Syllabus #26

You heard it here first.  Summer is really and truly over and I have the photographic evidence to prove it.

The party isn't over until the unicorn taps out.

What are we reading this week?  This week happens to be Fall Break, which is exactly like Spring Break, in that it allows educators to have a few extra days to feel like real humans and revel in the type of freedom (to eat and perform bodily functions at a reasonable pace, mostly) we typically enjoy only in the summer months.  Fall Break is exactly the opposite of Spring Break in the way it says, "Hey, do you remember summer?  Well it's a long way off, so buckle up because it's gonna be a long, cold, rainy ride and you better get your flu shot or you might actually die."

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Sometimes I read advice columns because, like all of us, I'm a glutton for schadenfreude, which is precisely why such columns exist in the first place.  Sometimes, though, I read them just to make sure people I know aren't so disgusted with me that they have to ask a stranger for advice on how to deal with me.  This is the first time I've ever found a letter that is 100% accurate but about a decade late.  Kate, I'm sorry!  At least we have one syllable's difference between our names, but this explains why you've all been calling me horse-face for the last 11 years.  Or is that because I'm also the person in the letter who breeds online horsey avatars named after her real life friends? 


This article about the invisible labor of feeding your household has been flying around my internets for the past week, and I have some feelings about it.  Not to throw Andy under the bus, but the lack of understanding about the time and emotional labor it takes to feed just the two of us, even with frequently disappointing results, is astonishing.  And I actually like cooking, yet I do often resent the amount of largely unacknowledged effort it takes.


In other food news, the internet figures out a thing I have been doing like it's normal for over a decade.  I'm expecting the peanut butter and pickle sandwich craze to drop any day now.


And here all this time, I thought the rise of getting real was what happened when 7 strangers are picked to live in a house, work together, and have their lives taped.



Two words you don't want to hear in conjunction with a condition you allegedly have:  Medical Mystery.


Looks like we narrowly avoided going 3 for 4 with experiencing riots while visiting other countries.  I really hope the people we met in Quito through the language school and tours are safe.  If you're keeping score, we were caught in a teachers' union protest-turned-riot in Lima in 2012, and multiple Euro 2016 soccer-related train disruptions and brawls in Paris and Lille in 2016.  We didn't encounter anything in Madrid in 2018, despite some of the separatist demonstrations going on elsewhere in Spain.


As a non-parent but also a librarian, I have a different perspective on the question of what audience is really the intended demographic for any kind of children's book.  Any book for a non-reader or emerging reader, such as a board book, is meant for the adult and child to read together.  Books that virtue signal or espouse certain values, like the feminist books the article discusses, are obviously a way for the parent to start exposing their kids to certain ideas, many of which will be over the kid's head for years to come.  In that way, the books are for the parent moreso than the child, but some of those lessons will start to sink in after a while.  Beyond that, any amount of relatively age-appropriate reading you do with your child is beneficial for both of you.  That being said, if you come across the Baby Hitler board book, "Mein Mein Mein, Nein Nein Nein!" maybe skip that one and just read "Goodnight Moon" for the 987th time.


Yea, but chanting "PODS PODS PODS PODS PODS PODS!" at the bar isn't as satisfying.


I mentioned these Cat-vent calendars (is that what they're called, if not, missed opportunity, dudes) to Andy and he said we should get one for Ajax but not Hadley.  They are currently locked in a real life Jack Sprat and his wife battle, in which she may not be able to physically get any fatter without exploding, and Ajax is but a shadow of his former self.  Still, that seems a little mean to me unless we can convince Hadley that she doesn't get one because she's Jewish.

And finally, on a serious note, you might feel like you're stuck between a cock and a work place rock and a hard place, but you can DO THE RIGHT THING, NEIL.  Don't be on the wrong side of history.  The only people who deserve to be discriminated against are bigots.  When I become a congresswoman, I'm going to pass Title LXIX, and the text shall read, "Everybody just be cool, okay?  Unless you're a bigot, then GTFO."

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Analog Reading:

Doxology by Nell Zink.  I snagged this from Andy's stack of library books and need to speed-read it to return it on time, as it is on a wait list.  I'm about 30 pages in, and I'm hooked.  Andy has a lot more free time for reading than I do, and I tend to scavenge the most appealing scraps from his reading materials.  Maybe I'd have more time if I wasn't trapped in the emotional and physical labor cycle of the modern hunter/gatherer, as discussed above.  I bet I'd get a lot more reading accomplished if I just hunted cereal and gathered milk.  Bowl meals are all the rage, right?

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Alright everybody, let's recap what we've learned.  Read to your kids, lie to your cats, and don't keep your Tide Pods on your bar cart.