Today

Today is a very special day. It is the day, in 1808, that the first practical typewriter was invented. Before that, people sat around looking at impractical typewriters, wondering how much they could get for them at a garage sale. Thank goodness for Italian Pelligrini Turri, without whom we would all now be sitting around looking at impractical computers. However, the typewriter is not why today is special. Today is also the day that Chelsea Clinton decided, in 1997, to attend Stanford College. Also -- much more importantly -- on this day in 1904 the ice cream cone made its debut. As critical as that is to our modern lives, however, it is not why today is special either.

We are referring to the Prissy Princess's birthday. In honor of this occasion, we are posting the first-ever picture to appear on this blog. (We would have had one sooner, but among the Princess's few talents is not one for using technology.) So here, on this momentous occasion, is a photo of the birthday Princess:








Hmmm, the ears aren't quite right. Obviously, the Princess needs some more practice inserting photos. Let's try again.







Well, that's a little better, but I think we've had enough photo practice for today. Stay tuned.

Today also marks the anniversary of the first national U.S. holiday, in commemoration of the centennial of George Washington's inauguration. I do not see that anyone observes this particular holiday anymore. Even though we now have more national holidays than we know what to do with, and if we add any more the government is going to be off more than it works -- oh, wait, that's already true -- personally I think we should revive this particular holiday. To me it makes much more sense to celebrate the day our first president became president than to celebrate, as we do, President's Day in February. That honors only the births of Lincoln and Washington, and they can hardly take credit for that.

But it would be nice to have my birthday off every year.

Q & A II

Q: Dear Prissy Princess,
My spouse insists on bringing up important topics for discussion at inopportune moments, such as when I am asleep. What do you recommend?
-Asleep and clueless

A: Dear Clueless in ZZZsville,
You did not say whether your spouse is a man or a woman, although I suspect it is a man. This is because a woman would have read all the marriage how-to books and know how important it is that she have her spouse's full attention when broaching matters of importance so that the two can discuss the topic rationally without distractions. Of course a man knows, without reading the books, that if he does this the discussion will never result in any favorable outcome for him, and therefore he chooses to talk with his spouse when she cannot actually participate in the conversation. From his point of view, she is much more likely to agree with something he proposes, such as purchasing a new Ford Super Duty pickup truck today, if she is in fact unable to disagree, such as might happen if she is asleep at the time.

Therefore I suggest that you never allow yourself to fall asleep. Of course this might present difficulties if you work, drive, have children, occasionally like to go out of the house, breathe, etc., but that seems a small price to pay to keep your spouse from committing some truly heinous purchase.

Alternatively, you could use your spouse's own strategy -- that is, find a time to discuss the topic that is inopportune for him. I suggest waiting until he falls asleep. Then say, "Dear, I'm ready to discuss that Super Duty truck now...Dear?" The next time he brings up the topic, tell him you tried to talk to him about it and, since he made no response, you assumed the issue was dead. If he doubts your sincerity, have a tape recording ready of you asking the question and him snoring.

Neither solution will bring much equality to your discussion of important matters, but at least you won't unexpectedly find a monster truck in your driveway.

Q&A

As yet another project deadline looms over the Prissy Princess this week, she is expected to go into Full Stress Mode, wherein she runs around the house (or, given space constraints, one room) pulling her hair and wishing she had gone into some other line of work, such as Caretaker of Turtles. This will likely curtail her ability to write much for this blog. Therefore this week's blog episodes will be in the popular Q&A format, which allows the Princess to tackle important issues to readers without having to think much. You won't want to miss a single episode!

Q: Dear Prissy Princess,
My husband sometimes makes incomprehensible remarks, like "V[sub J] is not equal to Q[sub J] but is equal to Y[sub 3] [sub 564] [sub 893285XQV]." All this talk about subs makes me hungry, and so I say something in return about "the tandem rotation of X[sub or pizza?]." My husband does not appreciate this. He says that he is not talking to me and his comments don't require a response from me. How can I tell when I am supposed to give a response or not?
-Confused sub spouse

A: Dear [sub spouse],
This is common among spouses in "higher math." They forget that those of us who barely passed "lower math" have no idea what they are talking about. I suggest that you make your husband a sign that says "No response required" for him to hold up during these times when he is just talking to himself. This will greatly benefit both of you: You will not feel pressured into joining a conversation you have no hope of ever understanding, and he will not feel that he is constantly in the middle of a bad comedy show. Of course, you may continue to make funny remarks under your breath. If your husband asks what you said, say sweetly, "Oh, I was just talking to myself, dear."

One other helpful point: If what he is saying contains single letters, such as Q, X, and J, he probably is not talking to you, unless you are talking about buying new clothes and his response includes the letters N and O.

Survey results

I'm sure you've all been breathlessly awaiting the results of our blog survey from last week. I know I have. But since it seems that no one else is going to do all the analyzing and making up -- I mean reporting -- of the findings, I guess I had better take a stab at it myself.

I should state up front that I have, in an effort to enhance the accuracy and scientificity of this report, contracted the services of my husband, whose higher math curriculum includes not only Fuzzy Logic but also Asymptotic and Perturbation Analysis. I felt that this expertise would contribute significantly to our understanding of the survey results, which indeed it did. Everything is more fuzzy now than it was before, and we are definitely more perturbed after trying to pronounce "perturbation" (and also trying to figure out whether "scientificity" is really a word).

But on to our findings. One obvious finding, which you all no doubt noticed, was that someone did not answer the final question, which means, statistically, that someone did not answer the final question. Now some purists might argue that we should throw the whole survey out because of this, which of course we will do after we have picked through it for other enlightening scientific data.

The other obvious finding from the survey is that 50% of you are underemployed. No, this was not a question on the survey, but good surveyists will design questions that really get at something other than what the question seems to be asking, such as whether respondents have a hidden cache of gold somewhere that they could be tricked into turning over to the surveyists.

So, the first question -- "How often do you read this blog?" -- was secretly trying to measure of how bored you all are. The astonishing finding that 50% read this blog when they don't have anything to do at work indicates that half of you are underemployed and should immediately be outsourced. On the other hand (this is the nice thing about statistics: you can twist them to make them more positive), the fact that the national underemployment rate is only 9.5% indicates that our readers are overachievers, at least in finding work that does not take full advantage of their talents.

Interestingly, no one responded that they read this blog only during El Nino seasons. This immediately raises an important scientific question: If El Nino refers to the Baby Jesus, who is La Nina? And why wasn't she on the survey?

Sometimes surveys reveal totally unexpected results. This one is no exception. According to the answers on the second question, no one believes that this is a nonfiction blog! This is one of those cases where it is tricky to tease out the possible meanings behind this response, but it would appear that it is due to respondents not remembering what "nonfiction" means. I would tell you, but I can't remember what it means either. It was the one thing consistently noted on my report cards by my teachers, beginning in elementary school and going right through college: "When told to identify a nonfiction book, student consistently chooses a mystery."

The other totally unexpected result was that 33% of respondents think this blog consists of blatant lies. Obviously, since no one could really believe this, these respondents must be under the impression that "blatant" means "false," as in "Is it a false lie that your husband made you wait until after the Super Bowl to call 911 about the carbon monoxide?"

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to putting Joe in charge of our pitiful garden, effective immediately he will quit his job and devote himself full time to talking to the flowers. Maybe they have just needed a man's authoritative voice and manner of slipping them little treats they are not supposed to have.

No one agreed with the suggestion to hire an expert to overhaul our garden. This is good, because by the time we get finished paying the little chimney sweep guys to fix our chimney and furnace flue, there will be no money to pay someone to tell us not to water our flowers so much.

We sincerely thank you for participating in th the Second "Slightly Humorous" Blog Reader Survey. This concludes our scientific reporting of the results. If I come up with any further conclusions, I will report them in later posts. Or not. Depends on what my definition of "blatant lies" is.

Pottery spin

I sincerely apologize to any administrative professionals among us, as yesterday was National Administrative Professional's Day and NOT, as stated in yesterday's blog post, National Toddler's Day. I did not mean to imply that administrative professionals act like toddlers, although they might be tempted to sometimes, particularly when their boss is acting toddlerish.

But today's topic is neither toddlers nor administrative professionals. Today's topic is pottery. I'm sure you've seen those places where you can paint your own pottery. These establishments offer art experiences for those, like myself, whose art talents are restricted to paint-by-number, people whose stick-figure drawings of humans are virtually indistinguishable from their drawings of animals, except for the number of legs.

In school, everything I ever tried to sculpt or mold turned out looking like an ashtray. And we sculpted and molded a lot. Our house was littered with misshapen ashtrays I had made, even though no one in our family smoked. The other schools in our system had no money for things like art, gym, or music, because it was all being funneled into my school, in the express hope that I would graduate someday having made at least one thing in art class that did not look like an ashtray. Although the policy of spending public money on useless educational ideas has been fashionable for quite some time, this is where it got its start.

So these paint-your-own-pottery places are perfect for people like me. The piece is already formed for you, so all you have to do is paint it. And if that is beyond your abilities, they have an assortment of stencils, stickers, magazine pictures, etc., for you to decorate your Nutrasweet holder, lightswitch backplate, or toothpick holder with.

But people really do not go to these places because they need a new toothpick holder. What "Paint Your Own Pottery" really means is "Get Out of the House and Gossip With Your Friends." They therefore cater mostly to women who want to get out of the house for an evening, or to women who want their kids out of the house for the evening so they can have some peace and quiet.

The problem with this activity, although it gives you an excuse to have fun, is that you end up with this piece of pottery that you really don't know what to do with. And if you do this often, maybe, like me, your closets and boxes are filled with these self-painted pieces of pottery that you don't know what to do with, right next to all the gifts you get from your company or your husband's company with corporate advertising written shamelessly all over them.

Or you desperately try to find someone to take all these things you painted off your hands. No doubt my mother attempted a similar strategy with my youthful sculptures:

Mom to family friend: Delores, how would you like this colorful, um, fruit bowl? We know the artist personally.
Delores (nose wrinkling): Looks more like an ashtray.
Mom: I'll pay you $20 to take it.
Delores: It would look nice in the living room!

So when I was headed to one of these pottery painting places a few weeks ago for a ladies' night out, I was struck with a brilliant idea for what to do with the piece when I was finished with it. Since we were going to a wedding this summer, I suggested to Joe that we give my pottery piece as a wedding gift. "They always say you should give a personalized gift," I said. "What could be more personalized than something I've painted with my own hands?"

Now I have noticed that in a marriage, your brilliant ideas rarely strike your spouse as being brilliant. My spouse seemed to place this particular idea more in the category of "horrifying," something right up there with serving Purina Puppy Chow for dinner to the minister and his wife (not that I have ever come up with this idea).

"You can't do that," he said. "We like these people."

He had a point. Considering my artistic skills, it would be more appropriate to give something I'd painted as a gift to someone we do not like, something that says, "We never want to hear from you again."

And so I painted a coffee mug that already had "I Love You" engraved into it -- all I had to do was paint inside the letters and make a few Xs and Os around it -- and it actually continued to resemble a mug when I was done with it. When I brought it home and presented it to my spouse, he kissed me and gamely said he would be proud to use it. I still think it would make a perfect wedding gift, but he won't hear of letting it out of the house. He's so sweet that way.

So be assured that if you are getting married, and you invite us to your wedding, we will not give you some tacky, hand-painted gift that resembles an ashtray. We will give you a thoughtful, tasteful gift, chosen just for you, from our stash of corporate freebies Joe gets several times a year. In time, people will stop you asking why your duffel bags have "Campbell" emblazoned all over them.

Wait a minute, where have I heard that name recently...Campbell...didn't I see that on a wedding invita --

"Honey! I've got the perfect idea for a wedding gift!"

Toddlers 'R Us

This being National Toddler Day (not really, but who's to say for sure there isn't one? There's a National Sandwich Day), I paused to consider how similar to toddlers we are sometimes. We being the two of us, who are generally very mature, as you will see by the following comparison chart.

Toddlers	Us
Engage in parallel play, in which two toddlers are doing the same activity side by side without really interacting	-(Each sits at own computer in same room.) Honey, could you -- E-mail me.
Often use the word no to express independence	-Can I have the rest of this Kit Kat? NO!
Fond of the word mine to indicate belief that everything is theirs	-How about that donut? MINE! Can’t I even try it? MINE!
Territorial, not inclined to share	-Why does the blanket always end up on your side of the bed? Does not. Does too. GIVE ME MY BLANKET!
Assert their independence	-I’m going to knock out some walls in the basement. That’s what you think.
Getting better at feeding themselves, but spills should be expected	-What is this on your blue shirt?
Rapid mood swings	-Honey, is this a good time to -- never mind.
View themselves as center of world	-Could you wait 'til after the game to call 911 about the carbon monoxide?
Have difficulty remembering rules	-Did you say you didn’t want me to knock out some walls in the basement? -Is it black bears or brown bears you're supposed to play dead with?
Show strict adherence to routines	-We're 15 minutes late, and you're worried about MAKING THE BED??

A time to wail

This is a story about how I was thrilled to be around a screaming child at the library. Really.

Now, this is not how I usually feel when confronted with crying children in public. But it all depends on your perspective.

I was looking through the audio CDs (scholarly works like Dave Barry's Guide to Guys and The Cat Who Went Bananas) when a nearby child started to express, in no uncertain terms, his unhappiness with something. Maybe he did not want to listen to one more page of Goodnight, Moon. Maybe he was out of Cheerios. Maybe being a three-year-old stuck in a stroller with all those tempting book displays juuuust out of reach was finally too much for him. Whatever it was, it was enough to start him wailing.

And wailing. And wailing. I'm sure whatever the record is for a screaming child, this one shattered it. The parent acted as if she had no idea who this child was. I suspected she was used to this.

The screaming started to interfere with my reading of the cover of The Cat Who Went Bananas. And then it started to interfere with my sanity. All I could think was Be quiet, kid.

I read, "Has Koko the Siamese cat gone bananas, or will he help unravel the mystery of...."

"Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Be quiet, kid!

I began to imagine what Koko, the cat who went bananas, might do when confronted with a child who wouldn't stop screaming. I didn't think it would be pretty.

"WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

BE QUIET, KID!

And then, blessedly, he was quiet. And the next second, my cell phone rudely rang into the silence.

It's a happy little tune, but in that setting it was as loud and obnoxious as the kid's yelling had been.

I scrambled frantically around in my purse, trying to find the phone, at the same time juggling The Cat and Dave and a couple of other CDs. And all the time the phone was singing, and I was thinking, The big, bad librarian is going to throw me out! She's going to march right over here -- I was less than three feet from the checkout counter -- and just yank my phone out of my purse and grind it to powder right here in front of everyone!

I have had a fear of librarians all my life. I don't know why. I was a meek kid who loved books, so I don't think I ever got in trouble in a library. But somehow I always knew there was the potential to get in trouble, even if I wasn't doing anything wrong.

As I fumbled for my phone, I realized there was one thing that could save me from the librarian's wrath. Keep crying, kid! Keep crying! I thought frantically.

And he did. Miraculously, beautifully, he began his screaming tirade again, loud enough so that even I couldn't hear the phone.

Now, lest you think that I somehow encouraged the child to continue his protests, I assure you that he was not within range for me to kick his stroller or lob War and Peace (137 CDs; Running time: a few decades) in his direction. I did not make faces at him, as my brother is wont to do to children in public when their parents aren't watching. I was completely innocent of any such influence.

But I could have kissed him as I finally turned off the phone.