A or B?

To begin our post today, we present a short quiz. Please choose the most appropriate response.

When suspecting that there may be a problem with something in one's house, or with one's health, one should ask oneself the following question:

A) What steps can I take immediately so that this problem does not develop into a full-scale disaster or illness?

B) What problem?

Of course we all know the correct answer.* But studies of human nature show that we do not always behave as we know we should, mainly because this would take effort, something many of us** heartily avoid.

Asking question B) is largely the reason the Hero and I made a frantic call to the plumber one evening regarding a toilet that did NOT, as far as we had let ourselves believe for months, have any problems that might lead to a massive malfunctioning. Plumbers LOVE people who ask themselves question B) a lot. Most likely, plumbers invented question B).

Question B) also led to my recent unplanned visit to a medical establishment, where a nurse who had seemed nice enough thrust a syringe and tube into my left ear numerous times, in the process soaking not only the ear but also pretty much my whole left side with water.

All of this was thanks to my ignoring the increasing discomfort in that ear for some time, in the belief that if I followed this course the problem would go away. Of course it would go away. How could it not, when a problem did not exist? 

Here we come to something else about people who make a habit of asking question B): Once forced to conclude that a problem does exist, they gradually come to the logical realization that this means THE WORLD IS NOW GOING TO END.

That is what I, at any rate, believed one morning when I realized that I could not hear out of my left ear. I couldn't hear my alarm ringing. I couldn't hear the fan whirring.

(I did, however, hear the Hero saying directly into the malfunctioning ear, "Can you hear me??" several times, reminiscent of a certain TV commercial.)

I made immediate, pessimistic leaps to further consequences that were likely, including but not limited to surgery, deafness, and consignment to an institution for those who cannot be trusted to do practically anything.

This line of thinking continued, and grew more dour, at the doctor's office, where two nurses tried to flush out the wax that was blocking my ear canal. I was convinced that should they ever uncover my eardrum it would be destroyed by their constant Chinese water torture.

"Can you hear better now?" they kept asking. With so much water in my ear, I felt that this must be a medical impossibility, but they seemed confident that it would happen.

When the doctor finally called off the torturers, she pronounced my eardrum healthy, although I had my doubts. I was sure that the pain would take days to heal, and chocolate would probably help.

I asked what I could do to prevent such a situation. Not much, the doctor said pessimistically. It happens again, you come in here again.

Which definitely means I am going to continue asking question B).

______________________
* C) Blame the problem on someone else.

** the Hero and Princess

A polite complaint

Dear Managers of ___ Beach, East Coast, USA

We would like to express our admiration for your lovely town and even lovelier beach, which we have visited upon several occasions. It is clean and bustling, merchants seem to be thriving, and a visitor can hardly take five or ten steps in any direction without chancing by an ice cream establishment (other towns would do well to emulate yours in this respect). And thankfully, there are many things to do in the vicinity when it is raining.

Which actually brings me to a concern I wanted to share (you knew there would be one, did you not?). And that is, MUST it be raining every time we come to your town?

Because it IS always raining, at some point, when we are in your town. No doubt there is some scientific reason for this, e.g., you are in a rain belt or something. But I cannot help but wonder if there is some human factor involved here. Other nearby beaches do not seem to be plagued with this problem. (Not, of course, that we go to other beaches on a regular basis instead of coming to yours.)

Is the excess rain perhaps a ruse to get people off the beach (collectively we visitors DO make a rather large mess there, I suppose) and into the stores and restaurants, where there are seemingly endless opportunities to spend one's money on things that one will not remember an hour later? This is excepting, of course, the excellent bookstore on your main avenue, which we gladly frequent even when it is NOT raining. The particular collection of books in this store delights the eye and the mind, and the vast array of lovely blank journals, awaiting the writer's innermost thoughts, is so far beyond any we have ever seen that -- but I must return to the issue of rain.

In addition to the rain quite interfering with one's enjoyment of the beach, it makes it more difficult to visit and feed the very hungry (pardon me, but I must say it -- greedy) parking meters that line the streets of your town. Now, you cannot be faulted for wishing to draw as much money from visitors to your town as you can, but might I suggest that you make it a tiny bit easier for them? 

Perhaps, for instance, you could start with parking meters that allow drivers to deposit money for more than one hour at a time. Having to continually trek back to one's vehicle to put in more change gets quite tedious and might even lead to carpal tunnel syndrome from the repetitive motion of telling other drivers seeking a space that no, you are not leaving yours. I am sure that you do not wish your lovely town to be known as the "town where people get carpal tunnel."

But here I must sign off, as I have no doubt given you much food for thought as you contemplate ways to improve your town's image, and also because while I have been composing this letter I have been standing in line for the women's restroom at your fair beach, and I am now next in line and dare not jeopardize my position to utilize one of only a handful of stalls. Not that I am complaining, of course.

If you wish to discuss any of the complaints or suggestions I have put forth, I would be more than happy to do so. You will find me in that excellent bookstore I earlier made reference to, in the aisle housing Local Interest and Literary Collections. I'll have my umbrella with me.

Signed,

A Hopeful, but Soggy, Visitor 

What fun it is...to be an editor

It is possible, from my frequent descriptions of job activities where I work, that readers might get the idea that we editors do pretty much nothing but attend birthdays and other parties and indulge in pizza and ice cream. This is not entirely true, of course. Our job can actually get quite hectic and stressful, particularly when moving all those commas around in a manuscript, which is, as most people suspect, the main job of editors (the other being to act as a thorn in the side of authors). According to the National Editorial and Publication Board rules, commas cannot make up more than 7.3% of a manuscript; any excess must be dealt with severely by being turned into quotation marks.

Many of us also have to do tough projects like interview people for our journal, people who write adorable children's picture books for a living. This is tough because although authors of picture books rarely use commas in their writing, they use A LOT while speaking, and naturally we have to edit most of them out when transcribing the conversation.

I recently undertook such an interview. For privacy's sake, and because it is a fun name, I will call the author I interviewed Penelope. Penelope writes mostly nonfiction picture books on nature and the wild--animals, vegetables, men surviving while their wives are gone for a week, etc. She writes in very simple yet fun language, mostly without commas.

Penelope let me know that she would not have a problem keeping up her end of the conversation about books or her work and did I want her to stick to the questions I would send ahead of time or would it be okay if she went astray from the topic now and then, because she sort of had a tendency to do that?

I assured her that straying was encouraged. "Oh, good," she said. "I hate on TV and radio when you have to stick to the prescribed questions and a time table and all that."

I asked Penelope, who holds a degree in biology, about some of the adventures she and her plant-expert husband have had during their wide-ranging travels.

"Well, we were in Panama on the trail of these ants and another woman was sick and I stayed in her tent with her and all of a sudden a bunch of monkeys appeared and I could also see vultures in the air -- I'd been trying to write a book about vultures for a long time and just couldn't find the right hook -- and I had to decide whether to grab my camera and microphone to record the monkeys or my notebook to scribble down all the words that were suddenly coming to me to describe the vultures' flight...I wasn't sure WHAT to do!"

I hate when you have to make choices like that.

What had made her decide to apply her scientific skills to writing for children?

"Well, it turns out that kids are interested in what I'm interested in--animals, birds, insects, clouds..."

Vultures, too?

"Kids LOVE the vulture book. Even girls."

Penelope had an ear for language from a very young age, as evidenced by a recording her father made when she was a toddler, doing perfect mimics of her sister's and dad's voices.

"Plus, I read a LOT when I was young," she said. "Mostly in the car while waiting for my mom and my sister at some appointment or errand."

She sounded like my kind of kid.

Penelope talked animatedly for about an hour, describing her love of language and her discussions with kids and her naturalistic experiments in the wild. Several times she said, "Oh, you don't want me to go there" in response to a question. "I could talk about that FOREVER. Like, when I was writing my book about sharks, if you had sat next to me on a plane, I would have only wanted to talk to you about sharks the whole flight."

We started to wind down several times, then I would ask if she had anything else she wanted to say. She did. "Well, you could have sent me a few email questions," she joked, "but no, YOU wanted to talk on the phone."

Near the end of our conversation she begged me to make her sound good in the journal article. "Or, at least make me sound sane," she said.

"That's what we editors do best," I said. Other than commas.

"Oh, I LOVE editors," she said. "Editors are really like fairy godmothers. You know, you should really buy a wand and keep it at your desk. To remind you."

And THAT is the kind of author that keeps us editors doing what we do, even if everyone else thinks we only push around some commas.

Kindergarten roundup

The Princess remains in somewhat of a stupor from several work meetings and celebrations that occurred this week. The meetings themselves were nothing out of the ordinary, but as they were variously accompanied by 1) pizza or 2) ice cream with several toppings or 3) deli sandwiches and homemade cookies, participants tended to walk around in zombie-like states for some time afterward. The Princess, while thoroughly enjoying all of the free food, does feel that it might have been better not to yield to greediness where the ice cream toppings were concerned.

Once again we are on the brink of a new school year, and we can think of no better way to mark the occasion than to be fervently thankful that we personally are not in school anymore. But, lest we become complacent and lose sympathy for those who are not so lucky, today we bring you the reminiscences and advice of two kindergarten experts.

The first is a young yet worldly wise Female Relative who successfully completed her kindergarten tour of duty in June. The second is the Hero, who, although his kindergarten career ended some Junes past, nevertheless retains vivid memories of that time. His most vivid memory is that he was given no choice in the matter of attending kindergarten and was forced to attend strictly against his will. The fact that he liked his teacher does not, in his mind, absolve his family, the school principal, the parish, the school board, and anyone else peripherally involved of depriving him of his youth and freedom.

The Female Relative, when asked about her kindergarten experience, summed it up this way: "It was okay, but the teacher told me a lot of things I already know."

Unfortunately for her, kindergarten students do not get to rate their teachers or their overall kindergarten experience at the end of the year, as college students do. If they did, however, teachers might get a lot of comments like these:

"We wrk to much. Plying is betr."

"I lk tchr. She smels prty. But she lafs to lowd."

"Tchr help us lrn to cnt good: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, uh, 14, 13, 20-17, uh, 1, 2, 3..."

Whereas the Female Relative, being quite advanced, might say something like this:

"Really, you should cut out Exploration Time. It's really just play time anyway. Our time might be better spent reading; perhaps you could introduce us to some of the classics. Who wouldn't benefit from an in-depth study of Jane Eyre?"

The Hero's recollections of this time in his life reflect his belief that his growth as a creative person was likely stunted, rather than enhanced, by his kindergarten experience. He describes the transition into kindergarten in this manner:

"One day, you're running around outside capturing Indians, or kicking a ball up into a tree and having it come down on your head, or eating Popsicles and dripping all over the sidewalk, or burying your dinosaurs in the backyard and having your dad get mad at you for digging up the grass, and then--the next day, you're plunked in this little room and you have to sit and be quiet and raise your hand when you want to talk, and the teacher keeps asking how many of the circles she is holding up are yellow and how many are red and you have NO idea. And your mom makes you wear clothes that MATCH."

It is a testament to his inner resources that he has not had to seek counseling for the trauma inflicted on him during this time. No doubt thousands of others have not been so lucky.

So as we head into a new school year, the Hero -- now with the perception and wisdom of adulthood -- has some advice for energetic youngsters who, like himself, find themselves facing what may seem like long-term imprisonment: "Run."

Corn on the noggin

The food section of our daily paper offers a wealth of information about cooking and nutrition. Each Wednesday, it offers several recipes and cooking ideas that the average person can put to use right away, provided the average person can chop 15 different vegetables while simultaneously grating Pecorino Romano cheese and making a reduction sauce and tossing an omelette with 23 different ingredients. 

Recently the food section featured corn on the cob, which is beleaguered in the Midwest this growing season due to draught, but which is apparently hale and hearty here in the East. The writer of the article quoted several local chefs who, although they offer corn on the cob in a fancy presentation in their restaurants, prefer simple preparations of the vegetable when they are at home.

One simple preparation goes something like this:

Blanch the corn in water and buttermilk and season with butter, salt, chipotle powder, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, spice and everything nice, then put it on the grill and toss with lime juice, cilantro, and queso fresco. Finish with tabasco sauce. Then crush and place the kernels, one at a time, on a bed of freshly torn greens and yogurt.

Another chef, according to the article, also "prefers a simple preparation for corn on the cob":

Grill the corn (elevated so it is off the heat), constantly rolling it to evenly brown it. Then cut the kernels off the cob, mash them about a bit with several pats of butter and tomato and green onion and basil and leeks and wheatberries, and add some buttermilk to make a sort of mush. Then smother it in cream sherry.

My mother, too -- though not a chef -- cooked corn on the cob in a simple manner:

--Detassle the corn.

--Put the corn in boiling water until done.

--Slap on butter.

--Throw on salt.

--Put in mouth.

Occasionally, if she was feeling particularly pressed for time and needed to save a step, she would change the first step to the following:

--Convince your children that it is great fun to detassle corn.

Many current recipes for corn on the cob advise the cook to cut off the cooked kernels using a sharp knife. This, according to one expert, is "a great way to cause potential bodily harm."

My personal favorite for cooking corn on the cob is to put it right on the burner. This, we are told by a food writer in the newspaper, may sound scary, but is in actuality "no more complicated than burning your food on purpose over the burners."

At last, something TRULY simple to do. 

Pizza is supreme

Some time ago our department at work began instituting weekly meetings. The purpose, initially, was to increase communication among all of us and keep our projects moving ahead smoothly. This was a noble purpose. But before long, we realized that the meetings provided the perfect vehicle for something even more vital to our well-being and therefore to the organization's well-being: consuming pizza. 

Reasoning that a meeting that spanned the lunch hour would be best accompanied by sustenance,* we now begin each meeting by delving into pepperoni or cheese pizza. This is generally accompanied by a discussion of our favorite books and TV shows, commentary on current events, critiques of various pizza establishments and local lunch trucks, etc. When we have exhausted the pizza, we turn to editorial matters. 

The matters we discuss can be weighty: If the book slated to come out in December falls through, what can we put it its place? How can we increase membership? Should we dump Papa John's, which is tasty but which is never delivered on time, and go with Domino's, which is just across the street?

This pizza tradition has even survived several changes in leadership. "Do you usually have regular editorial meetings?" we've been asked whenever a change occurs. 

"Yes," we say. "With pizza."  

"Every week?"

"Every week."

Recently we were discussing the original choice of Wednesdays as the meeting day. We could not remember why, but speculated that perhaps it was due to Wednesday being in the middle of the week. The truth, which I recalled only later, is that the meeting day was chosen so as to maximize our enjoyment of the pizza.

"We can't have it on Mondays," someone said. "Then there'd be nothing left to look forward to the rest of the week."

This was a sobering thought. We wouldn't want to use up all our enjoyment on the first day of the work week. What would we do the other days? We would have to have Ice Cream Thursdays or something, just to keep up our spirits.

Tuesday was likewise rejected, due to its proximity to Monday. And waiting until Friday seemed like too much waiting. Wednesday seemed the logical day.


A new manager wanted to know how we referred to the weekly meetings. Production meetings? Editorial meetings? 

Usually just pizza meetings, I said.

Everything else may change, but pizza is forever.


*Traditionally, sustenance includes the idea of nutrition, but for the purpose of these meetings the traditional definition has been suspended in the interest of taste and grease. 

The Olympics that weren't (at least here)

It would be appropriate, with the exciting London Games just ended, to dedicate at least one post to the events that transpired there. Unfortunately, for various reasons, we know very little of those events. Excuses we have, but not much actual knowledge.

The sum total of our Summer Olympic 2012 Awareness is as follows:

• Michael Phelps.

Actually, we know a little bit more than that:

• Michael Phelps is really retiring.

• Maybe.

In non-Michael Phelps knowledge, we have this to offer:

• Records were smashed right and left in the Games, but some TV reporters remain unable to ask athletes intelligent questions. ("Why do you think you lost so badly?")

• Certain badminton players were booted out for "losing on purpose." Maybe they thought they would get to play something more exciting if they lost at badminton. 

• Indoor cycling was created solely to take advantage of a made-up language, not unlike Tolkien's Elvish languages, consisting of such terms as: derny, omnium, and keirin. These words mean, roughly, "things you would not understand even if they were in English." A Male Relative explained some of the finer points of this sport: 1) If you're in front, don't get caught. 2) If you're not in front, get in front. Basically this sounds like the goal of pretty much every sport in the Olympics, except possibly diving ("If you enter the water with a swimsuit on, make sure you come out with it on"). 

• A female swimmer lost her cap during a race but was able to win despite this handicap. This was most likely due to the fact that she had, throughout the entire race, actually been wearing two caps and managed to hang on to the second one. We suspect that she has her mother to thank for this ("I don't care what anyone else does, young lady, YOU will always wear two swim caps!").

• The makers of the US women's swimsuits have been criticized for failing to make sure their product properly covers certain body parts, making it necessary for the wearer to constantly adjust the upper and lower regions of the product. (Also, when two or more swimmers happen to be engaged in these actions at the same time, it is known as "synchronized swimming.")

• For the opening ceremony, the queen was let down into the stadium by her long tresses...oh wait, wrong story... 

So that is our Summer Olympic recap. We realize that pretty much everybody, including Curiosity roaming around up there on Mars, knows more than we do about the Games just ended. We will attempt to do better by the Winter Olympics in two years. We leave with this parting thought: Maybe Curiosity's REAL job is scouting out a site for the 2044 Olympics?

A real insult

Were the average person to be polled about careers that he or she considered "fun," editing would probably not score terribly high on the list: maybe right below "Folding takeout containers." * Recently, however, as part of my editorial duties I was engaged in some exciting research that, while remaining completely serious and scholarly in nature, involved the words "poopy-butt."

The author of the book I was editing was giving several examples of what he refers to as children's "mistaken behavior." All of these examples involved the use of swear words or "hurtful" words. In these examples, the children seemed to believe that insulting words hurled at another child should contain particular parts of the body, namely "butt" or "head," or preferably both. 

It is not hard to see the attraction of these two body parts as weapons in interpersonal attacks. If you try to substitute others -- say, "knee," as in  "poopy-knee" or "butt-knee" -- the appeal factor drop off dramatically. 

So it is understandable that the same words would keep coming up in the examples in this particular chapter I was editing. For adults reading the chapter, however, it began to feel like you had suddenly dropped onto a playground and were in imminent danger of being slammed with a poopy-butt or butt-head comment.

(For similar effect, let me recommend any campaign discussion or ad on TV.)

So I sent the author what is known as an "author query," a respectful question about something in the text that is not quite clear or could perhaps be improved upon. Generally such questions read something like this:

Perhaps elaborate on the differences between the progressives and John Dewey, which is discussed in Chapter 5, page 17. What, for example, was the teacher's role, in Dewey's philosophy?

My query about the hurtful words went like this:

Chapter 9 contains "butt-head" twice and "poopy-butt" once. Could we perhaps have one insult that does not contain the word "butt"?

The author solicited help from a grandchild, and came back with the word "jughead."

It's his book, but really. Jughead? Just how old was this grandchild?

Any good editor has a stable of experts she goes to when she needs particular information. I am no exception.

"Help," I texted two relatives who have young children. "How do kids insult e/o? Poopy-butt & butt-head out."

The kids, upon being directly interrogated about their and their friends' use of insulting names for each other, went suddenly blank. They could not come up with anything.

"Snowball?" a timid 3-year-old finally ventured.

"Freak," offered an older child.

I queried another source, but her children also went silent. "I've heard them use stupid, stupid-head, and big baby," she texted.

I thought "stupid-head" would be appropriate, plus it had the advantage of being a cousin to butt-head. I queried the author again with the three choices. "Any of these work?" I asked.

After some deliberation, he selected "stupid-head" as most having the ring of authenticity among the angry younger set.

Even after the decision was made, the discussion was continued with some of my experts at a family dinner. One Little Person, upon being rammed by his sister during some rough play, had complained that "she hit me like a BUFFALO!"

Fads catch on quickly with Little Persons. So perhaps it's only a matter of time before "buffalo-head" comes into popularity. 

*This is not to be taken as an insult against those who fold takeout containers. And we editors do occasionally have fun on the job (but mostly, food has to be involved).

Not such a mouthful

Over the years my mother has helped keep the local dental industry thriving. With five children and with somewhat poor teeth herself, she has probably helped the family's dentists send their kids to college, buy a second home, travel around the world, send their grandkids to college, buy a third home, retire early, learn how to parachute, etc.

"If you're wondering where all your inheritance has gone, just look in here," she says, opening her mouth wide.

For as long as I can remember, she has had several false teeth. They have been like another member of the family, hanging around, taking up space in the bathroom, sometimes being left behind accidentally when we went somewhere.

She has gradually acquired more false teeth as her own decay, or are worn down, or are cracked beyond repair. ("It's those almonds," she says.) The dentist is running out of real teeth to work with.

There have been occasional complaints on her part about the cost of her dental work, particularly routine cleaning.

"Why should I pay the same as someone who has all their real teeth when I only have a few?" she says. 

No real reason has been forthcoming from the dentist.

Now HE is starting to complain. Recently he bemoaned having to work on "certain people."

"What people?" my mother said. "Old people?"

"Well, yes," he said, embarrassed. "I mean" -- he tried to be delicate -- "you don't know, uh, how much longer you're going to be using your teeth, and I would feel badly about doing a lot of work on your teeth and charging you a lot if you're not going to use them very long." 

"So don't charge me so much," she said.

This is something she never would have said years ago, but after a certain age she felt that she had been on this earth long enough to say what she wanted, within certain bounds, and anything concerning money -- particularly HER money -- was certainly within those bounds.

In the end the dentist pledged to do what he could for her without charging her TOO much, which means that he has no more children to put through college. And that, possibly, he is not terribly interested in learning to parachute.

Eat your way through VA

During our time in Virginia recently, we noticed that many restaurants in the area advertised "Virginia-style" cuisine. As near as we could determine from dining at several of these establishments, "Virginia-style" refers to "perfectly good burgers or chicken or even fish buried under layers of other stuff loosely referred to as glop." 

If you are not dripping with grease and sauce and goo by the end of your meal, you have not had Virginia-style food. 

The problem with this is that these restaurants give you exactly the same number of provisions for cleaning off as when consuming non-Virginia-style food: a lone napkin. Clearly this is not adequate and should be brought to the attention of the health department. These establishments should provide, at a minimum, full shower facilities to help customers completely remove the vestiges of their meal from their person.

While I am making suggestions, I have one for the outdoor shopping mall that we visited while we were in Virgina. The mall is actually several city blocks of shops and restaurants that have been closed off to traffic, allowing visitors to enjoy, without the inconvenience of passing cars, the parting of their money to various store merchants.

There are a great many restaurants on this mall, all of which offer outdoor seating. Herein lies the problem. This is pretty much the ONLY outdoor seating available on the mall. Should you need a short break from walking around, or should your shopping companion decide that it is absolutely necessary to spend several hours sampling and comparing various types of exotic olive oils at a kitchen store, you have few options. 

Such an exotic olive oil section of a store really does exist. We visited it, and tried out many of the approximately 895 kinds olive oil displayed. To aid in our tasting there were little bread cubes from Panera to dip into the olive oils. (Strictly speaking, it is not absolutely necessary to dip the little bread cubes from Panera into any of the olive oils; the bread is quite yummy on its own, as I discovered in the process of consuming several pounds of it.)

There is no telling how much we might have consumed had we actually been hungry upon entering the store, but we were not, having previously partaken of a Virginia-style lunch.

As we tasted various olive oils, we felt that we should render an opinion on them, though we did so quietly. With our keen tasting sense sharply honed on Virginia-style food, we found that our verdicts tended to fall into one of two camps:

"I like this one." or

"I don't like this one."

The next customers felt no compunction to keep their opinions private. Further, their taste buds and vocabulary were clearly more advanced than ours. They did not talk about "liking" oils or "not liking" them. They very confidently used terms like full-bodied, hefty, blond. I thought at first they were describing some Olympic male gymnast. Not that I would go around describing some Olympic male gymnast in this manner, but you see the similarities.

With its many wineries, cideries -- which, for the uninitiated, produce hard ciders -- Virginia-style restaurants, and yes, stores of exotic olive oils, Virginia is clearly a state of which it can be said, "No food or beverage left untasted." *

*Although we do not recommend a certain Greek olive oil we tried. At first we did not fully understand why we did not care for it, but upon further reflection, it perhaps was a little too "full-muscled." 

We treat ourselves to a B&B

When we travel, the Hero and I enjoy staying in bed and breakfast establishments. Such inns are typically old and often historic, as is our own home, and since they have narrow, creaky historic stairways, as does our home, and nothing is completely square, and the bathroom is no larger than a typical underground prairie dog chamber, we feel right at home.


The bed and breakfast we stayed in recently was delightfully historic. It boasted of historic figures who had either stayed there or visited for a time ("Abraham Lincoln almost decided to stay here on October 13, 1862"). Prominently displayed in various rooms were historic locks of hair, such as that of George Washington. Our innkeeper explained that in the past, public figures would often bestow a bit of their hair on those who were gathered to listen to a speech. Personally I would consider this a good reason to stay away from where the speech was being given, but doubtless I simply lack an appreciative spirit.*


Our bed and breakfast was known as The Inn of the Garrulous Innkeeper. This is not its proper name, of course; that is being withheld for safety reasons. OUR safety. If we mentioned the actual name of the inn, possibly the garrulous innkeeper would locate us, and thus would end all our hopes for a future life of peace and quiet.


Now, it is probably normal for most people who go into the bed and breakfast industry to tend to score on the more extroverted end of personality scales, and to enjoy talking to other people. Career tests probably contain questions aimed at ferreting out this information: "True or False: You can, and often do, talk on every subject from Biblical laws on clothing to the use of nanoparticles in medicine. True or False: You have noticed that everyone you have met more than once suddenly, upon encountering you, appears to be in an urgent hurry to be somewhere else. If both were answered Yes, recommended career: Owner of a bed and breakfast establishment. (Alternatively, a taxi driver)."


Certainly our innkeeper fit these criteria. We would not have been surprised to have him follow us right into our room and continue giving forth his ideas on land rights, how poorly America's students fare in comparison with kids in other countries, the difficulties of finding artisans who can do plaster work properly, the lack of propriety on the part of some guests in visiting EVERY winery in the vicinity in one day, and any number of other topics that held no relation whatsoever to each other, but which to him all made perfect sense to be considered together. In fact, upon further reflection, he DID follow us into our room to talk about these things.


One topic that did perk us up was that John Grisham, author, lives down the street from the inn.** Between the Hero and I we have probably read about one sentence from all of Mr. Grisham's books put together, but nevertheless it is something to be staying in the vicinity of a celebrated personage. We would have liked to see his home, but were restrained from asking its location upon hearing that many guests of the inn turn out to be "author stalkers." We certainly did not want to be lumped in with that group.


Mr. Grisham reportedly owns white cows, which are presumably rarer than cows of other colors, and this gave us the idea of looking for his home based on finding his herd of white cows. We found several homesteads with white cows, however, leading us to believe that Mr. Grisham has evidently, in an effort to thwart would-be stalkers, donated some of his cows to neighboring farms. There was no telling which actually belonged to him, although we suspect that his cows hang out together in groups of 12.


We had no definite agenda on this trip, which I'm sure has become evident through this relating of some of our time there. I am afraid that perhaps our garrulous host has rubbed off on us, and we have picked up his habit of never finishing one topic before going on to the next. Did I mention that we dined one night at a fine establishment (recommended by our innkeeper) known as Dr. Ho's Humble Pie and Alternative Pizza? No? Well, remind me to tell you about it sometime. 


*Note: The room in which we stayed for two nights contained NO displays of historic locks of hair. I heartily recommend this room.
**We understand that Mr. Grisham is a very private person and that therefore no lock of hair purporting to belong to him is held amongst the inn's belongings.