do people still use pressure cookers?

I picked one up at a garage sale a few years ago as it reminded me of the one my mom used to have. I finally gave it a good cleaning the other day, and decided to peruse the instruction manual. Well! After extolling the various virtues of their product (it saves time, food flavours and colour, vitamins and minerals, and cooking fuel) it goes on to tell me how this is of benefit to the, um, housewife.

There's pleasure and health for all the family in a Pressure Cooker. For with this modern, scientific saucepan, the pleasure of good eating is matched by the pleasure of fast, simple cooking.... In facing her busy daily schedule, the modern homemaker does not always have time to plan out her menus and arrange combinations to please her entire family. The versatility of your Cooker helps you in this task.... Also when preparing soups and stews, the housewife can be assured that all the health-giving vitamins and minerals contributed by each ingredient will be maintained to the maximum degree.... In addition, every housewife is interested in the saving made through the reduction of cooking fuel costs.... And here's another surprise in store for you: cooking foods for baby and desserts in your Cooker!

Snort. Although the date's not given, it's clear this manual's pretty darn old!

quirk #2

I don't like water.

I mean, I drink it of course (especially after the kidney stone incident), and bathe to get clean, and I don't even mind looking at picturesque waves rolling in, but I prefer not to be IN the waves. I can float, and know how to swim (sort of), but I don't like it, and rather not be in water at all. Don't like sprinklers or rain either, nor boats of any kind. I just don't like getting wet! Or being too close to water.

Now where did this aversion come from? Well, my mom's aversion to water is even stronger, almost bordering on phobic, so maybe there's a genetic factor. Or maybe it's learned. And see the water in the pic I posted? There, in the background behind me? See how close it is to the first house I lived in (it actually starts right behind the hedge!) while still in Holland? Well, apparently, one of us five kids fell in one day (can't remember which one), and that didn't help to disperse mom's already strong fear of water. Can't blame her I guess.

But that still doesn't fully explain why I dislike it the stuff so much!

think before you paint

This month a few summers ago, I decided (quite foolishly) that I was more than capable of doing some painting upon moving into an old apartment. Ignoring the humidity and getting dehydrated in the process (I had to strip twenty years of wallpaper first), I now believe that that decision was most likely a key factor in my passing a kidney stone not long after. If the phrase "kidney stone" made you say "ouch", well, so you should, as never before would I have ever thought that I'd be in an emergency room one day eternally grateful for the miracle of morphine. But that's an entry for another day. THIS entry was written when I'd regained my sense of humour about the whole painting episode, and wanted to relay my adventure to one of my brothers—a painting expert of course! He was duly amused.

OKAY, SO THIS IS WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT PAINTING SO FAR

First, it is hard work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You'll get tired, and probably cranky. Maybe very cranky. Perhaps it is even better if you live alone while attempting this tedious task. So, before you get started, let me fill you in on what I discovered on my first (last?) attempt at interior house painting. Well, if you must know, a bathroom. No, don't roll your eyes, it may be a small room, but it's still work. Hard work, as I may already have mentioned.

Now, it's probably a good idea to talk to people before trying this job on your own. It's an even better idea to listen to what they have to say. And to make it even more worthwhile, take notes. Especially if you suspect that you're likely to forget everything you hear. Having said that, be forewarned. Some people may not want you to know what painting really involves. Inwardly they may be chuckling at your naiveté, and gleefully anticipating your tale of disaster. Other people, much kinder in nature, simply don't want to frighten you while you're still in an eager and ignorant state. They already know that the words, "Oh, that was so much fun! And so easy!" will never be spoken. They also realize that you must discover this on your own. Actually, it's a bit like childbirth, isn't it? People don't discuss how uncomfortable and painful giving birth really is. Why, if they did, reproduction might stop. Sure, you forget the pain once you see the baby, but in the meantime.... Well, painting is quite similar. You're happy with the end result (hopefully), but while you're doing it....

Okay, enough with the analogy. Here are the most important things to remember about painting the first coat:

* make sure you have all the equipment you need before starting (this may sound obvious, but it isn't),

* make sure you know what colour you're using (again, this may sound obvious, but in the case of hand-me-down paint poured into another can, this isn't always so),

* it is not enough to just cover the floor: cover the toilet, sink, or anything else that may be in the room (unless of course you're using white paint and all your amenities are white as well—who says splatters can't be attractive?),

* do the corners first (I cannot stress this enough, honestly),

* don't forget to open at least one window to ventilate the room (you might like paint fumes, but your pets won't),

* exterior oil-based paint is best used outside (I know, you're trying to save money any way you can, and this leftover paint might as well get used up, but trust me, unless you don't mind breathing in paint fumes for over a week...),

* wear something to cover your hair (unless, as in my case, you're using white paint and you've already got some grey hairs and wouldn't mind having some extra highlights), and

* try painting during daylight hours (it really does make a difference).

Now, about that second coat of paint. First, decide whether it's really necessary. Give yourself lots of latitude here. If your mother or Aunt Mary wouldn't approve of the results of your first coat—too bad. Only do it if you know that you absolutely can't live with it as it is. And realize that there are worse things than having a less than perfect coat of paint. For example, you could get hit by a bus, lose your job, or be told that your spouse is leaving you. Keeping that in mind, is it still so important to do another coat? Really, the best thing to do is to just leave it.

If, however, you must go ahead, remember what I said about people not wanting to let you know the reality of painting that first coat? Well, unfortunately, the same applies to the second coat. Please, whatever you do, don't be lulled into thinking that this will be any easier. However satisfied you may have been with the eventual outcome of the first coat, please don't think that the hard part is over. Don't pat yourself on the back and be self-complacent in your newfound painting abilities. Overconfidence never helped anyone, trust me. You know those nice people before you painted the first coat? Well, they're up to their well-intentioned shenanigans again. They dare not tell you what's lurking ahead. They know all too well that once again you would not proceed. And to be honest, some of them may be enjoying themselves a tad too much to be labelled "nice" people. Take it from me; the best thing to do is to assume you know nothing. Get rid of any cockiness you may possess and act as if you've never painted before.

Here are the basics to remember about the second coat of paint:

* don't forget to do the corners first (no, I wasn't kidding the first time around, but if you do forget, seriously consider not doing them at all—trust me on this one),

* it's much harder to see white on white than white on blue, so you will have to look even harder to see what you are (or aren't) covering,

* I'm not sure, but it might be a good idea to at least rinse the roller between coats of paint if you won't be doing the second coat the same day (actually, just use another roller altogether!),

* make sure the roller is completely covered with paint (unless of course you're TRYING to get that patterned effect on the walls),

* in order to do this keep your tray clean of yucky paint skins that have accumulated (maybe because you're using hand-me-down paint?), so that you can use the entire tray to cover that roller, and

* painting white on white late at night with blaring lights will not help existing eye problems (there's a good reason most people paint during daytime hours).

Finally, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some nice border paper already available just in case you end up with marks on your ceiling because you didn't paint the edges properly first. Not that I would know about that personally, of course, but I've heard stories.... Seriously though, if you do manage to overcome the trauma of your first painting attempt, then, who knows, you may want to paint again someday. Tee hee. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. We both know that THAT'S very unlikely to happen. But, if you do survive your first painting attempt, give yourself a round of applause, and have your words of wisdom ready should anyone be foolish enough to ask you for advice on how to paint.

Good luck!

left and right

Listen to this:

Everyone knows whether they are right-handed, or left-handed. Few know whether they are right or left-eyed.

Do you?

If you don't know, stretch out an arm, either will do, and point with a finger to a distant corner of the room—keep both eyes open.

Staying in this position close one eye, then the other. In one case your eye will match whatever you're pointing at in the corner, in the other your finger will be pointing way off the mark.

If you're on target, that's your leading eye.

If you're right-eyed you probably see the above figure [unfortunately I can't reproduce it here] as a rabbit, if you're left-eyed you probably plump for a bird.*

Well! I'd never heard of that before. I'm left-eyed by the way. And right away that led me to wonder about the percentages of people being left-eyed and right-eyed. Is it about the same as for being left-handed (which I believe to be about ten percent)? Is there a correlation between being left-eyed and left-handed? I'm right-handed, but because I was starting to experience some pain in using my right hand so much, I now manoeuvre (quite skilfully I might add) the mouse with my left hand. And did you know that left-handed people figure more in certain activities and occupations? Like the visual arts, and among astronauts? I must confess that while the visual arts didn't surprise me (because of greater right-brain activity), the latter did.

So, as with many other things, I immediately went to Wikipedia, and according to this link, about two-thirds of the population is right-eye dominant, but that the side of the dominant hand and eye don't always match. Interesting.

* Fletcher, Alan. The art of looking sideways. London: Phaidon Press, 2001.

space matters

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,
but the empty space between them
is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,
but the empty space within it
is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors
form the house,
but the empty space within it
is the essence of the home.

— LAO-TZU

questions

(Wrote this several weeks ago, and put it aside, but think it's still worthwhile posting.)

I've been doing a fair bit of mulling lately, ever since I read a number of posts a while ago analyzing some of the different aspects about this lovely blogosphere of ours. And if truth be told I think I'm glad I jumped in without really knowing what I was doing, and without having read too many blogs before I started. In some ways I've found the process intimidating enough (hmmm, I suppose I should have something in my sidebar, but what, and how on earth do I put it there?), and I guess if I had realized that etiquette might be involved I'd have stayed far away knowing how socially inept I can sometimes be. I'm also quite sure that I probably would have been too scared to begin if I'd been aware of just how many talented writers reside here. Now if you think that I resolved the issue of writing insecurity successfully enough in a previous post, it actually just got the ball rolling, and will undoubtedly prove to be a recurring theme. Thus my experience so far, and what I've been reading of late, has me thinking and questioning why I even started this blog, and what I'm trying to get out of it. And because I've always been better at asking the questions than getting them answered, I'll simply list them first and see if anything jumps out at me later. So here goes:

My wanting to (no, needing to) write is a given, but why this format? Did I want a larger audience? Validation? Recognition? The chance to improve my writing skills in a more public arena? Greater interaction through comments? A sense of community? But if it's community I want, why seek it online as opposed to offline? And since I've never really felt that I fit in anyway, is it reasonable to hope that I might fit in better online?

Why a sitemeter? And why make the number of hits visible when it's not that high? Who do I want reading my blog, and why? Is my blog a distraction? Another way for me to procrastinate and avoid what I don't want to do? Knowing how easily I get addicted to things, was starting a blog sensible? What do I actually want to write about, and why? Given that family members or friends may be reading, what would I be embarrassed to include? What parts of my life do I want to keep hidden? Is my blog partly therapy? A way to explore unresolved issues? If so, just how much of the dirty laundry pile am I willing to make public?

Why do I read so many mommy blogs when for various reasons I am not a mom myself? And why do I sometimes question my right to participate in those blogs when only my hugely adored rescued-from-the-streets kitty will experience my maternalism? What kind of blog do I write anyway if I'm not a parent, a desperate single, a career person, focused on a craft or hobby, involved in politics, or knowledgeable enough to be a literary blogger? And is my blog too eclectic (read: scattered) even though it doesn't fall into or include any of the above categories? And of course, is anyone even really interested in what I write?

How do others (especially moms) keep up with reading and commenting on so many blogs? Why am I so inept with time that I can barely keep up with a few favourites and still not post on my own every day? Why do I at other times spend hours in the blogosphere when I could (should?) be doing other things instead?

What, ultimately, do I hope to gain from this blog? And finally, why do I always come up with more questions than answers?

super duper doc

Watched Super Size Me by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock the other day, and I dare you to watch this DVD and not have it change, if not your own eating habits, the way you feed your kids. Now I've never been a big fan of McDonald's anyway simply because I don't think their food tastes that great, but it wouldn't surprise me if I never eat their food again after watching this. And while the movie's great, what's really fascinating is the bonus material. The interview with Eric Schlosser convinced me to put Fast Food Nation on my reading list, and the science experiment conducted in The Smoking Fry alone would be worth the cost of renting this DVD. Better yet, borrow it from the library like I did.

discretion

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees." —KAHLIL GIBRAN

I've changed my mind

Remember how I said that my beloved dictionary would accompany me if I were ever stranded on a deserted island? Well, I found another book that may just take its place.

The art of looking sideways by Alan Fletcher is the book in question, and it captured my attention from the get-go. I'm feeling too lazy to write my own description though, so I'll let you read what the inside cover says:

"The art of looking sideways is a primer in visual intelligence, an exploration of the workings of the eye, the hand, the brain and the imagination.

It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes, memories—all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 'chapters', all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, colour and imagery.

The book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insights collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a 'visual jackdaw', master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and imitable exploration of such subjects as perception, colour, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.

The art of looking sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will certainly entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and those who relish the odd and unexpected."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Snort. Borrowed (and already renewed) this deliciously huge book from the library, but anticipate that I'll have to have my own copy. Especially if I'm to be island bound!

not sure what this means

Ever notice how the word create also contains the words eat and ate? How interesting that within one word there are references to both producing and consuming. And given the sometimes-strange associations my brain tends to make (which coincidentally, is probably at the root of my tendency to laugh at things no one else does), I automatically thought of this quote by Picasso: "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." And that in turn reminded me that I've been meaning to read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Creativity. But not before I've eaten. :)

click your heels

Need I say more?

from the inbox

CARROTS, EGGS OR COFFEE?

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil.

In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners.

She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft.

The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hardboiled egg.

Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity—boiling water. Each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

growth

A tree that can fill the span of a man's arms
Grows from a downy tip;
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one's feet.

—LAO-TZU

for MonkaBunk

Of course, for me, no house could be a home without at least one feline lounging around!

humour discussed once more

I think about humour a lot, and sometimes wonder how far back it goes. Who came up with the first joke? The first one-liner? I imagine that right from the beginning (however you envision the beginning) humour played a big part in helping humans deal with daily foibles. This leads me to think that God (again, however envisioned) must be quite funny in their own right if you accept the idea that he created us in her likeness. Moreover, if humour is part of our genetic makeup, as I suspect it is, is there an actual humour gene? And is this gene present in other species as well?

Humour itself though is a tricky business, as what's funny to one person can be completely offensive to another. And while in my opinion almost anything and everything can be funny if presented tastefully, I suppose taste (or the need for it) is a matter of individual judgement as well. And can humour be taught? I've seen ads for workshops on how to write humorously, and while I believe that you can teach someone how to write better, I'm not convinced you can teach someone how to write funnier. Like Mark Twain's quote, "Humor is like a frog; if you dissect it, it dies." I don't quite see how breaking down the components of humour will make you funny if inherently you're not. If you haven't already honed your natural sense of timing, surprise, irony, and other elements of humour, I'm not sure a workshop would be of much help. And I certainly wouldn't be willing to pay close to $300 just to find out!

Have you noticed though that one of the worst things you can say to someone is that they DON'T have a sense of humour? Try this sometime and see how quickly they bristle at the mere suggestion. Humour is one of the main things we look for in potential friends and mates, almost as if as long as someone can make us laugh, we're willing to forgive or forego a number of other things. Well, at least I do.

And I guess if you're going to talk about humour you have to recognize its myriad variety. Now I personally prefer humour that involves wordplay, or the linking of previously unconnected things, while practical jokes and slapstick tends to leave me cold. I also find that the more truthful the humour, and the easier it is for me to relate to personally, the funnier it seems.

A follow-up from my brother:

Folks:

As a follow-up on the health of our new baby boy, a blood test (e-test) revealed a slight deficiency which (thanks to Dr. Ford Forbes and co.) could be corrected by replacing an emission sensor. (A subsequent test showed no anomalies and our fears have subsided).

Tomorrow Dr. Bill Claussen [local mechanic] will check out our baby to determine it's physical health and provide us with the necessary information to guide it into its adulthood.

on the hottest day of the year so far

And what is my crazy certifiably insane neighbour doing? Yep, mowing the sidewalk. See all that grass on his property? Takes him three hours to cut and trim. Three! Oh, that includes cleaning up the sidewalk with a mower instead of sweeping, as normal folk tend to do. I'd talk to him about it, but we're not quite on speaking terms.

Me? I'm sitting with my feet in a basin of cold water while I type, a glass of cold lemonade within reach, and two small fans trying their darndest.

world map of happiness

In a survey that rated 178 countries on their populations' overall sense of well-being, Denmark and Canada scored high on the "world map of happiness", according to this article. Using the criteria of health, wealth, and access to education as measures of happiness, Canada scored 10th overall, while Denmark was at the very top. Interesting.