Unemployment stats

The national unemployment rate for teenagers is 22.5%.  On Monday the Common Household unemployment rate for teenagers was 100%.  In their defense, the two household teenagers eligible for summer jobs have been concentrating on taking exams, and that is as it should be.  They did make some effort to find jobs in early April, before all this test-taking started, but without success. 

From my completely unbiased perspective, local businesses should be fighting to hire these two worthy individuals.  Hey, Local Businesses, these are hard-working, trustworthy kids.  Please hire them for the next two months.  You could even get a two-fer – hire both of them at the same time.  A sibling package!

On April 15, I expressed my frustration that neither kid had been able to line up a summer job yet.  I said to my son, “I don’t understand it.  You and Oldest Daughter should be highly employable.”  He said, “Well, at least I’m tax deductible.”

The next day, he was planning to go out hunting for a summer job.  I was hoping he was finding the right method to follow on this task.  I asked, philosophically, “Have you found your path?”  Son said, “I can find the length of a path using integrals…”

He had applied to Subway sandwich shops.  I asked him why he wanted to work there, and he said he hoped they would give him free sandwiches.  He made it sound like all we fed him was hardtack and gruel, like he should wear a sign that says “Will Work For Food.”  (Actually that could save me quite a bit of money.) He also applied to the local ice cream shop, probably for a similar reason.

 He was very disappointed to find out recently that the ice cream shop was not hiring anybody else for the summer.

His latest thought: “Maybe I could get a summer job at the Ski Shop.”

On Wednesday we brought Oldest Daughter home from college.  By Thursday afternoon she had been hired on the spot as an aide at a local nursing home. Thanks, Local Business!  The Common Household unemployment rate is dropping fast.  Demand for the family car will be increasing accordingly.

Philosophy of Cake and Ice Cream

For some time, my husband and son had been pining for cake.  Numerous times in April, the Common Household Husband was heard sighing, “I don’t suppose anybody made any cake this evening.” Son was the same, saying, “Did I hear someone say there was cake?”

My response was always, “No, there is no cake.  I did not have time to make any cake.”

One day a few weeks ago, my husband asked me, “Do we have complete tort or limited tort?”

Me:  We don’t have ANY CAKE at all.  I did not have time to make cake.

Husband:  I was talking about the car insurance.  That’s ‘tort: t-o-r-t.’

Youngest Daughter: What is tort?

Son:  I know what torte is – it’s cake!

* * * * *

Then, last week:

Son:  Tomorrow is Oldest Daughter’s birthday.  Are we having cake?

Me:  I mailed her cake to her at college.

Husband, to Son:  Do you think that when it’s somebody else’s birthday, you get cake?

Son:  Yeah.  Why not?

Me:  There are a lot of birthdays coming up.  Don’t worry, you’ll get some cake.  (to husband) What kind of cake does Grandma like?

YD, hinting broadly:  She likes apple pie.

(It is well known that YD prefers pie for her birthday cake.  I know that my mother loves both pie and cake, but I was referring to my mother-in-law, who would be visiting us on her birthday.)

Me:    I was talking about your other Grandma.  I think she would like that chocolate cake that I make.

Husband:  Yes, I think she likes chocolate cake.

Much discussion followed about Son’s birthday/graduation party. He hadn’t been planning on having a celebration, but I guess he figured out it would be a great way to get some cake.

YD got out the Klondike bars for dessert.  Husband decided to have half a Klondike bar, cutting it cross-ways.

YD:  Why are you cutting it that way?

Husband:  It tastes better as a triangle.  It’s Hegelian.

(If you were a philosophy major in college, then you get to say your ice cream is Hegelian.)

Me, guessing about Hegel’s philosophy, which I heard of a very long time ago in relation to Marxism, which I learned about when I was a Soviet Studies major, and wondering what that has to do with triangles or ice cream:  Thesis, antithesis, and, and, and….

Husband:  And superego – is that the word you’re looking for?

Me:  I don’t know enough about Hegel’s philosophy.

Husband:  Hegel’s philosophy was all about threes.  It’s heavily based on Christian theology. Schopenhauer made fun of Hegel.

Son:  Does it taste even better if it is an equilateral triangle?

* * * * *

I had to look up how to spell Schopenhauer on Wikipedia, where I saw that, appropriately, his philosophy was all about continually seeking satisfaction.  This weekend, the Common Household Males finally got their cake, because it was Grandma’s birthday. From each according to her birthday, to each according to his need for cake.

Not a Platonic cake

That is all

Yesterday I took the winter hats, gloves, scarves, and boots to the attic.

That is all.

Rhododendron (or azalea if you prefer)

Kwanzan Cherry tree blossoms

Kwanzan Cherry tree

Has anything got you breathing a sigh of relief?

Rainbows and Unicorns

I learned a new word last week:  spectroscopy.  Son was invited by his teacher to attend the Spectroscopy Society Banquet in May.  We discussed it at dinner, of course.

Youngest Daughter:  What is spectroscopy?

Me:  It is not colonoscopy.

Son:  Spectroscopy is the study of rainbows.

Youngest Daughter:  And unicorns?

(Of course, rainbows go with unicorns!)

Son:  No.

Youngest Daughter:  What is the study of unicorns called?

Son:  Theology.

Youngest Daughter:  Why did Son say that theology is the study of unicorns?

Me:  I don’t know!  There are no unicorns in the Bible.

Youngest Daughter:  The Bible could do with some unicorns.

I told my husband about this conversation, and he decided to search on Google.  Not for spectroscopy, but for unicorns in the Bible.  It turns out that unicorns are in the Bible!  In the King James Version, anyway.  It’s authorized, so it must be true.   

Locations of biblical unicorns – Numbers 23:22,  Numbers 24:8, Deut 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Psalm 22:21, Psalm 29:6, Psalm 92:10, Isaiah 34:7.

The Hebrew word for ‘unicorn’ is translated as ‘wild ox’ or ‘rhinoceros’ in every other translation. 

I could have asked Google about spectroscopy, but it’s much shorter to ask my son. “What good is spectroscopy?” I asked.  He replied, “Well, you can discover things with it.” 

“Like what?” 

“Helium.”

I know that Helium is good and discovered already, so I asked my husband, who gave me a lengthy informative explanation but it was after 11 p.m. so I don’t remember much.  It has to do with flinging parts of molecules around and creating a spectrum, which then reveals rainbows and unicorns. 

Science is so beautiful!

Poetry month celebration

A few days ago, Green Girl in Wisconsin reminded us that April is poetry month.  O frabjous day!  Check out the Pablo Neruda poems she posted.

I don’t know a whole lot about poetry, but I do have some favorites.  I usually say my very favorite poem is The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats, but around here, the most commonly referenced poem is this one:

            This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

            William Carlos Williams

I first found this poem in my Norton Anthology of Poetry, a book I have only because I was fortunate enough to hang around with a bunch of English majors in college. When I was young and sincere and trying to learn guitar, I put these words to a tune.  It was an earnest and spare song with harmony consisting of the four chords I had learned to play on the guitar. The world is lucky that I can’t find it and that I gave up trying to play guitar.

Now that I am older, this poem annoys me with its lack of punctuation.  Perhaps it just balances out my overuse of punctuation.  Nevertheless, I do feel the poem is complete.  It reminds me of my son’s English teachers who would always respond to his spare prose on a written assignment with “I need more.”   Why?  Son answered your question (in full sentences, with punctuation!).   i wonder if Billy Carlos Williams' teachers would have asked for more verbiage.

The Common Household finds no earnestness, but rather, high spoofability, in this poem, especially when I am always unwittingly saying, “Who ate the ____ that I was saving for dinner?!” 

Here’s a variation written by Oldest Daughter when she was 12:

Yesterday, I broke the piano that you had been saving to teach with.

I’m sorry, but I was practicing karate.

I’d regret it, but it was the perfect target.

And I offer you this:

                        I have spoofed

The poem

Which was in my

Norton Anthology of Poetry

And which

You were probably

Saving

For English class

Forgive me

It was so,

Well,

Spoofable.

It is probably wrong of me to post this on Shakespeare’s birthday, but this is just proof that April is, in fact, the cruelest month.  

Do you have a favorite poem?  A favorite Earth Day Cake?

It was Earth Day yesterday.  Here is Youngest Daughter's
Earth Day Cake.  It has nothing to do with this post.