Overheard At A Chinese Restaurant

"Kane . . . . am I losing my mind or have you lost eyebrows?"
"I lost a bet."
"You what?"
"Well, I didn't really lose a bet. I said you had a shaver and I would shave my eyebrows and Christopher said I wouldn't so then I did."
"You what?"
"See? I did my eyelashes, too."

My House Made Me Bald

(Pictures later)

Well, technically it's not the house's fault that I'm incompetent, but I like the way it rolls off the tongue. From time to time, I get a wild hair and shave my head. The hotter it gets outside, the more often I do it. This winter I actually grew my hair out and left it for quite awhile. My general rule is that my hair can be any length as long as it doesn't cover my bald spot when I comb it. When it starts to look like a comb-over, there's an issue of self-respect involved.

So I've built a nice little header and columns to span the dining room where the former owners removed a load-bearing wall (I think--I can't be sure WHAT they did) and left the floor above supported by joists that only rested on a wall at one end (!!!). More on that later. With that done, I'm getting ready to install moulded tiles and drywall to finish the ceiling, and along the way, I'm sealing the last couple of openings into the cold, windy attic space above. To do that, I've pushed fiberglass insulation batts into the spaces between the joists, and now I'm sealing around the insulation using expanding foam insulation.

Have you used this stuff? It's awesome, especially in an ancient house like mine where there are more gaps than wall and you can't reach a lot of them very well. The original brand, I think, was "Great Stuff." Shake it up, point the tube where your gap is, and goopy, sticky foam flows out to fill it. As it cures, the stuff releases gas, which makes bubbles. That makes it expand to fill all available space (this sealing gaps and crevices you can't even see are there) and ends as a hard foam with excellent insulation properties. By volume, my house is about two-thirds wood and one-third foam. But let me tell you, it's only so sticky and it simply will not always adhere to a vertical surface, especially if there's too much air movement in the space before it cures.

Also, it is impossible to get it out of your hair once it falls on your head. The cans suggest rubbing alcohol and acetone before the stuff sets up, but I'm not sure the manufacturer contemplated someone dumb enough to squirt it overhead without even wearing a ball cap. I can tell you that solvents and combs do nothing. In the end, the clippers were the only honorable path left to me.

I'm just glad it didn't fall in Melissa's hair. I have to think it would be less funny if that happened.

Communication Is Key (Now With Photos)

It's OK to pre-heat your oven. It's a good idea, in fact.

It's OK to use the oven as an impromptu hiding place for things you don't want little hands to clutch or touch. I mean, who hasn't done this? It's done.

But if one person uses the oven to hide a large Tupperware cake pan full of iced sugar cookies from the kids before she leaves for work in the morning, and some other person pre-heats the oven to 450* Fahrenheit to make dinner in the evening, without checking the oven first, there will be smoke. And flame. Pools of flaming plastic will puddle up on the bottom of the oven. It helps if you had the foresight to place the cookie tub on the broiler pan to contain the plastic, and it's nice to have an 11-year-old to ask, "Should the oven be smoking like that?"

The cookies will be surprisingly well-preserved as long as you don't hit them with the fire extinguisher, but you should probably throw them out anyway, and the garlic bread will come out just fine on the grill.

I just thought you should all know.

The Illinois State Police : Because You Suck, and They Hate You.

With apologies to Larry Correia, seriously, folks, who could make this stuff up?

I was reading some commentary on IGOLD on the excellent IllinoisCarry Forum when someone linked to a letter from last year, which mentioned the Illinois State Police and their famous advice to women to use combs, keys, vomit, but NEVER anything as nasty as a gun to defend themselves when "confronted with sexual assault." Wait, I thought to myself, was that really a year ago?

Well, it was--but that's not the weird part. The weird part is that the ISP has not changed that page at all. Not one word.

Before you fight

Fighting for your safety may be necessary. However, if you start out fighting you cancel any other options that might be open to you. Since many attacks on women are not sexually motivated, and are designed to degrade and humiliate, talking your way out of it may be easier.

* There is documentation of assailants that left a would-be-victim alone after she told him that she was pregnant and it would kill her baby. (Some case were women that were too old to even have a baby.)
* Telling an attacker that you have VD or AIDS can discourage him.
* It may sound disgusting, but putting your fingers into you throat and making yourself vomit usually gets results. (This method is not often used except as a last resort.)
* Use your imagination and you can think of others.

The above methods are particularly important if your assailant has a gun or knife, or there is more than one attacker. (Fighting would probably be futile.)

Oh, yes, I can see how it would be really important to tell the guy you have AIDS and then puke on him. That will quell his sexual desire and not make him angry. Of course, the ISP says sexual assault is often not sexually motivated. But they do say such attacks are designed to humiliate women, so humiliating themselves pre-emptively should totally work except when it doesn't.

Articles common to your handbag that make useful defense weapons.

* nail file
* rat tail comb
* teasing brush
* pens and pencils
* keys
* anything rigid

Don't get me wrong. I can f%#& you up with a nail file or an ink pen if that's what it takes to survive. But if you're a hundred pounds lighter and on the defensive, your odds of pulling off pen-fu just dropped precipitously. Either way, if you have the option of carrying a real weapon and you choose to hope your comb will work in a pinch, I accuse you of wishful thinking.
If you lobby against the right of a woman to carry a handgun, and then tell her that her comb is really a better way to fight off a rapist, I accuse you of cowardly collaboration in whatever happens to any woman dumb enough to take your advice. Thanks for nothing, Illinois State Police.

(I wrote to the ISP and called them when this page first came to light. They didn't answer either communication. But just in case, here's the phone number for the Public Information Office: (217)782-6637)

Congratulations John and Jordy!

No going back now!

We spent the day partying with family for Sean's first birthday, but I thought of you two. Art says you did great.

I hope you're happy forever.

Happy Birthday, Son.

Tam notes that today is a Special Day. Why is today special? Let me count the ways.

Today is the day that Albert Einstein was born. What would the world be like if he hadn't been? Well, we wouldn't have movies like The Absent-Minded Professor, and Back to the Future would be unrecognizable. One shudders to contemplate it.

Today is the day, as Tam also points out, that Karl Marx bought the farm (which was surprising, coming from him. I would have expected a revolutionary committee to seize the farm and entrust it to Comrade Marx's care for the good of all the people.) What would the world have been like if Karl Marx had never died? No one knows for sure, but I picture a heartless, collectivist dystopia ruled by an immortal God Emperor for thousands upon thousands of grinding, endless years. I can't help but think we dodged a bullet there.

Today is also Pi Day. It's the day we celebrate the strangest number there is--an infinite, non-repeating decimal! What won't they think of next?

But that's today's view. What I wonder is, what will future generations say about this momentous day? What will they remember? What will they celebrate with their families as they huddle together in their domes on Venus, trying to keep the cooling systems working and hoping desperately that the Abominable Venusian Tentacle-Beasts don't attack again until Terran warships arrive?

"Gather 'round, children!" they will call, "For it is time for Granny Lum to tell the story of the man born on this day. It's Sean Gwinn Day!"


Sean is one year old today. He's beautiful and happy and wonderful, and he's changed all of us for the better, even his big brothers. But I've been feverish for a couple of days and we were up late last night making cookies for his birthday party, so it's possible this post came out a little . . . . weird. Then again, that could just be me.

Happy birthday, son. Da-da loves you, but if you could say "mama" soon, that would be great. Da-da is getting tired of ma-ma's accusing looks every time you say da-da.

Libertarians vs. libertarians

I must apologize for the spotty content. Last week, I was literally too sick to blog. I was home from school for a week, but I was getting zero done, and this week has been spent trying to catch up. Let's hope there's more content as we go along.

Anyway, in our last installment, Oliver ( the old knives guy ) commented that he doesn't hate libertarians, only "Big L Libertarians." That was nice, except that he went on to point out that since I'm a school teacher, I'm probably one of those "Big L Libertarians" who just don't get it.

This puzzles me for a couple of reasons.

First, in what state in this fine union does one find that most public school teachers are libertarians, no matter what size any of the letters are? Not in Illinois, that's for sure. Here most teachers are old-school union-dues Democrats. A smaller but still large section of the school teacher population would call itself "progressive," which would have translated as "liberal" a few years ago and "pinko" before that. Now, here in the Heartland of America, there is a sizable minority of teachers who consider themselves "conservatives"--but their conservative streak is usually confined to wishing the schools did a better job of teaching children to love Jesus and stamp out The Gayness.

Second, what is a "Big L" libertarian? I learned about "Big R" and "Small R" republicans in school, but not libertarians. If a "Big L" libertarian, like a "Big R" republican, is a member of the Libertarian Party, then I'm not one of those. If a "Small L" libertarian is a person who basically thinks libertarian thought is a good idea, then that's me. I wanna be that one. I also consider myself a "Small R" republican, by the way, which means that I believe a republic is the most desirable form of government. A "Big R" republican would either be a member of the Republican Party or a political philosopher who bases his theory of politics on the concept of buying candy, ammunition, blue jeans and fence posts in the same store.

I believe that libertarian thought is the way to go as far as it's practical. I believe in non-aggression. I believe that the maximum possible individual liberty is desirable. I realize that I live in a nation and a world where that point of view is marginal at best and "wacky fringe" at worst, so I don't get my hopes up too much. But in general, yes, more freedom is better than less freedom, and the individual deserves his liberty. It's just too bad that most of the country has no interest in individual freedom, particularly if there are consequences attached to it.