But can it find my mind?

Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women mentions a product for which I've wished (often in obscene terms). Women, rejoice: Finally, no more "Where's the hoozit?" from the men we live with. Forget the tv remote: Now we can all fight for the transmitter.

Which he will lose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SmartFinder, by Evan on devices

"The average amount of time that a person spends looking
for misplaced things over the course of a lifetime is one year."
-- Harpers Index

...The SmartFinder comes with four color coded receivers which can be attached to things like keys, wallets, purses, mobile phones, and TV remotes. They even suggest adhering one to the kids; they're kidding about that (I think). With a remote control transmitter that can send a radio signal through walls and floors to activate the 85 decibel alarm on the receiver, locating items up to 25 meters away, you may never lose your keys again. It doesn't say anything about refrigerator doors, so "Uncle" Rog, who left his keys in the fridge one time, may still be out of luck.

Unlike the "clapper" system I had before, the SmartFinder has a low battery warning. Comes with 2 keyrings and 2 double-sided adhesive pads provided for attaching the receivers to anything.

£29.95 at Girls Shop UK

And the nominee for best tatoo issss...

"Grass don't grow on a busy street," so they say. Then again, it doesn't grow where there's no fertile soil, either. But I digress.

I found this image here, thrown in rather randomly among little factoids that debunk "lies your mother told you." (If you can't make it out, the tattoo is of a little guy with a lawnmower, mowing...well, you get the idea.) At that site, you will learn that we've given lemmings and elephants too much credit, birds don't cry at weddings, neither Mussolini nor Van Gogh was a true patron of public utilities, 10% is all most of us have, and lots more. Go see :-).

Can I use "wow"?

From the World Wide Words Newsletter:
*****
"Did you hear about the new world record score in Scrabble? Michael Cresta scored 830 points during a game at the Lexington Scrabble Club in Massachusetts on 12 October 2006. His words included quixotry, which itself claims a record as the highest recorded single turn, scoring 365 points. Quixotry: the state or condition of being extremely idealistic, unrealistic and impractical."
*****
I love Scrabble -- always have, ever since my mom hooked me on the game with all-night sessions when I was about nine. I'm a pretty traditional player and think the use of bizarre two-letter words that only pro players know kind of ruins the fun -- but still, no one in my house will play with me. So I've grown rusty...and completely wowed by a 365-pointer, let alone an 830-point game that apparently used words with some meat to them.

Or maybe I'm just being quixotic?

Cool Thing of the Day

It's chocolate! What a cool gift. Suedy's Kook-Ki Sushi!

They're there if you look

Sometimes the crush of daily life and the dullness of routine obscures the fact that my children are growing. Fast. But once in a while, if I am quiet enough, I am privileged to watch a memory crystallizing before my very eyes:

I am sitting here on the couch. Next to me is a fat beagle, smelling of outside and rain, snuggled in as close to me as she can be, snoring. At my feet is my 7-year-old boy, clearly delighting in the opportunity to teach his older brother how to play chess. Across from him is said 14-year-old sibling, lanky frame stretched across the entire room (or so it seems), one foot in manhood and the other, in childhood -- and in this moment, reveling in the excuse to be silly and young. Rain hits the skylights, a comforting sound broken only by chuckles and "Hey, that one can't move that way..." and "What can this guy do?".

Just an ordinary day -- a dreary gray one, in fact. The world is a mess, the laundry needs folding, a gazillion writing deadlines loom, I can't shake this ear infection, and a million little things are wrong. But here, in this moment, everything feels utterly,

wonderfully

perfect.

When your cups runneth over

I guess you could say this is an article of clothing that can do, er, double duty. If it ever became a fad, what would we call this? The sag bag? The true over the shoulder boulder holder? The breast purse ever?

How to Make a Bra Purse (from WikiHow.com)

Now playing in the Theater of the Addled Brain

I posted this a while back in my old blog; spending time with friends I love tonight prompts me to post it again....because if you're fortunate enough to have friends like mine, you can never, ever be too grateful.
*******
Ever notice something about memories? Some of the best are just snippets -- random, accidental, everyday moments that etch themselves into conscious permanence.

I got thinking about this today as one such moment came back to me, for whatever reason. It was nothing, really. Just the image of a very good friend sitting on a couch in a shaft of late afternoon sunlight -- that red-gold glow that makes life feel so mellow and grand. When that light shines into another person's eyes, it seems to illuminate the soul -- and in that fine moment, I was grateful for the friendship of the person I was peering into.

When I reach for them, I find so many such freeze frames from the past; strung together, they make a movie of a pretty fine life. Oh, there are other dramas, tragedies and comedies in the library of my memory...perhaps happiness depends on which of these mental movies we play for ourselves most often. The players are the proverbial cast of thousands, but not many are extras, so great are their influence.

If you have blessed me with the gift of your friendship, you are a star with a handprint on my sidewalk. I like that.

Be leave

In tonight's World News With Charles Gibson, correspondent Robert Krulwich featured an interesting piece on why leaves fall. In simple terms, the weight of snow on leaves would stress the tree beyond its ability to survive. So the tree does what we all should do to people and things that have the potential to destroy us: It basically tells them to make like a leaf and leave. This phenomenon is a bit more purposeful than a passive fall, so Krulwich proposes a new name for this beautiful season.

Three cheers for the self respect of trees -- and for journalists who skillfully boil down the complicated into a piece that's still interesting.

Have a wonderful Get-Off-Me :-).

A quick note

Just to avoid confusion: I received a request to change this blog's title, as it was identical to that of another blog on a different host. I don't mind, really -- I don't exactly have (or expect) a large readership.

So I've gone from "virtual" to "broken." Or maybe I'm "virtually broken"?

Oh, and my blog, too.

;-)

Se lo costruite (If you build it...)

From Under the Tuscan Sun, airing tonight but originally based on what sounds like a novel I must read:

"Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come."

Hope and faith are wonderful things to run on.

We all float on

A boy is on my mind tonight, the son of a man who died in a tragic accident this week. He is the friend of my daughter, someone she feels is special and sweet and silly. I've met him only once and I find myself tonight wishing I knew him better. This, so I could tell him that I remember what this is like, that I understand, that the breadth and depth of emotion racing around in his mind are normal and okay. That he will crumble and cry in one moment, and punch a hole in the wall the next. That he will replay the last week, the last year, the last everything over and over again, asking in frustration why his father wasn't just a minute later or a few seconds earlier that horrible morning, until he sleeps at night. And that his faith will come into play like a clutch three-pointer in the last second of a basketball game.

What I really would like to say is that the pain will go away, but I can't. Because I'm incapable of lying.

All I could tell him is that, as in a foot that's fallen asleep, the numbness will turn to a nagging buzz, then almost insurmountable discomfort...but then he'll be able to walk again without realizing he's gotten up. The good days will come to outnumber the bad, and he will heal. With time, he'll be able to remember without the crushing weight of grief. His family will see his father in him as he grows into a man, shaped by the countless lessons he didn't realize his father had taught him. In this he will find the sweetest of surprises: that anyone loved this much never dies.

In the coming months, he'll want to fall back mindlessly into whatever's behind him. And what is behind him is a safety net of friends, many more than he realizes, more willing than he knows, to catch him. I learned to lean on my friends back then, and their steadfastness was a gift I've never forgotten.

I just wish I could do something to help. Say the right thing. Offer a hug.

Maybe it's just the mother in me.

A point to ponder

A birthday card I saw today posed this interesting question:

How old would you be

If you didn't know how old you are?

Wisdom, 9-year-old style

"Mom. Boys are drooling, babbling idiots," she said. "Were women always smarter, Mommy?"

She'll change her outlook very soon, of course. But as she teeters on the edge of preadolescence, it can be a decent ballast.

Who knew an old episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" could bring about such lively discussion?

Red wine moonshine?

Despite all their efforts through the ages, alchemists just could not create gold from dirt.

However, we just might be able to brew some fine wine from a can of Welch's. I think I'll try it.

Somehow, I think pouring wine from a milk jug just won't be the same.

Somehow, I think no one will care.

Mainly because I have amazing wine-loving friends who are up for most anything.

Birthday present ideas?

16!
So my little girl turns 16 tomorrow. I have a few little things, but anybody out there have any great gift ideas? (Alas, she's not getting the Jeep she keeps asking for LOL.)

I love her, I love her, I love her.

Mentos and Diet Coke II

So here, the authors of the video below pose the burning question: "Is it dangerous to drink Diet Coke and eat Mentos?" They answer this with what they call "a cautionary tale."



Oh, and just for, um, ****s and giggles, check out PepsiGirl's other explosive video here.

I have been hanging around my teenage son and his father for far too long.

All-American beagle

Ahh, to be a fat little beagle in a good country.

Diet Coke and Mentos

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and with more than 500 Mentos mints? (Maybe a better question is, "Who has time to do this?"

(I've deleted the video embed because it slowed down the page load too much. But if you've never seen it before, you'll find it here.)

Sensible fun!

"Put your senses to the test," says the Senses Challenge. So go ahead -- it's interesting.

BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Body - Senses Challenge

I scored 11/20..."not bad" but not exactly hypersensitive. I found the visual-distortion questions the most challenging.

But what if you guess?

It's a bad habit: I have an assignment and I'm doing all I can to avoid its completion. Call it ADD, mental block, or whatever...I hate that I do this.

Today's distraction: the IQ test here. It's quick. Plus, it told me I'm way smarter than average. (I guessed on three of the questions out of sheer laziness, so...maybe not...)

Work avoidance + ego boost. All in all, a worthy timesuck.

Beagles cannot walk on water

So Rosie the Fat Beagle has a lot of nicknames. The neighbors call her The Slut because she hooks up with their dog whenever she gets loose. She is also known as The Illegal Beagle, The Bugle (have you ever heard a beagle bark?), Dope on a Rope, Fat Dog and Bagel. And while I've long suspected that she's not exactly an Einstein among canines, I learned recently that she is just plain...challenged.

See, we put the solar cover on the pool for the first time a couple weeks ago. She of the limited cerebral cells -- who until this point had been endlessly fascinated with the other beagle staring back up at her every time she looked into the pool -- noticed the change and gradually came to believe that the pool had gelled over into a great blue beagle parking lot. So she stepped onto it. The cover began to swallow her up just as I jumped in, clothes and all, to save my beloved but boob-ish pooch.

As the shaking and exhausted mass of doggie pudge emerged from the pool, the look that our only slightly less-than-human labrador retriever gave her said it all:

Dumbass.

'Scuse me, could you please move your foot? You're stepping on my...

Disclaimer: I am no fan of Joy Behar (of ABC's The View). But I have a writing deadline today, I usually have TV on for background noise, and morning news has devolved into late-morning drivel. This is how the ladies interruptus came to be on my boob tube.

A minute ago, I looked up long enough to hear Behar say:

"Know what I say? If you've got it, flaunt it. Or trip over it."

Ooh, a new guest: Paris Hilton. Unless the show has a segment telling me what she does, exactly, I'm tripping over to the TV to turn it off now. But I'm laughing.

Something to chew on

Finally, a first post. Seems I spend so much time writing for money that I neglect to do it for pleasure...

Best to begin with a beginning, then. This morning, my seven-year-old presented me with a big good-morning, one-tooth-missing grin. The tooth finally realized it was time to make way for bigger things and got out of the way. A cause for celebration, which in a seven-year-old's world, is something like a dollar in an old glasses case.

Ahh, that tooth -- impossibly white and innocent and glistening with symbolism. It bulged close to the gum's surface when he was just five months old and burst through without fanfare at six. I cried that day because my baby was growing up.

And now my little boy is growing up. Endings and beginnings, sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another, distressing and exhilarating all at once.

Today I feel much like an old tooth.