Talking the good talk

I'm fascinated by language.

Not words, language. If I were fascinated by words, I'd probably be an English Lit fanatic, and I'm way too pragmatic for that, although I do like my descriptive poetry on occasion. Language.

Here's the difference.

My mom and I both like to play word games, because she probably would have been as big of a nerd as I was if she wasn't otherwise occupied being cool and growing up in an ethnic enclave in the Bronx. We both have the extensive vocabularies that grow out of reading too much and socializing too little. We're both about par with the pedantic language. (In fact, I spend a little too much time rewording my thoughts in my head so that it doesn't totally scream NERD when the actual words come out. People, we have to be cognizant of that kid's rate of noncompliance.... ummm, people, we have to remember that kid likes to toss puzzles across the room at least once a day.)

My mom is very good at Scrabble. She can take seven letters and rearrange those same letters into the most obscure words. Who can take PUECRO and turn it into RECOUPS in less than fifteen seconds? My mom! I can give her a run for her Scrabble points on sheer nerd alone, but I rarely beat her at the game. That's because she thinks in words and letters. She's thinking about the tone and cadence of her winning combo while I'm still wondering how I'm going to deal with all those vowels.

But I'm very good at Scattergories. Give me a letter and a category and I can give you ten trees that all start with the letter H. I can also get combos and rack up points like no other... except my mom, who usually comes close, but doesn't always measure up to my extreme nerd. I'm good at Scattergories because I think in terms of language. Categories, structures, styles. My mom's still thinking about the tone and cadence of her (losing) combo while I'm writing down all the world capitals that start with K before you can say Kathmandu.

This is why I like to write research papers (also, because I have no friends and writing research papers validates my lack of friends). There is a clear structure and style and it's all so very orderly. When I worked at Burger King during college, I used to write my papers in a notebook between taking orders... without actually knowing anything about the subject. I'd write the structure and fill in the actual facts later. I'd write notes to myself of where I needed to, you know, research.

"As of (year), (number of kids) had been diagnosed with ADHD, an (increase/decrease) of (percentage) since (year before). This substantial (increase/decrease) of cases of ADHD has been well-documented by the medical community. In (year), (researcher name) writing in (name of journal) noted that (main point of article), while in (second year), (other researcher) concluded that (main point of other article). Although many studies have looked at (thing one about ADHD) and (thing two about ADHD), little work has been completed on (main topic of paper). In this paper, I argue that (main points of paper)."

Bingo, done.

At any rate, I'll occasionally amuse myself by trying to figure out the structure of languages specific to certain types of people or groups or communities. I think it's the coolest.

In football, they say a lot about nothing.

Announcer Bill: So, Bob, how you feeling about the O-line this year?
Announcer Bob: You know, I got some good feelings. Here you have a lot of young guys, they just wanna play ball. And the players, you know, they just wanna help the young guys practice, play hard, and score those touchdowns. I've seen a lot of practice, and I gotta say, these guys just give it their all every single time, and they make those plays and play some great ball.
Announcer Bill: Thanks, Bob. And now, here's Announcer Tom.

On Pinterest, they gush a lot about nothing.

One Pinner Said: Oh my gosh, this is the BEST way to cleanse pores. I can't believe it's so simple! Pin now, read later! You won't be disappointed!

In Evangelical sermons, they say a lot to say just one thing.

I am a sinner. A dirty, rotten sinner, full of thoughts of greed and lust of evil. I am lost, totally depraved, damned to hell, without the grace of my God. And although I am a sinner, I am loved. I am loved. I am truly loved. To think that God Himself was set on a cross for me, for you, for all of us. We are all sinners, eternally lost. But through that love, that eternal love, we are saved. We are saved. Praise God, we are saved, worthless though we are. We are saved.

In women's magazines, they say a lot about inconclusive scientific evidence.

Did you know that drinking a glass of wine a day could add almost ten years to your life? Scientists at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, followed 5000 men and women over the course of five years. They found that those who imbibed red vino an average of five or more days a week had lower levels of cholesterol and higher overall levels of physical activity than those who sipped the good stuff only once or twice a week. Happy hour every day of the week? Might be one more way to stay healthy!

On food packaging, they say a lot about the gourmet qualities of all those foods you thought were perfectly ordinary.

New Natural Aged Cheddar Cheez-Its with Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper!
Cappucino Gelato with Cacao - Brought To You Straight From Italy!
GMO and Bovine Growth Hormone Free Organic Milk with Added Vitamin D!
Hand-Stirred All-Natural Peanut Butter - No Added Oils!

Grace concludes: A lot of language is used to successfully obscure the main point of language.

Next on the agenda - analyzing and cracking the code of womanspeak! I suspect that once again, a lot of language will be used to successfully obscure the main point of language. Only time will tell.

Things you don't want to hear

I like to think that I'm a realist. I try to see the world as objectively as possible. I scoff at things like "emotion." What is this emotion that you speak of? Why the heck would you let things like emotion color your decisions? Look at the data, make a conclusion, and stop crying. Only girls do things like cry and show emotion.

Oh wait...

So it is within the context of my Spock-like realism that I will happily (actually... more like apathetically) admit that I am not hott. Like not hott at all. Hott people worry about their hair and how their legs look in those jeans. Hott people know how to be fashionable. Grace, on the other hand, has a high hairline and and super-thick glasses. (I once did one of those things online where you plug your mug into the website and they tell you which famous person you look like. I apparently bear a 93% resemblance to Kim Jong Il. No lie.) I have a receding chin which makes me look like I have a double chin. Makeup feels so slimy that I refuse to use the stuff. Sometimes I have small holes in the back of my shirt because I can't stand tags and I'm just borderline autistic that way. I'm short and stocky. I have a husky voice and a heh-heh-heh laugh that's downright creepy. I'm a real plain jane, and I know it.

In general, I'm happy with being plain ol' me. I can look perfectly presentable when I ditch the purple sweatpants, and I clean up fairly well. I look awesome in a suit, when I get the chance to wear one. When my hair isn't having a George Washington moment it curls very nicely. I'll never be able to shop at all the Hott Teacher Fashion Stores at the mall, but that's OK. Nobody else can rock a pair of Ming Dynasty Slipper Socks quite like me.

Every once in a while, though, somebody notices that while I bear a 93% resemblance to Kim Jong Il, I only bear a 37% resemblance to the hott people that I, being a middle-income white female smack in the middle of my pre-metabolic-plunge period, should look like. And every once in a while, I get to hear things that I don't really want to hear, but at least it's incredibly funny.

Like yesterday. I was talking to the teacher in the classroom about the wiles and machinations of my cute kiddo. Everything was just going swimmingly when all of a sudden the teacher just stops dead in the middle of her sentence.

"Oh my gosh, Grace. Did someone punch you?"

I was more than a little confused.

"Punch me? Punch me where?" I mean, I haven't attended karate class in years. Just look at my paunch.

"Your eye! It looks like you have a black eye. I thought maybe LG punched you. And seriously, if he punches you in the eye, you kinda need to tell me, you know?"

"Oh. That. That's just me when I don't sleep well. Nobody punched me."

"Wow," said the teacher, still a little shocked. "That's kind of impressive."

"I know. It's a point of pride." Well, I thought resignedly to myself, that's what happens when you don't wear makeup.

And then there was that time a few years ago at some random picnic with lots of preschoolers running around. If there's one thing I've learned about five-year-olds, it's that they're brutally honest. No adult has ever mentioned that the thickness of my glasses creates an optical illusion that makes my eyes look different, but dozens of little kids have told me that my eyes look really, really small. Also, they're almost as tall as me, and they didn't know that adults could be that short. Gee, thanks.

On that particular day, I was wearing a bucket hat, because I will repeat, I have no fashion sense. But hey, even if I'm unfashionable, I still get along well with kids because we all think that adults are just weird. So I decided to be friendly, bucket hat and all. My victim was a cute little girl who was wandering around in my general vicinity.

"Hi," I boomed, which sometimes happens if your voice is deeper than most. "Whatcha doing?"

The little girl stared.

"You have a shovel. I bet you were playing in the sandbox. What did you make?"

She continued to stare. Um, awkward.

"Did you make a castle? Or a house?"

The little girl decided to break her silence.

"Are you a boy or are you a girl?" Um, super awkward. Also, what? I speak small child fairly well, but I was confused at this one.

"Why do you think that?" Drat, I boomed again.

"Girls have hair, like me!" Ah, the logic of children.

"Well, I have hair too," I countered.

"No you don't," squeaked the girl in her high-pitched voice. It brought back painful, confusing memories of when I was five and practiced having a high-pitched voice, because even then it was deeper than most.

"Yes I do. See?" I took off the bucket hat. My flat, frizzy hair came falling out.

The girl stared. A long, long stare. Then she just lost interest and ran off. Totally anti-climactic.

I was still a little puzzled about the comment. Why did I look like a boy? Was something wrong with my hair?

I went inside the house and found our hosts' bathroom. I stuffed all my hair inside my bucket hat and looked in the mirror.

Well, I could definitely see her point. The hat and my receding hairline had conspired against me to look like I had no hair at all. Combined with my deep bass (just kidding, I'm not that bad, unless I pretend to sing opera), I kind of did look like a boy. I also looked totally bald. In fact, I looked like one of small cancer victims who gaze at you forlornly on charity websites, hiding their lack of follicles under.... bucket hats.

Suddenly, I realized the sad necessity of fashion. My cheeks turned tomato red. I ripped that bucket hat off then and there and stuffed it in the garbage can. I walked out of that bathroom a free woman, secure in my own femininity, but I paid a steep price. Specifically, I lost out on the $6.88 I had shelled out to purchase the bucket hat from the clearance bin at WalMart, and that money could have funded an entire meal at McDonald's. Now that was galling.

I guess, every once in a while, when somebody says something I don't really want to hear, I do get a little twinge of jealousy towards all those pretty people being hott all over the world. I'm usually just fine with being me, but sometimes I do wish my hair were just a little easier to control and just one store carried fashionable jeans with a 27-inch inseam. But hey, I take what I can get.

At least no child has ever asked me if I was pregnant, because that would obviously mean that I would need to lose weight, pronto. But I have been asked how many grandchildren I have. Crud, I have no idea how to fix that one.

A song to sing

So... I have interesting news.

LG, the kid I work with, is nonverbal. He can communicate with picture cards (PECS), pointing, some sign language, and kicking and screaming. We try to discourage that last one.

However, he can "sing" - he kinda hums a tune, kind of makes some syllable sounds, kinda. He will sing "da da da da DAH DAH!" quite a bit, which sounds a lot like "da da da da NUT JOB!" We wonder if it's a comment about the teachers, or about his fellow students.

Usually his tunes seem random. Today, however, he sang a new song, and that was a very familiar song to my nerdy ears. Here's a YouTube video of his song... you might know it too.

Weekly Happenings

I've had a busy week!

First of all, I've been at orientation for work all week. Our first two days were classroom set-up days. I have a good basis for what's happening this year since I was in the same classroom last year, but there are major some differences this school year. Last year we had six kids, one teacher, two classroom associates, and three individual associates for three particularly involved kids (I'm an individual associate). We had six staff for six kids... and we still had our hands full. This year we have eight kids, one teacher, one classroom associate, and five individual associates for five particularly involved kids. That would be seven staff for eight kids. It is truly going to be a nuthouse this year with all the people in one room. We spent our classroom set-up days organizing and scheduling and such. I got busy setting up a space for my student, who I will henceforth refer to on this blog as LG, short for little guy, because he's, well, little.

The past few days our whole department is being trained in the new aggression and restraint techniques - it's an all-new program this year. I actually had this training before when I worked at the detention center, but now it's supposed to be used in classrooms for kids with autism. Unfortunately, although the behavior management techniques work very well for kids with emotional problems (I know since I used the techniques myself), it's not really designed for kids with autism. It's kind of surreal trying to go through our workbooks and apply the questions to our, uh, very different classrooms. Here's an example of the questions and my attempts to answer.

Question:Describe a situation in your classroom where a youth was experiencing an emotional behavior.

LG was sitting at the desk doing a puzzle when he suddenly jumped up, flapped his arms emphatically, and started running in circles. I told him to sit down and took away his puzzle until he could demonstrate nice sitting. LG responded by saying "DAH DAH DAH DAH" in a very angry tone. He then had an emotional crisis and punched me in the stomach.

Question: Using the steps provided in your workbook, describe how you should use active listening and problem solving techniques to help the youth through the behavior.

1. Give LG space to calm down.
2. Tell LG, "When I took away your puzzle, you punched me in the stomach. That made it seem like you might be angry about something I did."
3. Discuss possible other outlets for frustration with LG.

Question: Describe how you think the youth would respond to your active listening and empathy.

Based on my prior experience, LG would probably drop to the floor immediately and attempt to crawl under his desk and go to sleep.

Yeah. True that.

I've also been back and forth to the eye doctor this week. After the spectacular failure that was my appointment last August (my lenses were so thick that my eyelashes smudged the lenses constantly, making my glasses unwearable), I've been counting the days until our insurance will pay for a new pair.

My actual appointment was on Tuesday evening. I had my eye exam and picked out a new pair of glasses. It's a huge pain in the neck for me to get frames. I have a fairly lengthy list of requirements, none of which are cosmetic.

1. The glasses must fit my face. I grew, thankfully, which means I am now out of child-sized frames, but I haven't grown enough to fit into adult-sized frames. Yay.
2. The glasses must not be long and rectangular. If they are, my ridiculous prescription lenses will exceed a third of an inch thick and refract too much light, possibly blinding me as I drive down the road.
3. The glasses must not have too thick of an edge on the earpieces. If they are, my ridiculous prescription lenses will exceed a third of an inch thick and refract too much light, possibly blinding me as I drive down the road.
4. The glasses must have nose pads. I learned the hard way last year that plastic frames cannot be adjusted, and if your eyelashes hit your lenses, you're out of luck.

When all was said and done, I had my pick of two frames. One frame was small and round, screamed Coke bottle glasses, and was immediately eliminated. The other frame came in electric green and brown. Thus, I am now the proud new owner of a pair of brown frames that are slightly rectangular, not too elongated, have nose pads, and have just the right amount of edge on the earpieces. Unfortunately, they are not especially fashion-forward, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do from now on, since I only post flattering photos of myself on this blog.

There was only one (large) downside to getting new glasses. A $394.00 downside. After I picked my jaw off the floor, I asked to see the detailed receipt. Basically, had I been someone with normal, everyday nearsightedness, I would have only had a $180.00 charge for the frames, since everything else was picked up by our insurance. But no, I'm too special to be normal. I also have to have the following.

1. An Ultra Violet Coat, which reflects light and protects me from crashing my car due to sudden blindness.
2. A Scratch Coat, which ensures that the Ultra Violet Coat stays on and I don't have a random moment of sudden blindness.
3. A Hi-Index, which is the insurance people's way of nicely hinting that I'm just so incredibly myopic that I should really, really, like really, go get Lasik eye surgery.
4. An Anti-Reflective, which also reflects light and protects me from the evils of sun blindness and accidentally frying my eyes out with my magnifying glass lenses.
5. A Hi-Minus, which I'm convinced is only on there because the insurance people know that I can't not acquiesce to their demands, given my general blindness.

Busy, busy, busy. At least I'll be able to see, though. At least until LG flaps his hands right into my frames.

Also, insurance people, just so you know, my eye doctor said that I can't actually have Lasik surgery. I'm so nearsighted that Lasik will only take my eyesight from Blind As A Bat to Moderately Myopic. In the end, I'd still need glasses.

Call me Wobbly!

When I was a sub, I got to work with all kinds of kids, not just the autistic kids, although they are far and away the most hilarious out of the bunch. Occasionally I worked with the kids in Multidisabilities Support (MDS) classes. These are the kids who are pretty much immobile, in wheelchairs, often have the cognitive ability of about a six-month-old, and need assistance in just about everything that they do in life. It could be difficult to work with these students because they are often not responsive to anything... including flashing lights and music six inches away from their face. (One of the goals that we most often worked on with these students, in fact, was to try to teach them how to respond to any kind of stimuli - noise, music, lights, touch - by looking or turning their heads.)

Anyway, now I'm going to do a complete 180 and talk about my lovely self.

When I wake up in the morning, I yawn, stretch, pat around for my glasses (I find my glasses by touch since I can't actually see where my glasses are without the use of... my glasses), and crawl out of bed. A few events then occur, sometimes in the same order, often every day.

1. I put my feet on the floor.
2. My legs feel stiff from sleeping for eight hours.
3. My legs protest their stiffness and refuse to do what they should be doing.
4. I stumble across the bedroom floor.
5. I steer myself towards the bedroom door.
6. I misjudge the width of the bedroom door and smack into the side of the door.
7. In my annoyance, I say things that I cannot repeat on a family-friendly blog such as this.
8. Thus bruised, I continue down the stairs towards the kitchen.
9. I take my meds off the counter.
10. I open the meds.
11. I take a pill out of the container.
12. The pill leaps from my fingers onto the floor.
13. I bend down and pick up the pill.
14. The pill leaps from my fingers onto the floor.
15. In my annoyance, I say things that I cannot repeat on a family-friendly blog such as this.
16. I bend down and pick up the pill.
17. I successfully put the pill into my mouth and swallow.
18. I toddle over to the refrigerator.
19. I take out the iced tea and put it on the counter.
20. I pull off the bottle cap.
21. The cap leaps from my fingers onto the floor.
22. In my annoyance, I say things that I cannot repeat on a family-friendly blog such as this.
23. I bend down and pick up the bottle cap.
24. I pour myself a glass of iced tea.
25. I take a long swig of iced tea.
26. I accidentally pour a third of the glass on my pajama top.
27. In my annoyance, I say things that I cannot repeat on a family-friendly blog such as this.
28. I get a paper towel and clean up my mess.
29. I start to head back upstairs to take a shower.
30. I trip and fall over my slippers and crash on the stairs, bruising my knee in the process.

As it has been amply demonstrated above, one of Grace's many failures as an individual is her total lack of motor skills. My motor skills are awful. I break things. I drop things. I crack things. I smash things. And at the end of the day, I roll up my pants to count my bruises.

I honestly don't remember having motor issues to this extent when I was younger. Well, I do, but it was mostly gross motor and perceptual motor stuff. When I took karate, for instance, it was difficult for me to see someone performing a new punch or kick and then do it myself. My instructors told me for years and years and years that I needed to turn my foot to the side when I did a roundhouse kick, and for years and years and years I tried unsuccessfully to do just that. It wasn't until somebody actually put my foot in the proper position that I knew what I was supposed to do.

My favorite instance of perceptual and gross motor fail, however, was when I was nine and in 4H. I took a sewing class and actually made my own skirt (don't ask me how). At the end of the class, we all went to the regional 4H show where we wore the clothes we made to a fashion show. For the show, we all had to do a little routine. You know, walk to the front of the stage, twirl, walk to the side of the stage, twirl, that kind of stuff. Yours truly just could not figure out the routine and ended up completing her own specially-tailored routine where she just had to walk forward, twirl, and walk backwards. Oh the shame...

I'm thinking that the reason my motor skills seem to be worse in my twenty-eight year than they were in my eighth year is simply because I'm more active at this point in my life. I have to do things like drive a car, navigate through a supermarket, write papers for class (I don't hold a pencil correctly, either), and... help my students with their own motor skills struggles.

Which brings us back, full circle, to the MDS kids.

Since these children have so many needs, they pretty much need you to do everything for them. Remember, a lot of these kids have the cognitive ability of about a six-month-old... but they're actually eight or ten or twelve years old. And what do you do in school when you're in third grade? Yep, you do art projects! So think of asking a six-month-old to do an art project with you. You'd have to help her hold scissors, cut the paper, hold the glue, squeeze the glue, hold the crayon, color the paper, etc, ad nauseum.

Dan finds my lack of motor skills alternately concerning and hilarious. He says that the thought of me helping special needs students with stuff like art projects can be compared to the maxim of the blind leading the blind. I grudgingly concur.

As you can imagine, one of the few things that I really, really couldn't stand doing when I subbed were those stupid art projects with the MDS kids. My lack of motor skills were on display for all of the hott/previously hott teachers/associates/therapists/ in the room. I had to help kids use adapted scissors. Well, how did the adapted scissors work? Oh, you squeeze them? Shucks, if I squeeze the scissors, nothing happens. Oh wait, I have to squeeze with my fingers, not with my palms. OK, I think I got it now. Alright, now how should I adapt the adapted scissors so that I can hold this child's hands over the scissors while we use the scissors? Crud, we cut in the wrong direction. Crud, we tore the paper. Dang it all. Can we have another piece of paper? Good, great. OK, now we're getting somewhere. We've cut halfway around the circle. Man, my wrist hurts like heck. Ouch. Now my hand is going slightly numb. I wonder if this little guy would like to take a moment's break before we finish the other half of the circle.

Usually I ended up covered in sweat, red-faced, covered in glue or paint, and in pain. I'm not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing that someone usually noticed my pain about three-quarters of the way through and took pity on me... cut the rest of the circle, painted the rest of the paper, what have you.

And this is one of the reasons that being me can just kind of suck sometimes. I'm neither here not there. Let's face it, I get around in life just fine. But heck, I sure do have a lot of doorframe bruises. I fall over my own feet in the mall. (Two days ago, I was at ESU for orientation for the new school year. I was in a small college lecture hall with about 150 people. Totally fell over on my face while walking up the stairs. In front of 150 people.) I'm not weird or different enough to be anything more than weird or different. My weird and different doesn't have a name, and frankly, besides my pencil grip, I don't think my motor issues can really be fixed. It's just a little more of a pain for me to walk through life, and I trip - a lot - along the way.

But this is also one of the reasons I love working with kids with special needs. There are parts of me that I can't really hide or get over, even as a big important adult. I totally get why they don't want to write anything over a sentence, because they're grabbing the pencil with an immature grip, and I know their wrists hurt after a few minutes, just like me. I know why they don't want to play with the shaving cream or the paint or the weird foamy stuff, because it feels weird, and it grosses them out, just like it grosses me out. I get it. And when I need to wrestle my own limitations to help them out with their own limitations, I'll gladly do it, because I get it.

This is what Grace probably needed when she was younger.

A Very Asian Vacation

I have returned. From a short vacation. With Dan. And Dan's parents. It was fairly fun, and definitely Very Asian.

We left early Sunday morning, not at 5:45 AM. The original plan was to leave at 5:45 AM, and no matter how much Dan bargained, he couldn't get his parents to push up the time a little. I wasn't too scared, though, and I was right, because...

"No, Bei-bei! We must leave 5:45, no later, there will be traffic!"

 turned into...

"OK, are you and Grace ready for trip? We must leave no later than 6:30 AM! There is often line at US-Canada border."

turned into...

"Daniel, are you packed and clean? It is now 6:40 AM. We are coming in now."

So when all was said and done, we left a little past 7:00 AM.

Dan's parents had rented a car for the trip over. It was a nice, new car that drove smoothly, nothing like my Civic, which sounds like it's falling apart if you drive over 65 MPH. However, my Civic still has a better sound system. Dan and I had fun not being bumped and tossed around in the back seat.

If only we had known the terror that awaited

We drove ponderously along for a while, got breakfast at a Sheetz outside of Scranton, and looked at the never-ending forest outside the window. It was semi-fun.

Anyway, one thing that you need to know about Grace that you don't actually want to know: Grace has a long-standing codependent relationship with the potty. Dan and his parents know that all trips with Grace involve multiple trips to stop and use the potty, and the stops are not optional.

After we got into New York, we made a pit stop at a roadside waystation so that Grace could visit her friend the potty. Unfortunately, eight out of the nine toilets had flooded. I had the option of waiting in line to use the unsullied ninth toilet, but why wait? We headed off into the horizon once again.

Dan's dad pulled off at the next exit and headed for a Friendly's. I was a little confused. Unlike a fast food joint where the teenagers don't give a poo what you do, you can't really nicely use the potty in a Friendly's without buying something. I brought it up, but Dan's dad said don't worry, he would buy some ice cream so I could use the Friendly's bathroom.

Ice cream? It was 10:30 AM!

So when I had chatted up with my friend the potty and we had pulled off back onto the highway, Dan's dad was sitting there in the back seat with not one, not two, but three pints of ice cream. At 10:30 AM. Apparently he thought that we would all want some Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip ice cream. At 10:30 AM. We all declined, even Dan, who is still recovering from being fat and occasionally has relapses of fat kid syndrome. Dan's dad said it was quite alright that we didn't want his ice cream, he would be all too happy to eat the ice cream himself. And then he finished all three pints in the next hour.

Anyway, we wandered along. We stopped at the flagship Wegmans in Rochester. They had a wine dispenser and a food court and numerous PGA officials roaming around, but aside from that, it was a lot like the Easton Wegmans. We had a bite to eat (and yes, Dan's dad had a full lunch) and set off again.

I don't want you to feel the pain that we felt during the long slog over sitting in traffic for 90 minutes, so I'll skip ahead to when we actually got to Canada. Our first stop was Niagara Falls. We checked into the hotel and were all set to go down to the Falls, when...

...we noticed Dan's parents were in their pajamas and watching TV.

We asked if they were going down to the falls with us.

"No, no!" said the both of them, in unison, as if it had been creepily planned. "We have been there before. You go and enjoy. We will be here if you need us."

Crud.

We've accompanied Dan's parents on enough vacations and day trips now that we should have known this was going to happen. For some reason, Dan's parents seem to think that going on "vacation" with them means that they drive, pay, feed us dinner... and then hang back and sit in the car while we actually do the fun things. They seem to believe that having them not there means that we can have much more fun. They don't seem to realize, even though we've told them before, that vacation is much more fun when they do accompany us. It must be an Asian thing.

Thus abandoned, we tried to have fun by ourselves. We went to the Falls first.

Most of our pictures were actually this pretty.

We went to Johnny Rocket's for dinner.

Awesome malt shakes not pictured.

Then we went back to the hotel, had a drink, and went to bed.

The next day we went to Toronto. This was the stated reason for the trip. Dan's dad was attending a statistics conference in Toronto... which he attended for about four hours. Sigh. Once we checked into our Toronto hotel, the same pattern unfortunately repeated itself. Dan's mom turned on the TV and told us to go have fun. We were sad. Life went on.

So we went to eat Japanese food.

Ground chicken, egg, and rice bowl with spices. Yum.

We wandered around Toronto and went into a Loblaws, which is like a Canadian Wegmans just more hipster. We also went to a Bulk Barn, which sells stuff... in bulk. It was actually really fascinating. Where else can you find psyllium husks by the pound?

For dinner we went to a fancy Chinese restaurant to meet up with Dan's dad's one-time graduate student and his family. The dinner had about ten courses and was all very Chinese. Including that stupid bone-in chicken dish that's served at every Chinese banquet... which I hate but everyone tries to make me eat since I can't eat shellfish. Sigh.

We went back to the hotel. I yelled at Dan some more and fell asleep through the power of pure anger.

We left the next morning. It was a terrifying ten-hour slog back home and wasn't much fun at all. I amused myself by rereading Empire of the Summer Moon. Seriously, what better way to make yourself feel more comfortable than to read about 18th century Comanche torture practices? 

The one light of the ride home was when Dan was taking local roads in rural New York. We were driving behind a big truck. Dan's dad, who is the ultimate backseat driver, gave Dan the following instructions.

1. I know the speed here is 55, but go down to 45.

2. If you go down to 45, you will put some space between you and the truck.

3. There is no need to go anywhere near the truck.

4. You shouldn't go near the truck because trucks give off exhaust fumes.

5. And even if you take these precautions, some exhaust fumes might come over to our car.

6. So you should close the outside air vent in case exhaust fumes get in our car.

Nobody could argue with that logic, but at least Dan and I could laugh internally.

We finally got home about 8 PM on Tuesday night. It was a long, exhausting, Very Asian Vacation. Unfortunately, now I need another vacation to recover from my vacation. And I need it now.

Beautiful maps

As you probably understand by now, Grace is a huge geography nerd. I love things like zoning documents and cool maps (yes, I understand this is inherently boring to most people, but I do try to keep it under wraps most of the time). In fact, I can almost think of my life in a series of different types of maps.

Age 6: I read and reread my mom's old geography textbooks because they have cool maps of world resources (it was here that my social skills began to decline and crashed and burned soon afterwards).

Age 7: I dream of growing up and becoming a postal worker, so I can hang out with envelopes with different zip codes all day.

Age 8: I am gifted all of our family's National Geographic magazines so that I can begin map-hoarding in earnest.

Age 11: A real estate agent stops by our house, leaving her two maps of Northampton County and Lehigh County, which I then look at until they fall apart.

Age 12: I create my own wallpaper in my room, plastering National Geographic maps on every inch of wall space in my bedroom. Sisters complain that there's no room to put up their movie posters without accidentally tearing or obscuring Lithuania.

Age 14: I begin a years-long search to find a map of Bucks County (it really was that difficult pre-Internet).

Age 15: We purchase a copy of Microsoft Streets and Trips. I won't tell you how much time I spent with this thing.

Age 17: On a Starcraft kick, I download and print multiplayer maps so I can plot my strategy.

Age 19: I discover GoogleMaps. My life reaches a high point.

Age 23: I discover GoogleMaps StreetView. My life reaches a new high point, more awesome than I could ever possibly imagine.

Age 25: I realize that there are other people as weird as me out there somewhere who devote their lives to creating nifty web-based maps. I make it my mission to find them all.

Age 27: I find the New York City Snow Removal Map. My life is complete.

But I digress. 

Anyway, I thought I'd share a pretty cool map today. This is the Subway Inequality Map. Some unwashed person with no friends matched NYC subway stops with the median income of the stop's census tracts, so you can take a virtual ride down the 7 line and guess where the tourists go and don't go. It really is pretty neat!

Sweet Cool Awesome Map

The Purple Curse

On one clear Saturday in late September of last year, Dan and I both woke up on the right side of the bed and sat up as happy as could be. Not ones to waste such a glorious opportunity, we decided that we would go forth that afternoon and do Normal People Things. We were going to attend a Lehigh University football game and possibly buy overpriced mediocre hot dogs and nachos, because that's the kind of stuff Normal People do. We grabbed our matching Lehigh sweatshirts, dropped a few bucks on stadium seating pads, and drove off to the game.

Three things of note happened during that game.

First of all, Lehigh won! Yay!

Secondly, I spent a good portion of the game refusing to move from my seat and hiding behind Dan. Seeing old students in public is usually a good thing, unless your old students are still currently incarcerated, albeit attending football games with detention staff in preparation for their imminent release, and talking to them could possibly break confidentiality laws.

Finally, I found out that I actually enjoy football. And by enjoy I mean I get fairly fanatical about football.

Growing up, we didn't have cable television, and we lived in the boonies, so we couldn't even pick up on the neighbor's cable. My mom didn't give a hoot about sports. My dad followed sports when he could... on the radio. (You think baseball is the most boring sport of all time to watch on TV? Try listening to radio broadcasts of baseball games.) Football wasn't shiny enough to attract my attention away from my Holocaust memoirs, and the only rabid football fan that I hung out with on a semi-regular basis was my Pap-pap, who is the world's biggest Steelers fan. From time to time I would ask people to explain the rules of football so I could know what was going on, but that usually degenerated into blitzdefenserunballkickballfirstdownquarterbackfieldgoal, and I still had no clue. So up until last September, I didn't give a flying hoot about football.

At the Lehigh game, we were lucky enough to run into our friend Doug, who was kind enough to (yet again) explain football to Yours Truly. Doug never played football, he just played in the band at the football games, so he was much more able to remove himself from quarterback talk and just fill me in on what the heck was going on. In the middle of his explanation, I had a true revelation. I realized that football was actually not all about large men running into each other, but it was actually one gigantic strategy game that also happened to feature large men running into each other. Football gained another convert that day.

I went home absolutely hopped up on football. I started watching all the NFL reruns I could stomach in a twenty-four hour period (which turned out to be about two hours per day for about two weeks - no small feat for my attention span). I'm not totally stupid, so I realized that I probably wanted to direct my football love into fanatical devotion to a Pennsylvania football team, preferably the Eagles, perhaps the Steelers if the Eagles couldn't quite make the cut. So I watched a couple of Eagles games. I was not taken by the Eagles. In fact, I felt absolutely nothing for the Eagles. Darn. I turned to the Steelers. Meh. At least they seemed to be more competent than the Eagles. I continued watching various teams run over each other. Meh. I needed a team, dang it!

And then, the heavens split forth and the God of Football Himself spoke to me as I was watching (yet another) Eagles game. Grace, said the God, Thou shouldst not weep for the Eagles, for I in my glory have designed it so: Do not look with longing on the regional team, but instead turn thine eyes towards the opposing team, and give them thy love.

Thus, so it was that I fell irrationally and deeply in love with the Baltimore Ravens, for no particular reason that I could immediately identify.

At this point, I had a good enough understanding of football and football fandom to realize that I had basically chosen a life of exile for myself. In fact, I was kind of mystified at my own stupidity. It wasn't enough that I couldn't muster up any love for the Eagles of the Steelers, no no no. I had to be doomed to not throw in my towel with any of the larger teams like the Patriots or the Packers. I mean, it would be understandable if you went around Bethlehem talking about the awesomeness of Tom Brady, but if you went around Bethlehem wearing Ravens purple? You'd get laughed out of Bethlehem, if not forcefully removed from the state of Pennsylvania.

There was only one positive thing about my Ravens fascination - they did win the Superbowl a few months after I fell in love, so for a while I could get away with wearing a Ravens jersey in public and not getting killed. I've had to be careful with my public displays of devotion recently, however. Unspoken positive of going to the beach a few weeks ago: Grace can wear her Ravens t-shirt and not be refused access to the beach, since nobody knows I'm a Baltimore fan living in Pennsylvania.

At least, as we finally finally finally enter the football preseason (you wouldn't believe how proud I am that I know what the heck the football preseason actually is), I have a better understanding of where my Ravens love is coming from. It's something like this:

The Eagles

The Ravens

I rest my case.

Marriage is hard

Marriage is hard.

I'm sure that to anyone who has been married for more than a few weeks already knows this fact all too well, but marriage can be a real doozy. The revelations are different for all of us, but here's the crux of the matter - when you get married, you renounce your individual personhood to some degree and solemnly swear to try your hardest to henceforth spend the greater part of your life thinking of yourself as one part of a two-part unit. Basically, stop being selfish, stupid, and think about someone besides yourself, because it's good for you and it's the only way you'll come out of marriage alive.

Take yours truly, for example. I'm one of the most selfish people I know. Not necessarily because I'm a terrible person, but because I'm a socially-awkward introvert with ADHD (also occasionally because I really just don't want to get off the couch and clean up our mess). I've always been very shy and slow to actually, well, talk to other people, so I hang out with me, myself, and I most of the time. When it's just you, your brain, and the seven separate super-stacks of the Spanish Empire knocking at the door of your science city, you tend to forget that there's another human being sitting a few feet away who's in need of much more love than you can actually muster up for the Financial-Creative characteristics of Willem van Oranje.

So here's why I'm a generally crappy wife, helpfully illustrated by an equally crappy photograph. Stupid Instagram insta-darken.

Please remember that I only post flattering photos on my blog

And now, please enjoy the Super Self-Flagellation Points, below.

1. I'm a crappy wife because I am eating food that I have not prepared. Grace is not a domestic goddess. Grace is merely the library search goddess. In fact, Grace doesn't like anything domestic, including preparing food. Now trust me, I'll run you down armed only with my patented nearsighted glare if you try to tell me that as a wife, I positively should be a domestic goddess. I don't believe that. However, I do believe that I should be pulling my own weight around here, and by cracky, if that means I should be doing things like poisoning Dan with undercooked barbecued chicken, then I should do that, like it or not. Dan does the cooking because he likes to cook, and as I mentioned before, he thinks I need much stronger meds before he lets me cook. But cooking and cleaning and laundry and whatever are chores, too, and they should be shared.

2. I'm a crappy wife because I am obviously not ready for the picture. Dan and I like to eat food. Dan likes to take pictures of me eating food. Invariably, I look like I'm eating poop because I'm never ready for the picture. Basically, I am perennially focused on things other than my husband and his ever-ready camera. I'd like to blame this all on my lack of photogenicity or the taste of awesome food, but I really can't. Thankfully, ADHD really can take the brunt of the blame for this one. My thoughts are normally focused on the shiniest object within a ten-foot radius. Food is pretty shiny, as are books and things flashing across computer and TV screens. Dan has very dry skin, so he tends to not be very shiny at all. So I ignore Dan and focus on the shiny. Bad, bad Grace. I've been trying to work on coming out of my brain and giving time and attention to the one I love, not just the item that stimulates my brain the most at the moment. It's difficult, which is why marriage is hard.

3. I'm a crappy wife because I'm having lots of fun eating food. This picture was taken during our time in Poland. We had a blast in Poland. We ate food, obviously, but we also visited historical sites and old churches, shelled out mega-zlotys for Polish public bathrooms, and sweltered in the heat. And here's probably the number one reason why marriage is hard for the two of us. Dan and I are best friends. We insult each other, hit each other, totally blow up at each other, eat food together, travel the world together, watch TV together, solve social problems together, and nerd out together. We've been having fun together since October of 2004 when we went to see George Bush talk in Allentown, arrived too late, and went to the Allentown Farmer's Market instead and ate everything in sight. We're best friends first and foremost, and it can be difficult sometimes to be more than friends, to be romantic. It's particularly hard for me, since my social skills are made of fail and I have no idea what I should be doing. On one hand, we work so well together because we are the best of friends, but on the other hand, it's often easier to fall into a monotony of life because we're so very much at ease with each other. Bad Grace. Bad Dan. No.

Marriage is hard. Having never been married before, marriage does not come naturally for us. But learning how to work together and put each other first is something that you can learn, and I'm sure that we'll do well on this journey, since we are best friends, after all.

Grace ignoring Dan for something shiny, circa 2007

A completely true and accurate tale of epic love

Dan and I are star-crossed lovers.

And I'm not talking about the stars of blind rage I see before my eyes whenever Dan somehow manages to flood the bathroom surfaces with water... again. I'm also not talking about the many to-do lists Dan has crossed off in a feeble attempt to contain my maniacal organizing. I'm talking about our place in time and space; our worldlines that keep bumping into each other, falling over, and getting tangled into ridiculous love knots. The heavens conspired to bring us together. History itself brought us together. Yes, I really do think of our life in terms of such grandiosity.

The epic tale begins around the turn of the twentieth century in Imperial China (no really, it actually does). Dan's great-grandparents and their numerous relatives were generally living in the lap of luxury, owning lots of land, owning lots of slaves, and hobnobbing with Cixi, the Empress of China, who gifted the family a ceremonial vest that is still in our family today.

This is Cixi in all her circa-1900 Chinese glory.

Dan's family continued being rich Chinese people for several more decades, until World War Two happened. That put the kabosh on lots of stuff for lots of Chinese people, including Dan's relatives. However, if you once hung out with royalty, your sense of pride tends to hang around, no matter how many bombs are falling on the ground outside your ancestral compound. They still had their rich people snobbishness, and no Japanese invader could take that away.

And then, from somewhere in the north of China, a young army officer came a-courting Dan's grandmother. This was a young woman who was so privileged for the time that she didn't know how to cook because her slave always cooked for her. Normally, her family would have turned up their collective noses at the self-made army officer, but times were hard. Besides, as an army officer, he had access to items like cigarettes and chocolate. He wooed and won Dan's grandmother and her extended family feasted on cigarettes and chocolate until the end of the war. All was good.

The Chinese won the war. The Japanese were driven out of the country, and it seemed like all would be well. But then the unexpected happened. A man named Mao Zedong seized control of the newly-freed country.

Mao: Killed a lot of people, responsible for Dan meeting Grace

According to the new Chinese government, Dan's grandparents were at the top of the hit list. Not only were Dan's grandmother's family members kind of textbook evil landowners, but Dan's grandfather had fought the Japanese under the former Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, of whom Mao was decidedly not fond.

Dan's grandparents wisely decided to flee the country. They boarded the first flight they could to the island nation of Taiwan, which had become the refuge of many Chinese people who didn't like where Mao was going with the nation. As they were on the runway, Dan's grandfather noticed a convoy of Communist army vehicles coming towards their plane... fast. So fast, in fact, that they were rapidly catching up to the getaway jet, which was so loaded down by furniture and clothing that it was barely able to taxi down the runway. Dan's grandfather and the other men on the plane immediately began to toss all of their possessions out of the plane into the path of the oncoming soldiers, and took more than a few passing shots in order to... uh... slow them down. The plane landed safely in Taiwan, but Dan's grandparents were now penniless. The only possessions that they had been able to salvage were a few family heirlooms and Dan's grandmother's favorite slave.

They spent the next several decades in Taiwan. They had several children, lived a life, and learned to cook. By the time Dan's mom met a dashing young professional snack-devourer and mathematician, the riches were long gone. As was the case with the land and possessions of the other members of China's upper classes, the Communists took or destroyed everything that Dan's extended family had ever owned in China. The ancestral compound survived and was turned into an elementary school. (Yes, it really was that big. Sometime in the nineties Dan's parents were actually contacted by the now-slightly-more-sane Chinese government about the status of the compound. Would they like to be the proud owners of their ancestors' square city block of home? His parents declined and the compound was turned into apartments.)

Because they lived in Taiwan, Dan's parents had the opportunity to leave the country and go hang out in America. That was a luxury that not everyone had in the very anti-intellectual environment of pre-Millennium China. After Dan's dad got a doctorate, they settled in Pennsylvania and produced their crowning achievement, Daniel Lo Huang, on a June day in 1985. Their crowning achievement met the instrument of his eternal torment in August of 2003 and married in May of 2011.

So, in short, what do you get when you cross ancestral jades and rubies with peasant serfdom, the Summer Palace, cultural genocide, cooking, statistics, and Lehigh University?

This.

I actually picked one of our more flattering photos for this post.

Star-crossed lovers.

What would white people do?

Here's a nice picture of Dan and me in our natural environment.

Slightly less crazy than usual, though.

You might deduce from the background that we are in a Chinese restaurant, and you would be correct. This picture was taken at a dim sum place in New Jersey, I believe. Shortly after this picture was taken, I ate every crumb of a delicious sweet bun, including the paper wrapping. Oops.

Dan and I love to eat food, which is why we are both currently pleasingly plump. Dan used to love food even more than he does now, which is why I am not posting a pre-2007 photo of Dan and I eating food. One of the best things that came out of our otherwise terrifyingly awful marriage was the development of my palate. When I met Dan, my favorite thing to eat was McDonald's, and I did not order meat in restaurants because I worried it would make me sick. My favorite thing to eat is still McDonald's, but I'll throw in some Khmer blood sausage and tripe every now and then.

But while I've learned to appreciate great Chinese food (and most other great food, for that matter), Dan is still working on thinking about food like, well, like white people.

-----

"Dinner's ready!" said Dan enthusiastically. As the half of our partnership who enjoys cooking and is usually in a pretty even mood, Dan prepares the meals in our home. For now. I keep telling him that I'll start making some meals too, but Dan says I need some way stronger meds first before that happens.

I dragged myself morosely over to the table.

"Here's what we've got," continued Dan with an air of positive pride. "I grilled us some nice rare steaks, juicy and bloody. I also made a sausage and potato hash to go along with the steaks."

I shot Dan a murderous look. Again? This again?

The smile dropped from Dan's face. Almost as quickly as my appetite had dropped during his dinner description.

"What is it, honey? Don't you like it?" He knew what was coming.

"DEAR." I almost shouted. It was not a term of endearment at the moment. "YOU MADE TWO MEAT DISHES FOR DINNER."

Dan looked confused. I was confused too, since I knew we had gone over this before.

"Oh brother," I sighed, trying my best to stay the Hand O' Doom and work on simple resignation, no more. "Dear, you made two meat dishes for dinner. White people do not eat two meat dishes for dinner. White people eat a meat dish and a side dish, preferably a starch or a vegetable, but rarely, if ever, a SECOND meat dish."

Dan was still confused.

"But... really? I thought because there was potato it would be fine. My mom would always give me stuff like this, and it was fine!"

I raised a not-amused eyebrow. "Isn't your mother Chinese, Dan?"

Dawning comprehension glimmered. "Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry about that."

I sighed once more. "Think like a white person, Dan. What would white people eat?"

-----

I'm not really the expert in how to be white. To do that, I'd have to be a lot more hott, for one. Besides, I don't think there's actually a set-in-stone white people way to do things. But when you enter into the sacred bond of marriage with a guy who lives on tripe and steamed egg, you may become the family expert on white people by default.

It's become something of a joke in our interracial union. Basically, I learn how to be a good Chinese wife. I wow numerous relatives with my basic understanding of the language and my willingness to ask for seconds of stinky tofu. I also indoctrinate my husband in the ways of seventh-generation white people from Pennsylvania.

Thus far, I have taught Dan the following things about white people.

1. White people usually eat a starch, a vegetable, and a meat for dinner. Two starches are not acceptable. Two vegetables are not acceptable. Two meats are not acceptable.
2. White people don't always appreciate pig stomach prepared to accentuate the natural yumminess of the pig stomach. However, many white people will eat pig stomach if it is drowned in some kind of sauce.
3. When in the company of others, it is perfectly acceptable for white people to leave meat on chicken wings. White people don't necessarily eat the chicken meat down to the bone. White people definitely don't gnaw on the bones.
4. White people put pictures on their walls. White people don't encase their pictures in an extra plastic wrap to fight dust. White people have feather dusters for that.
5. White people buy furniture that they sit on and use. White people take the tags off their purchased furniture.

Dan's still learning how to act like a boring seventh-generation Pennsylvanian white person. I am still learning how to act like a boring second-generation Pennsylvanian Chinese person. But it's the trying that makes life entertaining.

-----

"Dan?" I looked up from my book about the genetics of tomato plants, secure in the knowledge that the tomatoes in our ketchup had been picked and processed in California, not in Florida. "How do normal people have fun, anyway?"

Dan chuckled.

"Dear, how do you think normal people have fun?"

I thought for a second. "Uh... they drink at bars? And then get hangovers the next day?"

"You're right on, dear, right on." 

"But that's so boring." Unless it involved fruity cocktails. I could go for a few of those. Minus the calories, of course.

"Well, that's just white people for you," shot back the Chinese half of our union.

"What do Chinese people do to have fun, then?" I asked.

"They drink at bars and get hangovers the next day. And in many cases, they repeat the formula the next day," said Dan, knowingly.

Once again I fought an inner battle to stay the Hand O' Doom. It twitched, and then rested in my lap, vanquished.

"Is that so?" A murderous glint flashed in my eye. The Hand O' Doom was struggling in its defeat.

Realizing his mistake, Dan went a little pale.

"Oh, why yes, that is indeed what white people do! Those white people, they're such drunkards!"

I rolled my eyes. Information on tomato hydroponics was calling my name. I would teach Dan about the righteous anger of white people wives at the end of the chapter.

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