Be prepared!

Want to know something embarassing?

2010-07-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

It worked.

Shameless capitalizing on TWILIGHT

2010-07-19T21:09:00.003-04:00

My hits are down a little, probably due to the fact that I never update. Therefore, today's entry is brought to you by pop culture vampires and a shameless ploy for search engine hits. (Hell, just to make things interesting, all the desperate ploy bits will be in blood dripping red.)

So. My first aid assignment for the day was to figure out how to treat a neck wound with "severe arterial hemorrhage." Not that wimpy, mild arterial hemorrhage. We're going all the way on this one, dudes. Clearly enough, this is not the kind of thing I could find a volunteer for too easily. Not, that is, unless I was on the set of steamy vampire romance True Blood (which, I'll have you know, I don't watch. But I see the ads on the train all the time). The first step, clearly, was to figure out what exactly arterial hemorrhage was and how it differed from regular old bleeding. The answer? Arterial hemorrhage is way grosser and more cinematic. You can tell the difference because one happens when you get a papercut and the other happens when bright red blood is spurting out at regular, pulse-like intervals.

The biggest challenge with bleeding of any kind is just to get it under control -- an adult can lose 1 pint of blood to little effect, but make that 2 pints (or a delicious snack for Twilight's Edward!), and things start to move towards shock. More than that, and we're getting into the dying part. (Or the undead? Eh, that one was kind of grasping at straws.)

The major neck artery is the carotid, which you know from being smart and I know from trashy television shows. (Like The Vampire Diaries? Or is this getting silly?) Now, while we'd usually fight arterial bleeding with direct pressure, tourniquets on the extremeties, things like that. The problem arises from the fact that we're talking about the neck here. The body part that you get all "gah!"-ish if your scarf is too tight. So pressure is not exactly the ideal situation here. Unless you're a sexy sexy vampire. Instead, we need to get a little more creative.

The first thing you want to do is to avoid touching things as much as possible -- you might dislodge some sort of beginning-of-a-clot, which would make things even worse. Well, that's really the second thing you want to do. The first is to call a hospital, because things are going to get real bad real quick -- things will get so bad that the internet seems to be pretty much telling me that the only solution is to have a really good doctor use a balloon catheter to stop the bleeding and conduct unpleasant surgeries. If your patient lives that long. (Also, tonight, I have seen more bleeding necks on the internet than I even know what to do with. There are so many reasons I am not a doctor.)

Anyway. If you've called a hospital and not mucked around inside the wound too much, you can also -- very very very carefully -- apply pressure below the wound to the carotid artery. You know where it is. Find your pulse in your neck. Yeah. Right there. Find a spot below the spurting blood and press. Don't press on both sides of the neck at the same time and try not to compress the windpipe, but give it a shot.

Hey, look at you. You saved someone's life.

And you thought you just got here to see the entire cast of Twilight naked. Psh.

Now I'm just taking advantage of the internet

2010-07-18T21:17:00.005-04:00

Tomorrow will be a return to the first aid badge, but right now I have a question. See, I bought a dress, and I think I like it. But my mom thinks it looks suspiciously like a beach cover-up. What do you think, buddies? I mean, I wore it out to dinner last night, but that just may mean that everyone around me thought I was wearing it out to dinner after a lovely day at the beach. Which is maybe not the worst thing, but still.

(Also, I'm watching the SyFy original "Infestation," which is gorier than I expected. I think a dude just got a big, big insect egg injected into his spine. Ew.)

Order of the Arrow

2010-07-16T21:17:00.002-04:00

So, this didn't exist in 1911, but my grandfather was still surprised I wasn't familiar with it. Then again, he's familiar with everything having to do with the Scouts. Seriously. He was an Eagle Scout, Silver Beaver, you name it.

So over the past few days, I spent a little time filming my grandfather talking about a few things related to his time in the Scouts in the mid-30s. (He stayed involved with the Boy Scout Council until the 80s, and his store sold scouting equipment until, um, until today, really -- my uncle's taken over the store and Grandpa, in the tradition of retirees everywhere, moved to Florida, but still.) Today's clip (there'll be more as summer wears on) relates to his initiation into the Order of the Arrow, a particularly survivalist kind of scouting honor society, in 1936.

(We also went to the beach, over the course of which I was totally shamed by being way more buffeted by the waves than he was, but the man can swim, I'll tell you that. Clearly, the Order of the Arrow isn't for wusses.)

I've been out of town

2010-07-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

Video update coming this evening.

In the meantime, can anyone tell me why there are no hobby shops in all of New York, it seems? All I need are a few propellers!

Sometimes, the Handbook wants to kill you

2010-07-09T21:09:00.004-04:00

I still haven't left my apartment during the daytime with any kind of eagerness or, really, unless I was going to DIE. It's improving, though, I swear. Or so they say.

(By the way. All I want to listen to lately is Bruce Springsteen's "Live in Dublin." I'm not even a huge Bruce fan (despite living 5 years in Jersey). But I can't get enough of it. Can not. Thanks, dude.)

Anyway, I'm nearing a point of being able to leave the house and get back to things, and I'm even feeling pretty good about finishing up some badges I'd started and stopped and started again (I'm looking at you, aviation and business. Speaking of business, there's something about that coming in the next few days. So you know.) But still, really, I'm thinking about heat. Earlier this week, I started thinking about green leaves and wound up dealing with racism a hundred years ago. Today may be more of the same.

See, I continued on into the Handbook's thoughts on what to do if you just couldn't keep cool -- and remember, since air conditioning units weren't commercially available until after the Handbook was written. Prior to about 1914 (when the first air conditioned home was built in, of all places, Minneapolis (buh? really, Atlanta?)), home cooling was largely accomplished via ridiculous setups involving fans blowing across bricks of ice. Useful if you have an iceman and a LOT of ice, but still. Beside the point. Window units weren't available for purchase until after World War 2, and remember, while both of my grandfathers fought in WW2, neither was even born when the Handbook came out. So there was a whole lot of time between those two events.

Clearly, then, it was time to research the Handbook and heatstroke. Full disclosure: I had heat exhaustion once, and it was miserable. I worked at Mystic Seaport on the Sabino, a tiny steamboat that legend has it James Taylor once worked on. While I was supposed to be a deckhand, my duties were a little more expansive -- each morning, I loaded off the previous day's ashes from the boiler, then loaded on 1/2 ton of coal (with a wheelbarrow! I briefly had superdeveloped shoulder muscles, you'd best believe) and wood to make a fire. The captain, a fellow named Stu who lived on his sailboat (in the East River during the year, but for this particular summer in the Mystic River), showed me how to pilot, and the engineer (whose preternatural sense for when an attractive lady walked by taught me more about how many adult men work than, well, being an adult woman has) showed me how to build the fire and shovel the coal.

One night, I managed to sweet talk the engineer into letting me shovel for the duration of a trip down the river. It was a hot summer day (kind of like today, really), and I think a wedding was going on. I wanted to show how tough I was, and I was all suited up in long pants and a workshirt, and I was pretending not to mind that it was 140 degrees in the engine room. And was pretending not to have had a big bowl of hot clam chowder for dinner. I made it down to the first big bend in the river, maybe 20 minutes out, and I was doing a pretty solid job until I started to puke. Oh man. I've been sick since, but it was a bad one. I spent the rest of the trip lying on the top deck, in front of the wheelhouse. (I don't think the wedding guests noticed. I hope. Sorry, guys!) Anyway, it was just a shuddery feeling, the kind of weakness you feel after you're starting to get better from the flu but before you're ready to get up from the couch, or after you get off the roller coaster but before you want to get on another one.

John picked me up from the dock and got me home (I threw up in his car) and into an old-style cold water bath. That's not me in the picture, and I don't actually know who it is, but the internet is great. Besides, that guy has a way better beard than I do. Regardless, he dosed me up with a bathtub, Epsom salt, and Gatorade. (The Epsom salt arrived again later that summer when I nearly impaled my hand on sharp wood, but that's all there is to that story. I'm just real klutzy.)

According the Handbook, John messed up big time (sorry, dude).

He didn't give me any stimulants. I'm not sure what stimulants they're suggesting in the Handbook, but I'm idly curious. Cocaine? (I'm not kidding.) Caffeine? Tobacco? All of them at once, in the craziest cold water bath and drug festival in my own personal history? One can only hope. This is really, though, an example of when old time medical knowledge fails completely. See, stimulants, it turns out, can actually increase dehydration, and can increase the incidence of heat exhaustion. Oops.

Want to know why else I'm thinking about old medical advice that can kill you? Jon Clinch's Kings of the Earth came out last week, and aside from being the single most spectacular book I've read maybe ever (to the point where I have to stop every few paragraphs lest I become totally overwhelmed by it), it also features a hell of a lot of old timey medicine, involving salt pork, snowbanks, and tourniquets made of feed sacks. Yes, Jon's my dad (and WONDERFUL!), but I'm telling you that Kings is the real thing. The LA Times loves it! Oprah loves it! And so do I.

it's really, really hot.

2010-07-06T20:48:00.002-04:00

As in, 103 with a heat index of 113 in New York today. Compared to the chilly (relatively) temperatures in Vermont -- heck, I wore a sweatshirt out at dinner last week -- it's been a rough adjustment back to the city, and I could hardly bear to leave my apartment today.

It's not even sultry, steamy, Blanche DuBois hot. Or maybe I'm just not sultry enough. Regardless it's more of a sweaty, bags-under-eyes kind of hot. The kind of hot where we left our window unit running all night at 85 and it felt downright chilly compared to the rest of the house.

In honor of the heat, and in honor of my own return to the Handbook, I went back today to see how the scouts of 1911 would have coped. (Did I follow through with all these? No. Man, a scout in 1911 didn't have air conditioning, and despite my total stubbornness until this very summer, there is no way I'm going back.) I didn't get too far.

The Handbook starts out simple -- put green leaves inside your hat. In the days before the entire Patagonia catalog of wicking fabrics, this may have been valid. But this is also an artifact of the days when men wore hats, and when green leaves were (for everyone) easy to get one's hands on. For me, this was an interesting way of thinking, I guess, about who the Boy Scouts were intended for, at first, and about urbanization in general. See, in the 1920s, my maternal grandmother (and her family, my great-grandparents and various great-aunts and great-uncles) actually lived in the same neighborhood where I do these days. No trees. Also, very few Scouts -- honestly, the first scout troops were largely white (as in, African-American scouts were banned formally, until 1915 -- a topic for another day) and Protestant (as in, Catholics were banned until 1913, at which point a sort of separate-but-equal Catholic-only troop setup began, mirroring a similar Mormon-only troop structure a few years later).

Maybe it's not fair for me to think about green trees as being exclusionary, but that's where I am right now. Being up in Vermont and in way, way upstate NY until only yesterday has made me hyperaware, today, of just how remote my existence in Brooklyn is from the more rural scouting-ish lifestyle. It's the same issue that's present in a lot of educational equality discussions, the kind of inherent biases that some people think don't matter on standardized tests, things like that -- when you ask a city kid whether a slope of 90, 45, or 0 degrees would be better for cross-country skiing, you're putting that kid at a disadvantage, just by the very nature of your assumption that this city kid knows what these things are and how to deal with them. Am I calling the Boy Scouts inappropriately rural? Not by half. It would be like calling Neighborhood Watch too neighborhood-centric. Or like calling out the Hells Angels for a reluctance to pursue pony rides. It's the nature of the organization. But still, any organization will be easier for some people to join than for others, and we need to be aware of that.

Anyway. I'm disjointed, but it's hot. I'm going to eat me some ice cream, and we'll pick up this thread tomorrow. It's going to be 102 in Brooklyn, buddy, and I'll have a whole lot of time indoors.

I got weirdly stubborn about this

2010-07-02T14:10:00.002-04:00

See, first I thought I'd go on a little self-imposed hiatus at the end of the school year while things were getting crazy.

Then, I thought that maybe I'd wait to see if anyone asked me what had happened to this site. But it didn't count when John asked. Or when my parents asked. Or when people I know in real life who read this asked. (Who did this leave? I have no idea. I mean, I have an idea, in that there are like 6 billion people I don't know, but well, you get the point.) nd then that leads to really awkward conversations, like at brunch with a college friend a few weeks ago when she asked when I was going to start writing this again, and I said "when someone asks me what happened to it." "I'm asking." Um. Oh. Is this me telling my friends that they don't count? I have no idea. But it seems kind of jerkish, right?

Anyhow. It's July, school's been out for a month (almost), and I'm running out of excuses. I'm returning to Brooklyn on July 5, and I'm ready for action.

I'm still here, I promise

2010-04-23T22:33:00.004-04:00

And I actually have no excuse for not updating. Except that I'm kind of a jerk.

I just got home from dinner with John after seeing Oceans in the East Village. And while I'm exhausted (it's been a long, long, allergy-ridden week, and one in which Charlie the cat broke his leg again), I figured I ought to check in, at least.

While I was an utter failure (or at least a not-insignificant failure) as an oceanographer, seeing stuff like the Oceans footage reminds me why I tried to do it in the first place (well, part of why, at least). Man, I was a third-rate scientist but the ocean is an almost-religious experience for me, and seeing that kind of film, it's like my heart is getting torn from my chest. The almost mechanical-looking mackerel bait balls, the celebratory sea nettles , oh man oh man oh man. I seriously can't take it. I get teary-eyed, just about. (I actually find myself thinking things like "wow, I would love to be a jellyfish." This is an insane-person thought.)

Also, I'm a big old wimp and had to actually leave the room during the (brief) section addressing water pollution but really, are we surprised?

Eww, I have gross legs

2010-04-14T21:34:00.004-04:00

You may not know this. If we haven't met, you have no way of knowing this. And if we have met, you're unlikely to have noticed. But I have superdisgusting legs. Fortunately, these superdisgusting legs are also our visual aid for tonight. Yay.

Since my mid-teens, I've had icky varicose veins on my calves. They are not subtle, not by any means -- they're so pronounced that a young gentleman at the gym during my college years may in fact have once asked me if I would tell him more about the horrible accident that had so dramatically mangled me. He may specifically have inquired if it involved an animal bite. (I don't dwell on past wrongs, not me.)

Regardless, I have gross, veiny legs. I will never be Tina Turner. However, the Handbook offers tips for a modern girl on the go. Sort of. See, for the First Aid badge (that's me, always bringing it back!), I need to explain how to treat severely ruptured varicose veins.

Wait.

Ruptured? With severe hemorrhage?

(That pause was just me going to the doctor in a panic.)

(Actually, it wasn't. After my grandmother's examining my leg and asking "What is that," I did once go to the doctor. He told me to wear support hose, which I coudln't bear to purchase, and therefore I totally ignored his advice. Oops.)

Now, my icky legs just look icky -- they don't hurt. (Also, it's surprisingly hard to photograph your own leg. So you know.) But apparently, varicose veins can become a big problem when they rupture. Leading up to it, though, they tend to bulge and turn reddish or purplish, which seems like the sort of thing that would already be a problem. So, you know.

By all reports (and I'm not willing to crack open my own legs to test it), the main strategy for a bleeding varicose vein is the standard elevation-and-pressure -- keeping the bleeding extremity above the heart and applying firm pressure above the wound (hence, I suppose, my deeply-refused compression hose).

Mission? Accomplished!

Got an idea?

2010-04-13T07:01:00.003-04:00

Any thoughts on how one might demonstrate ladder-based rescue techniques in an apartment that is tiny by US standards, moderate by NYC standards, and quite reasonable by most-of-the-world standards? (I'm in a 4-room, 4th floor walk-up, and no, I am not going to carry anyone or anything up and down the fire escape. That's just insane, dudes.)

Things that make me mad

2010-04-10T16:35:00.003-04:00

When I lost on Jeopardy, I was angry, but I wasn't mad. (Okay, fine. I wasn't angry, either. But I'm trying to make a charming connection to my return to the First Aid badge, so bear with me here.)

Anyway. I wasn't mad because I have never been bitten by a mad dog. Out of concern for the safety of one and all, though, the Handbook's First Aid badge requires understanding how to treat for just such a thing. And so, off we go!

Now, this component of the badge comes as something of a surprise to me. See, I knew that Louis Pasteur had developed a rabies vaccine in the 1880s, and so I saw treating a mad dog bite as kind of an irrelevant thing. Then again, I just wasn't thinking hard enough -- as anyone who's ever read To Kill a Mockingbird knows, rabid dogs were plenty scary in the 1930s.

The Handbook deals with mad dogs in one way and one way only: killing them. This makes any actual mad dog-related demonstration difficult, since I am not a horrible human being, and since most US rabies cases nowadays are found in wild animals. I considered, briefly, hoping Charlie the cat would bite at me (look at those choppers! ps, he posed for this while purring, because I was also holding him up to gaze at pigeons outside the window), but even that seemed ineffective. But alas, he wasn't feeling too bitey. So instead, I was unable to engage in the Handbook's primary anti-rabid-dog methods, which consist of waggling a handkerchief at a charging dog, matador-style, in order to distract him, then kicking him in the chin. (Alternate methods include wrapping a coat around your arm, presenting that arm to be bit, then either choking the dog with your remaining arm or clubbing him over the head. Please don't be angry with me for this. I am not urging you to do this to your pet, or to your neighbor's pet, or to any actual dogs. Ever. Really.)

Once you've subdued the mad dog, of course, there's still the first aid component: holy crap, you've been bitten by a mad dog! You have rabies! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!

Never fear. Well, fear in 1911. But don't fear now. In the pre-rabies treatment days, you had a few options. Some included the 18th-century method of swigging a drink of liverwort, pepper, and cold milk followed by an icy bath, or the even older method of drying the dog's heart and eating it. Don't do this. Please don't. It will be a terrible idea.

(If you have gotten here via things like "eat a dog's heart," leave, you sick, sick individual.)

In real life, if you get bitten, all you really need to do is get to some soap and water, then get yourself to the doctor immmmmmmmediately. (If you can, by the way, let animal control know who bit you so they can quarantine the critter for a couple weeks.) Thorough washing will minimize viral transmission, so give yourself a solid 5 minutes with plenty of soap. (Since rabies is viral rather than bacterial, antibacterial soap will do nothing for you -- this is a huge pet peeve of mine.) Regardless, rush to the doctor for some post-exposure prophylaxis, a series of shots over the course of 6 weeks or so. It's supereffective, and since its introduction rabies deaths in the US have dropped to only a couple per year. Go team!

Jeopardy, part 2

2010-04-07T19:34:00.006-04:00

For more info, see yesterday's post.

When we left, um, me, I'd just gotten a phone call to film a Jeopardy episode. Awesome. John, my best friend Wendy (she of the swimming posts), and I booked tickets out to LA, then I had to get to studying. See, a lot of people think that, if ou're going to be on Jeopardy, you get some kind of list of potential topics. Not so! I tried to think of what I know the least about -- geography, presidential cabinets, sitcoms, and the academy awards, more or less. I made absurdly elaborate flash cards (check out Truman!), which I lugged about with me for weeks on end but hardly actually looked at. (Life advice if you want to study geography, do not waste your time making a flash card for every country in the world, because that is an insane waste of time and you will spend days on end on it and still stall out around San Marino or so. Not that I'd know from personal experience or anything.)

I also started actually watching Jeopardy. Now, this is kind of embarrassing, but I have never been a huge Jeopardy watcher. I know a lot of big fans, but it's not a part of my day-to-day schedule. Clearly, this wasn't going to help me. On the advice of Arthur Phillips (friend of my dad's, Jeopardy champ, and author of "The Egyptologist," one of my favorite books), I watched absolutely religiously. John kept score (enormously strictly -- deducting points when I didn't answer in the form of a question, all that), and things improved dramatically and quickly. When I first started playing at home (in early November), I was scoring about $18,000 per night (ignoring betting). By January, I was reliably hitting $25,000 or so, not actually because I got smarter but because I learned to quit guessing. I stopped prefacing answers with "I'm gonna say . . . ," and, most of all, I kept my big mouth shut when I had no idea. (Apparently, I made the same stupid faces I wound up making on the show, but that's much more my day-to-day life than anything else!)

By the time we got to LA, I was more dreading my taping than anything else. We stayed in the Jeopardy-recommended hotel, and I entertained myself in the rainy LA weather (it rains in LA? who knew?) by trying to guess which other hotel guests were Jeopardy contestants. I was wrong most of the time, but figured it out the morning of the taping. I took the bus over to the Sony studios with a dozen or so other future Jeopardy players, and I remember talking a lot with Nancy from Las Vegas (who was on the day before me) and Sarah from Chicago (who'll be on on Friday). I brought clothes for three days, since they tape five shows per day, but I was secretly betting on being out in one. No one who's ever met me would say I'm over the top in the self-esteem department. (Alternately, I'm realistic.)

Now. When we finally reached the studio and got set up, things got more fun. There was paperwork, sure, but it was augmented by donuts (I had several), smoothies (I had one), and fruit (which I ignored, more or less, in favor of donuts and smoothies). Maggie reappeared, which delighted me, and she and the other casting staff went over our stories. (I'd submitted six or so potential anecdotes, which they'd narrowed down to three -- this site, my time in college working on the steamboat at Mystic Seaport, and a Jeopardy-related story about the first time I met my future father-in-law. We had to rehearse delivering whatever of our stories the casting crew had liked, and then they chose one or two to pass along to Alex.

(Makeup happened around this time, too. Somehow, I managed to be the last through the makeup area, and I have absolutely no idea what they did to me. It was like a magical, movie-style transformation montage. The makeup artist told me that it was just emphasizing good areas and minimizing bad areas and that even a trained monkey could do it, but this is totally unacceptable self-deprecation. So there.)

Post-makeup, we had a few minutes to try out the buzzers and generally get a feel for the set. First things first. See, I have solid spatial perception, but the stage was totally not oriented the way it felt like it should be. I sort of imagined the audience being more behind Alex than they were, and the contestants standing at an oblique angle to the audience. Not so! This, oddly, threw me more than anything else the entire time. Though I also had some big-time problems with the buzzer. I didn't play video games as a child and it showed, though Dave from Mississippi was a magical, magical buzzer god. I think that, in the entire buzzer-practice round, I managed to ring in once, then immediately forget the correct answer. I have a feeling that my future competitors saw me as an easy pushover, and I spent the rest of the morning praying not to go up against Dave.

Finally, it was time for the audience to come in. Maggie re-emerged and went over basic rules. We were allowed to sit near our families, but not among them, and we weren't allowed to make eye contact or communicate in any way. I tried to follow this one, but let me tell you, it's hard. It's like being told not to think of an elephant. Or not to think of Alex Trebek. Exactly. (This was even harder because John and Wendy arrived with my high school buddy Jordan, who is a Big Deal out in LA, and whom I hadn't seen for something like 10 years. Plus, they were going to meet each other at the studio, sight-unseen. I desperately wanted to know that they'd found each other, which they somehow had with almost no trouble. Go my friends!) At some point during the morning, Brandon from Augusta (who would later beat me!) and I had a long discussion of Final Jeopardy betting strategies, which was probably a bad move on my part. Oops. I need to be a tougher competitor. (Please note! Important! I am not not not saying Brandon cheated, or that I gave away my strategy! My winning or losing was 100% my own fault, and I own it entirely.)

I played in the fourth game of the day, after a morning of watching three games and a lunch in the studio commissary. Other people on the show maintain that we ate at a table next to Adam Sandler, but I have no way of confirming this because I wouldn't recognize the man if he were to sit down next to me and say "hi Emily. I'm Adam Sandler." Actually, that might do it. Regardless. (You are probably, by now, getting the sense that my Jeopardy experience was heavily food-based. This is true.)

After lunch, it was my game. Despite everything I'd hoped for, I was up against Dave from Mississippi, the magical buzzer-hero, and Brandon from Augusta. The production crew wired us up with microphones (I kept trying to walk away with mine, which resulted in awkward pulling on the front of my sweater) and used a system of risers behind the podiums (podia?) to make us all roughly the same height -- in real life, I'm considerably shorter than Dave. Johnny Gilbert, the classic Jeopardy announcer, read our names, and we were off!

The first round was a complete fever dream for me -- I was pretty satisfied with the botany and time zone categories, though the army base and baseball categories left me bewildered. Above all, though, I was still having buzzer problems. (If you see the episode, you'll see me unknowingly doing that awful thing contestants do when they shake their hands as if to demonstrate to the world "see? see? I'm totally buzzing right now." I will never again judge someone for that.)

The break between single and double jeopardy felt like it took about a second and a half, but double Jeopardy was enormously better. I decided that I had to stop watching the scoreboard, and after a few questions had gone by I suddenly got the hang of buzzing in. I had some kind of weird, two-handed-two-thumbed buzzing strategy that looks superungainly on tv, but it worked surprisingly well. Only when I got my first Daily Double (a question about Robert Louis Stevenson, the answer to which I knew thanks to junior high school English) did I realize that I had never thought at all about betting strategies. I drew a number at least a thousand above the point value of the question and hoped for the best. Success! (I was actually feeling really good about the South Seas literature category, because there were questions about Mutiny on the Bounty and Typee, both of which I love.)

I got another Daily Double later in the same round. I'm bewildered by the idea, referenced elsewhere on the net, of "hunting" for a DD -- I sort of thought they were randomly assigned, and I'm not sure how one might hunt for something randomly placed. Regardless. This one was in a category about fashion, which made me draw in my breath a little bit. Only since moving to NY, and therefore no longer having a car, have I stopped buying most of my clothes at Target, and I'm still pretty much dressed via H&M and Old Navy. (Maybe I'm having a little bit of a hard time getting the hang of adult costuming . . . .) Regardless, the question had something to do with Armani and fashion shows, and it was a nightmarish moment -- I'd just bet $3000 on something and, all of a sudden, out of my mouth, comes "you think I should know that?" Oh God. On national television. Mortification ensued, while I was also thinking "Rome? Venice? Siena? Florence? Is Tuscany a city? Tuscany is probably not a city. Really? Tuscany? Sicily isn't a city either." And then, oh you will not believe me, I thought about going to the mall in high school and seeing some semi-fashionable store with a big poster in its window listing "New York. Paris. Milan." Milan! Thank heavens.

The big finale was, of course, Final Jeopardy. I saw the category: the animal kingdom. I am a science teacher with a master's in oceanography. This is a piece of cake! Plus, I'd gotten all the other FJ's correct that day, which was encouraging. Only at the betting did I actually look at the scores -- holy crap. I just won on Jeopardy.

Well, almost.

I bet so that, if Brandon had bet every dollar he had, I'd've won by $1. Was this a good idea? I'm still not sure. In my head, I think I'd do the same thing again. After all, I figured there were 4 possible outcomes: we both got it right, I got it right and he got it wrong, I got it wrong and he got it right, and we both got it wrong. In either of the first two situations, my sickeningly enormous (my first grad assistantship paid only marginally more than my FJ bet!) would give me the win. In the third situation, I'd be pretty much guaranteed a loss, but the fourth situation was a wildcard. Here's the motive: I decided that the only thing I could control was what I got right. By betting the way I did, I had a lock on the win as long as I answered the question correctly -- I would only lose under my own power. Ultimately, things backfired, and I lost because we both got it wrong and he bet way, way less than I did, but still, I can only express so much regret. Sure, if I'd bet a big fat 0 I'd be a Jeopardy champion right now, but in the moment, there was no way to know it. I took an aggressive route, but I played to win it, not to let someone else make that choice for me.

Right afterwards, I was pretty bummed -- I saw Dave later in the hotel, though, and he had great words of advice for me: "Why are you so upset? I was just on Jeopardy, so how bad can it be?" True words, sir.

One final thought: I've been so grateful to my family (who has to be nice to me) and my friends (who are my friends because they're so nice). It's part of the social contract, I guess -- if your cousin or coworker or whatever is on a national TV show, you have to call them brilliant and good-looking and say they were totally robbed in their loss. Thanks, guys. You're awesome.

Other things online have been kind of weird, though. Some sites (the official Jeopardy boards at Sony) were pleasantly serious-minded, and I've been really enjoying reading them. Others, though (I'm looking at you, Television Without Pity!) are pretty harsh -- it's making me a little self-conscious. (This is probably a good reminder that the anonymity of the internet can bite me in the butt. That and that I should never, ever make nasty comments about people on non-fictional TV shows again.) There, and via the hilarious, hilarious twitter search of Jeopardy-related posts from last night, I've learned that a lot of people thought I came off cocky, or even that my hemming and hawing during my second DD was meant to taunt my opponents (what kind of evil genius do they thing I am?) and that I was totally trying to get Alex Trebek to make out with me or something. (Do people say this about male contestants who make jokes, too? If not, which I think is probably the case, this seems both kind of sexist and also a kind of heteronormative.) Also, reactions to me seemed very split along gender lines, which I feel a little weird about, too. That's a thought for another day, though, I reckon.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's over!

2010-04-06T20:54:00.003-04:00

Phew. Jeopardy.

My episode just aired, and now I'm decompressing a little bit. Since I'm now allowed to talk about it, here's the full story:

I tried out for the show a long time ago, in January of 2009. I signed up for the online test as kind of a lark, since I'm actually not a huge game show watcher of any sort. (Except for Project Runway. That's just awesome.) Anyway, the online test was fast and furious, and I remember nothing at all about it except that one of the answers was Cate Blanchett, which I somehow guessed despite having never actually seen Cate Blanchett in any movie ever. Regardless, I was pretty sure that that was going to be the end of things, and it seemed like it was.

But it wasn't! Clearly. I got the call to go to a live audition in New York last June, the day after my last day of work at my favorite school ever (far, far away in New Jersey). I took the train in and found myself in a hotel basement (creepy), where the Jeopardy contestant coordinator Maggie (my best friend in my head) took a Polaroid (they still make Polaroids?) and sent me to sit with the rest of the contestants, who were overwhelmingly male and 20 years older than me. A lot of them had tried out a lot of times, which I found really intimidating, though I'm not sure why. Also, around this point I noticed that the dress I was wearing had a GIANT hole in it, which I tried to convince myself was a design feature. It was clearly not a design feature.

Anyway, we all were ushered into a conference room, where we took a paper-and-pencil test, which pretty much consisted of watching a PowerPoint. There was a question about English royal succession and a question about Twilight. I have no idea. After that, a live-round, in which we used the buzzers, got interviewed (I think I said something about superheroes), and answered more questions (I got a whole slew of them about various alcoholic beverages and knew none of the correct answers). I left feeling pretty overwhelmed and underprepared, then didn't think about Jeopardy again for months.

In the intervening little while, I moved to New York, got a new job, quit my new job, got a new new job, and so on and so forth. So it was something of a surprise when, in November, I got another call from Maggie (hi, Maggie!) asking me to come out to LA to tape an episode. I actually said no the first time -- the scheduling didn't fit. Apparently, no one says no to Jeopardy. It's like refusing a favor to the mob -- you just don't. They were flexible, though, and we finally scheduled for a filming date right after MLK day in January. (Conveniently enough, on my mom's birthday!)

***

Phooey! I was hoping to finish updating this pre-school, but that's not going to happen. Stay tuned for more later!

In case you didn't know

2010-04-05T21:58:00.002-04:00

I'm going to be on Jeopardy tomorrow. Yeah. Jeopardy.

Zoo zoo zoo

2010-04-01T21:42:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, I visited the zoo. See, I've been reading "The Lost City of Z" (like I mentioned a couple days ago), and all the talk about snakebite convinced me that now is the best possible time to pursue the, well, snakebite treatment portion of the First Aid badge. And where better to learn about snakes than at the zoo?

Despite last summer's exploration of Prospect Park, I'd never visited the Prospect Park Zoo, which was very much intentional -- I'm a big wuss, and I reliably find myself getting depressed at the zoo. It's the same reason I can't have pets who need to stay in cages or tanks, or that the NY ASPCA's subway ads bum me out for the day. While I understand intellectually that zoos have a lot of merits -- public awareness, preservation/breeding programs, things like that -- I find it uncomfortable in the moment. The thing the PPZ had going for it, oddly, was its smallness -- they didn't have big, big animals with ranges of hundreds of miles. Most of the critters were pretty small, and that helps at least a little. (I have mixed feelings about the two forlorn sea lions there, but we'll take a pass on that for the time being.) Also, they have what may well be my new favorite animal, the Pallas's Cat.

Now, I went to the zoo largely to investigate what types of snakes they might have, but the answer was, sadly, very few. I only saw a corn snake (no photography in the reptile house!), and everything I learned about it is totally irrelevant to the First Aid badge -- the corn snake is a constrictor which, while terrifying, means it's not so likely to be a biter. Zoo trip? Fun but irrelevant. Phooey.

Now, it's time to return to my total not-research in "The Lost City," which has mostly featured the 1920s explorer Percy Fawcett loading up his boats and packs with dozens of different antivenom serums and informing aspiring explorers that a snakebite is dangerous only if it turns blue and doesn't bleed. Sadly, this isn't actually true -- some bites (from coral snakes, for example) don't lead to major symptoms for hours and hours. I would bet money, also, that the Fawcett expedition -- and any expeditions launched using the 1911 Handbook -- might suggest sucking venom from a wound. Not so, says my Red Cross instructor! First, ew. Second, you won't necessarily get out most of the venom anyway.

So what do you do for snakebite? Nothing too surprising, it turns out. Splint the bitten limb (but not too tightly), wash the area well, and keep it below the heart (which makes sense, after all). Some folks might steer you towards use of a Sawyer Extractor (which looks kind of like the lease useful syringe ever), but that appears to be optional. Really, this is pretty much it, and everyone -- everyone! -- I've spoken to or dealt with says one thing and one thing only: call for help. Really. Call right away.

I finished all this, though, and I wasn't really feeling satisfied. Whether calling for help is the thing to do or not, seems to run counter to everything the Handbook cares about -- being competent in the woods, away from home. Fortunately, the internet is an excellent and reliable source for information about how to ignore medical advice. So I leave you with something you probably should not actually do if you're bitten by a snake: pressure immobilization. This sounds fancy, but it's really just wrapping the bitten limb snugly (but not so snugly as to restrict bloodflow) with a series of bandages before splinting it. This restricts the movement of the venom through the bloodstream, which has the side effect of loading up the near-bite area chock full of venom and maximizing damage there, but this is (often) a worst case scenario kind of treatment. So let's not do it unless we have to, okay?

Cooking, etc.

2010-03-30T22:53:00.005-04:00

So I built and lit a fire, etc. I'd forgotten a long time ago how much work it is to wake up, bundle up, get a fire built and breakfast cooking, and all that. (I think even my more recent camping trips were of the granola-bar-for-breakfast kind, and it may well be that I haven't cooked breakfast over a fire since I was in the Brownies and my dad came along on a father-daughter campout.) Regardless, after some initial false starts we got a fire a'cooking, and the eggs weren't far behind.

My worries about the previous day's snow were largely unfounded, though I hadn't anticipated one technological problem: the Morningstar veggie bacon does not want to get cooked over a fire. Or cooked over any kind of heat. I'm a faux-bacon enthusiast (really), and the difference between the Smart Bacon I usually use and this stuff is the difference between night and a disgusting, awful day made out of charred, oddly colored cardboard. Really, it was pretty gross. This is the kind of problem them Handbook didn't really set out to address, of course (there is no provision for making mock bacon instead of the real stuff), so I'm still going to say it counts. Besides, it looks pretty, right?

(PS: I'm a big wimp, so given the fact that THERE WAS SNOW ON THE GROUND, OKAY GUYS?, I ate my tasty tasty breakfast indoors. I am so not Eagle Scout material.)

I apologize for the delay in posting, by the way. It's been a busy few days, returning to New York and heading to relatives' for the Seder. Additionally, I've just started reading David Grann's "The Lost City of Z," which is pretty much an H. Rider Haggard book in real life, and it is all I want to think about. Tomorrow, partially inspired by that, I have a field trip planned to investigate a very particular type of field surgery. Be prepared.

To build a fire . . .

2010-03-26T18:14:00.003-04:00

I remember reading "To Build a Fire" in 7th grade English. Well, sort of in 7th grade English. I sat next to the window, and there was a big stack of books on the windowsill. I think we were actually doing some kind of vocabulary exercises, and I read a lot of short stories under my desk.

(Sorry, Mrs. Nogami.)

Regardless. I'm in Vermont, and tomorrow morning I'm going to be doing part 1 of the Cooking badge -- preparing bacon and eggs, in the open and without a standard kitchen. (I will assume this means I can still use things like knives, plates, etc., because otherwise things seem kind of absurd, and because the Handbook makes reference to cooking over a griddle as an acceptable practice.) For the record, I'll be making veggie bacon.

It's probably in the 30s or 40s here today, so maybe the picture makes things look a little snowier than they actually are. Still, there was a certain amount of brushing snow off of things, and tomorrow I have a certain amount of (probably groundless) concern about snowmelt extinguishing my fire. I've got a lot of dry twigs set up there, though, and a few handfulls of pine needles, so it shoudl all work out. I'll let you know tomorrow, after my delicious breakfast.

(PS: the Handbook also offers me the option to make hunter's stew (what on Earth is this? Must I actually be a hunter? I can't tell), fish, fowl, or game, as well as hoe-cakes, pancakes, or hard tack. I am passing on these, both as a vegetarian and, in the case specifically of the hard tack, as someone with no aspirations of being a quartermaster for a 19th-century whaler.)

There is no better day for this post

2010-03-23T19:23:00.006-04:00

Before I begin, I have to say that the House's health care vote could hardly have made me happier. Having spent a large portion of childhood and adolescence on the wrong side of hard-to-insure, and having parents who've been self-employed in some capacity for the majority of their working lives, I've taken great umbrage throughout the debate at the idea that lack of health care is only an issue for the lazy and for mythical welfare queens (haven't we been done with that stereotype since like 1994?). Finally. While I know the new plan isn't perfect (what is?), the acknowledgment that 1) the protection of the people should be a primary role of government and 2) hardworking people can still be screwed over by the insurance system gives me the happiest grin this side of a icanhaschee zburger. And believe me, I love a lolcat.

Now. I spent yesterday completing a major badge requirement for first aid. See? See? The promise of cheaper, more accessible health care is not making me abandon my commitment to being able to actually respond to a medical emergency. So there. (Sorry. I shouldn't check in with comments at the NY Times website while writing this.) Anyhow. As I was saying. I spent yesterday obtaining my Red Cross first aid certification.

In general, I was surprised with the brevity of the training program, though of course something is better than nothing. The real problem for me, at the training, is that I'm a wimp. I had a hard time looking at the images of amputations, objects embedded in eyeballs, that kind of thing, in the training manuals. For me, all this is straight-up nightmare fuel, though of course there's the (valid) argument that it's better to experience seeing pictures of it before I find myself walking down the street and coming upon someone whose internal organs have become external. (Despite Good Samaritan laws, I'm still not sure if I'd be able to handle that. Honestly, though, could you?) I know that this isn't a big deal for a lot of people -- at least, popular movies (of the sort I don't watch) would suggest it isn't. But still, I had a real problem with it.

There were thirteen of us in the class, and Antoine, our chipper instructor, walked us through bandaging each others' arms and legs with the least possible thought of actual gore. We spent a large portion of the morning improvising splints and making slings out of strips of gauze which, despite the certain Civil War field hospital air to it, I really enjoyed and was actually quite good at. (Witness John's bandaged arm for the show-and-tell portion of our program. They -- justifiably -- wouldn't let me take pictures at the actual training. Please note, I did not actually injure John's arm in order to wrap this bandage. I'm willing to sacrifice a certain amount of verisimilitude.)

My partner, an older gentleman taking the class in order to become a Red Cross instructor, supplied a counterpoint to Antoine's good nature. He'd done all the classes before, but he had no interest in any amount of sugar-coating. When the first-aid handbook suggested calling for EMT services, each time he'd lean over and ask me "what if we have a 9-11 situation and the infrastructure collapses?" I didn't have an answer. For a minute, I thought he was just paranoid. On the way home on the train, though, a tourist couple asked for directions to the World Trade Center site. Maybe he had a point.

One final thought, and this has more to do with my adjustment to New York than with anything actually first aid based. I'm interested, more and more, with the notion of "the country" here. I still get confused when I hear "the country" applied to places like Long Island, northern New Jersey, and all of Westchester, and a woman in my class made me think about this time and again. She explained that she was taking the class because she has a country house and, when she's there, she's scared to be so far from the hospital. How far, someone asked? Fifteen minutes by car.

I'll leave you with that one.

Just in case you know . . .

2010-03-21T21:19:00.003-04:00

Last summer, I was pursuing the bee farming badge when I learned that honey can (allegedly) help combat seasonal allergies. As someone with dramatically (and occasionally hilariously) bad seasonal allergies -- like, I got sent home from school all the time as a kid -- I was pretty psyched. But as someone who prefers to use medical strategies that are actually proven to work, I was doubtful.

Nevertheless, I am also a person who likes to eat things that are delicious. Who isn't? So last night, I went out and bought myself some local honey (I've used up my stuff from last summer already!). On the train home, I noticed something, though. My new 1 lb jar of honey had broken inside my purse. The bee farming badge not only did not prepare me for this, not even a little.

Anyone got any tips for cleaning a pound of honey off of a very lovely camel colored leather purse?

Watch me go from "irritating" to "intolerable"

2010-03-15T21:54:00.002-04:00

I read my first-ever anything by Proust this weekend.

Holy crap.

On the off-chance y'all can help me, does anyone have a preferred translator for "Swann's Way?"

Sylvester

2010-03-14T20:56:00.004-04:00

I did nothing this weekend. So, so much nothing. It's in preparation for spring break, see. I need to relax in order to be able to actually, thoroughly relax. My doing nothing consisted of making two more batches of hummus, which means I am, at this point, made of nearly 75% chick pea, and of reading a whole hell of a lot of books I don't like much, then posting vitriolic reviews of them over at goodreads. Everyone needs a hobby.

Actually, I did one thing: practiced a new lifesaving technique. For the First aid badge, I need to know not only the Schaefer method of resuscitation (with which, if you'll remember, I nearly killed John in October), but also the Sylvester method. Which does not involve being an animated cat, so you know.

Sylvester's method, it seems, has a lot in common with the version you see a lot in cartoons -- setting up the victim, then working his arms like a pump while he spits out water. In this case, of course, the patient needs to be flat on his back, and some materials instruct you to bind his tongue with elastic to keep him from swallowing it. (I tried this. It hurt more than I expected and got me all spitty, plus looked creepy. Based on all three of these criteria, I would advise you not to bother with the tongue-binding portion.)

Anyway. Once your victim (well, the victim. Presumably, you are not the one who got him there) is sprawled flat-out, there's a certain amount of flipping his arms above his head to make him inhale, followed by flopping them back down for an exhalation. It sort of works, though John (who is, once again, an extraordinarily good sport) found it vastly inferior to the flat-out chest-thumping of Schaefer. It appears that Sylvester (sometimes spelled Silvester, in case you wondered) is a less-vigorous (well, yes) lifesaving method, for when you need less total resuscitation power. Maybe your victim is less-dead, or maybe he's more fragile, I'm not sure.

One week to my first aid class!

Danger!

2010-03-10T23:09:00.004-04:00

As you guys know (I think), I'm a teacher. And while I'm justifiably coy about the name and location of my school, I take it enormously seriously. Not humorlessly. Just seriously.

This is what's pushed me towards my next badge: first aid. Once again, I'll be coy, but the subject I teach occasionally requires using sharp or hot tools and there's the potential for injury, no matter how careful I am (or how careful my students are). This isn't an issue of negligence, or of lack of safety precautions, anything like that. We wear gloves, goggles, masks, whatever's necessary. I've never had a serious injury in my classes, though at some of the schools I've taught in, I've broken up some fights. But you never know what's going to happen, and that's why I think it's time for me to, um, be prepared.

The more I've thought about it, the more convinced I've become that my next project ought to be the first aid badge. I just signed up for a Red Cross course, and in 2 weeks I will be first aid trained. Who thought the Handbook project would make me better at my job?

(Incidentally. Are other people as troubled as I am by the arrival of a movie starring the guy from Twilight that uses Sept. 11 as a twist ending? It probably says more about the age of the movie's likely audience -- for them, the WTC hardly existed except as something fated to fall -- but still.)

2010 business

2010-03-07T15:07:00.004-04:00

Last night, I conducted an interview with a business student at a fancy school. He's asked to remain anonymous, so I will call him BSaaFS for obvious reasons. Also, I conducted this interview at a birthday party at a bar, so my notes are mostly in the form of text messages to myself. My friend Emily, girlfriend of BSaaFS, tells me that a large part of business school appears to be discussing how great business is while drinking, so I tell myself that the questionable state of my notes adds to the verisimilitude of the b-school experience.

While I took the advice of the 1911 Farmer's Business Handbook as justifying my stingy personal financial policy, and maybe even as being a little bit timeless, our future captain of industry, BSaaFS, told me differently. And I believe him, because he is way, way more qualified than I am. (Please bear in mind, I like BSaaFS very much, but that he is, as far as I can tell, extremely good at what he does, and extremely successful. He's getting flown around the world left and right, and is shaping up to be a Big Deal. I have a feeling some of what I cover here is gonna be an Omar Little-style "all in the game" sort of thing, in which we recall that BSaaFS is a delightful person but that his job is somewhat different from yours and mine.)

Upon hearing (and having read) what the Farmer's Business Handbook, our business student responded with what I might call a derisive snort. On the subject of keeping an inventory that is accurate to maintain your own records, he commented "if anything, business today is defined by keeping an inaccurate inventory -- at least for your investors. Financial success often has a lot to do with obfuscation." Yipes. More, please? Because this doesn't sound good. He clarified for me: he's not talking about companies lying to their investors, or even abut companies not being aware of their actual worth, but is specifically addressing the idea that looking profitable is often more important (to investors and to customers) than actually being profitable.

We continued in this vein for a little bit, and ultimately got along to the real core of the issue: BSaaFS is firmly in the camp of the more profitable corporations of the past few decades: that spinning the perfecption of your company is the key, and that the rest will follow. He calls it a culture of "branding and perception" (clearly, he and I are both way fun to have at a party).

Your thoughts? How have we progresses (or not) in the past 99 years? I'm not really sure where to go with this. Sadly (or fortunately) my working life is totally removed from anything of this nature, and I'm something of a babe in the woods when it comes to the inner workings of actual corporations. What am I missing? Tell me more.

Thanks, BSaaFS. You're the best!

***

Oops! I forgot! I promised a friend to post my hummus recipe. I've made 4 batches so far this week.

Ingredients:
1 16 oz can of chickpeas (not drained)
4 Tbsp lemon juice
1-2 Tbsp tahini
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp parsley

Drain the chickpeas, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid. Combine the drained chickpeas, the reserved liquid, and everything else in a food processor. Blend the heck out of it. Done!

1911 business

2010-03-03T23:05:00.004-04:00

So, for the business badge, I need to explain the basics of sales. And while I considered a lemonade stand, a particularly gross encounter with a drunk dude on the train the other night has reminded me, once again, that I really don't like a lot of strangers. (Also, I'm not clear that I won't get arrested for selling things on the street. So there's that.)

I did, however, manage to turn up a copy of the Farmer's Business Handbook (Isaac Phillips Roberts, 1911), which advises me that it will rectify the gaps in my financial knowledge, which, if I've learned it at school, is "about as workable on a farm as an ox-cart would be on a railway." Let's have at it. (Bear in mind, please, that I went with the more agriculturally-oriented financial book rather than something robber baron-y because of its relevance to the overall tone of the Handbook. As I've said before, the 1911 Handbook was by no means meant for a city boy -- it's meant for the kind of young man who has access to fields in which to grow corn, poultry to raise, and cows to milk.)

Regardless, in 1911, the farmer for whom the "Business Handbook" was meant was hardly making investments, and is warned heartily against credit. He is advised to keep a careful inventory and to value his good honestly ("it is bad to deceive one's neighbor, but infintely more harmful to deceive oneself"). He shouldn't rush to buy property, but ought to consider renting, just like his urban neighbors might, until he's raised some money and, ideally, property values have declined.

There's a simple guide to keeping a 2 column'd paper ledger, with one side for income and one for expenses, and with the option of adding a daybook to keep track of hours worked by field laborers (who, in the days before much in the way of labor laws, seem subjected to some pretty long days). We're encouraged to assign the bookkeeping tasks around the farm to a child as a training device. The only real issue here appears to be the demise of the barter system -- if we're going to be keeping track of things down to the half-cent, it's important to be clear on exactly how many eggs we're swapping for ears of corn, etc. The handbook acknowledges that this is difficult, and I'm sort of interested in the effect an adoption of more careful bookkeeping on this kind of trading around the farms. Sadly, I'm at something of a loss about where to go for more info.

Thinking of shifting priorities around the farm, there's also a lot of emphasis on eliminating sources of error when it comes to animals. Dairy pails are to all have the same weight, and we are advised to measure each cow's food each day. (The sample milk report ledge includes a truly spectacular list of cow names, including, in the M's alone, Mabel, Madge, May, Meda, and Monda, as well as Tilda, Vina, and Belva. I'm not sure who the lowest-producing cow is, but we are reminded harshly to discard her!)

My particular favorite point in the book, though, is a surprisingly forward-thinking bit, advising the farmer to be sure that his wife understands the family's finances. This is put forth not just because the farmer ought to keep his wife on a tight leash, but because, Mr. Roberts recommends, the family can now work together, sharing in both profits and losses. I'm pleased to see this, nine years prior to the 19th amendment. At the end of the book, we see a sample family meeting in which the daughter, Mary, agrees to hold off on buying a new dress for the summer, and Bud, the baby of the family, is contributing money from his berry patch.

Anyway. Ignoring my book report, here's the deal: in 1911, we're living cheaply. All family members contribute, and we keep strict records. Our main knowledge of when to buy or to sell is based, simply, on our own inventory -- what takes place off our farm or in another city is almost irrelevant. We keep our debts low and avoid taking out a mortgage unless we can put down most of the money. Not bad, overall.

(As a final note, the farmer's handbook is maxim-heavy, advising us that "a man always walks more erect when his heart beats against a roll of Uncle Sam's IOU's, be it ever so small, than when he finds only keys, a pocket knife, and unpaid bills when his hand goes down in his pocket." I kind of love this, because it reinforces my pathological cheapness. Thanks.)

Now, here's the deal. We know how to buy and sell in 1911. But today? Not so much. Fortunately, my dear friend Emily (one of half-a-dozen Emilys I was friends with in college, oddly) has a boyfriend in business school. We're gonna chat, and soon. Yay!

Fussell's bugbears

2010-02-28T20:39:00.003-04:00

In his "Boy Scout Handbook" essay, Paul Fussell expresses delight that the more recent editions of the handbook are free of references to constipation, which is no longer "the bugbear it was generations ago."

Let me tell you that this is quite the loss.

Over Thanksgiving, the entire my-parents family was ferociously excited about the 1911 Handbook's references to physical health of all sorts. It promises a few health rules for growing boys that I think we need to attend to right now:

My favorite are the rules for eating. Ignore diet books, folks, because I think this will pretty much set you straight. First, don't eat too much. Second, don't eat meat more than once a day. Third, "don't eat anything that you always taste for several hours after you have eaten it, even though you like it." As a vegetarian for something like 10 or 11 years now (yowza), I've managed to convert John to eating a lot of meat substitutes around our house, so I'm kind of delighted with the century-old advice to limit meat consumption. However, the third piece of advice is really the hilarious kicker for me. As you're going to see in a moment, the Handbook assumes these teenage farm boys have the digestions of elderly bankers. There's more refernece to heartburn, indigestion, and, yes, constipation in the next few pages than in an AARP bulletin.

I begin.

Our discussion of eating advises, correctly, that we ought to be aware of our limits (though the Handbook's particular calling out of cucumbers as a frequent source of digestive trouble gives me pause). We are further advised that most boys "eat too much of a mixed nature," combining foods like pickles, soda, hot dogs, and chocolate (their list, not mine) in a "riot of eating." We are not to eat when excited, angry, tired, worried, or studying, and must chew our food until it is "the thickness of pea soup." While that did successfully kill my appetite, I'd like to point out that it killed the appetite for the huge brownie I just ate, while being kind of tired and totally excited to be reading the handbook, y'all! Take that. Really. Failure to ignore these pieces of advice will lead to our two chief problems (like I said): indigestion and constipation.

Rather than paraphrase the constipation warnings, I'll give it to you straight: "Drink a cool, copious draught of water upon arising. Then take some body-bending exercises. Follow this with the sponge bath. Then, if possible, take a walk around the block before breakfast. After school, play some favorite game for at least an hour. In the absence of this, take a good hike of three or four miles or a longer bicycle ride. At least twice a week, if possible, enter a gymnasium class and make special emphasis of body-bending exercises." We also need to schedule a regular poop time, whether we need to or not, and to eat plenty of graham crackers.

The Handbook also warns against coffee and tea, deeming them stimulants which can cause your own organs to eat themselves (really) and which a growing boy should have nothing to do with. It has a little confusion w/r/t stimulants, though, classifying tobacco as a narcotic, which we also ought to avoid. (Points for effort on this one.)

I'm idly considering a few days eating like a boy scout (or like one ought to). Taking this too far, or taking it not far enough? We'll see.

PS: There is a full section in the Handbook about the importance of avoiding discharges of "sex fluid." I feel too awkward to address this. Do you want to learn about it? Try searching this phrase: "To yield means to sacrifice strength and power and manliness." Yeah. That's right.

Keeping tabs

2010-02-22T22:22:00.003-04:00

First, apologies for a update delay -- a combination of chest ailments of all sorts (including the peculiar sternum inflammation costochondritis), plus grad school applications have kept me pretty busy for the past few days. I've been telling myself that writing inquiry letters and personal statements have been taking care of my business-letter-writing requirements (which, well, it probably does. For that matter, any ideas about how I prove to you lovely people that I totally know how to write a first-rate letter?).

Meanwhile, though, I've also been continuing to take care of monitoring my personal expenses in much greater detail than I have ever before. I sort of always thought this kind of thing (intense budgeting, specifically) would become automatic as I became an adult, but it never really has. I've managed my not-overdrawing-bank-accounts, etc. thanks largely to a great personal stinginess more than any kind of organization or anything.

I've been noticing two things, as I've been really monitoring my spending. First, and surprisingly, I haven't been cheaping out on things I actually require, or on things I really enjoy. Rather, I'm taking it easy on the impulse buys -- skipping nail polish (because I never wear it anyway) in the Duane Reade where I lost my house keys today, for example. I'm still buying what I need (or what I've planned in advance for -- a delicious raspberry jam French toast breakfast on Sunday, for example), but those things are more thought-through, and that makes me enjoy them even more.

This is probably a healthier way to live, in general -- eliminating the unnecessary -- and it's kind of in line with recent thoughts on fast fashion, as well. More than anything, I'm seeing this as one of the longer-lasting effects of my handbook project. 1911 farm boys were far from conspicuous consumers. Maybe we can learn something from them.

Humor me.

2010-02-18T22:21:00.004-04:00

Just so you know, Huckleberry Finn was published in the US 125 years ago today. (This makes today its semi-semi-semi-millennial, as John has pointed out.) Therefore, in its honor, you should read Finn.

Math problem

2010-02-17T22:22:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. I am not the mathematician in my household.

However, the business badge requires that I calculate how much money I'd need to invest, at 5% per year, to earn back my weekly allowance. Now, here's the situation: since I am a self-sufficient adult, I don't get an allowance (sadly). And even though you are nice people on the internet, I would prefer not to be 100% open about my paycheck and savings habits. So you'll have to bear with me for a moment.

Instead, I'm going to tell you how much I've spent this week on non-household expenses (since we will assume our 1911 Boy Scout was probably not running exciting errands like purchasing dishwashing soap or canned olives), and we'll assume that that's my "allowance." (I feel really uncomfortable with the allowance term, maybe moreso than I should, because talking about it makes me feel like my money is not my own. But I digress.)

This week:
$3.75 for hot chocolate with Wendy last week
$15 for Greek take-out (spanakopita, mostly) Friday night
$6 for a glass of wine on Saturday night (happy birthday, EFS!) (I know a scout is temperate. But a scout is also under 21.)
$3.50 for a coffee and chocolate croissant yesterday
For a grand total of $28.25, all of it spent on food. Go team.

Okay, if there are 52 weeks in a year, this means I'd need $1,469. Okay. First, allow me to catch my breath because that seems like an alarming amount of money. And I haven't even factored in the times I do things like, you know, buy a book. Or a postage stamp.

(Please note, by the way, that I am doing this calculation without benefit of the internet, just what I remember from high school math. Please note, also, that I am not asking John to check my work, because that seems like it would be cheating. If you find a mistake, though, feel free to make me feel like an idiot.)

I'll use the formula interest = principal * rate * time, with principal and interest switched around to give me the formula 1/P = (RT)/I. For the sake of simplicity, I'll take the inverse of each (is this the correct term? I have no idea!), giving me the final formula P = I/RT

I'm looking for the principal, so I can say P = $1469 (the amount of interest I'll need!)/(0.05). Notice that, since I'm only doing this over a single year, T = 1, so it drops out. I love that. (When I learned this in math class when I was a kid, it was like a magic trick.)

Simplify the whole shebang to come to the ultimate conclusion that, in order to earn out my allowance in interest, I'll need to invest $29,380 at 5% per year. If you can tell me where to put my money at 5%, I'll be pretty satisfied.

Yay!

Made with a box-cutter

2010-02-14T15:53:00.002-04:00

Because I am tough but sweet (like "I want candy," but more "I want to eat my lunch right now and am currently drinking a slightly-too-large mug of kefir.")

Thanks to the lovely folks at kind over matter for the (slightly modified) pattern!

NYPL and 1941

2010-02-11T22:11:00.005-04:00

To begin with, despite reports to the contrary from my GP back in December, I am the picture of health and unlikely to keel over any time soon. (I braved yesterday's not-so-snowpocalypse, headed out to a doctor's appointment, and learned that all is well. Later, I celebrated with a day full of eating, including a modified vegetarian carbonara for lunch, eggrolls and soup for dinner, and brownies for dinner. Go team Emily.)

Therefore, given my recent clean bill of health, I think I'm fully equipped to move on from mooning over waste disposal (though I'm going to keep trying to schedule my terrorist-watch-list-inducing interview, even though making too many phone calls asking to tour waste treatment and processing plants may begin to arouse some suspicions). However, in the meantime, barring future success in that department, I want to pull on your coat a little bit (hah! moments from now, this will be a joke!) about clothing.

So, I spent some time this weekend organizing my closet, and I noticed something. First, I noticed that I have a lot of very similar sweaters -- nearly all black, grey, or green, and nearly all either cabled or hooded. Second, I noticed that I'm kind of woefully unfashionable. Then, though, because I'm of a ruminative nature, and because I've been thinking about waste disposal, I started to wonder: what happens to all this clothing when we're done with it? And how much do we really need?

Recently, the NY Library blog had a feature on the same topic. While things have changed (do they even still make dickies?), I was struck by one thing: I have a damn lot of clothing.

If I were ten years younger and it were 1941, I would be a straight-up clotheshorse. I have more shoes than even the Imelda Marcos-y Vassar girl, who averaged ten pairs, and I may even beat the Smithie's even dozen sweaters. Sure, I have fewer evening dresses than the average Texas coed (7 1/2? Really?), but she also reported having an even seven boyfriends. So, you know.

Here's my thing: This list was for everyday wear. The low end of that means a wardrobe comprised of a dickey, a hat, three evening dresses, three skirts, three pairs of shoes, three and a half blouses, three day dresses, and three sweaters. (Plus one boyfriend.) I'm imagining arriving to work like that for the next little while -- cycling through a total of six tops and three dresses for the remainder of the year. How long until someone commented? Or would they? (Answer: Yes. Yes they would.)

There are a lot of articles, if you pay attention to those things, about the evils of "fast fashion," of H&M and Forever 21 providing cheap, disposable clothing that only winds up in a landfill within a year or two, and I usually scoff and figure, well, I'll ditch the fast fashion when the regular kind is cheaper. But is the solution really to go the 1941 way? How would it work -- switching to fewer, higher-quality items that you can wear into the ground? This is feeling very tempting right now. We'll see.

I know, and I've known for years, that the key environmental solution is to reduce consumption, not just to recycle (or bring to Goodwill, as the case may be). I think it may be time to introduce my principles to my closet.

*Notification: As of today, I'm officially beginning requirement 4 of the Business badge: "Keep a complete and actual account of personal receipts and expenditures for six months." Yeah, this is something I should do all the time, as an actual and competent adult, but I don't. So let me start. Today: $3.75 for coffee with Wendy after work.*

Paul Fussell got here first.

2010-02-07T21:02:00.004-04:00

Despite never having met him, I'd like to induct Paul Fussell into my Handbook Book Club (doubling the member count to two).

See, while I've never met Mr. Fussell, we have a certain commonality of experience. Though he's been retired from teaching for some years, he's a former professor at Rutgers, where I went to grad school a few years back. I read two of his books (Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Class) when I was in my mid-teens, at exactly the right age to be vaguely scandalized but not entirely understand why. Class, especially, threw me, instilling a lifelong horror of the word "home" instead of "house," as well of as decorating with artificial plants. I'm only a little ashamed to admit this. Seriously, Class was a weirdly revelatory book -- a little troubling and making explicit some aspects of American culture I'm not entirely comfortable with. Regardless, it turns out that Mr. Fussell wrote another book of particular personal interest to me.

In 1983, when I was but a wee little thing, he published The Boy Scout Handbook and Other Observations," a series of essays on American and British culture, travel, and (most of all) his experience in World War 2. TBSHaOO is hard to track down these days -- I had to get it pulled out of storage at the Brooklyn library -- but worthwhile. See, he and I have a similar interest in the Handbook as a historical document, but rather than looking at the 1911 edition, he examines the 1979 version. This makes the whole concept doubly-cool. While the title essay is only six pages long (meaning that, in going to and from the library, I walked 1/3 mile for every page of this essay), it's a great view of another Handbook edition.

In some ways, the Handbook has hardly changed since the 1911 edition. "A complex sentence," Mr. Fussell observes, "is as rare as a reference to girls," and endless focus on self-improvement, care for nature, and wide-ranging practical knowledge remains. What I find most interesting, though, are the two complaints Mr. Fussell puts forth: the excessive use of the phrase "free world" and enthusiastic urging of religion, to the point of packing a Bible when camping -- but not a knife. This sent me back to the 1911 edition. Thanks to Project Gutenberg, I know for a fact that "free world" doesn't appear even once (take that, Mr. F!). The biblical references, though, are a little more tricky. See, the world of 1911 was a simpler one than the world of 1979, and pearhsp one, even, in which Lord B-P didn't feel as if he really needed to emphasize the importance of religion -- it was just obvious. The 1979 Handbook's increased focus on carrying a Bible, or on praying for guidance, is absent from the 1911 edition because we don't really need to be reminded. (It's worth noting here, as well, that I'm not idealizing the world of 1911, and I appreciate Mr. Fussell's remarks upon the inclusion of Harriet Tubman as an admirable American, and his observation that the later Handbook calls for "the prayer book of your faith," implying that Christianity is not a scouting requirement.)

As he tends to, Fussell brings George Orwell into the picture (he is also the subject of an essay in Thank God for the Atom Bomb, as well as four other essays in TBSHaOO), pulling the Handbook into a post-Watergate world ("A scout does not bomb and invade a neutral country, and then lie about it") that's still relevant, um, three years ago, but I feel a little funny about it. I'm hesitant, I think, to politicize the Handbook more than I have to -- and I'll offer up this photo of Nixon (as Vice-President) addressing a Boy Scout Jamboree to seal the deal. Honestly, though, despite my personal feelings on the subject (strong), and even despite my personal feelings on certain issues without scouting as a movement (irrelevant at the moment), I worry that taking this kind of approach might weaken the Handbook as a historical document. Of course, anything is a product of the time in which it was written, but I have my own doubts about this particular interpretation, as taken from this particular document at this particular point.

Ultimately, Mr. Fussell's essay delighted me with its recognition that the Handbook is more than an instruction book for teenage boys in neckerchiefs. His read of it -- a "[repository] of something like classical ethics, deriving from Aristotle and Cicero" is one of the truest going. And, therefore, Mr. Fussell? Welcome to the club.

meaner than a

2010-02-05T21:19:00.002-04:00

It's hard to find a junkyard in Brooklyn.

Actually, no. It's not hard to find one at all. But it's hard to have a conversation with someone -- anyone! -- at one, I will tell you that. And you will believe me, because if you try for yourself you will be met with the same mysterious, scrap metal-y silence I encountered. (Unless you use some sort of deceptive measure, like asking for a crankshaft for a '87 Dodge Aries (though, of course, I celebrate the entire K-car catalog equally and with great delight).) So, anyway, in the past three days I have spoken to no fewer than eight different junkyards in the Brooklyn area, not counting those whose telephones have been disconnected (2). Out of personal (and professional? I guess?) courtesy, I'm not going to say which junkyards or where. Know why? Because they are positively Masonic in their unwillingness to have a telephone conversation. It's like I'm ringing up the Skull and Bones, Mossad, and the Illuminati, but with car parts.

You are wondering right now (quite correctly, mind you) what the hell I am doing trying to track down a junkyard. Ah! (I am telling you), it's for the badge. I am also reminding you that a scout "ought to have a command of polite language," so watch the "what the hell." Now. While I'm in the process of trying to set up a waste treatment plant tour that will probably a) never happen and b) get me put on some kind of government watch list, I decided to stop playing phone tag and start following another urban waste stream: rusted-out cars. This seemed like both a pretty interesting move, and a visually-striking one (I could get out to a junkyard, take the kind of urban-blight photos people love to put on blogs, that sort of thing). Here's the problem: I'm really, really honest. And when I called up junkyards, I explained my actual reason for wanting to stop by. I even varied the approach a little (sometimes I was writing a short, internet-based article, sometimes doing research for a blog), but still: nothing.

One guy told me, formally enough, that his employers don't allow him to grant interviews. A few hung up on me. The most talkative man I spoke to (though, actually, they were all men, except for one receptionist -- the junkyard world has a glass ceiling still, I guess?) told me, "I learned a long time ago not to talk to the press. It's just better for everyone that way. I like to keep my business in the business." (For honesty's sake, one guy told me he handles six cars a month, which equals out to a single truckload, but that he would give me that number, nothing more, and the contact info for another junkyard that might talk to me. Seriously, this was like working informants on The Wire.)

So help me out here: what's the story with junkyards and their secrets? Was there some kind of 1980s muckraking junkyard expose I know nothing about? Do junkyards hate me?

Javier the ibex

2010-02-01T21:19:00.005-04:00

Yes, Javier isn't a Bronze Age kind of name.

Tough.

Also, I'm still debating the addition of his horns. See, I spent a lot of time today with Javi. He came to work with me. He toured lower Manhattan. And, eventually, he told me something. "Dude," he said, "I'm an ibex, no question. Nice city you have here. By the way, I'm so not sold on the horns."

Honestly, neither am I. I mounted them on his little ibex-head today, but they look, well, unnecessary. He may receive a smidge of paint instead and we'll be done with it. What do you think? (If I give him a metallic paint job, would he stand up to his actual-Cycladic cousin? Questionable. But still.)

If this isn't classical, then you and I are totally on different pages, my friends.

2010-01-31T22:45:00.005-04:00

We are one application of superglue (which, yes, I forgot to pick up at Target yesterday. oops.) away from my completion of the Sculpture badge.

The requirement is simple (and referenced back in the saga of SassyCat): use clay to duplicate, or in some way make a piece related to, an antique sculpture. When you think antique sculpture, you may be imagining discus throwers or the Elgin marbles or something like that. Me too. However I was not the 1999-2000 Pennsylvania state Junior Classical League secretary (vice-president? I have no idea. Dude, this was ten years ago) for nothing. I made a few poor-quality efforts at bas relief, then remembered: the Cyclades.

For those of you who are less amazing than I am, you may not be entirely familiar with the Cycladic civilization. Shame on you! Really. What the hell were you doing when the rest of the world was learning about obscure Bronze Age Aegean cultures?

Let's leave it at this: the Cycladeans (I just made up that word, I think) were artistically distinct from just about everyone else. Their sculptures consist largely of white marble, flat-faced figures, standing with their arms crossed around their stomachs. Some people suggest these may have been religious in nature, but really, you don't expect me to know everything, do you? Regardless, these are pretty immediately recognizable figures, and they're startlingly modern.

Yes, they're also a lot simpler than the more immediately-recognizable classical sculptures. I will admit my weaknesses, though I will also couch them in intolerable pretension. Deal?

For my sculpture, I chose an image of an ibex, which is where the superglue comes in -- while the ibex is sculpted and baked and looking startlingly ibex-y, I chose to bake the poor little guy's antlers separately, since they kept collapsing down into his face. Tomorrow, once they're glued, expect to meet my ibex buddy.

So, I had this really terrible job in college

2010-01-28T22:43:00.003-04:00

While I talk a good game about environmental protection (and am kind of a lunatic rearding food choices, shutting off lights like a lunatic, that kind of business), there's one eco-friendly step I really, really can't make: I can't handle compost.

I spent a semester or so in college working for the compost program, driving around in a remarkably stinky van from dining hall to dining hall, collecting the campus's food scraps and tipping them into a dumpster down by the soccer fields. I managed to make my clothing filthy enough that my roommate came in one day and wondered if there was an infestation of some sort in our bathroom, and I had a close call with a raccoon on at least one occasion. The $7.25 an hour (generous for student pay!) wasn't worth it, and I quit way, way sooner than I meant to.

Since then, there have been a few other composting endeavors, none of which were more successful than the first. There was the compost bin in a study-away house (mold), the backyard composting in early grad school (fruit flies), and on and on. I've totally given it up by now. Is this a good decision? Um. You could make a statement either way, I guess, but I do feel like I'd be a regular composter if only I were a better human being.

Now then.

In the Public Health badge, a scout is urged to learn where his garbage goes. This whole composting discussion? Pretty much a long-winded way of getting right to it.

I discovered, today, the most depressing video game ever: the Gotham Gazette Garbage Game. Sure, I've played it twice so far, but I don't think I have the heart to give it another go. It's engaging, no question, but would only have made ten-year-old Emily weep. (You think I'm joking? Hah. Just ask my parents.) However, when you decide to go play it yourself (which you will, I'm sure), you'll see the same thing I did: that something like 30% of New York's garbage is compostable in one form or another.

Holy crap.

That, my friends, is a lot of garbage. Imagine if every third week, you just decided, eh, heck with it, I won't bother producing any trash whatsoever. Yeah. Eliminating food waste in the garbage would pretty much have that effect.

For a slightly more well-thought-out reaction than "holy crap," I talked to Caroline Kruse, the development director at the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which offers composting programs in New York. (For the record, and especially in light of the iPad fever in the general public, they also have electronics recycling. I'm just saying.)

The LES Ecology Center has two major things going for it: volume and enthusiasm. Seriously. They started out twenty years or so ago at the Union Square Farmers' Market processing vegetable scraps, and by now they're collecting roughly 6 tons of food per week for composting at East River Park. (Now, when you're thinking of 6 tons, I'd like you to think, instead, of 3 male walruses. Or six and a half SmartCars. Or something. Um.)

Now. I started out explaining to Caroline that I don't compost. I have a small apartment with no outdoor space. I fell into a dumpster in college. All that. But she told me about something I will absolutely not try in my current place, but will maybe consider someday: a worm box. Now, I remember reading about this kind of thing back in high school, but really. LESEC holds regular workshops setting up non-composters (like me) with this kind of thing. Take a pound of red wigglers (the Cadillac of worms), add 'em to a slightly-ventilated plastic box, and add your weekly table scraps. (Caroline suggests that you stick to about 3 pounds per week, but also advises me that one might avoid weighing garbage if, instead, you just assume that 2 adults = 3 pounds. Sounds good to me.) This is a lazy person's composting -- no hauling food outside at night, no shovels, no angry raccoons. The worms go through your waste (no meat or dairy!), and in 3-6 months, you go from a mess of squirmy worms to a great big box of dirt. Go team!

But wait! Six month old garbage hanging out in your kitchen? You crazy girl. Aha! While I have no months-old indoor compost experience, she assures me all will be well. Caroline described her compost bin as smelling "like earth, or like when you go into a forest." I can handle that.

Well, I can't handle it right now. The combination of a teensy apartment (the compost box would have nowhere to go but actually on the living room floor) and one particularly aggressive cat (who would imagine nowhere for himself to go but into the compost box) would mean trouble. Maybe someday, though? We'll see.

All this, and I've still avoided discussing landfills. Hold tight, good buddies. Garbagefest '10 continues.

where have I been?

2010-01-26T23:05:00.002-04:00

Note, please, that my post title is in the form of a question.

Yeah, so, I was missing from here for more than a week. Not because I am a jerk (which, well, I kind of am, but still!). But because of a small amount of travel. I went to Los Angeles for a game show. Note, once again, the formatting of my post title.

Oh fine. I was on Jeopardy.

I can't tell you how I did (at all), but very simply, I buzzed in as much as I could, high fived Alex Trebek (seriously), and used this very site as my story-about-myself (tune on on April 6 to hear me chirp "and I have a website!" as Mr. Trebek moves to ask the next contestant something about Kevin Spacey).

I was hoping to be able to show you all kinds of potentially-scout-related LA business, but I learned something important on my trip: Southern California is not equipped for rain. At all. We saw floods, blocked up storm drains, standing water of all sorts, but very little of the standard California tourist-y things. (Could this relate to the Public Health badge's requirements to understand the sanitation of a camp? I think I addressed that sufficiently once before when I spent a lot of time talking about toilets, but then, I'm kind of grasping at straws here.)

Regardless, back to NY, back to the badges. This should be the last of the wintry distractions that's been taking me away from the handbook. So, hooray!

Recent search tags

2010-01-15T22:05:00.003-04:00

So, I'm in the process of preparing for a trip out to LA (more coming soon!), but let me take a Friday night moment to share how people have found me lately:

"how to draw a housefly
"box kite frame"
"pathfinding merit badge requirements"
"is a hindenberg an air balloon?"
"be prepared that's the boy scout's marching song"
"typhoid asymptomatic channel"
"schaefer method of resuscitation"
"hate the word app"
"best trip for august"

I cut a few, sure, and the all-time search leader is "schaefer method" (by a mile -- I appear to be the world's leading resuscitation expert, according to google, which makes me fear for CPR students everywhere because, yikes).

In general, hatred for "app" is a close second. I find this delightful, way way more than I probably should. Because the only time "app" doesn't make me claw at my eyes in a very unscoutworthy way is when it's buried within the phrase "hate the word app." (In general, I know that I get on this kind of hating-things-way-way-too-much kick about certain things. "A Confederacy of Dunces." The music of Fergie. The word app.)

Back to waste management, coming soon.

Ooh! Ooh!

2010-01-10T23:02:00.006-04:00

Hey, guess what! You went to the most happenin' event in the city today, right? Psh, not the no pants subway ride (seriously, maybe the Public Health badge is making me a little germaphobic, but I have seen a surprising amount of poo on subway seats, and I don't even like to touch the subway handrails. With my hands).

Duh. Today was Mulchfest.

I do not have a Christmas tree. In fact, I pretty much could not less have a Christmas tree. My apartment has a single plant, and it's an aloe that Charlie the cat ate half of at some point this fall. But I do know that, well, Christmas trees exist. It's impossible to walk a block without seeing them, forsaken and browning by the curb. And yet, while I was both being kind of bummed out by trees and by Public Health's requirement that I spend a little more time than I'd like considering the city's disposal of garbage, Mulchfest arrives.

With 81 locations (by the way, is that not an enormous number?), Mulchfest makes post-Christmas either a little less depressing or a hell of a lot gorier. For no cost (except the time it takes you to lug a tree a dozen blocks or so), a crack team of volunteers from MillionTrees will send your tree on a one-way trip through the woodchipper. (There's a kind of adorable flash video of a pigeon demonstrating on the Parks and Rec website. In real life, it's noisier and smellier, and with 100% fewer pigeons in jaunty hats.) The nearest location was a 15 or so block walk from my house, and while no one had a total for today's turnout (yet!), Prospect Park was pretty busy. Check out great photos from FlatbushGardener for the whole volunteers-with-shovels experience.

Best part? Free mulch, if that's the kind of thing you need. (This would have been amazing when I was a kid and neighbors were always in the process of remulching their landscaping, though I suppose that was more of a get-a-truckload-of-mulch and less the bag-your-own option available today). Saddest part? The frequent reminders to remove all ornaments and tinsel from trees. (People totally fail to do this every now and again, and it's a little bit heartbreaking, in a MacArthur Park, cake-in-the-rain kind of way.)

Anyway. Mulchfest is a good example of things that are right about NYC's trash disposal, though there's a good bit that's wrong with it as well (which I'll address later on). It's waste disposal week here at Boy Scout Handbook. How can things get any better?

I mean this in the least-weird way possible

2010-01-06T22:56:00.003-04:00

But my lips are totally vibrating right now.

I'm back on the bugle. I've decided that practicing with just the mouthpiece is way quieter, and thus is totally acceptable for apartment dwelling. Therefore, I had my most-serious (which isn't saying much) bugle rehearsal in months. (John is a saint for this, or totally deaf. I'm leaning towards saint, though.) I've gotta keep it up, though -- otherwise, it's just temporary irritation with no payoff.

Coming back to public health, I'd momentarily hoped I could track down a volunteering opportunity with the board of health (and thereby identify the way a scout can cooperate with the BoH to prevent diseases), I learned, instead, about an organization I'd never before heard of. ServNY calls upon health care professionals (sadly, no scouts) to join an emergency response registry. It's a great idea, and one I need to learn more about in the next few days -- not to join, of course (I'm entirely unqualified), but to, well, learn something new. Let's see where this goes.

back in nyc

2010-01-04T23:09:00.003-04:00

And back to work today.

The tree didn't survive a baking and a trip back to the city as well as we might hope, but I think that the liberal application of some hot glue might make things much, much better quite soon.

While I'm hardly much for New Year's resolutions (John and I tried the standard we-should-really-keep-the-counters cleaner, but then I went and left the paper bag my cannoli came in sitting right smack out in the open. So, you know.), I do feel like it's time to get serious about wrapping up two loose ends: the bugle and public health. Admittedly, the bugle dropped way off way fast -- like most people (every person?), I don't like doing things I'm not good at, and it led to a not-very-intense go at the bugle. (This was at least partially disguised with sympathy for my poor, poor neighbors listening to me bugle away.)

Anyhow. From here on out, if I'm going to bugle, I'm going to bugle right.

I'm back, dudes.

Sculpey New Year!

2009-12-31T16:22:00.006-04:00

After an all-too-brief interlude with my parents (complete with cross-country skiing!), we're back with John's family. I idly considering using the cold, cold, cold Vermont snow as a way to make an attempt at teaching myself a bit of tracking, but it was a no go -- sad but true, not only was there snow, but there was also ice and sleet, a good bit of it. Ew.

Back down here, though, today was a day for sculpture. And, weirdly, after the total failure of SassyCat this fall, I was apprehensive. In order to avoid the total collapse I went through earlier, I build an armature out of unbent paperclips and newsprint, then covered the whole shebang over with polymer clay. The design was more based on Mondrian's "Red Tree" than on an actual tree from nature (though it has certain similarities to a tree across the street from John's parents' house), but ultimately there's also some, um, either artistic license or missing skill there. John's sister recommends using it to hold jewelery or something like that, but we'll see.

Texturizing the bark was much more work than I'd expected, and I got bored a few times and took a break to watch Burn Notice and knit, but in all, generally successful. I wish I knew how to make the branches a little spindlier or better-forked, but in all, I officially nominate myself for the sculpt-from-nature component of the badge (so far). I still need to wait for the tree to harden a little bit so I can remove some of the paper armature without things entirely crumpling, and then the whole thing needs to bake for a while. As it stands now, though, the tree is at least mostly-completed. Hooray!

It's shaping up to be a pretty low-key New Year's Eve, which I don't mind even a little. What's your plan?

Institutional memory

2009-12-25T22:17:00.003-04:00

I'm visiting John's family for Christmas, and it's been making me think about family traditions, though not necessarily the Christmas kind. (There's some of that too, of course, and the in-church moment of lighting candles during "Silent Night" gives me a little twinge because I'm not with my dad in Pennsylvania. This is, of course ridiculous, especially because my parents haven't lived in Pennsylvania for years. But still.)

What I'm thinking about, even more, is the kind of stuff that turns into family legend. This morning, my mother-in-law told me about John and his sisters' childhood favorite book. It's about the adventures of two wily cats, and it's entirely in Danish. Do any of them speak Danish? Not really. But it was a childhood favorite based solely on the pictures of adorable cats doing comical things and the truly excellent delivery of my father-in-law. It's that kind of thing that I'm thinking about today.

And it relates to the Handbook, too. Right after the section I was reading most recently, addressing camp sanitation and not addressing latrines, there was a brief series of weather-related axioms. One of them, "rain before seven, clear by eleven," made me jump.

It's my own family legend.

See, my paternal grandparents lived a large part of their lives in upstate New York, the real, small-town farming country of Brother's Keeper (my grandfather grew up down the road from those guys), the kind of place the Handbook was built for. They're both also great lovers of folk wisdom and country phrases, describing a long day of traveling as having been "all round Robin Hood's barn," that sort of thing. They observe the clouds on a Tuesday and have a rhyme to explain how the weather will be the following weekend, or see a particular type of bird and declare that it's going to snow in six hours. There may be some truth in it, for all I know -- I'll admit, my outdoor observational skills aren't where I'd like them to be.

My father operates a little differently, and the rhymes were never for him. As a kid, he came up with a way to put the lie to the folk wisdom once and for all. And one rainy morning, he presented the family with a rhyme he'd made up himself. "Rain before seven, clear by eleven." To his delight, my grandparents took it up at once, as if they'd been using it all their lives.

Like my in-laws' Danish storybook, my dad's weather axiom became part of our family's mythology. On a rainy morning, one of us might look at the other and wryly observe "rain before seven . . . ," knowing that the others would see both our optimism and our wariness -- it wasn't, after all, actual folk wisdom -- just my young father's creativity. (Before you think my father was a bad kid, let me tell you otherwise. He was a Boy Scout himself, and, with a few other boys from his neighborhood, went so far as to form a secret club dedicated, of all things, to helpfulness. So don't worry. He was a good kid, just driven to distraction by all this infernal rhyming.)

Regardless. For my entire life, plus fifteen years or so before I was born, the fake weather axiom remained. But today, but lo! In 1911, fully (at least) fifty years prior to my dad's invention, the Boy Scouts of America picked out this very bit of country wisdom for Handbook inclusion. So where does that leave us?

Had my dad heard the same phrase before? Probably. Heck, he was just a little kid. Had my grandparents? Absolutely. But, regardless, "rain before seven" is never going to turn into a legitimate piece of advice for me. It's always, always going to remain one thing and one thing only: a story about my family. It crystallizes a moment, one I never saw but that, thanks to repetition (and to knowing all three major players so well), I can picture exactly. It's as good as a photograph.

How about you? What kind of family phrase or story brings you back, even to a place you never went or a time before you were born?

Don't even think I will do this.

2009-12-22T22:50:00.003-04:00

http://chestofbooks.com/crafts/popular-mechanics/The-Boy-Mechanic-1000-Things-for-Boys-to-Do/index.html

Now I'm going to talk about poo. A lot.

2009-12-20T18:55:00.004-04:00

The Public Health call to explain proper camp sanitation confounded me for a full half-second: when I was a kid and camping with the Girl Scouts, we never went anywhere without running water, and so the concept of having to make sure no one was peeing in your camp was . . . bewildering. Then I remembered: my troop was a bunch of wimps.

Now, the Handbook itself seems a little confused about how to talk about camp sanitation without either a) getting a little overly familiar with bodily functions or b) reminding scouts that they are not the invulnerable supermen the Handbook usually encourages them to be. In fact, the entire sanitation section spans a little less than a third of a page, largely exhorting the campers to burn or bury garbage and to make sure their water supply is "carefully examined," though there's no real explanation for how to do it. Of course, if I were a 1911 boy (lots of big hypotheticals there, buddy), I'd lean towards boiling, followed by the addition of a few drops of 2% iodine or bleach. Now, I might even consider some water purification tablets (or the kind of awesome-looking portable pumps), though the last time I did much camping I just hauled around a big honking jug of water. The water purification advice, though, is one where the Handbook shows its age. Rather than giving much advice for how the scout can tell if water needs purification or not -- and rather than advising the scout to just go ahead and boil all his water anyway -- it sort of throws up its hands, urges immunization, and moves on to the next bit.

Surprisingly, also, there's no additional advice regarding the location or construction of one's latrine, which was always a big concern of a friend's father, who kept urging my preteen Brownie troop to consider -- just this once -- forgoing the campsite-provided restrooms. Weird. The friend's-father had a lot of suggestions, many of which sounded nightmarish to me at the time, and at least one of which, I'm like 90% certain, involved installing ropes along trees so we could lean back over a latrine pit without falling in. (I can find no confirmation of this kind of thing on the internet, so it may just be that I was nine and had an incredible imagination, because I always pictured this as like the American Gladiators of bathroom-use, and I would be delighted to have someone confirm this for me.)

I have a feeling the Handbook would have some great suggestions -- and some elaborate ones -- for latrine building, if only they had the nerve to publish them. It's delicacy, I think, that's holding us back, not a lack of ideas. Even something simple -- that a latrine should be downhill from the campsite, far from water, and several feet deep -- would do the trick. But, in 1911, I think the Handbook wants to preserve our decorum more than it really wants to help out.

As usual, the Handbook delights me the most when it totally abandons all attempts at any instruction that's not of a moral nature. One agreeing that we'll all look real close at the water and nothing else, the Handbook emphasizes the importance of following its agreed-upon rules: "A scout's honor will not permit him to disobey in the slightest particular the sanitary rules of his camp." Right on, buddy.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go cook dinner.

I really, really, unjustifiably (?) hate the word "app"

2009-12-15T23:17:00.003-04:00

I'm not the only modern Boy Scout. The iTunes store (and the BSA) is currently offering a downloadable edition of the 12th edition of the Handbook.

I'm conflicted about this, largely because of my secret feelings that (1) the iPhone is an unnecessary gadget largely because (2) if I had one, I would do nothing but spend my entire day playing computerized Skee-ball. Also, though, I have some mixed feelings about the direction a lot of things with scouting are going -- and, not insigificantly, the way the Handbook has changed. Go check out the virtual handbook at bsahandbook.org and take a look -- is it a nicer-looking, better-designed document? Sure. But a lot of what makes the original Handbook great (the summaries of personal health and world history, the encyclopedia renditions of farming knowledge, the spectacular section about fending off mad dogs) is gone, replace by pull quotes and pictures of fresh-scrubbed boys white-water rafting.

Maybe I'm just ridiculous (and often I am), but I wonder if this shift in the Handbook, if its lower reading level and brighter colors, is more significant. What we're seeing, really, is the removal of what made the Handbook great in the first place, and what makes is so all-fired interesting to me right now. (For the record, expect another edition of Handbook Book Club in the next few days.) Sure, you can make the argument (and I hear this a lot, as a teacher) that our responsibility is to put material in a format that's understandable to the reader, or that, well, kids today, they just read differently.

That's crap.

Here's the real story, somewhat modified to include my own view of reality. When you see widespread poor reading, a big, big chunk of what you're seeing is a lack of challenging, interesting material. If we cut out all the best bits from the original Handbook, repackage them in neon and Photoshop, then yeah, that's going to be what kids read. Because it's what we're giving them, and because it's easy. The original version had some big words and some ridiculous ideas, sure, but there's a lot of merit in giving our young Scouts something that's a little more interesting, and something that's a lot more useful.

Anyway. The iPhone app. I said I was conflicted, and I meant it -- because really, my issue with the app Handbook isn't with the app-ness, but with the Handbook's modification to remove a large amount of the actual content. For what it is, the app Handbook has a lot of merit -- it packs lightly, it's easily portable, and it's searchable for quick "OH MY GOD WHAT SHOULD I DO WHEN I'M BEING CHASED BY A MAD DOG" situations. Of course, it won't survive a fall into those rapids the Handbook boys are shooting, but then, the paper Handbook might encounter some trouble there, too.

Enough curmudgeon'ing for one day, pals. What do you think? I know that I'm not fully valid on my reading-and-kids theory, but that's because I was a dorky, bookish one and most kids are not. So tell me where I'm going wrong.

Faking it

2009-12-11T22:44:00.002-04:00

It's 20-some degrees out, and I was going to post tonight about making rice pudding (a requirement for the cooking badge). There's only one problem: I cannot come up with a food that sounds grosser to me than rice pudding. Sure, I've never eaten it. And sure, what's not to love? Rice? Fine. Milk? Delicious. Sugar? Yes please. Hell, Alton Brown has a version featuring cream and coconut milk, which can be nothing but tasty. And yet, the notion, or the notion of the mouth-feel, particularly, just gives me the willies.

Anyway, today I've been thinking about phoniness. In one way in particular -- faking illness. See, last night I was feeling pretty cold-y and out of it, and I was seriously considering calling out of work today. I didn't, though, and for one major reason: I am terrified of calling in sick. Or, more specifically, of calling in sick or otherwise declaring myself in poor health and of having someone not believe me.

This isn't something new. When I was a kid, I would tell my parents I wanted to go to school, almost no matter what, not because I was an enormous dork (well, I was, I mean, but that's not the point), but because I didn't want them to think I was trying to get out of gym class or something ridiculous. (This doesn't mean I was a particularly stoic kid. Just an antsy one.) Please bear in mind, of course, that I was never faking. But I was terrified of the accusation.

It continues today, but in slightly different ways. I don't worry about my parents thinking I'm faking sick anymore (yay adulthood), but even still, doctor's appointments and things like that make me kind of nervous. While I sit in the waiting room, I'm running through symptoms in my head. Sure, my knee swelled up like a grapefruit last winter when I tore my MCL, but did it really look bad enough? Was the doctor going to laugh at me? Would he think I'm a wimp? Am I a wimp? This is the opposite of the usual doctor anxiety, I think -- my sense is that usually, people who are scared of the doctor are worried it'll be worse than it seems. I'm terrified that what I think is painful or infectious or troubling isn't really bad enough.

I wonder: is this an artifact of being a sort of generally nervous person, or is it something else? I tend to be pretty driven (in many situations) -- do I want to be so good at being sick that it'll impress the doctor, which makes me resistant to admit to more minor illnesses? I'm really curious about this. Is this more normal than I think, or do I sound like a lunatic? I'd love your opinion.

Typhoid oy vey

2009-12-09T23:47:00.002-04:00

I am ready to admit something absoutely mortifying: I had no idea that people still died from typhoid.

In my head, it's an old-timey disease, the sort of thing that's totally horrific, of course, but that really isn't a risk anymore. Like smallpox or polio, it's something characters in novels get but people in real life just . . . don't.

Holy crap am I wrong.

So, somewhere in the vicinity of 17 million people get typhoid per year, though only about 400 Americans. (This either exonerates me from not thinking of typhoid as much of an issue, damns me for being pitifully America-centered, or both. I lean towards both.) This is largely an issue of clean drinking water, and in fact US typhoid levels declined almost to nil (well, to 400 per year, including travelers) quite quickly following the advent of chlorination. Interestingly enough, there are rumors floating around the internet (though, of course, there are rumors floating around the internet about pretty much anything) suggesting a link between cystic fibrosis and typhoid resistance, but that's really beyond the scope of where I'd like to go right now.

Regardless, in the 30 seconds 'til I go to bed (it's been a busy day today, including a Papier Mache Incident in my fourth grade class, and I just need to get off to sweet, sweet sleep), the thing I've spent all day thinking about:

The CDC suggests that somewhere around 5% of typhoid patients (who recover) can become asymptomatic carriers. This is bizarre and fascinating to me, and leads me to Typhoid Mary, and not just because everyone loves a scandal (except the people whom it hurts). She infected 20-some people and, at least in part because she was a woman and Irish in a time when it was good to be neither, was locked away in quarantine. (Should she have been? Debatable. If the CDC numbers are correct, which I have no reason to doubt, then there must have been tens if not hundreds of other carriers walking around New York in the early 1900s. That said, things get weirder.) Mary got out of the hospital (on North Brother Island, which should maybe become a Handbook field trip) after 3 years, swore to avoid all food service jobs, and then, promptly, got a gig as a cook and infected another 27 people.

At this point, the public health authorities declared enough enough, restored Mary to quarantine, and kept her there for more than twenty years.

Now, I'm a little torn on this. On one hand, was she dangerously irresponsible? Absolutely. But was she the only one? Not hardly. 1910's New York Times ran an article about Typhoid John, a mountain guide who had infected more than 100 people. However, the article informs us that there is "no law by which 'Typhoid John' can be isolated." Oops. Someone should have told Mary. The authorities let TJ go free.

I'd like to look into this more and to spend some more time thinking about it, but I think I need to cut things off for tonight. I meant only to talk about infection rates, not about illegal imprisonment.

Seriously. I have paid this much for brunch.

2009-12-06T23:12:00.002-04:00

Rather than thoroughly addressing the spread of malaria (thanks, mosquitoes, we're done.), this seems like a better moment to address something: I am really, really lucky. So are you, probably, in that you have internet access and can spend your time reading my site rather than filtering your water, mending worn-out clothing, working 16-hour days, things like that.

Instead, I'd like to refer you to the Nothing But Nets campaign, devoted to sending mosquito nets to Africa. The thing is, malaria causes something like 500 million infections each year, and somewhere in the vicinity of 1 million deaths, most of them children, and most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. (This, by the way, works out to roughly 110 deaths per hour. Think of that next time you're watching 60 Minutes.) How easy is this to stop? I cannot even begin to tell you. Ten dollars buys a mosquito net, which NBN will ship and distribute.

Anyhow. Check it out. I"ve donated tonight, and I highly, highly recommend it.

(Another thing, from exploring the website: the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Methodist Church are two of NBN's biggest partners. Coincidentally enough, I grew up attending both a reform congregation and a Methodist church. Go team!)

Dome photos

2009-12-02T23:49:00.006-04:00

As promised, I've got me some dome photos. Despite serious after-school effort (in which I was aided by whole battalions of first graders, and in which I was able to make the dome stand up if I sat inside it and pushed against the top center), the dome is dead.

Long live the dome.

I'm out of masking tape, my hands are permanently be-newsprinted, and I will scream if I have another paper triangle conk me on the head. (Also, please note that my classroom is usually much cleaner, but it's impossible to vacuum underneath a giant, newspaper dome, and things are getting a little skeevy under there. Ew.) So, while I'm reluctant to abandon a project like this, I think the time has come.

Tonight, in honor of John's birthday, I made an enormous number of bittersweet chocolate truffles, some of which were flavored with balsamic vinegar and some with vanilla. Oddly, I am firmly on team balsamic. The kitchen (well, the section of my apartment's living room that acts as a kitchen) is covered with chocolate, but it's also covered with delicious. I favor the Alton Brown recipe, but without brandy because a scout is temperate and also because I don't like brandy. Give it a shot, folks -- labor-intensive but delicious.

Tomorrow? A return to public health. In the meantime, be sure to wash your hands, boil your water, and pasteurize your milk.

Why I am not a pioneer

2009-12-01T00:20:00.003-04:00

First, happy 50th post!

Phew. Done with the pleasantries.

Now, I knew from the beginning that I wasn't going to earn the Pioneering badge. There are some aspects of it that are just incompatible with my city-bound lifestyle -- (requirement 1, for example: "Fell a nine-inch tree or pole in a prescribed direction neatly and quickly.") While I can get away with a lot in the park, chopping down trees would probably not fly. (Neither does the kite I built. But still.)

That said, I thought I had a great intersection between my working life and my pursuit of badges -- I'm teaching a unit on architecture, and I thought it would be really, really fantastic to link it up with the Handbook. Pioneering requirement 6 calls for the aspiring scout to "build a shack of one kind of another suitable for three occupants." While there are no guidelines for size, shape, durability, anything like that, the general size seemed prohibitive. Until I decided (because I am an idiot) to build a geodesic dome.

Now, I do not eat only sprouted breads. I don't even wear hemp socks. But a geodesic dome? This seemed like the kind of hippiedom I could get behind. Plus, it's just triangles! Even I understand triangles! I made a bunch of tubes out of newspapers (for the frame) and set to work.

An aside: When I was a tiny kid, my parents decided that I was ready to enter kindergarten early. I was reading, writing, all that. So my mother took me to the school board offices to enroll me, only to learn that I would have to pass an entrance exam. I would have to show my prowess. My intellect. My insight. I would have to draw a circle and cut out a square. And? I failed. This is the level of crafty coordination I displayed as a child, and it's pretty much where I still function.

Now then.

Three hours later? Still on the floor in a tangle of tubing and tape. I can't get the damn thing to stay up, try as I might. And I KNOW it's doable -- I'm using these plans (go to the website and see kids a third my age (gah!) building one successfully), but things are an absolute mess. Bits of tape got stuck in my hair. At two separate points, I was holding up different newspaper tubes with each hand, the top of the head, and my mouth. (By the way, spit? Does not contribute to the structural integrity of the newspaper.)

Okay. Also? I have to go to bed right now right now right now because it is a big, long day tomorrow. Except some disaster-dome photos today. (And yes. I have been calling it Thunderdome in my head, because wouldn't you?)

Thanks.

2009-11-26T17:28:00.004-04:00

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

I'm out of New York for the next few days, visiting my parents in Vermont, and right now I'm enjoying some pre-dinner ice cream while John and my folks watch some sort of James Bond movie. (Which one? I have no idea. Carly Simon sings the theme song.)

My original VT plan of completing the Astronomy badge seems to have fallen to pieces thanks to days of rain and cloud, save for a few gorgeous hours this afternoon when we took a walk around the lake. However, given that those gorgeous hours were, well, this afternoon, using them to observe the stars might not have been entirely successful. And, in fact, it wasn't. So there. We did, however, see a monument to Lord Jeffery Amherst, best known for Amherst, MA (and, later, Amherst College) and for early germ warfare via the distribution of smallpox-infested blankets.

Instead, though, I do have something of a Thanksgiving post for you. I guess it's pretty unsurprising that a document like the Handbook, which so admires and idolizes hardiness, manliness, and woodland endurance might find the Pilgrims of particular interest. And, in fact, it does.

We only hear a little bit about the Pilgrims, mostly about their place within American mythology. "When the Pilgrim Fathers founded the American colonies, the work of Arthur and Alfred and the other great men of ancient days was renewed and extended and fitted to the new conditions and times." Wow. Plymouth Rock as Camelot, and how. The Handbook goes on to compare Jamestown (not Pilgrims, I know, but still) to the foundation of "a new race of men" and "a new kind of knight."

Both Thanksgiving and the Boy Scouts themselves are really about this kind of popular legend -- the idea of the iron-constitution'd woodsman tromping through the forest with an axe in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other, creating his own kingdom in the wilds of the frontier (though, of course, the frontier had moved considerably from 1621 to 1911). It's a superhero story, when you get down to it, and it's perfectly suited to the Boy Scouts. (You can argue, of course, that we always get the superheroes we want or need, whether the Axis-battling Captain America, Spiderman and radiation in the '60s, or the Dark Knight of the late '80s. Hell, there's Jack Hinks, Newfoundland's fisherman superhero.)

I'm not going to spend time right now discussing Thanksgiving as a political entity, or any of the messy analogies between the settling of the Americas and genocides (hi, Lord Jeff, 150 years post-Pilgrim!). Instead, I'll leave it with this: The Handbook portrays the Pilgrims as the kind of superhero a Boy Scout really needs. Can you really blame them for it?

Houseflies

2009-11-22T22:57:00.006-04:00

Public health requirement #2: Draw a diagram showing how the house-fly carries disease.

I knew the Natural History Museum had an exhibit on frogs, so I was hopeful that there may be a certain housefly component as well. (After all, it would be like having an exhibit on me without a section on the Snickers bar I just ate, or an exhibit on Charlie the cat without featuring kibble.) However, despite making for a swell excuse to visit the museum, I found the AMNH almost entirely fly-free.

(Should I have checked this before just arriving at the museum, which was already a pain in the neck because, hey, Brooklyn to upper west side = difficult, and Brooklyn to upper west side when the trains are delayed for some sort of smoke-in-the-station = nearly impossible? Sure. But let's move past these things, shall we?)

John and I spent some time exploring the Hall of Biodiversity, where I'd never been before, and which features some remarkable beetles, as well as a many-times-magnified bee arm (bee leg? I have no idea). There is also a large, bronze nematode head, the kind of thing that will haunt my nightmares forevermore.

Regardless.

Here goes: a Comic Lite version of the housefly-as-disease-vector. Enjoy it, kids.

Run! Run!

2009-11-18T23:09:00.002-04:00

And! Consider the Army Physical Fitness test passed, circa 6:00 or so tonight. Thanks, YMCA!

I'm not slick enough to read on the treadmill (currently: The Phantom of the Opera, which is surprisingly good even for people like me who've never seen the musical), so instead running is all music. Lady Gaga and I crossed the (theoretical, treadmill-based) finish line with seconds to spare. Go team!

Anyone got some stretching tips, though? I seem to have pulled some muscles in my upper back during the push-up component of the test, and I'm not overly psyched about it. I've never been as good about stretching as I should, but I'm genuinely not sure what to do differently!

Contagion

2009-11-16T23:33:00.003-04:00

So, like I've mentioned a lot lately, I'm exposed every day to a lot of ick. (Despite being over the flu, I haven't been back to the gym yet, by the way, so the final requirement for the athletics badge is still on hold 'til this week, I hope.) But spending time thinking about has led me to the natural next badge project: Public Health.

The first task: "Tell what should be done to a house which has been occupied by a person who has had a contagious disease." I can make that happen, because I spend time worrying about it after school every single day.

Unlike in 1911, quarantines and even the intense house-cleanups that used to go with them are pretty well out of fashion -- the CDC explains that, while they keep no records of voluntary quarantines, the mandatory type is extremely rare these days. The biggest concerns, they elaborate (largely via the H1N1 info pages) are twofold: the cleaning of doorknobs, books, and other common surfaces and the washing of hands. Now, the CDC recommends various antibacterial household cleaners for the surfaces and soap and water for hands, and a good bout of laundry-doing for all involved.

The laundry (and the CDC's H1N1 reference page) is reassuring: when I was a kid, no story broke my heart like "The Velveteen Rabbit." Specifically, the part about the rabbit being confiscated after the boy has scarlet fever. See, I think the rabbit becoming real is lovely, but as a child I was so attached to my stuffed animals that the notion of one of them being taken away if I got sick was omnipresent and sort of terrifying. (I was, for a notable time, actually a little nervous about having my favorite stuffed animals out if I had a cold or something, just in case.) I'd actually even been a little worried about looking into this particular requirement, on the off-chance I'd learn that, no, I actually should have burnt my favorite childhood toys.

Oh man. Just got a little overemotional there.

Hand-washing notes are forthcoming: oddly, my friend Wendy and I had a long discussion about how we each wash our own hands just this afternoon, and I'm trying out a slight modification to my handwashing routine. I'm a little more excited about this than maybe I should be.

Anyway. All's well that ends well and I'm going to bed.

I haven't forgotten you

2009-11-11T22:06:00.002-04:00

I just still have the flu.

I can't shake this one, guys. Five days (maybe six, if you want to count last Friday when I started feeling crappy), and an ongoing low to moderate fever, headache, ew. John made me delicious lentil soup, so that helps.

I had to buy hermit crabs for school today, and I think that maybe I'm kind of a softie. See, I spent way more on the crabs than I can actually get reimbursed for. But! I feel really bad for creatures that live in cages. And I learned that hermit crabs are unable to breed in captivity, so every hermit crab you see in the pet store was caught in the wild somewhere. Think about that. Insane. (Yes, I know they have brains smaller than a sesame seed. But still.) So anyway. I bought the hermit crabs a ton of stuff. Lots of sand (I heard they like to burrow). Dechlorination drops for their water (the chlorine can build up on their gills). Sea sponges for their water dishes (otherwise, small crabs can get caught in the dishes and drown). The list goes on. Also, since I heard hermit crabs are social animals (in the wild, they live in colonies of hundreds or thousands), I bought up every crab in the store. (Sure, it's only three, but still: I'm going to go back in a week or two 'til I have eight or ten.)

Thing is, I don't even particularly like hermit crabs. I just feel bad for them. I feel a little like my grandmother though all this. When my mother was a teenager, she had a cat. Cat the cat. And my grandmother hated Cat. She had no interest in him whatsoever, except in keeping him out. She wanted him outside or n the basement, no two ways about it. But Gma didn't really like the idea of cat food -- it seemed so unappetizing. So, on a fairly regular basis, she would go to the butcher to get liver for Cat. And she would cook it for him. Not because she really wanted Cat in particular to have a tasty dinner, but because the idea of anyone having unpleasant food just seemed wrong.

I am the Gma of hermit crabs.

(Update: John just arrived home from work with a bouquet of tulips for me. This has 100% made my day. Aw.)

Flu!

2009-11-07T22:25:00.002-04:00

I have the regular flu (not the swine one) -- fever, chills, light sensitivity (which I thought was a symptom of vampirism, but John assures me that no, just flu), the whole lot.

Clearly, there is only one appropriate response: I've spend the entire day playing Pandemic 2, all while muttering under my breath "if I have to be sick, everybody has to be sick." Sadly, only the part about the audible muttering is made up. (Also, I am totally moving to Madagascar, since I cannot infect it, try as I might. What the hell, Malagasy? Why do you always close your ports just when I start to up the symptom severity?)

Boogers

2009-11-04T23:11:00.002-04:00

As I guess I've already mentioned, I have a new job teaching elementary school science (a job of such specificity that I didn't know it existed before I interviewed for it). It's a big change moving from middle to elementary school, but the biggest issue is a surprising one:

Nose picking.

Seriously. I cannot even handle it. The little kids hardly know better, of course, but still, it's ongoing and it's making me think a lot about the public health badge.

Also prompting some public health thoughts was my trip this weekend to the Chinatown flu clinic's swine flu vaccination event. Despite a long, long line, things were remarkably well-organized. We arrived by ten, signed in, and received a noon appointment, though we waited and got seen by 11. There were color-coded lines, tidily organized time charts, and I was, in general, totally, totally impressed by the efficiency of the whole shebang. (Heck, the clinic even had escorts to bring small groups of vaccinatees up the elevators.)

Incidentally, the vaccine I got was the nasal spray version, which had a back-of-throat numbing effect and a weirdly dental hygiene taste, but was so much better than the shot. Oh man. I want all my shots to be administered via nose from now on.

This was not my first use of one of the city's free clinics, either. This summer, when I was between insurances, I went to the Bed-Stuy Lung Center for a TB test. Once again, a long wait time, but this time it wasn't evened out by excellent service -- though, of course, given the cost of the appointment, I hardly have grounds for complaint. Really, though, I waited there for nearly three hours for a five-minute blood test. Since summer, for a teacher, isn't exactly the busy season, this wasn't a big deal. There aren't many free lung clinics in the city, and they're pretty high on demand and low on funds. If that means they can only employ so many doctors, can only have so much in the way of office staff, so be it. That's far from the fault of the fine people there. But let me tell you, using the free clinic there kind of sucked.

Please, please, please don't you dare take this as a statement that publicly funded health care is a bad thing. Not hardly Underfunded and overused health care is a less than ideal thing. The situation of uninsured folks who have to wait all day for a single appointment is a bad thing. I have the utmost gratitude to the city's health system. (Hey, free swine flu vaccine! Free TB test!) But there's such a gap between the health care haves and the health care haven'ts, and sitting in the Bed-Stuy clinic with lots and lots of poor kids . . . . There are few words.

There's more here to consider, and more I'd love to go into. But now may not be the time. Not in a blog post entitled "boogers."

Wind? Still no.

2009-10-31T14:00:00.002-04:00

Despite restoring the box kite (this time with the Education section of the NY Times), the second flight attempt failed -- I think that flying a kite of this weight will require more wind than I'd planned on.

Updates on other discarded badges: I still need to run 2 miles to pass the Army Physical Fitness test and, therefore, to earn the Athletics badge. A blend of colder weather, personal laziness, and a soul-draining job have kept me exercise-free lately, but I joined the Park Slope YMCA this morning (making use of John's faculty discount!), and so I can promise (or nearly so) a solid badge-finishing effort this very week. Hooray!

This week was a long one, and not entirely in the best of ways. I knew going in that it was going to be my final week teaching at the public school of despair, but I'd thought my last day would be Friday. Until Tuesday night, when my principal asked me to shift my final day to Thursday instead. This was kind of great (hey, extra day off!), but also meant that I had to spring into action-Emily mode, finishing all kinds of project grading, summarizing of student progress, etc. a day ahead of time for the hand-off to the new science teacher. Things went a little bonkers then, and it's hard to feel like you're doing a good job when you're in a great huge rush all the time.

Somehow, all my students found out by Wednesday that I was on my way out (I didn't tell them, I swear), and they were apologetic and guilty about it, though my leaving actually had very, very little to do with them. I told them so, again and again, but reasoning with 13 year olds is tough, especially when you're trying to do it while remaining reticent about your actual motivations, and there were a lot of tears from the girls. (One, though, took me aside and, hilariously, asked "Why is it that people are nice to you when they think you're leaving or dying? I'm not going to change, though. I'm just a bad kid. It's who I am." I have to respect that self-awareness.)

In good news, I'm employed again -- I start on Monday at a private school, teaching elementary school science in Manhattan. Wish me luck! I feel a little social-justice weird about it (is the message I'm sending "yo former students, I'm going to go teach rich kids instead!"), but that's not the point, I promise. The school is gorgeous, and I'm going to have a lot of freedom to design the curriculum, so I'm feeling good about things.

Tonight: Halloween parade in Manhattan. John and I are both going as Philly aspiring celebrity blogger Arthur Kade. We've even got the hats.

Flying a kite: one thing missing

2009-10-25T22:09:00.007-04:00

I realized recently that, since moving to New York in July, I've turned into the sort of person I hate -- the kind who never leaves the city. It's easy not to, of course, especially without a car, but still it's not exactly a desirable condition.

So, whatever problems I have, personally or otherwise, with my job (my last week starts tomorrow!), I've got to give them credit: they do the right thing by taking the students up to hike in Rockland County. We went on Friday, and while it wasn't the most rural undertaking (heck, you could pretty much see the Tappan Zee Bridge from the parking lot), it was still worthwhile. The leaves had just reached that yellowy-changed stage, and the quiet made some of the girls downright nervous. I taught a few of them how to make whistles out of acorn caps, which would pretty much be the worst idea ever if they had regular access to acorn caps in Brooklyn.

It was funny to see some of the students out in the woods -- while they're, in many ways, more equipped for life in the city than I am, they're at a total loss in a less-urban environment. Many of them worried that the earthworms we saw would bite them, and one girl in particular told me she was worried about getting eaten by a deer. (No amount of reassurance from me had any effect.) That said, they also appreciated a lot of woodsy things I forget. Every leaf was a source of excitement, and while they worried that pretty much everything might be poison ivy (or just plain poison), they also wanted to know what everything was. What's its name? How does it grow? How many are there? I know I didn't ask those questions when I was growing up, though we could dither about how much that was my regular exposure to things a little outdoorsier and how much was my being a total indoor kid.

Next up, today, was flying last week's box kite, which had been languising on the highest shelf in my house in order to avoid the advances of Charlie the cat. Keys in hand (this time), we got to Prospect Park only to realize we'd forgotten one critical thing.

Wind.

Despite our best efforts (and despite taking up a field that may well have been better used by the high school boys nearby who were totally trying to play football right on top of us, I would describe the kite flying as . . . spotty. Also, as you can see from the picture, I'm kind of a spazzy runner.

I'm pretty sure, honest, that the kite would have flown if there were even the tiniest bit of a breeze. On the few occasions there was the faintest rustling of leaves, I managed to get the kite to take off a little bit, but I think it would require what one might call a blustery sort of day to get in much really good flying. Besides, it's made of dowels and twine, neither of which are known for their lightness/gravity-defying properties, so it's possible that even a lighter kite would have had more success today.

In one last-ditch effort, we went up to our building's roof, where disaster struck. The kite finally remembered, hey, I'm made out of wood, string, and waxed paper, and I've spent the afternoon falling down to the ground. And, in one soul-stirring moment, the paper ripped and the kite was done for the day. (I've left out the photographic evidence of this very moment -- it's far, far too heartbreaking.)

I do think the kite will be flyable, with a few minor repairs. Right now, it's time to focus on replacing the waxed paper. Some kitemakers recommend newsprint or even garbage bags instead, but I'm not sure. Any experts? I'm hoping to make a final kite-flying expedition by Tuesday. (Dear Tuesday, Please, please, please be windy. Love, Emily.)

On being prepared

2009-10-22T20:51:00.007-04:00

So, my kite may or may not fly (I still don't know), but it is definitely difficult to break into my apartment.

See, I got home from work raring to finish assembling and begin flying the box kite I started yesterday. Within ten or fifteen minutes (post-snack, of course), John was helping me add waxed paper to the dowel-and-twine armature. We used paper and tape rather than nylon or muslin or some other thin fabric, which may not have led to the most durable kite ever, but probably a reasonably effective one.

(It's worth noting that this is a major advantage of having given notice at my job: for the school year up 'til now, I've been getting home miserable and doing nothing but watching the entire series run of "The Hills" online. Seriously. It's the point where I have strong, strong opinions on Justin Bobby and Audrina's relationship. (Justin Bobby, the "we were never really together" line is beyond lame. I saw you two in Cabo! I saw all the Tammy Faye mascara tears!))

We never made it to the park -- immediately upon walking out the door (which locked behind us, of course) we each realized we'd left our keys inside. Oops.

This was followed by a panicky trip up to the roof (for both of us), down the fire escape to our window (for John), and back up again (John, still) with the news that it's really, really hard to get into our locked, fire-escape window. Ultimately, of course, this is good news, but for this particularly moment it was non-ideal.

Long story short, we made a bunch of phone calls to the super (to no avail), and decided it was time to call the locksmith. And so, instead of spending the evening flying the kite in the park, we spent the evening sitting on the porch waiting for the locksmith to arrive. This was roughly an hour or more, for what it's worth.

By the time things were resolved, we'd learned three things. 1) Our door is really, really hard to break into. So hard, in fact, that the locksmith had to drill out the lock, then replace it with a new one. 2) Calling a locksmith (or this locksmith in particular) would be a great way to break into an apartment, if necessary, because he asked for no ID whatsoever and accepted payment in cash. 3) I will never lock myself out again, because doing so is crazy expensive.

By the time things were resolved, it was also totally dark out. This was an evening-long pursuit. Seriously, dudes, streetlights were on and everything.

First, of course, this means no luck with flying the kite tonight, and I don't know if I'll be able to 'til Sunday, which is kind of a bummer. But second, there's a reason I've gone into all this.

I've kind of failed, a little, at the Boy Scout business tonight. Because, ultimately, I was not (even a little bit) prepared. This is just as much a living-in-the-world issue as a Handbook issue, yeah, but still. I'm not sure what the solution is. Utility belt? Bandolier? Checklist? Signs all over my house? I'm not sure. But there's got to be something.

Box kite frame is a go!

2009-10-21T21:14:00.006-04:00

I went to the hardware store on the way home this afternoon to pick up some dowels. A little time spent lashing 'em together (and cheating with the occasional dab of hot glue) later, and I've made a kite frame. This is the handiest I've felt in weeks.

Charlie the cat has been mistaking it for his favorite household appliance, the drying rack, and trying the same things with it (namely, sitting on top of it) that usually bust the drying rack. You are not getting your little paws all over this, Charlie, I swear!

Also, please excuse the Photobooth pictures. John just got home and I don't have the heart to make him photograph my dowel-and-twine project right now. (What am I, five?)

Box kite

2009-10-20T20:41:00.002-04:00

I find kite flying oddly stressful.

This says more about me, I think, than about the actual activity. But flying a kite has always felt kind of fraught with peril. Think about it! One minor mistake, and your kite is gone, you've somehow contributed to awful airborne pollution and you're going to wind up killing some albatross somewhere.

But, I've just purchased a little handsaw. And tomorrow, I'm going to build a box kite.

Handbook book club, #3

2009-10-18T21:00:00.004-04:00

I begin with a life lesson: never, ever, ever get cranky at the world and decide to cut yourself bangs, vaguely based on those you've seen on one or two particularly hip girls on the train. It will not work out well. Tomorrow will be a day of bobby pins and of a hair-fixing appointment with, um, anyone who'll take me in. Geez.

This week's Book Club selection deals with the outfitting necessary for a scout. This is surprisingly intense, buddies.

So, the equipment. Man, the Boy Scouts were taking things seriously. This section reads more like a catalog than anything else, with the advice that "considerable difficulty has been experienced in the selection of the material used in making coats, breeches, and shirts," including sun tests, acid tests, and unspecified tests of colorfastness and durability. At the prices they're charging -- on the order of 75 cents per shirt -- you're not going to do much better. Would you, young sir, prefer to make your own Boy Scout uniform? No problem. You can procure branded Boy Scout logo buttons for only fifteen cents for a coat-sized set.

What's really interesting is just the focus the Handbook has on the importance of using only official Boy Scout items. I'd be unsurprised now, of course, but the notion that this concern was so prominent a hundred years ago is interesting to me. While earlier sections of the Handbook focus on the virtues of the ideal Scout, his sense of community above self, his total competence in even the most unpleasant situations, and his pride in good behavior, this section reminds us that the Boy Scouts were still a commercial enterprise, and they would sue you if you used the Boy Scout seal without authorization.

I guess we all like to think of times before right now as being somehow purer, or hell, maybe just realer. But today, Lord Baden-Powell and co. would like to remind you otherwise.

Update: Life lesson #2. Don't make an unfortunate hair decision, then post to your blog about it. You'll get an anxious call from your mother asking if you shouldn't have learned to avoid self-directed haircutting by age 12 or so. And she, of course, will be right. Love you, mom.

Radio silence

2009-10-16T18:48:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted for a week, but there's a good reason.

I did what is, arguably, the dumbest thing a person can do, especially right now and especially in New York.

I quit my job.

I know, I know. All that stuff I said a few weeks ago, about how a rough beginning to a job does not mean you'll be unsuccessful, about how teachers build up a constantly-evolving skill set and so on and so forth. Clearly, it was kind of a lie.

I knew it would be a big change, moving from a suburban school to an urban one, and I knew that I would need to expect differences. I just wasn't prepared for how much. See, I'm a politeness kind of girl. Yes ma'am, no ma'am, please, thank you, all that. My students don't have that same background as I do. They're punch your face in, I'm not doing this shit kinds of girls. And that, at a very superficial level, is hard for me.

More profoundly, though, is another issue, one that I think isn't uncommon with teachers. I take it very, very personally. There's no better moment than when a kid struggles with a problem, really engages with it, and works and works and works until she finally gets it. That moment of triumph is what I'm there for. However, if you're going to take credit (in some small way) for a kid's successes, you also have to be there for the failures. You have to be right there alongside the kids who don't give a damn exactly as much as you're alongside the kids who want nothing more than to succeed. That's the difficulty of teaching, and it's a difficulty I didn't encounter much at my last school, where the assumption that everyone would graduate and go to college was not a difficult one to make.

Here, though, it's hard. The kids arrive at school with much more difficulty in their homelives than I can begin to address. It's a struggle to get to school each day, and while that means that, ideally, their classroom should be their oasis, it's hard to make that happen. Because, really, if you grow up in an environment in which punching someone else is an acceptable response to frustration, how do you know to leave that at the door when you get to school? And even if you do know, what incentive do you have to act on that knowledge? My students struggle with this, and with the need to balance going to school with taking care of siblings, cousins, parents.

I'm not Sidney Poitier. I'm not Michelle Pfeiffer. I'm not a savior. I'm just a science teacher (and, technically, only that for another two weeks). This is more than I can handle.

I've been meeting with my administration and with other teachers, trying to find a way to make changes in my classroom that really work for my students and for me, but things have just fallen flat. And it was time to get out. My staying wasn't good for my own sanity, nor was it helping my students -- my teaching and their learning just weren't jibing, and it was time to admit it and move along.

So what's next? I have no idea. I'm looking for work (not necessarily in teaching, though that may be nice). Any ideas?

And on your end, if you're a NY certified science teacher? Let me know. I think I've heard rumors of a job opening.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

2009-10-09T18:18:00.001-04:00

Poor SassyCat! (or, "got a kiln?")

2009-10-08T19:54:00.007-04:00

So the sculpting badge set off with great potential -- I had the help of my mother-in-law, Linda, who is not only a regular art teacher but also a deeply talented one. There was no way for this to fail, right?

The sculpture badge is one of the easiest, in theory. There are just two requirements: to sculpt (the medium is not specified) a replica of an object from the vast annals of art and to sculpt (and sketch) an object from nature. While I'd originally planned that my object-from-nature would be a leaf or something equally immobile, Linda had a great suggestion: try for a (somewhat artistically interpreted) Maisie the cat, who is immobile for hours at a time (or at least is asleep for hours at a time) and is also someone I know quite well. Plied with kibble, Maisie agreed to be thus immortalized, and with a few minutes to mix up some of the classic flour-salt-and-water clay, we were on our way.

Clay-Maisie started out pink and round, with big green eyes, an alert pose, and (in what I thought was a particularly good detail) a little white tail tip. Clay-Maisie (henceforth referred to as SassyCat because her little carved-in mouth gave a look full of, well, sass) is also heavy, maybe half a pound. (This is roughly 1/16 the size of Maisie.) While Linda did most of the actual art involved and I giggled and made wry remarks, I was feeling pretty good about it.

Then, tragedy.

We left SassyCat out to dry overnight, expecting to wake to a sturdy pink kitty. Instead we found nothing so much as a patty of cat. (If you reached this site via a Google search for "patty of cat," go away. You are not welcome here, you sick dude. Yeah, I'm talking to you.) SassyCat had shrunk to roughly half of her original height, but her diameter, well, you be the judge.

Clearly, SassyCat had collapsed under the weight of her own sass.

And do not get me started on the scupting from the art canon component of the badge, in which Chinese terracotta horse travelled from, well, yeah.

A timeline below will give you the idea.

Exactly.

SassyCat

2009-10-06T00:03:00.002-04:00

Meet SassyCat, pre-drying.

And yet, I did not earn my sculpting badge.

You don't even want to know.

Disaster

2009-10-03T09:24:00.003-04:00

So, I'll admit that most of my Hindenburg-related research has consisted of watching clips from the 1975 disaster movie on YouTube. You know. The one with George C. Scott, where a German rigger who died in the crash is the saboteur/bad guy, probably because he will never, ever be able to defend himself (what with being dead and all).

The real Hindenburg crash was far more complex, and so complex that I don't even know if I can really handle writing about it (which is a large part of why it's taken so long!).

The day the Hindenburg crashed, things were already going wrong -- there were thunderstorms in the area, the landing was delayed on several occasions, and the ship, too stern-heavy to land, made multiple sharp turns and dropped ballast in order to even out. After a sharp report (a pistol shot?) and a bright light (a flashbulb?), the passengers felt a small vibration and saw a fire begin on the upper fin. Within minutes, the ship was engulfed in flames. Within 30 seconds, the Hindenburg was destroyed.

Honestly, no one really knows why it crashed. The conspiracy theorists and movie fans like sabotage, because it's clearly the most exciting. That there is no proof means nothing -- after all, they argue, the Germans wouldn't admit it because it would be embarrassing to, well, admit to having sabotaged something, and the Americans wouldn't admit it because it would be embarrassing to have been the victims of sabotage. I suppose you can extend this argument to almost anything, though, and then need proof for nothing. (The heat in my apartment isn't working because of German sabotage, but no one will ever admit it. Damn them!)

If you have a good enough conspiracy, you don't need proof.

The view I like the most is sort of a mess of electricity and weather -- it's the idea that, since the Hindenburg flew through several thunderstorms, and since the outer coating was wet, and since the outer coating (or skin) was connected to the inner coating by nonconductive frames, an electrical charge could have build up, only to ignite when ropes, lowered for landing, grounded the whole shebang. Add to this the idea that the skin was coated in a highly flammable varnish, and we have a hell of a conflaguration.

There are some others, sure, suggesting that the ship was hit by lightning and lots of it, or that the sharp pre-landing turns punctured some of the hydrogen tanks, thereby releasing the flammable gas.

In all, there's no actual conclusion. I think I bit off more than I could chew with this one, dudes.

Hindenberg, first hand

2009-09-29T22:32:00.003-04:00

Dirigibles really seemed like a good idea, right?

Balloons have a downside: there's not much of a steering mechanism. The development of the cucumber-shaped dirigible, though. Now there's something. We've got an aerodynamic design powered by (first) hand cranks and (ultimately) an internal combustion engine, allowing von
Zepplin's first flight in 1900 too achieve speeds of up to 18 mph. Not half bad.

Not only were dirigibles relatively fast, but they were also big and reliable. By 1910, cities in Germany were regularly visited by scheduled airship flights, making the dirigible (arguably) the first commercial airline.

Things all went bad.

First, like we can learn from Ken Burns' National Park series (on PBS now!), humans like to screw everything up, so in 1914 Germany's dirigibles were painted black and used in bombing raids on London. The world is a forgiving place, though, and after the war, dirigibles
were bigger than ever (and fast, too, with a cruising speed of 68 mph).

Now comes disaster.

Back in (some of) my grad school days, I once caused a not-well-controlled hydrogen explosion. Let me tell you, it is only through the grace of high-quality lab safety glass that I still have my eyebrows. It was rapid and terrifying, and there are a lot of reasons I am no longer a lab scientist, but this is definitely on the list.

Imagine, then, Lakehurst, NJ in 1937.

Or don't imagine -- my grandfather, the illustrious Silver Beaver referenced here, was there.

"I was a teenager when I saw the Hindenberg blow up at Lakehurst, N.J. Along with some friends, we piled into a pickup to watch the airship land. It was late afternoon and quite cloudy. We parked on the road alongside the airfield to watch this giant of the skies come in. As it very slowly approached to land, it dropped many lines and whoosh, the tail lit up and the airship settled tail first into the ground. The entire airship had burst into flame. It's hard to believe anyone could have survived that crash. We were parked about a mile away and as I recall, could feel the heat of that explosion. What caused this to happen, I could not even guess. It certainly, in my opinion, was not the weather. The whole event happened in less then a few minutes."

So why did the Hindenberg go down?

Tune in tomorrow, kids.

Track and field

2009-09-26T19:10:00.005-04:00

Oddly, I've been putting this (near-final) Athletics badge requirement off, but with the help of John's poker night, I'm finishing up once and for all. It's time to post the rules for one track and one field event.

I think, strangely, the rough part for me has been choosing which events to write about. I don't have a ton of interest in this particular aspect of the Athletics badge, I'll admit, and its just been feeling more like homework than like entertainment. Of course, I'm in the minority in my general lack of sports-interest, I'm sure -- drive past any college campus in the fall and see thousands of sports fans out to prove me wrong (and to watch football, too, I'm sure, but I like to think they're just out there in a "so there, Emily!" kind of way).

So, given that I'm a less enthusiastic sports, um, enthusiast than most, I asked two of the card-players to pick track and field events for me to investigate. Matt chose the pole vault, and team Ro and Evan chose the 400 m hurdles (specific, but we'll go with it).

This one's for you, dudes.

I've pole vaulted once in my life, in middle school gym class. I believe I cleared the same jump level that at least one slightly taller kid stepped over, which gives you an idea both of my size in middle school (rather petite) and my jumping abilities. That said, I also have a very dear cousin who, I believe, was some class of pole vaulting champion when she was in high school, so I'm aware that some folks can be quite successful at this kind of activity. I just don't quite understand how.

In order to pole vault, you're going to need, um, a pole, usually fiberglass, and usually from 10 to 17 feet long. You'll also need a mat (3-5 feet thick), a crossbar, ad a 40-45 m long runway. In order to successfully vault, you must, first and foremost, clear the crossbar. It's acceptable to hit the crossbar so long as you don't knock it down, but since the crossbar falls quite readily, it's for the best to avoid it altogether.

There are other ways to mess up your jump, too. Touching the mat before jumping would count as a jump failure, as would taking more than two minutes to complete a jump attempt. Finally, remember that a single failed attempt isn't the end of the world -- generally, a competitor will receive a maximum of three attempts at any given height and will be eliminated after his third unsuccessful attempt.

Finally, there are a few very specific equipment rules: no gloves are allowed, nor is more than two layers of adhesive tape. Jumpers may use chalk or rosin, though.

For the 400 m hurdles, we'll get a little more complicated. Men's hurdles are 36 inches tall and women's are 30 inches tall, while the hurdles are evenly placed 35 meters apart, with the first and last hurdles each 40 m from the starting and ending points. (Is it a testament to international unity that we're mixing units of measurement here, or is it just poor coordination? Does it matter?)

It used to be that knocking down 3 hurdles led to instant disqualificiation; however we're either kinder or more effete now, and competitors are disqualified if they intentionally knock down hurdles, but not otherwise. (Also, competitors may not jump over another runner's hurdles, though I can't imagine why they might want to.)

General race rules apply, as well -- runners may not begin running before the race actually starts, may not shove other runners, and so forth, though these things seem obvious as well.

Kitty!

2009-09-24T22:13:00.003-04:00

My kitten is sick.

Charlie the cat is on fluids and is spending the night in the vet's office, so forgive a little lack of focus today. (Poor kitten! If he were home, he would totally be sitting on the couch with me watching Project Runway right now.)

My main interest in the Aviation realm, lately, has been Samuel Langley, who spent serious time in the 1890s building steam-powered airplanes, and time before that testing the aerodynamics of taxidermied birds. (On a similar note, I'd like to refer you a fantastic John Hartford album, for what it's worth.)

In the 1880s, he was launching unpiloted, steam-driven planes via catapult, and they worked -- one in particular (his number 6 model) could fly something like a mile. Of course, this isn't the same kind of aviation our badge is talking about -- first, there's no pilot, and second, many of these planes were models, scaled down to something like 1/4 size.

However, the really interesting thing about Langley comes some years after his flight experiments. See, he donated one of his planes (the Aerodrome #5) to the Smithsonian where, after significant refurbishment (including a new engine), a Smithsonian refurbisher was able to make a few small, short flights in it. Clearly, since the Aerodrome #5 was in service prior to the Wright Bros. Kittyhawk flight, that would make it the first "man-carrying aeroplane in the history of the world capable of sustained free flight." Right?

The Wright Bros. were furious, and reasonably so, especially given that the Aerodrome #5 had, well, crashed, which is generally not a characteristic of a successful airplane. There's a lot of weirdness in this story, especially given the fact that Langley was the secretary of the Smithsonian and received much of his research funding due to his position there. (It's porbably important to clarify something here -- Langley, despite the whole mess surrounding his planes, was not invovled in the situation. He died in 1906, just 3 years after the Wrights' flight, and more than fifteen years before the disputes.)

Ultimately, Orville Wright (Wilbur was long-dead) sent the Wright Flyer to London, where the British might respect the venerable plane. And there it stayed, until a 1942 report by the Smithsonian ("The 1914 Tests of the Langley Aerodrome") essentialy recanted their story -- finaly, they admitted that, well, the Aerodrome #5 as originally built was unsuccessful.

And there we have it. In 1948 the Wright Flyer returned to the Smithsonian. It does not share a hall with the Aerodrome, which today occupies the "Early Flight" exhibit, with the Wright military flyer (a later model). The Wright Flyer itself, currently in its own special exhibit, is usually located in a place of honor in the center of the "Milestones of Flight" gallery.

So much for the Aerodrome.

Aviating

2009-09-22T21:49:00.005-04:00

Big secret (okay, not very secret): I hate flying.

Upon reflection, though, much as I may think I hate flying today, I really, really, seriously would have hated flying in 1911.

Now, while a lot of people (myself included, secretly) are thinking back to junior high school history class and trying to remember if planes even existed when the Handbook was published (they did), we need to handle something more important here. Planes were indeed available. But they were much, much simpler and much, much scarier.

(This airplane is from 1912. Hence, when the Handbook was published, this was the future of aviation. The future of aviation involved buddying up to some other dude in a suit while dangling your feet off of an airplane.)

The airplanes our 1911 scouts were learning about were only a step ahead of the Wright brothers' plane, with canvas stretched over wood-framed, parallel wings, steered by a network of pulleys and wire cables by a pilot who sat on seat mounted to the bottom wing (or, in the case of many planes, on the wing itself).

The planes we're talking about here were also much, much less useful than the planes we think about today -- the maximum speed we could achieve was perhaps 40 miles per hour (and this was the record-breaking "Silver Dart," made out of a reassuring combination of "steel tube, bamboo, friction tape, wire, wood, and silk"). In general, speeds and ranges were lower still.

Hold on for discussion, tomorrow or Thursday, about a few more aspects of early planes -- I'm looking into some information about the early altitude record-holder, but work is getting in the way. Boo.

Additionally, I'm trying to decide how to go about model-building. The Aviation badge requires a flight of 25 yards, which is hardly much, but is exactly enough that I feel like I want to approach this as seriously as possible. While some folks are pretty intense R/C model builders (some of whom I'm hoping to speak to, as well), I do want my model to be at least a little bit 1911-accurate. Ideas?

Apples and honey

2009-09-19T17:48:00.003-04:00

In honor of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, we had people over for a celebratory dinner last night. I made a noodle kugel, pasta with pesto, tomatoes, and zucchini, and Anzac cookies, which were experimental but kind of delicious. (These were partially a tribute to my mother's cherished belief that, when having folks over for dinner, one must always provide two dessert types: a fruit and a chocolate. My friend Wendy brought a chocolate cake, so the fruit spot was left unfilled, hence coconut/honey/oatmeal cookies. Yum.)

How does this relate to the Handbook? Simple. Honey.

Traditionally, on Rosh Hashanah, the meal (or the holiday itself) is capped with apples and honey. There are all sorts of explanations for each -- the apples as representative of the tree of knowledge, as references to the Song of Songs and so forth, and the honey as a nod to the "land of milk and honey." I've always liked the old standard the best, though. It's simply that apples and honey are both damn sweet and delicious and represent a wish for a sweet new year.

Our honey this year was the Tremblay Apiraries honey I'd sampled at Union Square a month or so ago, and let me tell you, while not the hit of the party, it was a delicious and seasonally-appropriate addition.

PS: I took a picture of apples, honey, challah, and the Anzac cookies last night in hopes of posting today, but ew. I am not a sophisticated enough photo editor to make a photograph of such delicious food look anything but disgusting. Instead, as a special bonus, my kugel recipe!

Now, many people think they do not like kugel. These people are incorrect. They do not like other people's kugel. Other people's kugel is dry and bland (sorry, other people). Mine is spectacular. Remember, this is a special occasion kind of dish, and fat = flavor.

You'll need:
1 pound of egg noodles
1/2 stick of butter
1 quart of buttermilk
4 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 cup (or more) of raisins

For the topping, you'll need:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of crushed cornflakes (though I've made it with Kashi Golean, as well as with granola.)
2 Tbs of melted butter
1/4 tsp of cinnamon (though I use a lot more, often.)

To make the kugel, first preheat the oven to 375 F. Cook the noodles however you prefer to cook 'em. Drain them, then add the butter and stir the whole shebang around until the butter melts.

Add the buttermilk, eggs, sugar, salt, and raisins to the buttery noodles and mix them all around. Put the whole mess into a 9 x 13 baking pan, put some tin foil on top, and bake for about a half hour.

While your kugel starts to bake, get to work on the topping! Mix up the four ingredients. (This does not take the entire 30 minutes the kugel is baking unless you crush each flake of cereal individually. Don't do this.)

Sprinkle the topping over the partly-baked kugel, replace the foil, and continue to bake the kugel for another 30-45 minutes. It's done when the whole thing is semi-solid, with no buttermilk sloshing around.

Eat it. Seriously. You will not want to stop.

Thursday run

2009-09-17T22:03:00.002-04:00

I know I promised you guys a run on Tuesday, and, straight up, that promise was the only reason I did it at all today. It's been a stressful few days at work, and the very, very beginning of fall is just starting to show up in the air. When I left, around 5, I could feel just the tiniest bit of a chill in the very tips of my fingers. (I'm cold all the time, dudes. Really.)

I headed out towards the library, untimed because of the last traces of Elmo-titis. I was slow tonight, I think, but in general, it was straight up glorious. There are certain early-evening moments where the quality of light and the buildings are working together just right, and even the guy jumping rope in the middle of the sidewalk didn't slow me down.

On the way home, though, I got distracted, and just went to the library instead of past it. I'd just returned two (Collette's Cheri and The Last of Cheri, which was absolutely heartbreaking, and Shelby Foote's The Civil War, which was intermittently excellent and way more than I could handle), and I was sort of in the market for something different.

Today's haul: Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, which has been on my list forever, Clare Boylan's Emma Brown, cobbled together from an unfinished Charlotte Bronte manuscript (hard to say how this one is going to go), and Vincent Louis Carrella's Serpent Box, which I saw on the shelf and grabbed, without any prior knowledge whatsoever. We'll see how it goes, right?

At this point, I'm going to sign off with a plea for help: oddly, finding private plane airports/folks who are interested in recreational aviation is proving more difficult in the city than I think it would have been anywhere else I've lived, ever. Does anyone have a hot tip? I've got some feelers out, but I think there's a very strong suspicion of weird, airport-related requests that I hadn't entirely anticipated.

Traning to run

2009-09-15T22:25:00.003-04:00

The Athletics badge asks the applicant to explain, in 500 words or so, how to train for an athletic event. Now, I'll admit, I'm not much of a competitive athlete, so instead, I'm going to address how I went about practicing for the 2 mile run I've been working on (for the Army Physical Fitness Test), and how many, many things I've done wrong. (After a weeklong cold, I'm shooting for another run on Thursday, since I'm hideously busy Wednesday nights.)

Hey, after all, Goofus was always much more interesting than Gallant, right?

To begin with, I started running after something like a 2-year period of nonrunning, as well as a 2-month period of exerciselessness. In general, this is a bad way to start. Honestly, though, these 2 months have been the longest period of time I haven't exercised since I was something like 16 or 17 and going to the gym with my parents after school. Even through college and grad school (especially grad school), I was religious about exercise. Since moving to Brooklyn, though, things have really fallen by the wayside. And for an incredibly stupid reason: there's no available gym that's easy to walk to. Somehow, taking the train to the gym seems like it defeats the entire purpose of going to the gym. (On this front, I feel similarly to the way I used to regard people at my tiny New England college who would drive to the athletic center, which, on a residential campus maybe a mile square, seemed absurd. Does this make me a snob? Maybe.) There are regular promises to open a second branch of the YMCA, and my stubbornness is compelling me to hold out for this new, easier-to-reach branch. I will not take the train to exercise, though it's only punishing my own self.

Regardless of all that, I used a modified version of the couch-to-5k running program, which had served me well in the past (well, moderately well, in that it got me up to being able to run for some distance without stopping, but wasn't all that useful for the building up of speed). Rumor has it that if I legitimately want to become fast, I'll have to train for it -- doing things like the hilariously-named fartleks (Swedish for "speed play," or "running real fast for a couple minutes until your brains fall out, going back to regular pace, and repeating ad infinitum). There are legitimate explanations for fartlek, including all kinds of ideas about how fartlek can increase aerobic capacity, can simulate actual athletic events (sprinting to catch an opponent, for example), and theories about how doing this will allow you to actually run fewer total miles in training. Frankly, I've ignored nearly all of this with the explanation (to myself) that I don't need to get that much faster.

In terms of equipment, my dear shoe-selling uncle would recommend that a new runner might see some class of expert who could recommend shoes with appropriate arch support, correction for pronation, and so forth. I did this, too, once, and it was pretty great (I wound up with a pair of Asics I still have). The truth? Um, remember how I said I still have those Asics? Yeah. I'm running in them, three years later. I've swapped out the insoles for a pair of prescription orthotics (hey, I'm a teacher and on my feet all day, and these orthotics were my last gasp of health care benefits before a multi-month gap in coverage). I was actually extremely interested in an article in the NY Times last week suggesting that shoes, in general, aren't actually all that necessary. However, I've seen what people do on the street, and I refuse to haul around my neighborhood with my poor toes a'hanging out. Hell, I've seen what the soles of my feet look like on a day around the city while wearing flip flops. It's not pretty.

So, to sum up: minimal training, no emphasis on speed, old shoes.

Up next: Running Thursday, then on to beginning the next badge. Aviation?

Handbook book club, #2

2009-09-13T19:59:00.003-04:00

You may not have known this, but I have a degenerative disease. And it is called Elmo-titis.

Yesterday evening, I was a little hoarse. (Groucho Marx joke here.) By this morning? No voice at all, except something high, squeaky, rumbly, and quiet. Kind of like Elmo. And, like Elmo, I'm pretty chipper, all things considered. But I fear the next step.

Anyway, as a result of the Elmo-titis, I didn't manage to get out today and work on the Athletics badge like I'd hoped to. That means . . . it's time for another round of Handbook book club!

When last we discussed this stuff, we talked a lot about the scout virtues -- cleanliness, honesty, that kind of thing. And while those are important, today we get into something that could be brutally dull but isn't: the structure of a troop.

We go through the scout concil officers fairly quickly, the president, vice president, etc., the scout commissioner, all that. The thing that interests me is the scout master. He's required to be at least twenty-one, be of good moral fiber, the basics. What's interseting is that he is specifically not required to be particularly good at the myriad tasks the Handbook assigns any good boy scout. The exact wording: "He need not be an expert at scoutcraft; a good scout master will discover experts for the various activities."

This is startlingly ahead of its time.

As some of you (those of you who've read my bio on the sidebar, at least) know, I teach school. Specifically, I teach science. Now, I have a decent amount of science-y background, but when I left grad school to start teaching, I realized something: what you know has almost no impact on how good a teacher you are. Seriously. This is hard for me to admit, because I've always been a strong believer in school. I worked hard in high school. I went to a good college and worked hard there. And I went to two separate good grad schools and worked hard at those, too. So I started out extremely good at the science I teach, and extremely hesitant to downplay the importance of learning. I walked into my classroom the first day ever, thinking that my spectacular science-ness was just going to pour all over these kids and bring them to their knees in awe.

By the end of that first day, I was crying in the parking lot.

It got better, of course, and I'm actually a little bummed now to know that my old students started class last week and Iw asn't there to see them. In the past few days, I've gotten emails from several of them, and it unquestionably makes my day. I started out terrified of them, and terrified I woudln't be able to get through to them, but over time, day by day, we managed to build a relationship that I'm really proud of.

In my planner, I have a note from one of my last year's students: "Thank you for being a fantastic science teacher. I already enjoyed science but you made the class so much fun and made learning enjoyable. You becamse my favorite class and teacher and I looked forward to it every day." First, girl spelled "every day" as two words, thank goodness, which shows you how smart she is. And second, this may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

So, as I was implying, I guess, over time you build up comfort with your students and with your job. There is a set of skills you need in order to maintain any regularity in the classroom, in order to write and organize lesson plans, is as different from knowing actual content as is knowing how to cook and knowing how to eat, and while each is different, each is also learnable. So I'm delighted that the scoutmaster simply needs to have an interest in the material rather than being an expert -- the Handbook is recognizing, years before much educational philosophy did, that there's a difference between knowing and teaching.

This is also extraordinarily relevant to my life right now. I've just switched from teaching in a rich, suburban district to teaching in the heart of Brooklyn. Once again, my first day was a rough one. Once again, I entered the classroom convinced that I knew how teaching science worked and that the kids and I would be best friends in a heartbeat. And, once again, I was unimaginably, insurmountably incorrect. It's more of the same, really -- what applies in one situation, whether it's basic science knowledge or how to keep classroom order in a central Jersey classroom in which, frankly, keeping order is not that much of a challenge, is almost irrelevant when it comes to reaching out to a specific group of individuals in a specific location at a specific time. What worked for me at my last job doesn't work here, and that's okay.

Tomorrow starts my second week at my new school. I'm ready. Just like the Handbook recommends, a desire to learn and a desire to teach will pull you a hell of a lot farther than all the knowledge you've got.

(Also, watching MTV's VMAs, I've just seen Taylor Swift singing and dancing on my regular train. I am totally blaming her for long wait times for the train this week, and now I hate a girl I've never met. Thanks, MTV. Thanks.)

Schaefer method

2009-09-11T21:54:00.008-04:00

The Schaefer method of artificial resuscitation is the horsey ride of lifesaving.

That said, it was also kind of fun.

For those of you (read: everyone) who don't know how this works, it's pretty simple: the person to be resuscitated lies on his stomach, allowing fluids to drain from his lungs (and preventing him from swallowing his tongue!) while the resuscitator sits on his back "with his hands between the short ribs." (Reading this made me hungry, though I've eaten ribs only once in my life, with my grandparents somewhere in Jersey when I was maybe 10. At the time, they offended my occasionally-fastidious sensibilities, but I have a feeling that by this time in my life I would essentially be om nom nomming all the way home.)

Anyhow, the short ribs. The resuscitator leans forward, pushing the air out of the poor, conked-out rescuee's lungs, then releases pressure, allowing the air back in. In the Handbook, this is even illustrated, albeit somewhat uselessly. Please note that the pictures accompanying this entry are from the Handbook via Project Gutenberg, and not from my own demonstration, which involved 100% more sweatpants.

So, it's been a long week -- the first week of school means back-to-school throat (the teachers' affliction of a combination of stress, talking loudly, and sudden exposure to all the germs you didn't have to deal with over the summer), and this evening was shaping up to mean a long nap and not much else. However, my husband is a good, good person and was willing to volunteer himself for some saving of lives.

The entire process was pretty easy, and (according to John) works quite well in the lung-compression department. I kept asking for feedback while I was also doing the pushing-out-air section of Schaefering, which made it difficult for John to answer, but in later debriefings he made it clear that the whole shebang did effectively encourage some breathing. Surprise big of news: while being compressed, your communication is largely reduced to tapping on the ground with increasing or decreasing measures of urgency.

The main advantage to the Schaefer method, as far as I can tell, is this: it's quick and easy, and takes essentially no skill. While the internet has told me the Schaefer method was replaced by another lifesaving method (Holger Neilson, named for a Danish fencer whose name is funnier, and which involves pressing on the resuscetee's upper back) in 1952, and eventually by mouth-to-mouth in the late '50s. Mouth-to-mouth, of course, requires way more skill, or at least more physical contact. Schaefer? Easy peasy. You can even do it on your apartment floor, while wearing sweatpants.

Glub glub

2009-09-08T17:45:00.005-04:00

When we left each other yesterday, we had just been talking about how many, many requirements the Swimming and Life saving badges have. And through a series of emails I've received today, I'm starting to get the idea that some of you may be a little doubtful that any actual swimming took place -- after all, yesterday's video did just cut off with me expressing some reluctance to get fully into the water.

Never fear.

Strict as I may be (or may be inclined to be), know this: Wendy's neighbor, Robin, is far, far stricter than I am. While I might have been tempted to consider that swimming 200 yards total and swimming 50 yards fully dressed could overlap, Robin was having none of it. This applied across the board -- diving from the surface and diving from the surface to retrieve a 5 pound weight also didn't overlap. (This is probably for the best, really. I'm sure that the original Handbook didn't mean for the scouts to conflate one badge activity into another, so really, Robin was probably right. Plus, it meant extra swimming for me, which was probably healthier after all.)

After some convincing (it was only maybe 70 out, and the water was an easy 10 degrees colder than that), it was time. We started out with the clothed swim, then moved into the two hundred yards and the one hundred hands-less backstroke. (Let me tell you, the photography for the hands-less backstroke just looks awkward, but it went much, much better than I'd expected, and was maybe the most useful piece of the whole set of requirements. After all, if I'm saving someone, I'll need my hands for other purposes, right?) I tried to switch up strokes in general, though it's been a long time since I really did much regular swimming.

When I was a kid, I took swimming lessons at day camp. I was much more of an indoor arts and crafts kind of kid, and my general lack of competitiveness led itself more towards basic swimming than towards kickball, volleyball, any of the standard summer camp stuff. (Besides, I was generally too independent for camp -- I didn't like the regimented schedule, either.) This leads, really, to another of the reasons why the Handbook and I are such a good match. While I was never a fast swimmer, I was an enthusiastic and solid one. I liked swimming because it was fun, not because it was something I might win. The Handbook, in fact, cautions against focusing too heavily on speed and competition in swimming -- "Speed swimming for itself alone is a very selfish sport so that the scout should develop his ability to make it generally useful to others." I keep returning to the public spiritedness of the Handbook, I know, but time and again I'm reminded that this is my favorite part of the project -- we're doing things because they're useful.

I'd forgotten a weight to dive for, but Wendy's mother, Bonnie, produced a small barbell, so I used that instead. The real difficulty there came in with the similar colors of the blue-coated barbell and the dark blue pool bottom. There was a certain amount of blind groping going on at the bottom of the pool. To be more true to the spirit of the badge, I think this would have had to take place in a lake or something with a dark, muddy bottom, so once again, I suppose the barbell camouflage will have to do.

The final piece, and maybe the best, was the actual rescuing. Wendy is a great sport, so she volunteered herself to faux-drown. I first did the release demonstrations on land, and they were no real problem -- I loosed myself from various chokeholds with no trouble at all. In the water, however, things got much more difficult.

See, here's my issue with the Life saving badge: not enough actual saving of lives. The only water-based lifesaving requirement is to demonstrate two forms of release in the water. There are two problems with this: first, there's no water depth requirement (though Wendy and I used the deep end of the pool -- it only seemed fair) and, other than those two releases (we did a wrist grab and a chokehold), there's no demonstration of pulling someone to safety or anything else lifesaving-related. For a document so concerned with completeness, the Handbook is mysteriously silent on this front. I've been trying to think of why, but I'm really coming up empty-handed on this one. Any ideas?

Regardless, Wendy was a good sport about these things and allowed me to mime knocking the wind out of her, breaking her wrists, all that kind of thing. Despite the lack of requirements, she also allowed me to pull her to safety (so much the better -- I secretly think this is the most practical aspect of the Life saving badge, even though it's not a real one).

By the end of the morning, I was content to award myself the Swimming badge, and I'm one demonstration of resuscitation away from Life saving. Happy end of summer, kids.

Swimtastic!

2009-09-07T21:16:00.006-04:00

I don't care what the equinox says -- Labor Day is the end of summer, and that's that.

In general, honestly, I get a little glum at this time of year. It's not that I don't want to go back to work (I do, of course) -- it's just the passage of time, the (soon-emergent) chill in the air, all that. Of course, this isn't entirely the healthiest outlook, so this year I wanted to try to show summer a little appreciation on its way out.

Oh reader, I went to Long Island. And reader, I did more swimming than I have since I went to day camp.

There was a reason, of course. My dear friend Wendy is from Long Island, and she has a neighbor with a pool. A particularly tolerant neighbor, that is, one who got a phone call that went something like this: "Hi. My friend is doing Boy Scout badges. Can we go swimming in your pool in our clothes?" It is a fine, fine person who hears something like this and says yes.

See, in honor of the end of summer, and in honor of impending chilly temperatures, Wendy and I decided to tackle the Swimming and Life saving badges. So, this morning, I suited up and we headed over to Wendy's neighbor to take a dip.

The Swimming and Life saving badges are surprisingly simple, and they have a surprising amount of overlap. Swimming requires that one swims for a hundred yards, dives from the surface of the water, does any type of backstroke for fifty feet, and is proficient in the breaststroke, sidestroke, and crawl.

Life saving is a little more complicated -- rather than simply diving from the surface, the candidate has to drive into seven to ten feet of water and haul up a 5 pound sandbag. Instead of swimming one hundred yards, this time it's two (one hundred of which must be on the back without using hands, and for fifty of which the candidate has be to dressed (wearing a minimum of shirt, pants, and shoes). There are requirements regarding actual lifesaving, too -- demonstrating five methods of release (which appear to be just getting a drowning person to let go of you so you don't both drown) on land and two in the water, as well as demonstrating one particular resuscitation method.

It's been a long day, friends, so I'll tell you the rest tomorrow. (Spoiler! I don't drown.)

Mannahatta and me

2009-09-05T22:37:00.003-04:00

The overarching theme of this project so far has really been a simple one. It's not just to look at the requirements for the 1911 Boy Scout badges, but to really reflect on them and how things have changed over the past hundred years. By and large, maybe things haven't been entirely successful, but I think it's not a bad goal.

Today, though, I came across a National Geographic article about an infinitely bigger (and certainly worthier) project (thanks, mom!). The Manhattana Project is the largest, coolest science fair project ever. Taking maps and historic records from the seventeenth century, Eric Sanderson and the Wildlife Conservation Society have used GIS data to build up image upon image of what Manhattan looked like long, long before Europeans arrived. Sure, my project addresses a hundred years and a whole borough, but this project? Four hundred years, plus all of New York City. There's no contest here.

The images are pretty astonishing for a bunch of reasons. First, there's just the technical aspect. I was once a real, live scientist (and, actually, my undergrad thesis dealt a lot with GIS analysis), and it's shocking how painstaking they were. Just the process of pinning down the coordinates of location upon location, then matching those points up with observations and maps is amazing.

Even more, though, is the series of then-and-now pictures. Looking at the aerial images of Manhattan is almost like seeing inside someone's Batman/Blade Runner nightmare. It's hard to look at just how dramatic the changes have been without wondering what's coming next.

Then again, should it be all bad? It's a much more complex question than just my gut reaction might make it. When we moved to New York, my husband and I both sold our cars, and the same number of people live in our apartment buliding as lived on half of our block in New Jersey, or as lived on my entire road as a child. There's a lot to be said for that kind of compression -- after all, when we cuddle up into a big, urban area, how much more open space does that preserve? Is the best environmental decision, really, to sacrifice some area (Manhattan, for example), and to simply build up up up and to be close close close until we're ready to burst?

What quality of life does that preserve? What can we afford to give up?

Thirty-four seconds.

2009-09-03T22:32:00.004-04:00

I failed the Army fitness test today.

I considered lying to you about it. I went over the allotted time for the 2-mile run by a healthy thirty-four seconds, and I spent some time at the laundromat today reflecting that, well, maybe if I'd jaywalked a little more aggressively, or if I'd decided to run a little earlier in the day, when there was less traffic, I could have pared away that thirty-four seconds easily. But the truth is, that would be a lie. I failed the running test because I didn't run fast enough and that's that.

I thought so hard about lying (I told myself it was just tweaking my results a little bit, honestly) that I even floated it past one of my friends, the way we look for approval when we don't really think what we're doing is right by the approval of others might make it so. Fortunately, one thing pulled me out. First, the one I wish it was: my own moral compass. I mean, how can I lie, right? Lying is bad! But the real reason is the spirit of the project itself. If the object of this project of mine is to actually complete the badgework, then my own honesty is the only thing keeping this from turning into some kind of peculiar but fictional real-time story. And that's no fun. If I start lying about silly things (say, thirty-four seconds), it can become way too easy to move into bigger lies -- did I really successfully cook an all the required food for the Camping badge? Did I convince Prospect Park to let me raise corn?

As the Handbook (and my dad, actually) remind me, a scout is trustworthy -- heck, it's the first piece of the Boy Scout Law. It's not just honesty the scout should strive for, either. "The honor of a scout is a sacred thing, and cannot be lightly set aside or trampled on." This doesn't just apply to commitments to others (foolish as they may be -- are you, internet, really going to judge me for whether or not my run time was off by thirty-four seconds?), but, more importantly, to self-respect.

Now, I know that a few days ago I had some less-than-polite words for the Handbook, in general. I had a bit to say about mouth breathing (bad!), and a bit more about frogs' legs (huh?). But this bit right here, this is a critical one for me. I really do love that the Handbook sees behavior towards others as inherently tied to a sense of self -- it's almost Golden Rule-like. It's a nice bit, and maybe my favorite part of the Handbook so far. (If you're following along at home, you can check it out at Project Gutenberg, then just move down to the "Scout Virtues" section.)

This bit here, really, is what scouting should be about, and kind of what being an actual human being should be about, too. Don't we all want to think the best of ourselves? Don't we all want to have faith in those around us?

To lie to you about thirty-four seconds. Psh. You deserve better.

(Also, a quick reference to a bee-related article in today's NY Times!)

Pathfinding: Found!

2009-09-02T22:12:00.006-04:00

In honor of the end of the summer and the beginning of the school year (starting on Wednesday!), it seemed like an excellent time to wrap up the second major badge project of the summer: the Pathfinding badge.

Only one (required) step remained: to "know something of the history of the place [and] its principal public buildings." And so, in pursuit of the principal public buildings (which the Handbook suggests includes things like town halls, etc.), I visited downtown Brooklyn.

First stop, Borough Hall, which has been (among other things) both a jail and a court. The NY Emergency Response Team was out in full force urging disaster preparedness of all sorts, largely through handing out a lot of hand sanitizer and providing a packing list for a go bag (a concept that just makes me feel to generally uncomfortable to consider creating). Despite my recent be-prepared theme, I didn't explain my current project to those kind folks. They might have thought I was weird.

I checked out the courthouses, too, both the Supreme Court building, guarded by the most bizarre possible triumvirate of statues (Bobby Kennedy, Christopher Columbus, and Moses), and the US Court, which (I'll admit) I first imagined was a movie theater. (That glassy facade just says "let's eat popcorn!" to me.)

Finally, I was surprised (very!) to learn more about downtown Brooklyn's noble history as a hotbed of abolitionists until I spotted the statue of Henry Ward Beecher (abolitionist, adulterer, and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe). Beecher's church was a major player in the Underground Railroad in NYC, and raised so much money for the Union Army and for emancipation that the guns wielded by Kansas' Union soldiers were referred to as "Beecher's Bibles." (Who knew I was this into history?)

So, is it time for a new badge?

I think so.

More running but (sadly) less bugle

2009-09-01T21:20:00.003-04:00

I just got home from work. (For those of you on the east coast, yes, it's 9:30 PM.) Now, out of respect for my neighbors, sadly, that means no bugle. Not even taps. This is probably for the best, of course, though I may have to reconsider when I actually can do things like play taps, at which point we can consider switching things up a bit. But, for the time being, no bugle.

However, I did take the third run in four days today, for a grand total of more running than I've done in the past two years put together. I have high hopes for this section of the athletics badge, and I should be at the passing-the-run stage soon. I've been measuring the distance of my run very vaguely (oh! this seems like it's been a couple miles!) and timing it even more vaguely (oh! I put songs each of which are roughly 3 minutes long on my ipod and I've been out for 7 songs!), but I think I've got a good shot. For Thursday (I think), I'm going to actually time myself and actually run a pre-charted course. I'll keep you updated. (For the record: the Army physical fitness test standards are not actually all that stringent. It sounds tough, right? Not really.)

Other upcoming events: tomorrow (if I'm lucky), I'll get to downtown Brooklyn to complete the Pathfinding badge. Friday or Saturday I'll post my how-to-train essay (a 500-word requirement for Athletics), and Sunday and Monday there is a top-secret plan in the works. One hint: swimming fully dressed. Be prepared, folks.

Finally, a question: the Athletics badge requires that I explain the rules for one track and one field event. What field event should I investigate? (Heck, what is a field event?)

Video post! Bugle madness!

2009-08-30T16:20:00.004-04:00

Running with MJ

2009-08-29T12:11:00.004-04:00

You may not know this, but I'm a really bad athlete.

This has always been the case. Last finisher at the Olympic Day races in elementary school. Actually permitted not to play volleyball in high school gym class because I was so inept. I exercise regularly, but it doesn't really make much of a difference -- I was born a klutz and will remain one.

This relates directly to today's topic: my first run for the athletics badge. See, I'm no great shakes at most athletic events, but man, running. So bad. So, so bad. A dear friend of mine (actually, several dear friends) worked for the NF Endurance Team and, as a result, I spent a little time volunteering at their marathon expo centers. This got my confidence up -- I could hang around near runners, so this meant I could become one. Right?

I signed up for the Philadelphia Distance Run and, several months before, began to train. Really, I did. I did the whole shebang -- long runs, short runs, rest days, weights, everything. But it was ultimately kind of a disaster. I finished the race, but in the throes of such tears and vomit and cursing (sorry, mom) that I swore I would never run again. (See the happy faces in that photo? Lies!)

Anyway, this is to give you context for something very, very important: while you may see this and suggest that running only a couple miles in a not-very-brief period of time isn't so bad, trust me. It is.

Now then.

As you may have figured out, I've realized that, for the athletics badge, I will indeed have to engage in some athletic activity and so, this morning, I went on my first actual run in, well, years. And know what? It wasn't that bad. This isn't to say that I'm fast, or that I went very far, but I finished up feeling pretty good. I did indeed both run and walk (which I swear is okay!), but, once again, have pity on a poor wimp.

While I was out, I noticed a huge number of cops in and around Prospect Park, and a bunch of people wearing Michael Jackson memorabilia. Somehow, I had totally missed knowing about the Spike Lee-sponsored Michael Jackson birthday party going on today. (Conveniently, I had loaded up my iPod this morning with nearly entirely old Jackson 5 songs.) Clearly, I have to stop by later.

I have a bugle.

2009-08-28T16:48:00.006-04:00

This is going to be way harder than I thought.

Also, my neighbors are going to hate me. It sounds like I've been imitating livestock all afternoon.

New badge!

2009-08-27T20:36:00.002-04:00

While I do believe my bugle should arrive tomorrow, I still want to get started on a new badge. I'm strongly considering the athletics badge, but there's one problem.

I'm not a 15 year old boy in 1911.

Seriously. The badge requirements are pretty unforgiving. I'd need to write an article on how to train for an athletic event, provide rules for one track and one field event, and meet some very strict physical standards. How strict? Oh good heavens.

The Handbook divides young aspirants into five weight classes: under 90 lbs, under 110 lbs, under 125 lbs, under 140 lbs, and over 140 lbs. (First, do we even need to talk about what a different time period this was? These boys were scrawny.) I will openly admit I fall into category 3. So what do I need to do?
* A running broad jump of 14 feet
* A running high jump of 4'4"
* A standing broad jump of 7'6"
* A standing high jump of 3'6"
* 9 pull ups
* A 20 yard swim in 16 seconds
* A 40 yard swim in 38 seconds
* A 50 yard dash in 7 seconds
* An eight-potato race (kind of a shuttle run) in 41 seconds
* Throw an 8 lb shot put 30 feet
* Complete 13 push ups
* Climb a rope in 12 seconds
* Run a 13 second 100 yard dash

This seems absolutely impossible to me. Seriously. I'm the first to admit this, but I'm kind of a klutz and kind of a wimp. (Also, as previously mentioned, a teenage boy and I are totally different animals.)

So what do you think? What physical fitness standards should I shoot for? I've been considering the APFT (push ups, sit ups, and a run)? The Presidential Physical Fitness standards I missed every time when I was a kid? Something else completely? I'm completely at a loss here -- help!

Handbook book club, #1

2009-08-26T21:00:00.002-04:00

Surprisingly enough, very little of the Handbook’s text is actually badge-related information. Rather, of the 400-odd pages, only 20 contain badge requirements. The remainder is an assortment of information about how a Scout ought to live, discourses on chivalry, and instructions for preparing frogs’ legs for a camp dinner (if frying, serve with watercress).

More than anything, the Handbook is a prescriptive document for the healthy boy of the early twentieth century — if he wants to be strong and competent, he needs little more than to follow these instructions. It’s a step-by-step guide for becoming unquestionably manly.

The first section of the Handbook deals with the history of scouting, tracing it back to King Arthur and the Crusaders, who would unquestionably (we learn) have been Boy Scouts. Interestingly, the section also gives a nod to the Civil War soldiers who kept the United States together — interesting because the Civil War, to these folks, was really a piece of living memory, no more remote than the MLK’s march on Washington to us. (I’m being completely accurate here — from the surrender at Appomattox to the 1911 publishing of the Handbook was 46 years. 1963 to 2009? You guessed it.)

The Handbook also addresses virtue — kindness to animals, faithfulness to duty, that sort of thing. The scout is directed also towards physical hardiness and instructed to sleep “with the windows of his bedroom open both summer and winter,” and to take cold baths with rough towels. This is supposed to make him better able to endure hardship, and has the added bonus of exfoliated and minimizing pores. (The Handbook actually says this last part!) (No it doesn’t.)

One more thing: a scout should always, always breathe through the nose, never the mouth. No particular reason is given, though it's something I feel quite strongly about, too.

Covered in bees!

2009-08-25T18:51:00.006-04:00

I have a feeling you’ve been waiting for this day. Because today, I can award myself my very first badge . . . Bee Farming.

I took a trip to the slightly-further-away reaches of Brooklyn to interview John Howe, a rooftop beekeeper. Tracy in tow (again!) we visited John first for a video introduction to his beekeeping background, and then to actually check out his hives.

Did I mention that, while 1000 bees sound like a lot, they look like a hell of a lot more?

John’s been a beekeeper for the past eight years, first with three hives and later with two. A self-taught beekeeper, he coordinates the New York Beekeepers Meetup. He harvests roughly 100 pounds of honey each year from his hives (buy some here).

In the backyard, John showed me his display hive, which he takes to schools and other public functions. It’s home to roughly 1000 bees, who, like I said, are a lot more than you’d imagine. (See that box right there? There are 1000 bees inside it. Seriously.)

John also showed us his honey harvesting room, where he uses a warm knife to remove the wax caps from the combs, then places the frame — the wood or plastic piece that holds the honeycombs — into his extractor, a giant steel salad shooter of a machine, which spins off the honey for filtration. Then? Delicious, delicious honey.

By this point, fully prepared with information about honey harvesting and with a little preparation for seeing a whole lot of bees, it was time to head up to the roof for a little hands-on research.

Would it be too dorky of me to say that the hives were buzzing? Seriously, they were.

I followed John’s advice, keeping away from the fronts of the hives. He tells me that he barely wears protective gear anymore — “I’m just not afraid.”

The hives are wooden langstroth models, the kind that almost look like a chest of drawers. He also has a single polystyrene tray. I wondered if bees might have housing preferences — the old-fashioned log cabin bees vs. the new money bees. Not so. “The bees don’t seem to notice, but I don’t like the look of it.”

One more beekeeping tidbit: while I’d imagined NYC’s beekeeping ban to go back hundreds of years (it seems like a colonial type of law, doesn’t it?), John tells me it only dates back as far as the Giuliani administration. Know what other cities ban beekeeping? As far as I can tell, Ypsilanti, MI. Seriously. That may be it, kids.

(Check out this article for a more London-y take on beekeeping.)

(Oh, right, and check out the sidebar for a running tally of badges.)

(Oh right, and for Kate.)

Best trip of the year. Seriously.

2009-08-24T17:32:00.011-04:00

Moving on through the pathfinding merit badge, things have finally started to get a little more interesting. One of the requirements I’d been kind of dreading — knowing the directions to and population of 5 neighboring towns — has turned out to be at least a little bit awesome.

Why?

Boats.

Okay, so I reflected on this for a while, and really, being able to give directions to neighboring towns isn’t all that interesting, especially since we’re talking about a requirement that would just end with me saying things like “take the train to Hoboken.” “Take the train to Jersey City.” And so forth.

Clearly, this is a requirement that’s ripe for a little tweaking and so, instead, I decided that the better route would be to find, well, routes to all five boroughs. (And yes. I live in one already. Stop looking at me like that.)

Today, I took on Staten Island. Now, I’ll admit that my only prior knowledge pretty much consisted of two things: driving across the Goethals Bridge to get to other boroughs and one particularly unflattering episode of MTV’s True Life (I can’t find the episode, but the clip here gives you the picture.) I will admit: I was wrong. I was biased, and I was wrong.

Because getting to Staten Island involves my three favorite words in the English language: Free boat ride.

Y’all, I have seen the light. The Staten Island Ferry leaves from the southern tip of Manhattan and friends, it is free free free.

Unlike other excursions so far, I even had company on today’s trip — my college roommate, Tracy, joined me. (She took one of the photos: guess which!) We met up at Whitehall Ferry Terminal and caught a 9:15 ferry to Staten Island. The harbor was busy and the sun was shining — perfect!

Also, please note that, from the water, the ferry terminal looks like a giant, gaping maw.

Once we arrived, however, we still had some exploring to do in what a sign in the terminal calls “The Borough of Parks.” We made a valiant effort to visit the Staten Island Museum (which doesn’t open until noon) and checked out the stadium for the Staten Island Yankees, who also have a Baseball Scout Wall of Fame. (Tracy and I momentarily misread this as the Boy Scout Hall of Fame and then were roundly disappointed.)

We caught our only downside on the return trip, when I tried to speak to some of the crew on the ferry. As they should have, of course, they asked the captain for permission to be interviewed, but he wasn't having it. Maybe I'm a security threat? I do look pretty tough.

The lesson? MTV lies, man. Go to Staten Island for the best $0 you can spend in the city.

Why doesn’t everyone do this all the time?

Oh look, I have a neighborhood

2009-08-23T17:15:00.009-04:00

We've entered the really, genuinely un-writeable part of the pathfinding badge: locating things around my neighborhood. I understand where this is coming from, of course. When you were a farm boy growing up, it was intensely practical to know the locations of each doctor in a multi-mile radius. What if you got mangled in a plow? Now, however, recognizing each fire hydrant in the immediate vicinity is a little more sloggy than I'd hoped.

Requirements 5 and 6:
* Know the location of the nearest meat markets, bakeries, groceries, and drug stores.
* Know where the nearest police station, hospital, doctor, fire alarm, fire hydrant, telegraph and telephone offices, and railroad stations are.

But! The 17 ideals of scouting do inform me that one must be cheerful (in addition to thrifty, obedient, and clean). And so, off I went. Meat market accomplished days ago, there were still more locations to visit, and visit them I did. I'll spare you photographic evidence of the vast majority, but please believe me that, dude, there are a lot of drug stores.

There are also a lot of grocery stores, and since my neighborhood is exceedingly gentrified, there are a lot of grocery stores that fall into the realm of the absurd. This one, for example, featured the largest display of materials for the decoration of cakes I think I've ever seen. Man, I sound ridiculous.

There was also a great number of the more average groceries I frequent, but that sort of place was less open to my picture-taking.

In a nod to public safety, I did also visit the hospital (no, not in an emergency! emergency! way), and checked out a series of doctor's offices, as well.

Sadly, I think the telegraph and telephone offices have fallen by the wayside, along with the liveries and blacksmiths. There's a Verizon dealer on my corner, though. Does that count?

One more mark of success for the day: in my exploration, I acquired two delightful things. First, a small kefir, which was perhaps not the best choice for a walk outside on a hot day, but was still cold and tasty, and second, a copy of "Cloudsplitter," which has been on my reading list for forever. (I bought it at a stoop sale, from girl who was maybe 10 and was a hard bargain-driver. Man, I didn't dare to ask her to lower her price.) My husband wonders if I'm on a Civil War kick lately (I'm currently finishing the first volume of Shelby Foote's "The Civil War"). He may have a point.

Tomorrow, we're back into the more exciting section of pathfinding. How exciting? I'm going to Staten Island. Seriously.

Brooklyn horses

2009-08-22T16:44:00.003-04:00

As you know, I’ve been walking the trails of Prospect Park in pursuit of the Pathfinding merit badge. Today, though, it seemed like time for me to try out something a little different than ambling around the park. Today, it was time to go for Requirement #4:

“Know in the country in the two-mile radius, approximately, the number of horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs owned on the five neighboring farms: or in a town must know in a half-mile radius what livery stables, garages and blacksmiths there are.”

As far as I can see, there’s no question that I live in a town, which frees me from making a census of my neighborhood sheep. Instead, I set out to locate and visit the livery stables, garages, and blacksmiths.

Now, the garages were the easy part. There’s an enormous number of car services, parking lots, and auto repair centers in the area (though not all of them are what you might expect — Pilates Garage offers no oil changes whatsoever, only exercise. Phooey). Regardless, expect a garage-related post later in the week.

Today’s more difficult task centered on blacksmiths and liveries.

Simply put, there aren’t any.

Once again, we’re hitting on the agricultural thrust of the 1911 handbook. Our 1911-era town would absolutely include not only one livery, but possibly several, horses being a critical part of the business of getting from one place to another. Really, in order to be fully true to the spirit of things, instead of liveries the truly loyal modern-scout (which I am, after all) ought to be seeking out car dealerships and rental facilities. After all, really, the purpose of this badge is to familiarize the scout with the things surrounding him -- how does one get from one place to another, after all? What roads are there? How might one travel them?

This is a pretty valid concern, after all. When I was first learning to drive a car (at the same age, more or less, as the boys trying to earn this badge a hundred years ago would have been), my total lack of directional awareness caused my parents no end of woe. This wasn't just me, either. My friends would call for directions to my house, though they'd been there a hundred times or more. A child won't pay attention to the way we get from one place to another, not really. Part of childhood, or part of an ideal childhood, I guess, is a certain faith in your parents. They know how to navigate the world, both metaphorically and literally. The actual mechanics of moving through the environment aren't necessary, and so they slip by us. Part of growing up, really, and putting away childish things, is that learning of how to move freely from one location to the next. Really, that's how I see the Pathfinding badge as a whole -- not only another contribution to the scouting ideal of becoming an expert woodsman, but also as a piece of encouragement towards growing up and becoming self-sufficient in whatever world in which one happens to live.

In my case, I happen to live in a world in which there are no liveries.

Well, more precisely, there aren’t any within a half mile of my house. Kensington Stables is outside the golden radius, but I paid a visit anyway. They’re located in, well, Kensington, right at the southern tip of Prospect Park. I got off the bus and followed the smell of horse (unexpected in the city), which led me right to the door of the stable. Once there, I spoke to Walker, who's worked at the stable for 18 years and owned it for 16.

“The city grew up around the stable,” he told me, when I asked about operating stables within spitting distance of the Prospect Expressway. The stable itself was built in 1930, 20 years before the highway (and 19 years after the Handbook was written!), and continues to serve mostly locals. There’s no boarding at the stables (on account of a lack of space, Walker tells me, not a lack of interest), and they offer a great number of lessons — there was a gaggle of excited little girls thronging around us while we spoke.

Most interesting, really, was the process of shoeing horses. I’ll admit that, when I arrived, I was secretly hoping to come across a stable and farrier all at once, or at least to catch a hot tip on where to find a forge. Not so much. It appears that blacksmithery, in general, has gone mobile — Kensington’s horses get shod by a blacksmith who works out of a truck. (And what trucks! This guy's blacksmithing trailer looks like an ice cream shop, slaughterhouse, and walk-in freezer all rolled into one.

Other surprising bit of information regarding horseshoeing in New York: due to various permit difficulties, most places have shifted to using a process known as “cold shoeing,” in which the farrier shapes the shoes without heating them (which I thought was a trick only doable by Superman). The forge-free process means that the farrier doesn’t have to essentially have the permits to drive a truck filled up with explosives, which comes out, ultimately, cheaper for everyone. There appears to be some internet debate regarding the merits of each type of shoeing, but Walker assures me that his horses are quite content — from what I could see, I believe him.

Also, I’ll be making these with dinner tonight. Yum.

Hey honey

2009-08-21T13:48:00.010-04:00

Beekeeping is illegal in New York City. You didn’t know this? Me neither, though you can read all about it here. However, this hasn’t stopped dedicated apiarists, and I don’t intend it to stop me from my full-scale pursuit of the bee farming badge.

The bee farming badge seems deceptively simple. There are only two requirements:
1) Have a practical knowledge of swarming, hiving, hives, and general apiculture, including a knowledge of the use of artificial combs;
2) Describe different kinds of honey and tell from what sources gathered.

However, given the illegality of my pursuit, this could get tricky. Fortunately, there are the good folks at websites like http://www.nyc-bees.org/, where I tracked down a gentleman willing to help me out. We’ve scheduled a meeting next week — I’ll keep you all posted!

Meanwhile, I spent time today at the Union Square Greenmarket, talking to Dewayne from Tremblay Apiaries. Dewayne works with Tremblay, building their honey-harvesting materials for . . . get this . . . six hundred hives. (This means that there are something like 60 million bees. Yikes.) As far as he’s concerned, the beekeeping holds a secret message for modern society — “the bees can live, a hundred thousand in the same house, and they can all work together for a common goal.” And the honey they make? Delicious.

I’m currently enjoying a nice glass of ice water with lemon juice and some of the Tremblay Apiaries linden honey mixed in — this honey is NOT the kind I’ve gotten from regular grocery stores. It’s sweet, almost woody-tasting, and I cannot stop eating it. I tasted a very light, mild raspberry honey and a floral spring mix, too, and it’s utterly bizarre to me to see how different the varieties are. I hear buckwheat honey is delicious, but due to a bad crop on neighboring farms this year, there was none to try. Rats.

So, let’s say I have a hive of bees (I don’t), and I want ‘em to make me some more linden honey. How can I do it? I have no idea. Fortunately, this seems be because it’s impossible. “You can’t convince a flower, or a bee, or the weather to do anything,” Dewayne told me. The best you can do is put the bees — who are shockingly efficient at honey harvesting, finding the flowers with the highest sugar content first, then the next, then the next, then the next — somewhere near one of the plant varieties they might like.

One final thought on bees, this regarding artificial combs. First, I really don’t get it. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding information about artificial combs on the internet, and the folks I’ve contacted online (so far) haven’t had much to say on the subject either. This may just be because people don’t use them much — the artificial comb badge requirement may be a relic of a society eager to take ever more steps in farming technology. However , Tremblay does have one technology piece that I think is unbelievably cool. See, bees can be subject to mites, which like to nest in the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, right up alongside the larvae. If the cells are too big and the larvae have too much wiggle room, there’s space for mites, so a good beekeeper wants to make sure his colonies all have small cells. To that end, the folks at Tremblay have plastic sheets imprinted with appropriately-sized cells imprinted on them (like this, I think), in order to give the bees a head start.

Also today, in Union Square, I was distracted by a woman from one of the many cat rescues in NYC. Someone had just dropped off something like 10 severely abused kittens, one of whom I wish I could unsee. Please, guys, stop by the NYC Humane Society site and consider throwing a few bucks their way.

Personal history fact: I’ve never been stung by a bee. Have you? Since I haven’t, does that make me magic, smelly, or just really, really lucky?

Exploration, and meat

2009-08-20T15:24:00.012-04:00

So, um, how was your night last night? Really. That’s cool. Oh wait, I wasn’t listening because I just won an awesome bugle on ebay.

Now then.

As I’ve been spending more and more time with the handbook, I’m increasingly impressed with what an artifact of an agrarian society it is. Simple things: the agriculture badge’s request that one grows an acre of corn, the poultry farming badge’s requirement that one raise a brood of at least ten chickens, or the gardening badge’s criterion for cutting grass with a scythe.

Equally interesting is the pathfinding badge. This one is a maze of complicated steps, and it’s going to be one of my first badge projects.

Now, the first requirement is that the applicant scout must learn “every lane, by-path, and short cut for a distance of at least 2 miles in every direction around the local scouts’ headquarters in the country.” This seems like a great idea, but I’m not sure how tenable it is in New York — I’d like to point out, after all, that an absurdly huge number of people live within 2 square miles of my house.

(I found a population density estimate for my neighborhood of 68,000 people per square mile. A circle with a radius of 2 miles has an area of (roughly) 12.6 square miles, or 853,000 people. Now, of course, that circle would also contain Prospect Park, whose population (one hopes) is 0, so we’ll subtract the area of Prospect Park (585 acres, or 0.9 square miles), so there’s actually a population of (maybe) 795,600 people. But still.)

The point is, those people necessitate a whole lot of roads. So maybe learning them all is both absurd and (a little) unsafe.

I discovered for myself an alternative task. Instead, I’m going to learn all the pathways of Prospect Park.

This is actually kind of a decent task — according to at least two people I just spoke to at the Prospect Park Alliance, no one seems to know exactly how many miles of trails there are. There appear to be about 4.5 miles of paved roadways/sidewalks, and I’d estimate at least 2 times that many miles of trails (take a look at the runners’ map for more details). This would mean there are maybe 12 miles of trails in the park — this seems like enough to learn in order to qualify for the badge. Right?

So, today, I set out.

It’s a gorgeous day, and some areas of the park were absolutely absurdly beautiful — I’d never been to Prospect Park Lake, and it’s shockingly lovely.

Of course, you can’t forget that you ARE in a city.

There are also some really surprising architectural bits, like a Greek-styled pavilion which, try as I might, I can't find labeled on any maps. I'd love to know its history. Can anyone help me out? (PS: I've had these shoes for ten years. Yikes.)

On the way back, I made friends (I guess) with a woman who told me all about how Swedish and Norwegian people are the most beautiful in the world. (I’m neither. However, my husband is, so I didn’t fight too hard.)

Also, the badge requires me to know the location of all the meat markets within a 1/2 mile radius of my house. Fortunately, there’s only one. I’d never been inside before (I’ve been a vegetarian for something like ten years), but man, I’m glad I went. Gorgeous gnocchi, tons of nice bread, all kinds of good stuff. If you’re a carnivore, stop in. (The bread is extra good news! I wanted to make bruschetta the other night but couldn't find a nice-looking loaf of bread. I substituted in a pizza crust, partially baked, from a pizzeria on my block, and while the whole thing came out nicely, I really would have preferred the bread. So yay!)

It's here! It's here!

2009-08-19T15:09:00.009-04:00

I just had a visit from the UPS woman, and she left me a great surprise!

THE BOOK!

Want to see? I bet you do. Also, you need an introduction.

This is Maisie. She can't be a boy scout because she's a girl.

This is Charlie. He can't be a boy scout because he's a cat.

Now for specifics about the book itself. I looked on eBay for an original print, but they were running in the hundreds of dollars, so instead I went for the Dover reprint of the 1911 edition (available here). It's a plump little volume, about 400 pages with a section at the end including the ads that ran in the original. (The advertisement for Peter's Chocolate, which is "absolutely the most sustaining; has the most delicious taste that always makes you want more, and does not create thirst" is far and away my favorite.)

The merit badge descriptions begin with Agriculture (which would require the cultivation of an acre of corn whose yield is 25% above "the general average") and ends with Taxidermy, for which the young person in question must "mount for a rug the pelt of some fur animal").

Coming tomorrow: how in the hell am I going to do this?

Also, in thanks to Katie for her great suggestion earlier, I do have a question for you guys: there are 57 badges (I'll list them in the comments), of which only 11 are still in service. Which one do you find the most surprising? Which one would you totally have gone for as a kid? Let me know!

So why?

2009-08-18T11:51:00.001-04:00

You might think I would have an illustrious and triumphant personal history with scouting. It would make sense.

You would be wrong.

I was an indifferent kind of Girl Scout, moving up from the Daisies into the Brownies and the Junior Girl Scouts with little fanfare and accompanied by most of the other girls in my elementary school. I liked the crafts (at one point making a little candy cane holder out of fake fur and googly eyes that holds a cherished place in my heart as Fweep Fweep the Christmas Bat), and was a poor camper, which hardly mattered, because so was the rest of my troop. We would haul two, three, four camp stoves into the woods with us, making needlessly elaborate dinners (a Chinese-themed camping trip once involved wonton soup and stir-fried beef. In the woods. Seriously). We’d arrive at a drive-up campsite, unload the cars, cook, eat, sleep, and get up the next day and go home. I’m pretty sure my dad and I once left a father/daughter camping trip in order to avoid a hike.

Anyway, the bulk of my experience of any real, serious scouting enthusiasm comes from two sources: my father’s mid-60s Philmont belt buckle, which I wore proudly all through graduate school and which remains the coolest article of clothing I own, and my grandfather, who was once awarded a Silver Beaver (don’t laugh) and whose store sold scouting equipment of all types.

My grandfather is (at least in part) the real inspiration for this. He’s a former WW2 pilot living in Florida, and the man is a machine. He swims a half a mile every day. Two or three years ago he challenged my best friend and me to a race and won. If a lifetime of scouting did this, I want a part of it.

How about you? Were you a scout? Did you stick with it? Quit? What happened?

Up and at 'em

2009-08-17T20:47:00.005-04:00

“A scout! He enjoys a hike through the woods more than he does a walk over the city’s streets. He can tell north or south or east or west by the ‘signs.’ He can tie a knot that will hold, he can climb a tree which seems impossible to others, he can swim a river, he can pitch a tent, he can mend a tear in his trousers, he can tell you which fruits and seeds are poisonous and which are not, he can sight nut-bearing trees at a distance; he can reef a sail or take his trick at the wheel, and can pull an oar or use paddles and sculls; he knows the stars by name and can find his way by them; he can identify birds and animals and fish and knows the ways and habitat of each.”

And it goes on from there. He is brilliant. He “possesses the quiet power that comes from knowledge.” He “would die rather than have [his honor!] stained.” Creepy, but he “can make himself known to a brother scout wherever he may be by a method which only scouts can know.”

The introduction to the 1920 Boy Scouts of America handbook. The picture they’re painting of a boy scout sounds like a woodland Jesus, Daniel Boone crossed with Mata Hari and the dog whisperer. Sadly, guys, I’m nothing like that.

I’m Emily, a late-20s NYC schoolteacher. I live a half a block from the subway in a walk-up in Brooklyn, a long way from the woods the ideal Boy Scout holds dear. I can hardly tell my right from my left, and I wouldn’t know a nut-bearing tree from a can of salted peanuts (which, I’m pretty certain, do not grow on trees). Also, I’m not a boy.

However, this is no reason not to strive for self-improvement. (Isn’t that what a good Scout would do?) In a moment of weakness, and in a search to escape my urban lifestyle, I’ve gotten my hands on a reprint of the original 1911 Boy Scout Handbook. And I’m planning to earn me some badges . . . .

Welcome aboard.