I listened to some great music. Unfortunately, those were the days of the cassette and mixed tapes, so some of the more obscure artists have been lost to history.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some fantastic, yet unplayable mixed tapes, which were as much fun to name as they were to play:

Fried Okra & Black Eyed Peas: featuring REM, Lone Justice, Primitons, Connells, Guadalcanal Diary, HooDoo Gurus (back then REM was “alternative”)

A Deadly Mixture: with Jesus & Mary Chain, Figures On A Beach, Depeche Mode, Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen

Club MTV: with the “top 40″ hits of the day, including Fine Young Cannibals, Bangles, INXS, “Goin’ Back To Cali” (the B side of the tape is labeled “Downtown Julie Brown”– anyone remember her?)

I have one with Wall of Voodoo on one side and the Sex Pistols on the other. The Smithereens and Dwight Yoakam. A couple of random songs from the Gun Club.

For years I’ve been saving a few cassette tapes in my attic, hoping I’d be able to dig up that music again. I tried in the days of Napster, with no luck. I’ve kept watch on eBay, to no avail.

I was updating the music recommendations on my right sidebar the other day and discovered that some genius has started converting some of this old music to CD, and in some cases, mp3.

Exciting finds included the db’s Like This (”Amplifier”), the Long Ryders Native Sons (”Tell It To The Judge”), Let’s Active Cypress/Afoot (two albums) (”Every Word Means No”), Translator Heartbeats & Triggers (”You’re Everywhere That I’m Not”) and the super-rocking Jason and the Scorchers, who I saw at the Cavern on Morris Avenue with about four other people. That Warner Hodges can play the guitar in a mighty sexy manner. A combination of Fervor/Lost & Found is available on my birthday, and I’ll be purchasing this. (”Broken Whiskey Glass,” frantic cover of “Absolutely Sweet Marie”)

Sampling all these songs is making my basement smell like a frat house - beer plus urine and sweaty socks.

Someone needs to reissue The Connells. A sealed record on eBay from 1987 doesn’t do this iPodder much good. Although I suppose I could purchase one, like Darker Days, and show it to the boys as a historical relic. (”Hats Off!”)

After digging through all this music, I spent an enjoyable afternoon driving to Target in the (much needed rain) listening to The Reivers (formerly Zeitgeist) sing Freight Train Rain. I felt like I was (mentally doing math… that can’t be right) eighteen again.

Oof– that was a painful calculation. I was eighteen in 1985, and I’m turning 41 in a few days. There’s not much to say about that, except that I’ve been slathering all kinds of potions on my face, and as soon as I look as good as Tina Turner I’ll let you in on my secret.

What bands and songs remind you of college or high school?  Were there local bands that were awesome and should have made it big?  (If you read the Amazon reviews for the db’s and Let’s Active, you’ll see people who thought THEY should have enjoyed U2 and REM’s success.)  How about mixed tapes?

***************************

Three years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Finn Glamore: Poet Laureate

February 21, 2008

Clean Birds and Picky Gourmands

I heard quite a bit of splashing coming from Porter’s bathroom yesterday, long after the boys had left for school. Investigation revealed a pissed off Texas Ranger in the potty.

It turned out that Porter was in the midst of giving him a morning bath when his carpool came. He took my command, “Drop everything and come on immediately!” literally. A heart-to-heart followed, in which I emphasized that parakeets are not renowned for their swimming abilities, although by my calculations Texas Ranger was treading water for over an hour.
*****************************

Last night I watched as Drew and Finn split a single broccoli floret between them. It wasn’t done willingly, but only to get dessert. Finn chopped the tiny stem into flat pills and swallowed them one by one with gulps of milk. Drew nibbled the blossoms off the tree.

It’s hard to believe these are the same boys who last weekend were begging for marinated olives, “You know, like we had at that Greek restaurant in New York,” Finn said.

I don’t understand boys who swoon over mussels and artichokes and request marinated olives, yet sneer at broccoli and chicken. I ignored their contrariness, however, and dug up a few recipes on the Web, combined them, and created my own.

Anne Glamore’s Marinated Olives

Mix a few sprigs of fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, a couple of bay leaves, 3 or 4 smashed cloves of garlic, a couple of strips of orange rind, a tablespoon of whole peppercorns and a teaspoon of hot pepper flakes (red pepper flakes)* in a glass or plastic bowl. Add a jar or two of unpitted green and black olives.** Add enough extra virgin olive oil and wine vinegar to cover in a ratio of about 5 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.*** Shake or stir. Label “broccoli” and put in the refrigerator for 2 days.

Bring to room temperature and use a slotted spoon to transfer to a beautiful bowl. Serve.

* Increase or decrease flakes and peppercorns according to your desired heat level

** I used kalamata olives for the black, and found green unpitted olives at Publix

*** You may want to reduce the vinegar further; this was still quite tangy

I was able to re-use the marinade with no ill effects.

****************************

Two years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Just Breathe