Did you see the blue moon?

Did you know we had a blue moon in December? I certainly didn’t, though I admit I haven’t been outside after dark much in the cold weather we’ve been having. Of course, if I had been out and looked at the moon, I wouldn’t have seen any blue tinge. I would have seen a full moon a few days ago, but I doubt I would have realized it was the second one since the start of December.

If I had noticed, and I’d thought about it, I’d have realized how unusual that was. When I was little, there was always a Currier & Ives calendar on the wall of the dining room across from where I sat. It showed when the new moon, first quarter moon, full moon, and last quarter moon were in each month. I didn’t understand why what looked like a half moon was called a quarter moon, and I had trouble remembering which was the full moon and which was the new moon, since they looked the same except that one was a black circle and one was a white circle. And how could anyone remember which was the first quarter and which was the last quarter, since they looked the same except that they faced opposite directions? And why wasn’t there a half moon in between the first and last quarters?

Somewhere along the way I learned enough about the moon and the calendar to know the answer to most of those questions. Though I have to admit that I still can’t tell, looking at a quarter moon, whether it is waxing or waning. And to remember the definition of “waxing” I still have to stop and remember that “waning” means to get smaller, so waxing has to be the opposite.

But apparently I missed the new definition of “blue moon” that spread in the 1980’s. It got into the Genus II version of Trivial Pursuit in 1986, which is the year I was introduced to the game and loved playing it. (I got a second-hand copy a few years ago, but it turns out I have the first Genus edition.) But with as many cards as the set has, it’s not surprising that I could play several times and never hear the question about the definition of a blue moon.

Currently it is defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. (That happens about once every two and a half years, so those old Currier and Ives calendars must have had some examples, I just didn’t happen to remember them.) But that’s a fairly new definition – after all, why would anyone call such an occurrence a “blue moon”?

Eating worms

Several weeks ago, our church started collecting money to send to the school we support in Liberia. The money will buy a new outfit for each child, a drinking cup for each child who is new there (and didn’t get one when we did the same thing last year), and provide a community Christmas meal. Collecting money for these gifts is emphasized especially in the children’s classes, because they can relate to the idea of giving money to meet the needs of other children – and even the small amounts they give can make a real difference in the lives of Liberia children.

Last year leaders in the children’s classrooms made various offers of what they would do if the children met a particular monetary goal. One man in our K/1 classroom had his head shaved. Other leaders kissed a gerbil or a snake (though they only “kissed” it on its side, not its head). One leader made what I thought was a more sensible offer, to match the amount given by the children on one particular night.

This year the children’s ministry director offered to sleep on the church roof if the goal was met. When giving this year was clearly way down from last year (no doubt due to the poor economic conditions), he cut the goal in half. Even so, it didn’t look like the goal would be met. But last week there was apparently a big push, and giving went over the goal by a comfortable margin. I don’t know how comfortable he will be – he is already in his tent (festively lit by Christmas lights) on the church roof. I hope his sleeping bag is warm – right now it’s 30 °F (23 °F with the windchill factor).

Each classroom also has their own goal, and the leader in our K/1 classroom offered to eat worms if the goal was met. The large group leader and one of the small group leaders offered to join her. Of course, what she told the leaders, but not the children, was that she hadn’t specified what kind of worms they would eat. Tonight she showed up with a flowerpot, showed the children the dirt in it, and used a pair of tongs to start pulling out worms.

The large group leader went first, and appeared to have a bit of trouble getting the thing down. The teenage small group leader went next, and then bolted to the trash can and doubled over. I had planned to be taking pictures, but discovered too late that I had left the memory card at home. (Grrrrr!) So instead I decided to get in on the act. Taking a different approach, I asked if I could please, please, please have a worm, and stood there with my mouth open (like a bird, as the leader put it).

After all, some of the children had already guessed that we were eating gummy worms. Coated in chocolate pudding and Oreo crumbs, they looked vaguely realistic (though one girl hid her eyes in disgust so she didn’t notice). I would rather eat the “dirt” than the worms, but I was hungry (the worst thing about Saturday evening class is that it’s too early to eat dinner first but I get really hungry before it’s over).

What I can’t help wondering, about all the head-shaving (one of the leaders in another classroom got shaved tonight), roof-sleeping, and worm-eating, is what lesson the children really learn from it all. I remember attending a church back when I was in Bible school (we were assigned churches where we were involved in ministry every weekend), where they had a contest to increase Sunday School attendance. They gave prizes to children for attending, and the teacher of the losing class had to kiss a dog.

Does that teach children to love God and to be generous? Or does it teach them that church is fun and you get prizes for doing what is good? And then what happens when it’s not fun and you don’t get prizes? As it happens, I’m currently working on an article for the church newsletter on what’s going on the children’s ministry. Some of the questions I will ask the ministry director will be his reasons for using these kinds of incentives.

By the way, did you know some people eat worms for their health? Being the sort of person I am, I had to google “eating worms.” The article I found is several years old, so I don’t know what researchers have learned since then. But there is evidence that having some worms in your gut is good for you. Live ones, that is. So you don’t take big squiggly worms, chew them up and swallow them – you take a drink containing worm eggs, so they can grow inside you.

It beats dealing with bad allergy symptoms, I suppose. But unless my doctor recommends it (my allergy symptoms are mild), I’ll stick to gummy worms.

Art under the microscope

If you think a camel can’t fit through the eye of a needle, you haven’t seen Willard Wigan’s artwork. Of course, you won’t be able to see it without a microscope. (These days, I can barely see the eye of a needle, let alone anything in it. I understand now why just a few years ago, women I sewed with envied my ability to easily thread a needle.) With proper magnification, however, you will see that Wigan has placed not just one but nine miniature camels in the eye of a needle. (See slide 2 of this slideshow.)

My husband likes to paint small pewter figurines, and he purchased a visor equipped with both a magnifying lens and a light to aid him in his detailed work. To paint the eyes, he uses a paintbrush narrowed to a single strand, or the point of a pin. But even that would be impossibly large for the work Wigan does. He does use a hair to paint his creations, but it is hair taken from a dead housefly.

Wigan is a prime example of failure fueling success. A child who struggled with dyslexia and other learning disabilities and did very poorly in school, Wigan found solace in creating art on a tiny scale – so tiny his teachers could not see it and thus could not criticize it. Encouraged by his mother, he applied his unusual ability on a smaller and smaller scale. To this day he can barely read or write, but his one-of-a-kind artworks sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

I admire Wigan’s skill – both with his scalpel (unlike most artists working on a microscopic level, he does his work by hand) and in controlling his body. To avoid hand tremors, he has to work in a trance-like state and only make cuts in between heartbeats. He chose a difficult profession and applies himself to its demanding requirements, patiently working week after week to produce a single product.

These cakes are out of this world

I found out today that my 17-year-old son is older than the Sci-Fi channel. He turned 17 in March, almost six months ago. The Sci-Fi channel just turned 17 today.

In recognition of that anniversary, they have a display of 17 sci-fi themed cakes. These are the kind of cakes I can only dream of making. Just look at the detail in that Minas Tirith cake! I’d hate to have to cut into it to serve a piece.

I’m really not much into cake. But I do like the Sci-Fi channel. We didn’t have it all that long before we had to drop it to save money. But it was long enough to become fans of Stargate SG-1 (and Stargate Atlantis). My husband watched some other shows as well, such as Eureka. Recently he discovered full-length episodes of Eureka he can watch on syfy.com (the Sci-Fi website).

But first we decided to check out earlier seasons from the library, so I could watch them as well. Last night we had a mini-marathon of Eureka, watching the pilot plus three more episodes from the first season. I had seen one of them, and occasionally walked through the room during other episodes. But I remembered little except that it was a kind of quirky show.

The perfect caddy

If you’re looking for advice on your swing or which club to use, you’ll want a different caddy. But if you want a calm companion who easily carries two golf bags, a llama might be just the right caddy for you.

I saw this pictureat nationalgeographic.com, and was intrigued enough to search for more information. The subject naturally lends itself to some journalistic humor. One article asks this question: Golf Etiquette: Must Golfers Tip Llama Caddies? The question is left unanswered, but the article does point out some ways llama caddies are superior to their human counterparts.

The llama caddies have gained points for on-the-course discretion. They don’t tend to roll their eyes when golfers call for mulligans. They don’t snicker and whisper when golfers become teed off over missed swings. Most important, the llamas do not squeal when golfers alter their scorecards.

LlamaWeb is a one place to learn about llama caddies - and just about anything else about llamas you might want to know. Llamas apparently have some other uses that most of us would never have thought of. Guarding sheep, for instance.

And more librarians

Our community’s intrepid librarians (see yesterday’s post) are a credit to their profession, but apparently far from unusual in their willingness to act counter to the traditional stereotype of the staid librarian. Librarians in Texas raised money by revealing their tattoos. Contestants in the Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships in Chicago are even more adventurous. I just may have to check out the online video of costumed librarians marching in drill-team formation with book carts capable of doing wheelies.

Apparently a lot of librarians these days are fighting the old stereotypes. There are martial arts librarians, bellydancing librarians, and a whole website devoted to the topic: “You don’t look like a librarian.” They also have a sense of humor: check out this web site on research into the library habits of marshmallow peeps (peeps apparently have a lot in common with college students).

If I had known the job was about a lot more than just checking out or reshelving books (seriously, it is!), I might have become a librarian. No tattoos for me, but I might have considered the drill team. (After all, I did flag corps in high school).

Two librarians and a cardboard boat

My 10-year-old son would read a lot even without the summer reading program at the library, but he participates anyway – why turn down prizes for what he would do anyway? Besides, the librarians who run the program do something kind of crazy if the kids meet the reading goal set for them. Last year it was eating some insects. This year, they let the children offer suggestions of what they should do.

My son suggested they do the chicken dance while dressed in chicken suits, and his idea apparently received serious consideration. But the winning idea was to try to cross the pond at the local park in a cardboard boat. Apparently the kids in town read a grand total of over 15,000 books in the last several weeks, because this evening a crowd gathered in the park to watch the grand launch.

I don’t know whose idea it was to get some high school trumpet players to play taps for the occasion, but it was fairly appropriate. The librarians apparently hadn’t used their research skills to study the engineering involved in the construction of cardboard boats. Their boat looked like a refrigerator box with one of the long narrow sides removed. It was covered with various colors of duct tape (the kids had the opportunity to help decorate it today), which kept the cardboard from disintegrating too quickly. But the shape of the boat gave it no chance ride properly in the water.

At the water’s edge, the two wetsuit-clad librarians (also equipped with flippers, facemasks, and inflated rubber ducky rings around their middles) climbed into the box. Helpers pushed it into the water, while the kids watched and their parents snapped pictures on digital cameras. I had time to get one picture of the boat in the water before it fell over on its right side.

The librarians dragged themselves out of the water, dragged the boat out, and prepared to try again. The fallen “mast” and its decorative sails were removed, some errant flippers and duckies were retrieved from the water, and the boat was launched again. This time the women had their paddles ready from the first moment, trying to achieve some balance.

It didn’t work. This time the boat fell on its left side. But our intrepid librarians, refusing to give up, decided to cross the pond with their boat anyway. Using the box as a shared kickboard, they began kicking their way across the pond. About halfway across, they were either too tired to continue to the farther side, or were advised that there was no good landing spot over there (I doubt anyone ever expected the boat to actually last long enough to get there), because they turned left toward the closer side of the pond.

Some of us walked around to meet them there. They struggled the last several yards, clearly very tired. Finally, now lying on top of the collapsed box, they managed to grasp a hand extended from a helper on shore. (Actually, it was the husband of one of the librarians, who had worn boots that let him step into the water.) The whole crowd burst into applause as they made it to shore.

As a bonus, someone had brought a Model T to the park, and let children climb in as they love to do with any kind of vehicle. After the grand cardboard boat adventure was over, he gave rides to children and their parents (an accompanying parent was required). My son was fascinated by the unusual-looking car, and asked why people don’t drive them anymore. I pointed out a few disadvantages – too slow, no heat in the winter, no side windows to block the rain, very little space to store luggage.

He also asked if we had cars like that when I was a girl. No, I explained, they had cars like that when my grandfather was a young man. Maybe on one of our trips to the library, we’ll look for a book showing the history of cars.

Kindergarten driver

One of my recurring dreams as a child was that I was riding in the back seat of the car when my father drove to choir practice at church, then because he was arriving late he jumped out of the car without taking time to stop the car. From the back seat I had to try to climb into the driver’s seat and figure out how to stop the car. I don’t remember ever actually managing to get my foot on the brake, but I don’t remember crashing either – I must always have awakened during those moments of panic.

A six-year-old boy in Nebraska recently found himself in a situation where he had to take the driver’s seat when his father passed out from low blood sugar. He evidently didn’t know how to stop the truck (probably, like me in my dream, his leg wasn’t long enough to reach the break), so instead he steered the car as it idled along at an estimated 10-15 mph. That approach never occurred to me in my dreams – of course I didn’t have the advantage of being able to sit in my father’s lap so I could see out through the windshield.

My dreams also never had any alert policemen around. Officer Freeze noticed the youthful driver, ran after and caught up with the truck, reached through the open window and slammed the gearshift into park. Tustin had been driving pretty well for a six-year-old, but he was very happy to be relieved of his unexpected responsibility.

I’ve had a few dreams as an adult where I’ve somehow forgotten to put the car in park before getting out. I see the car moving and chase it, trying to figure out how to stop it (sometimes with a young child in the back seat, but I don’t remember that he ever climbs into the front seat to drive). Unfortunately I never drive with my window wide open, either waking or sleeping, so reaching in to grab the gearshift isn’t an option. And in my dreams, the boy in the back seat doesn’t climb into the front.

I’ve wondered sometimes how well I would react in an emergency that really tested my bravery, such as witnessing an accident where I would need to risk my life to save someone from a car that was on fire or had gone underwater. I hope I would react with as much presence of mind, and willingness to do something that seemed like it might be too hard for me, as young Tustin did.

An odd day

I feel kind of sorry for math teachers. I mean, what can you do to make math exciting to most kids? You have some students who hate math because they don’t understand it, and other students like me who think it’s boring because it’s easy. And then there are a few who really do think math is a lot of fun, but I think the number of number-lovers is pretty small.

Foreign language teachers get to serve new foods and teach new games. (The high school German club did a German night at my son’s elementary school, and he has now decided he wants to learn German instead of French.) English teachers can teach books that are exciting to read, or have the class put on a play. Social studies classes can reenact historical events or have debates over issues. Science teachers can demonstrate amazing experiments, or set up a science fair.

But what can math teachers do that raises the profile of their subject? On March 14, my older son told me how ridiculous he thought it was that they had a school assembly to recognize Pi Day. In math class (and maybe some others), there were “pie” activities – including pie to eat, which of course he did enjoy. I pointed out that math teachers don’t get a lot of chances to put their subject on center stage, and take advantage of the opportunity when it comes. He did not change his opinion (and he’s a straight A+ math student).

A math teacher in California is doing his best to promote math with Odd Day. Today’s date, 05/07/09, is one of six dates each century that is made up of three consecutive odd numbers. He suggests some ways to celebrate Odd Day:

It’s a great day to do your odds ‘n ends, give a friend a high-five, root for the odds-on-favorite, read the Wizard of Odds, watch the Odd Couple, say aaaahd in the doctor’s office, look for sea odders, find that missing odd sock, and beat the odds.

I made a brief attempt to write an Odd Ode, but it is more odd than ode:

This poem has five
Syllables in line one, then
Seven in the next, nine in the last.

As my younger son is always looking for games to play, I told him about Odd Day. With typical enthusiasm, he suggested we dance in the street, as that would be odd. I agreed it would – but we didn’t. We did give each other nine high fives, hopped seven times on one foot, and tried to spin around nine times (but stopped after five because we were both getting dizzy).

We counted to seven in three languages (English, Spanish, and German), and thought of odd foods to eat. We made up a story about visiting a planet with odd-looking creatures (three heads with five eyes on each head, five arms with three fingers on each hand, and three legs with one toe on each foot). Now we’re going to play Go Fish with only odd cards – but I’m not sure whether we can collect pairs or if we have to collect three of each number…

By the way, had you noticed that “perennial” and “student” each have an odd number of letters? So do these words…
Happy Odd Day!

Ten things I have/haven’t done

Renaissance Guy wrote a post today, A Few Random Things About Me, listing ten (somewhat) common things he hasn’t done and ten (somewhat) unusual things he has done. (Personally I’m not sure how common it is to eat rabbit meat or go skinnydipping, or how unusual it is – these days – to get an ear pierced.)

So I worked on a similar list.

Ten Things I Have Not Done

• I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket – but I was stopped once for speeding, in a school zone. I hadn’t noticed the sign, which hung over the road rather than being on a pole at the side of the road, and I was new to the area, and if I had noticed the school I hadn’t noticed that I was driving past at a time when students were arriving. I got off with a warning, and I think it only took about half an hour for my pulse to return to normal.
• I have not watched a single episode of The Simpsons, or of Survivor in any of its incarnations, and only watched part of an episode of American Idol because my husband wanted me to hear a particular singer whom he thought was very good. I have never watched a soap opera by choice (sometimes one has been playing in a waiting room or company break room).
• I have never had poison ivy – but I’m pretty sure I’ve had contact with poison ivy. At any rate, I walked through something that I thought might be poison ivy, along with another girl. She got poison ivy (and was not at all happy with me for not mentioning that I wondered if it might be poison ivy).