LifePundit

A Pressure Washer with a First Aid Kit

The Congaree Swamp National Monument is about 15 minutes away from my house. Or at least it used to be. After all this rain, I'm thinking the swamp has expanded its borders. Welcome to my little home in the swamp.

Right now I see out of my office windows through a layer of green. Yes, green. We have algae -- not just mildew, but algae -- growing on our north-facing windows. My office is on the second floor and there's a steeply pitched roof under my windows. Ever since I broke my foot while watering a plant while standing on flat ground, I have quit climbing on roofs. But I almost can't work for looking at the world through algae-tinted glasses.

So, I'm looking for a pressure washer. I want one strong enough to take the mildew, algae and crud off of the house, but not so strong that it can hurt me. A friend of mine cut her leg to the bone with a pressure washer. I don't want anything that will wash off skin and muscle, roof shingles or gouge out wood. This same friend has a kinder, gentler pressure washer that even her children can use. I'd like such a thing.

As usual, I'm starting my research by reading the reviews on Amazon. I was just about sold on one of their very popular models when I noticed that one of the things that Amazon recommended that you purchase along with that item was a giant, industrial-strength first aid kit.

Yes, they recommended the washer, a length of extension hose and a monster first-aid kit. 

Maybe a ladder and a bottle of Windex would be safer. Or curtains.

How a Passion for Global Warming will Help My Child Make the Right Decisions in High School

Here comes a rant. But first, a little background. Lily starts high school a week from today. She's going to be slammed with difficult courses (and some easy ones), a monstrously big new school, the need to make new friends since none from her middle school are going to this school, and the difficult choices that face our teenagers.

Already she's feeling the pressure to join a high school sorority. They have lots of parties and underage drinking. (The answer is "no" on the sororities until I find out better things than I have already heard.) Whether she joins a sorority or not, she'll have many opportunities to make good and bad choices.

She was supposed to go on a Presbyterian-sponsored high school retreat for all of last week, but came down with a stomach bug and couldn't go. The kids that went had a great time and I'm sorry she missed out.

Or I was sorry, until I got an e-mail about the retreat encouraging us parents to follow up on the things that they learned about at this "World on Fire" retreat, such as global warming.

No matter what you think about global warming, is this the biggest danger facing my teenager? Will it keep her from getting pregnant or contracting an STD? Will it help her evaluate her choices in light of what she believes and the potential consequences of those choices? Will knowledge of global warming, which is now the spiritual center of our secular society, draw her closer to the real God who created her?

I am a global warming skeptic who believes that it is our Christian duty to be good stewards of the earth. But even if I thought global warming was something other than iffy science that makes Al Gore rich, I'd still be dumbfounded that with all the challenges our teenagers face that they are asking us parents to help our children decide how they are going to change their lives based on what they learned about global warming at the church conference.

I chose became a member of the Presbyterian denomination because it has an intellectual tradition and tries to educate its members on how to think for themselves. I love it that I can ask my minister a question and get told six possible ways of looking at multiple answers without getting told what "the answer" is. I do hope we haven't fallen into group-think.

So the retreat prepared the kids for high school by trying to get them motivated to do something about global warming. Last week Lily was home throwing up. After hearing this, I think I'll do the same.

But maybe Lily will find her knowledge of global warming useful. "No thank you. No ecstasy for me. It's too hot in here. Global warming, you know."

Or, "I'd love to sit out here in the car and have sex with you, but we need to watch our carbon footprint and it's too hot to turn the air conditioning off. Global warming, you know"

Or, "No, I won't text you the answers. Uses too much energy. We have to be careful of global warming, you know."

Better go before I throw off enough steam to raise the atmosphere by several degrees.

I Would Rather be Hot than Cold

I just got back from Pony Club camp in Tryon, N.C. It's the kind of camp where you don't drop off your kids and their ponies/horses and head off for some fun, and parents do the work. I'm a parent. This is bad news.

And if that isn't gruesome enough, it was so very, very hot. I found myself texting Paul, "I wanna come home." I felt like I was back at camp in sixth grade sending homesick letters to my mother.

We were there over 12 hours a day and it was brutally hot. I wondered how I could stand it. Then I would remember Philadelphia, and try not to complain. I would rather be hot than cold. That's one of the few things I am certain is true about me.

Beyond the heat, and the heat, and did I mention it was terribly hot? I'm also so very glad we went, because it was a great experience (almost) all the way around. Here's a great photo of one of the campers. Probably the best photo I've ever taken.

At least I wasn't cold, so I have no reason to complain or whine. My first job was in construction in Philadelphia. I got "put outside," kind of like the cat at night, on a high-rise project in Center City, in the middle of the winter. I stood on the frozen concrete floors, the building wide open to the wind. My job was to follow the plumber and be sure that he put insulation around the bathtub pipes. He was slippery, fast and knew how to dress for the weather. I was 23 or 24, from South Carolina, innocent and unsuspecting, and completely unable to dress for the weather. They were pouring the concrete floors above me, and they had the salamanders fired up to keep the floors warm (or at least not frozen) while the concrete set. Nothing else was warm. No, make that nothing else was thawed out. The winds and snow blew through the open building. The winds and snow seemed to aim for me.

I have never been so miserable, and that was a formative moment in my life.

Because no matter how hot and miserable I am here in S.C. or even in the Caribbean in July, I think back to sitting on the side of my bathtub in my Philadelphia apartment after a frozen, long day at work, holding my numb feet under the hot tap trying to get the feeling back. I almost cried when the alarm went off in the morning, not because of the job, but because no matter what I wore, I couldn't stay warm. I couldn't even get to be merely very cold. I was so cold I couldn't even think.

I can't stand to be cold. So that means that I will tolerate the heat though I will whine about the heat like my mother-in-law whines when we are five minutes late, yet I will remember: I would rather be hot than cold.

I wish other things were as easy to put in perspective. Or maybe I don't. That was a very painful lesson I learned and I'd rather be ignorant than suffer something like cold. Or worse things that life can throw at you.

If I could only be grateful for what I have. At least I wasn't cold. But I do believe there is a reason that hell is depicted as hot, not cold.

I didn't just say that.

Here's what I really meant to post about. If you're looking for some summer reading, here are a few books I've enjoyed over the last few months or maybe it was several years ago. Whatever. My brain doesn't work if it's too hot, either.

Right now I'm enjoying The Help. I loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and discovered it before Oprah. Nyah nyah nyah. And I tried my first Stephen King this past year and thought it was extraordinary -- Duma Key. That's all I can remember for now. In fact, that's more than I can remember about my own novel(s) right now, which I didn't even take with me to Pony Club camp because I knew I wouldn't be doing that kind of work -- and I was more right about that than I could ever imagine.

But at least I wasn't cold.

Now I'm Afraid to Go Outside

I used to be afraid that there were alligators under my bed. Turns out I was not such a foolish child after all.

The alligators have gotten too big for their breeches. I guess that's what happens when you over-protect a species that doesn't appear to need much protecting.

I'm happy to say that it's legal to hunt them in S.C. now, though I don't know when, how or where to do it.

Unfortunately, for the "where" part, it seems you don't have to look very far. A couple of weeks ago, at Betty's Diner on this end of town, or rather, since I'm not in town and Betty's not either, I guess you'd say sort of in this neck of the woods, had a10-12 foot alligator relishing the aroma of cooking hamburgers, fried chicken and tasty customers from just off Betty's property line. Since the marauder wasn't technically on her property and was a good tipper, the authorities wouldn't do anything about it.

Betty said:

“I check under my car when I go out,” said Betty Mack, 59, the diner’s chief cook and restaurant’s namesake who says her specialty is her fast-selling, secret-recipe, nonalcoholic green fruit drink she calls “Jesus.”

The gator hung out all day Friday.

And then, about 35 minutes from here in another town where alligators do not belong, a family heard a noise on the porch at 3:00 a.m. and thought it was a burglar. I think I would have preferred a burglar.

It was a nine-foot alligator. On their porch! And what's with the rug (picture above)? Remind anybody other than me of Little Red Riding Hood? This is serious, folks?

What the heck was a nine-foot alligator -- impersonating an alligator wearing a rung -- doing making a ruckus on their porch? Alligators do not belong next to restaurant parking lots. They don't belong on people's porches.

I'm beginning to believe that they belong in the purse-and-shoe shops. A few alligators is a natural wonder. Alligators leaving their natural habitats (and I'm not talking about how we encroached on them -- they do not belong this far away from their snaky rivers and golf courses near the coast) is how you lose an arm.

I had a friend who used to be in public relations for Jekyll Island. Every now and then she'd have to handle a situation where a tourist would have Poopsie the beribboned poodle on a leash, and an alligator would snatch Poopsie and gobble her down in one bite, just leaving the leash and the horror-stricken tourist. And my friend with a PR problem. (Poodles are apparently alligator chocolate.)

Anyway. I don't know where I'm going with this, but one thing's for sure: I'm not going outside.

The Cheapest Man in America Gets Romantic

I think I'm married. Paul continues to turn up after late nights finishing his office renovation. We haven't been away together alone since 2000. It's been a hard several months, so we really do need to have some time together. Alone.

So I was thrilled when Paul asked me if I would go with him on a week-long cruise to the Bahamas (I've never been there so it's time I went) on the Norwegian Majesty (pictured). The thing I love about cruises is that you absolutely have to unplug. You have to relax whether you want to or not. No Internet. No news (except what they let dribble through the room TV). No phone. (Yes, you can get these things but they cost extra and I really don't want them -- I'd pay not to have them for a week.) No man sitting at family supper using his laptop. A romantic week alone -- we've never needed it so badly.

And the price of cruises right now is almost less expensive than staying at home! Go look. I wonder for that price if we're supposed to bring our own sheets, towels and food?

Saintly Brother and his almost saintly wife have agreed to let Lily stay with them. I'm all set for our romantic cruise at the end of January. Time alone. What will that be like?

Then we have this conversation:

Paul: It's all set and Mark can go.

(Note: Mark is Paul's favorite client. I like him, too, and we have vacationed together before.)

Me: Mark can go where?

Paul: On the cruise with us.

Me: But I thought it was a romantic get away for just the two of us!?!

Paul: This way I can expense the trip.

He had already invited Mark! On our romantic cruise! Without asking/telling me!

Me: But then it's not a romantic trip with just the two of us.

Paul: We'll have a private room. I thought you liked Mark.

Me: Yes, but that changes everything!

I'm not sure that Paul every really understood the problem I had with this because to him it was just such a good idea -- bring a fun client and expense the whole thing. But to his credit, he re-arranged things and will be taking Mark on a later trip.

There is such a thing as being too frugal.

This is so awful it's funny. But we will have fun. Paul is cheap, but he is fun.

Merry Christmas!

How Long Can a Cat Live in a Tree?

Last Thursday morning while out picking dandelions for the rabbit that I swore I wouldn't end up taking care of, I heard a mewing. I thought it was coming from the woodpile. Nope. It was coming from 40-feet up a not very accessible pine tree.

A stray cat with a loud opinion. "I want down!" it's been screaming. I'm about to start screaming, too.

This looks like a nice, friendly, sweet, cautious, stupid cat. She (I have no idea what gender this cat is but it appears to have possibly nursed at some point, hopefully not last week) talks to you and writhes around the tree limbs and trunk. She rubs her head on the branches while she talks to you and looks like somebody I would love to pet. If I had 40-foot arms. I've called a few neighbors and nobody knows whose cat she is.

Every day we try to coax her down. Every day she winds around the tree trunk way up high, sometimes going higher but never going lower. She sleeps in a squirrel's nest.

On Saturday Paul stood a 20-foot-ladder at the bottom of the tree, climbed it, and put up another long ladder. Surprisingly, he had enough sense not to climb beyond the top of the ladder on the ground. The cat will put her paws on the top rung, cry pitifully, and wind back around the tree.

We've rattled food. We've called sweetly. We have considered throwing things but haven't done so. The cat's been up there for over five days. It's been cold, rainy and windy. I'm glad to report that the cat's voice remains strong.

Yesterday I climbed partway up the lower ladder and put out an opened can of tuna. I thought that the smell would travel up the tree and lure the cat down. It didn't work.

I told Paul that I'd put the can there. So, it wasn't my fault, was it, when he climbed the ladder this morning for his daily conversation with this cat and the can of tuna cat food fell off the ladder, tuna-side down, and whomped him in the head. He had just had his shower, freshly washed hair and was dressed for work.

I told him that maybe he would be more successful with the cat since he was fragrant with tuna. He didn't find this funny but perhaps he will one day.

The cat was eager to come down. We must have coaxed and cooed for 30 minutes in the cold. Paul lifted the top ladder right to where the cat sat on a limb. The cat would touch the ladder with her paw, then make another trip around the tree trunk, crying.

I think we were all about to cry.

Then Paul got stuck, and realized that the tree limbs he had used to climb up higher than the bottom ladder were dead..... I thought I was going to have to call the fire department to rescue him, but he got down.

Paul had to take another shower to wash off the tuna. The laundry smells of tuna and I have a load of clothes going. The cat's still in the tree.

The tuna-splattered ladders are still in place. Maybe I'll have good news tomorrow.

Forgot to Tell You -- I Need Three Mice for My Science Project

The science fair project proposal was due. The night before, Lily said, "I forgot to tell you. I need to get three mice for my science project. The teacher said that they can be class pets when I'm finished with them."

When she's finished with them I'll be the class pet.

"We're not getting any more rodents, don't you remember?" I said. We had six hamsters in succession. We got the rabbit in an agreement with her that  we wouldn't have any more rodents.

"But these are for school."

I'm a soft touch, so I did try to think of a way to make it work, but all I could do was smell rodent urine in my mind. "How long will your experiment last?" Rodent urine makes a special imprint, even if you think rodents are cute.

"I don't know. A few months?"

Her experiment was about learned helplessness, which is how I was beginning to feel.

I was the one who told her about learned helplessness. I heard a podcast about it and wish I could find it to link to it. The basic story was this: Somebody did an experiment where one group of mice got to go play in the equivalent of a mouse Disney World and the other group had to sit in sad, unstimulating confinement. I don't know what the control group did -- probably housework -- not enough to make you off yourself, but enough so that you felt like your world wasn't toppling in. Over time, the mice that went to the mouse Disney World were confident and ready for anything. The mice that sat in sad confinement day after day grew to believe they were in sad confinement even when taken to mouse Disney World. They were stuck because they thought they were stuck. They had learned helplessness.  I think there's a good life lesson here for teenaged girls. If you don't believe you can do something, you can't.  That's why I'd told Lily the story to begin with.

I could see her attraction to this experiment. More pets. Mice are cute. Get to build a mouse Disney World (would she be able to make the other mouse sit in sad, non-stimulating confinement? I'm sure she couldn't. All her mice would end up in Disney World, I promise.)

But dern it all, I'm done with rodents. The smell! The smell! I told her that she might be able to do it, but she had to buy all the cages. Three different ones. And they had to be where I couldn't smell them.

When her father got home, she gushed to him about it. He isn't a soft touch. "Heck no you can't have three mice. You've got a rabbit -- and no more rodents."

Very clever to try to slip three mice by us in the last minute. "But my proposal is due tomorrow!"

She came up with something else, which was a lesson in non-helplessness on its own.

Do You Have to Lie to Get Your Child in a Good School?

Sending Lily to the single-gender middle school was the best thing we ever did. So was switching churches to one where she felt more comfortable (can you have two best things you ever did?). Alas, her middle school only goes through eighth grade, so we've got to find a good high school to send her to next year.

Then we have to figure out a way to get her in.

The single-gender middle school she's attending is in another school district, Richland District 2. A good school district, run by professional, fair-minded people. They are very upfront about how somebody from outside of their district can get a child into the school of their choice. We had to:

1. Buy property in that district (we bought an empty lot from parents whose daughter was finishing up the single-gender program and returning to District 1);
2. Apply for the magnet single-gender program and be accepted;
3. Pay tuition every year. This year's tuition was $4,000. Yes, we pay tuition to go to public school. Don't that beat all?

We could stay in that district, keep paying tuition, and get her into a good high school by getting her in a good magnet program. But the schools keep getting farther and farther away from where we live. And why should we pay tuition and drive two hours a day (30 minutes there and 30 minutes back in the morning, same trip in the afternoon) when there are good high schools in the district we live in?

Trouble is, we aren't zoned for the good high schools. And District 1 is not run by fair-minded, professional people. The school we are zoned for is better known for the gangs it breeds and the occasional football player who goes on to be a star in college or beyond. A neighbor's daughter went there. If you asked her how school was, she would burst into tears. Her parents wouldn't allow her to talk about it. They moved to Florida.

Lily is not going to that school we are zoned for. Period. It is a failing school and not safe either.

But here's the thing. How do I get her into one of our district's two good high schools?

On April 15, I will need to go to the district office and plead my case to get her transferred to a decent school. I understand I need to treat this day like a rock concert where the tickets are quickly sold out, waiting in the darkness of the early morning, standing in a line with other hopeful, stressed parents for the district office to open and the bureaucrats to begin their bureaucratting.

Based on the experiences of my friends, this is a nearly useless exercise. One woman had all of her paperwork for the transfer typed up, notarized and included back-up documents. When she got to the front of the line, the bureaucrat dismissed her, saying her paperwork wasn't right! The person behind my friend had no paperwork at all. The bureaucrat filled it out for her and accepted it.

My friend is white. The bureaucrat and the person she helped were black. My friend called the district supervisor that afternoon. She said, "I think my problem is that I'm the wrong color." The supervisor did not like this at all.

Unfortunately, another white friend had a similar experience and came away saying that she, too, had been the victim of racism.

These are the things that happen and we whisper among ourselves, afraid that in our charges of racism we will be called racists.

I'm calling around, talking to other parents and teachers, trying to figure out how to get my daughter into a school where the challenges will be academic, not challenges for survival, and where she can get into a good college. I want her peers to be college bound, not bound to drop out before graduation. So far, the advice has been that I have to play the game. That means I have to lie.

Some people "borrow" addresses of relatives and friends who live in the right school zone. Some sublet rooms or pay people to use their addresses. And they teach their children to lie about where they live so they won't be thrown out of school.

There's another route. If I can find a course that is offered at one of the good schools that is not offered at the gangsta high school we're zoned for, we can get Lily in on that. So far, all I've found is Russian. I think you need a burning desire to learn Russian in order to succeed at Russian, so I'm still looking. I'd hate to do that to her. She loves French.

The district bureaucrats know that people do this, so they don't make the course roster easily accessible. I'm trying to get a listing of what the two good high schools and the one bad high school offer so I can compare. I did find the comprehensive roster for the whole district, and I have to say, it was disturbing. They had a special section on students who are going from the eighth grade to the ninth grade. They call these students "raising ninth graders." This error is repeated everywhere. They call themselves educators. It's rising. I guess I should be grateful that they're not planning on razing them.

What a world.

Why is Lieberman Going to Georgia?

Here's one headline from a news email I receive:

Lieberman Going with Graham to Georgia

So I think, "Huh? Is this something to do with one of them being McCain's running mate? Why would Lieberman and Graham be going to Georgia? Is something political happening in Atlanta and I've missed it, like I've missed so much else lately?"

But no, yet again I have been tricked by the Georgia/Georgia headlines. You're just supposed to know which Georgia it is. The media -- or the stylebook people -- really need to do something about this or when Russia really invades Atlanta we're not going to realize what danger we're in.

Russia invaded Georgia again? And we do nothing, because what we need to know is how's the football team doing. Russia couldn't have invaded our Georgia. Our Georgia could whoop them, because....

A little farther down this same news email is this headline:

Georgia Ranked #1

Then why are they having all this trouble with Russia? Why don't they just kick their butts?

Obviously, the media need our help in distinguishing which Georgia is which. So here are some suggestions:

Our Georgia                Their Georgia
Hot Georgia               Cold Georgia
Peach Georgia            Vodka Georgia
East Coast Georgia        Eastern Bloc Georgia
Gun-Toting Georgia        Gun-Riddled Georgia
Georgia                                The Other Georgia

Please submit your suggestions or I'll post the ones that were even worse than these.

Change Lanes Slowly When Driving

I apologize in advance for back-seat driving here at LifePundit, and I'm sure my readers are too smart to need this advice, but here I go. When you're driving and need to change lanes, Change Lanes Slowly.

Don't whip from your lane to another, even if you're in a sports car and it's fun to do. Change Lanes Slowly.

Here's why:

1. Maybe someone is in your blind spot. If you change lanes slowly, they'll see you coming and can either brake or honk at you and give you the finger. The finger isn't my favorite thing, but I'd rather get it than have a wreck with its owner and get to meet a person comfortable with his/her right to self-expression. Especially when the collision is my fault.
2. If you're changing lanes in front of someone who can't stop quickly, such as a heavily laden truck or a woman pulling a horse in a trailer behind her (did you know if you make her slam on brakes, the horse can get hurt falling forward? Plus, if she slams on brakes and the person behind her is too close, they can rear-end the trailer and kill the horse? Don't you pull out in front of me when I'm trailering and make me throw down my horse!)
3. If you lane-hop in front of someone who can't stop quickly you could get killed -- or get them killed.

Two examples. A few years ago a driver on I-26 abruptly changed lanes to avoid a dog. The 18-wheeler traveling in the lane she hopped into swerved to avoid her, lost control of his truck, and overturned, blocking the highway for hours (this is what happened according to witnesses). I'm not sure that the person who caused the accident was even aware of what she had done. The truck driver's legs were crushed, but emergency crews had to be careful cutting him out because the truck was carrying fuel and their was the potential for explosion. They ended up having to amputate the truck driver's legs on the scene. He died on the flight to the hospital.

Okay, so the lady didn't hit the dog. But a man died a terrible death.

And it happened again yesterday. A Honda quickly lane-hopped in front of a cement truck on I-26. The cement truck couldn't stop and ran over them. The cement filled the Honda and buried the three passengers. It took 20 people with shovels to get them out. The two people in the front seat are dead. The passenger in the backseat is in critical condition. The tragic story is here.

Teach your children: Change Lanes Slowly When Driving. The lane may not be as clear as you think, and not everybody can stop as quickly as you can.