Can We Teach My Mother to Use Email

     This is the most recent email I received from my mother:

 Aunt Frieda passed away yesterday 4/10.

That was it.  There was no greeting and no salutation.  There was no other amplifying information.  This is how my mother sends this kind of information.  This is a very typical email for my mother to send.  The structure of it makes me laugh.  Of course this means an email comes in from my mom, I read it, start laughing, and someone nearby says "Nancy, what are you laughing at?" and all I can say is "my mom just sent an email that my Aunt Frieda died."
     It's not funny.  I don't think it's funny that my Aunt Frieda died yesterday.  I do think it's funny that this is how my mother chooses to tell me.  I have to try to be fair to my mother.  She's just not good at emailing.  She doesn't know that that's an odd email.  She thinks it's fine; she finds nothing wrong with it.  Also, I'm not great on the phone; I won't answer during working hours and our lunch hours don't line up well enough to coordinate a phone call. 
     I just wish we could teach my mother how to use email.  One habit I seem to be getting her out of is her inexplicable use of ellipses.  It was an uncomfortable conversation.  Also, full disclosure, she didn't just use ellipses [...], she used as many periods as it took until her brain could start the next sentence, often twelve of them.  I haven't received an ellipses laden email in quite a while, so I claim a small victory.  She's now on to text sized emails.

     There should be a class that teaches her how to send emails.  Somewhere along the way someone has told her brevity is the key.  I don't disagree.  However, they missed that a greeting is also appropriate, and a little bit of lead in can be nice too.  Consider the information you're sending, and consider your audience.  The subject line is a tool, use it.  There is not a character limit in email.  You won't get charged if the email is too long.  You can write more.  That being said, brevity is still nice. 
     I should use this as a teaching moment.  There are two ways to go here.  I can teach by example and reply with a well thought out, composed, and structured response and hope seeing such an email will seep into her subconscious and she'll start to understand email etiquette better.  Or I can teach by responding in a similar manner, hoping that receiving my curt response will cause her to see the errors in her ways.  Something like this perhaps:

Shut It Down.

     I hope that if the government does shut down, President Obama has the fortitude and pop-cultural awareness to just shout "Shut it down!" and then walk out of the White House and head to his Colonial Williamsburg vacation.  The lines between politics are increasingly blurred mostly with help from CNN and their journalist-stand-up-comic team.
     Did you check out that CNN link?  There's a picture of The Three Stooges.  The headline reads "The Fight Just Gets Dumber."  Well sure, CNN, when you put it that way, it does seem to be getting dumber.  We're in a 24-hour news cycle and every angle of the possible shutdown has to be told.
     I caught the end of a news segment yesterday where the reporter was making the point that this is Spring Break (Spring Break!  Woo!) week and there would be many students here to check out pieces of historical interest, but those doors would be closed.  At first I scoffed thinking that was hardly the most important thing about this looming shutdown.  But then I thought about it and how pissed I would be if I was planning a week long vacation to some place and it was just closed.  It would be like Vacation- almost exactly like it.  WallyWorld is closed, except by WallyWorld, we mean the government so no, you can't visit museums or the zoo.
     The radio was full of reminders of the dozens of things that are still available even if the government does shut down.  The Newseum, for example, is not a government funded museum and is fun for all ages.  And there are plenty of private art museums.  My favorite was that you could still look at the monuments.  The elevator that goes to the top of the Washington Monument would be closed, but you can still go to the park and stare at it.  That's good news, they're not going to cover up the monuments.
     Here in the district this very national problem has also taken on a local flavor.  There was a town hall meeting held last night and the news coverage of it really did look like a scene from Parks&Rec.  Except instead of cool calm Leslie Knope fielding the irate townspeople, it was Virginia Congressman Jim Moran yelling back at the people who were yelling at him.  One man asked why Jim Moran was having an Emergency Town Hall meeting instead of being AT congress trying to fix the problem.  It may have been a fair point.  Jim Moran started answering the question and when the man interrupted, Moran laid the smack down.  It was local government.  But it's not.  An interesting dichotomy for the area indeed.
     If the government shuts down there won't be a Cherry Blossom festival.  People won't stand for that.  Recent news states that the Republicans and Democrats can't even agree on what they don't agree on.  I'm going out on a limb here.  Or at least I'm showing a limb I haven't shown before.  A huge part of the discussion is over Planned Parenthood, and therefore abortion.  You tell enough people that they can't watch a Cherry Blossom Festival parade and stare at some pretty pretty trees because the government doesn't want to fund abortion, they'll start pushing girls-in-trouble down the stairs.  Tell you what, I'll pay for your abortions.  First ones free.  Come on!  My friends want to visit the Natural History Museum.
     I don't know any more than anyone else about how the next few hours are going to go. As a matter of fact, this might be completely irrelevant by the time it posts. But if there is a shutdown, I hope they announce it in a manner consistent with this video.

    

The Perfect Number of Choices

     As the lunch hour looms I contemplate my choices for food.  There aren't many choices and oh how I wish there were more.  Not too many though, just the perfect number of choices.
     I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that five choices would be perfect.  Right now I'm at three and those three are all very similar.  Five Guys Burgers, Subway, and Cornercopia Deli all serve meat on bread.  I love meat on bread but the lack of variety leaves me cold.  I usually bring my lunch from home but sometimes I'm in the mood to go outside and feel fresh air in my lungs.  Sometimes I want a little something special.  I'd like some variety; I'd like to have sushi on Tuesdays and pizza on Thursdays.  I want more choices.
     Too many choices can be overwhelming though.  I can't remember how many times I've walked in circles in a food court unable to settle on just one thing and then just walked out, stomach still grumbling.  Too many choices leaves me with buyers remorse.  My lunch will be fine, but maybe I should have gotten the Panda Express or something from Chik-Fil-A.  Ahhh!  What have I done?  I've ruined my lunch.  Too many choices stresses me out.
     I live on a block full of restaurants yet I couldn't begin to describe them.  There are too many to choose from so I hide in my house.  That's not completely true- I have been to the carry out pizza place and the discount sushi restaurant.  I recently discovered there's another sushi restaurant only one block farther from that initial one.  I stood at the corner for nearly 30 minutes weighing the pros and cons of trying something only slightly different.  In the end I went for it in an attempt to broaden my horizons, but it was still pretty stressful and I wasn't confident I made the right choice. 
     I would like there to be five restaurant choices for lunch near my place of work.  I want a sandwich shop, a pizza place, a sushi bar, a burrito place, and a burger joint.  To me, that's the perfect number of choices. 

Body of Proof: A Review.

     The new Dana Delaney vehicle where she plays a smart-as-a-whip neurosurgeon turned super medical examiner, solving crimes like no one else in the world can.  It's not my normal cup of tea, so on one hand I wasn't presupposed to the comparisons it was already drawing before it even aired.  On the other hand, well, it's not my cup of tea so it didn't have much of a chance.
     I watched the pilot out of my natural pilot-curiosity.  I watched the second episode because I hate myself, apparently.  I tried to give the gobs and gobs of exposition a pass in the pilot considering the possibility of rewrites and studio interference.  It didn't get any better in the second episode.  I actively wondered if the writers had even been to writer's school.  Or maybe they went to the Nicholas Sparks School of Writing.   It could have been a damn radio show.
     Apparently Dr. Megan Hunt (Delaney) is the most brilliant ME on the face of the earth and her existence renders most other police officers unnecessary.   In the pilot she tells us every-damn-thing there is to know about her: she was a brilliant neurosurgeon (neurosurgeons are rarely not brilliant, I wish they'd quit with the superlative) who put work in front of everything else but then lost it all in a terrible car crash.  She was blind sided when she ran a red light while on the phone with her daughter whose *something* she was missing- a birthday, or a recital, or something else little girls do.  She was explaining about how she's a doctor and she's saving lives.  Smash.  The accident made her hands no worky-worky so she resigned to being a medical examiner.  Also, it was a wake-up call (of course it was) and she finds she prefers the ME job because she can learn more about people from their bodies than they would ever tell her.  Also, she killed a patient.  And she's a bad mother but wants another chance.
     She pretty much just read that out loud to the camera.
     I think the opening line of the show was something like "Oh, Dr. Hunt.  We've heard about you."  Fantastic.  I'm so glad her reputation precedes her.  She walked in and said a bunch of crap that made the detectives look like they were sick the day they taught police work in police school.  But it wasn't clever.  It was as though the detectives were blindfolded and hungry and the ME walked in to feed them and shine light in their eyes.  "Don't believe everything you hear.  The truth is much worse."  There must be a book of cliches the writers are just pulling out of a hat.
     The moment that put me over the edge in episode two was when the medical police investigator (I don't know what this is, but he's the guy who follows Delaney around everywhere and claims he was assigned to her) actually said he was there to help her navigate her way to being a good mother or some crap like that.  It seemed like something that should have been left a writer's note and accidentally got typed into the script.  Don't tell me who your character is, show me by just being that guy.
     Another trope crime/medical drama moment in episode two happens near the end.  People are standing around talking about something and the word tears comes up.  Hunt says "tears.  Of course" and walks out of the room.  Cut to everyone in the room as she tells everyone the whole damn story and how she solved the crime and found the killer, someone nobody suspected, by comparing cells left by tears.  Then we end the episode with some bit of personal growth between her and her daughter.  Then I threw up.
     I would like to give the show a little bit of credit for making the cases a little bit interesting.  Or course, it's only episode two and I imagine the cases are just going to get weirder and weirder so they can keep topping each other.  Plus to make the episode last 44 minutes there has to be plenty of misdirection which often results in a surprise dues ex machina type confession.  It's just not my cup of tea.
     Body of Proof is poorly written poorly executed trope of a medical-crime drama.  It'll probably get five seasons at least.

A Hint of Summer

     Yesterday in the district it was 83 degrees.  I didn't know what to do with myself.  I had stopped to buy shoes on my way home and had to ditch my hoodie while in the store.  I was tempted to wear the new shoes home, but the salesman cautioned against it because if I wore them outside, I couldn't return them. 
     When I got home I immediately took off my stuffy work clothes and put on my weekender gear, including flip flops.  If there were ever a time to wear flip flops, now was it.  I cinched up the trash bag and went outside.  It was glorious.  I plopped the trash bag into the trash can and then just stood on the stoop for a while.  I partly wanted to go for a walk but I hadn't grabbed my keys to take the trash out so there would be extra steps.  Neighbors a few doors down had taken full advantage and had dinner and martinis on their little patio area.  A man walked by and handed me a take out menu.
     I went back inside and it was refreshing.  I had been outside just long enough to get warm and the house was still full of cool air.  It would have been the perfect day to open the windows except I still have plastic on the windows and because of all the work I did putting it up, I wasn't ready to give in and rip it down yet.  Plus, maybe it'll keep the cool air in during the summer.  Or create a greenhouse effect.  I want to wait and find out. 
     Since I had just purchased new shoes I made the sound financial decision to stay in for dinner.  I was a little bit jealous of the neighbors with the tiny patio area but I wasn't willing to try to eat my chicken and rice outside.  I just kept going in and out about every 20 minutes.  I'd stand on the stoop until someone walked by and then I'd walk back in.  I'd acclimate to the temperature inside, put a food item in the oven or on the stove, and then head back to the stoop. 
     I was embracing the oddly nice day but not quite participating in it.  I kept my flip flops on to help drive it home.  After the sun went down I stayed indoors.  All night the news reports said "It was unusually warm today, but don't get used to it."  Ok weatherman, I won't get used to unusual weather.  Whatever.  It's kind of obvious that it's not going to keep being 83 degrees, but they have to set it up somehow.
     This morning when I woke up it was 42, it was raining a whole bunch, a lot of people were without power, and the low tomorrow is 31.  I'm glad I wore my flip flops while I could.

The Morning, Forty Dollars, and Fuel

     It sucks that it cost Mary $40 for gas this morning. 

   First, it's a bummer to have to get gas in the morning.  If you realized you were low on fuel the night before, you can possibly schedule the time in but that requires a lot of fore thought.  In my experience, I would think about it on the way home and decide to stop in the morning.  But in the morning I would still hit snooze fifteen times and not know why I set the alarm so early.  Then I'd get in the car and see I needed gas.  The other part about fueling up in the morning is if the gas spills, you're stuck with that smell on you all day.  All damn day.  You walk in a room and someone says "do you smell gas?"  You have to explain it's you.  You launch into the entire morning fuel up story.  It's embarrassing.  
     Second, forty dollars is a lot to spend on fuel.  I don't know how big Mary's gas tank is, but I don't think it's a 40 gallon tank.  It's probably a 13 or 14 gallon tank from what I know about her car.  So using my crappy math skills, gas costs about $3.30 per gallon.  (That's assuming starting with a completely empty tank, which she probably didn't do.  So it's more.)  Is that average?  I don't know.  I haven't been driving for the last eight months or so therefore I am completely out of touch with how much gas cost. 
     Mary just confirmed the gas cost $3.99 per gallon which is a decent price for LA.  Another friend paid $4.15 yesterday.  That does seem high.  I remember a few (6) years ago when gas prices were making some pretty serious jumps.  I think it was the first time we ever saw them break $3 per gallon and they crept up towards $4.  Of course now, that seems like nothing, but that's not the point of this story.  At that time I was driving a full size Silverado truck.  I think it had a 25 gallon gas tank and got about 11 miles to the gallon.  I had friends with me when I had to fill up.  I had let it get pretty low so it was nearly a full tank fill up coming in at around $75 or so. 
     "How often do you have to fill up?"
     "Every day or two."
     I was kidding- it was about weekly, but still, it was a lot to fill it up.  At the same time, I grew really tired of the gas price conversation.  The only two things my mom wanted to talk about were the weather and gas prices.  It was maddening.  Gas prices were high everywhere and math never changed so the "it's $X amount per gallon and I have a Y gallon sized tank, so it cost $XY to fill up" conversations were just awful.
     I digress, this isn't about me, it's about Mary and the $40.  Apparently because of recent global events, gas prices have gone up again, kind of sharply.  So I can understanding needing to complain about the $40 when last week it was only $20 or $30.  On the other hand, I have no idea how much Mary normally pays for gas.  You know what?  Paying for gas just sucks.  Especially in the morning.

     It sucks that Mary had to pay $40 for gas this morning.  

I Didn't Write a Post Today

     April Fool's! 

   When I was a kid, I used April Fool's as the day to just tell a bunch of lies.  My mom would ask something pretty innocuous,  I would give some bullshit answer and then yell "April Fool's!"  I thought it was hilarious.  Since I was the youngest of three, I wasn't good at pulling pranks but I was often the target.  This wasn't necessarily exclusive to April 1st. 
    As Mary could tell you I like the pranks that come with April Fool's but I do not like to be scared.  I don't like it if you wait in the shower until I come in and then jump out at me yelling "boo!"  That will make me scream and punch and possibly wet myself.  And then I will become very angry.  That's not a good April Fool's.  However, maybe you replace my Cheerios with Legos so when I pour my cereal building blocks come out.  Haha!  Good times!  Hopefully my Cheerios still exist somewhere. 
     I also prefer nondestructive pranks, just because I like to be good natured about them.  One year in a class room environment I was working in, we replaced the coffee carafe and all coffee related objects with goldfish.  The first person in was supposed to made coffee, but they couldn't because there was a goldfish swimming in the bowl!  Really, it was just an inconvenience, but someone got a pet out of it.
   When we were brainstorming ideas someone suggested removing the inside of the door handles.  We figured that might be a fire hazard.  While in the Navy I was able to pull off the ol' cellophane over the glass trick.  In case you don't know, you pull cellophane really tightly over a glass and trim the edges.  Done correctly you can't see it's there so then when someone tries to pour something in the glass it goes all over.   We used the same principle on the XO's toilet.  He retaliated by covering ours in aluminum foil.  Good times.