Butter Fries and a Solitary Swan

Yesterday, on what I'll call the first day of spring although some will argue that I'm a day off, Cuppa and I headed to Riverside Park for a junk food lunch. My back had cooped me up for a few days, but it was somewhat better, good enough to sit in the car anyway, so out we went. We have a great burger joint in town, a non-chain place. While it's a little pricier than the ubiquitous franchises, the food is better than the standard fare. Everything is made from fresh and not frozen, and both the burgers and fries are yummy.

Imagine my surprise, however, when the fellow beside me ordered large fries — with butter if you please ... or as he pleased. As I waited for our order to be filled, I scanned the board and realized for the first time, that butter was, indeed, an option. Yesiree, you can have fries with gravy or fries with butter or fries with both gravy and cheese curds (that's called poutine btw). I knew about the gravy and poutine, but butter on fries was and is totally new to me (on this, only my third visit ever). Sure enough, after they scooped the fries into the container, they poured melted butter over them, just as one would with popcorn. I can't imagine but chacun à son goût as they say in the province to the east.

Off we drove to the park as we often do although seldom with a deliciously greasy lunch in hand. The temperature hovered around freezing, but the sunshine made it quite balmy inside Harriet the Chariot. I gazed out and saw a splash of white way out there on the water. As I studied the spot, I came to realize that it was a swan: a solitary swan. I've never seen a swan around here before, but on the first day of spring there it was. I used a telephoto lens, so the picture isn't as clear as it might be, but I like the fact that I was able to frame both it and the Canada Goose between the tree trunks. I suspect that the goose was one who had wintered over. Some do that rather than go to the trouble flying south — silly things.

How odd: butter on fries and a swan on the river where there has never been one before, even in summer. Did you encounter any oddities on your first day of spring?

Memory Lane

Just the other night, I had a strange memory. I happened to get up and look out the window during a snowfall. The street behind us hadn't yet been plowed. This caused me to recall Mr Workman who worked at snow clearing for a nearby town where I used to teach. I remember his daughter saying how he'd be so anxious for it to snow, so they would call him into work.

The thing is, I don't know Mr Workman, and his daughter never told me that. It was my daughter who told me that Jodie had relayed that piece of information to her. Maybe I remembered it because I had once taught Jodie before Thesha ever know her. Thing is: why would I retain a useless bit of trivia like that — for about 15 years now?

Both you and I have heard that we only use 10% of our gray matter, but I have recently heard that it's not at all true, that our brains get quite full. They get so full that at a certain age the only way to learn new stuff is to forget old stuff. Maybe that isn't true either, but it was said by an expert/scientist, so I tend to give it some credence.

Question: if my brain is so darn full, why it would choose to hang onto that rather useless tidbit, especially in light of all of the things that I do forget?

That leads me to another memory prompted by reading State Street today. He remembers crying after bloodying a kid's nose. Of course, that brought a somewhat similar memory of my own to the surface. Well, it wouldn't be anyone else's memory would it?

Preston and I were arguing about something or other, and I guess we put our dukes up, and I smacked him in the jaw. That startled me so much that I turned and ran away. I guess if I hadn't, I would have had to fight some more, and I knew that I could handle him, and I didn't really want to do it.

I suppose that I am a pacifist at heart and was even then at the tender age of nine or ten.

Looking for the Bright Side

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

I'm pretty sure that I've used that song before. Maybe it was a different verse, however, and, anyway, it's so appropriate today that I insist on using it again, regardless.

You see, I'm in much discomfort. Just a few days after bragging to a neighbour about how wonderful my back has been for about a year or longer, it decided to go out. I hate it when that happens because I never know when it's going to come back, and it is really difficult to live without it. This morning, I am bound and determined to spend some time sitting at the computer, but even that is problematic because I can hardly tilt my head a fraction without sending spasms all the way down to my hips.

But I don't quite know what else to do with myself, so I'll force myself to sit here for a while. Yesterday, I read an Inspector Rebus mystery while trying to remain as immobile as possible. I have two more Rebus tomes on hand, and I'll get to them because there's not much else for me to do, but I don't feel up to another romp around the criminal underbelly of Edinburgh just yet.

I feel badly for Cuppa. It's her birthday week, and I am hardly fit to help her celebrate. Last night, we had planned to hear a female choir that is touring from Cornell University. Needless to say, we didn't. Fortunately, she has a good day planned without me. She's out to Tai Chi this morning, followed by lunch out for and with her fellow graduates from the beginner class. And she can go out to line dancing tonight while I assist Inspector Rebus in puzzling out (get it? rebus puzzle) another Scottish mystery.

When it rains it pours, however. Yesterday, I dragged my sore back to the doctor to see about my sore finger [sic] — the one that has plagued me since I took up the fiddle ... the fiddle upon which I must stop fiddling for now and perhaps forever. She has referred me to a plastic surgeon. Oh joy! How does that song go again?

In the Heat of the Night

I didn't exactly have a wonderful sleep last night. Night Heat Syndrome has been creeping its way back into my bedroom lately, but by last night the creeping was over, for it had arrived in full vigour. While I didn't sweat through as I have been sometimes known to do, I was mighty uncomfortable and spent much of the night sans covers. Just so you understand the significance of this, it's still winter here, and the house temperature probably went as low as about 16°C/61°F last night. That's not exactly a July heat wave, but I was boiling anyway.

It's my own %^&$ fault, for I've learned in the past that good eating habits reduce this syndrome almost to elimination. And I was being very good for January and most of February, but bad habits have been creeping in again. As we approach Easter, there's chocolate in the house, and I can't seem to resist grabbing a few when I pass the bowl. And we had the kids over for dinner last night which required white rolls, pudding with cream, and cookies. Of course, when I have cookies I tend to lose perspective. I had a few in the afternoon, a few more at supper, and another at bedtime. Not only that, but the hamburger-potato casserole that I made for dinner was not one of my light dishes. There were the potatoes themselves (don't forget they're pretty sugary), the milk, the cream and a lot of cheese. So, I really overdid it yesterday and paid the price last night.

I get too confident when I seem to beat the heat for a few months by controlling my wanton appetite. Then, I let loose and suffer for it. I've never heard of anyone else who suffers these heat symptoms, though. It never used to happen to me either; it's just something that has manifested itself in these later years. I didn't really know what caused it until I was eating very properly several years ago in an attempt to reduce my weight a bit. I began to notice that I was no longer suffering form night heat, but whenever I returned to my poor eating habits, the heat returned.

So, I must return to my healthier habits. They won't likely pay off immediately, but perhaps I'll notice an improvement within a few nights.

But why oh why, am I cursed with taste buds that crave all those goodies baddies? Why can't I be one of those who gets off on carrots? Hmmm?

It's a New Day

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday morning, although I was pleased to see the snow pulling back from the edges, there was still 6 to 8 inches of snow covering most of our back yard. After a nice day but without the help of rain, I was surprised to see that much of it was gone by evening. By this morning, even more was gone, and above is what it look liked by noon when it did begin to rain. That's quite a difference! It must have happened before in my life, but I can't remember noticing such a change within such short time span.

Further out back, on the other side of the street, there are fields belonging to the community and school. These fields were also covered with snow just yesterday.

Evan's Heel

Although this post dovetails fairly nicely with the last two, it's actually been vaguely in my thoughts for quite a while now. It's about Evan, who is a very nice and extremely talented guy. I admire Evan a lot although I might appear not to as I use him as a bit of a whipping boy for the purposes of this post. Actually, the post isn't really about Evan; I simply use him as an example of what I think is a universal truth: that there is a very fine line between our personality strengths and weaknesses.

I taught with Evan, was his department head for six years. He was actually my main competition for the job, but I got it, and, although he thought he was the better candidate, he never harboured a grudge against me. He did rather hold some animosity against the people who made the choice, I think, but never made it personal between the two of us.

Evan was my antithesis: an extrovert of huge proportions to my introvert. Unlike the easily tongue-tied me who almost needs to write things out before he speaks, Evan's brain actually engaged when he began to speak, and could he ever speak! It wasn't vacuous verbiage either; he knew a lot about a lot and seemed to remember almost everything that he read. He was able to weave such interesting and diverse threads into his lessons and, somehow, always get around to the point. I once told him that I could give him any topic on the first day of class and that he could start with that topic, weave it into the course material in some magical way and keep going for the whole school year.

And that was the problem!

He could, in point of fact, keep it going for the whole school year, and — he did! Yes, he did! Believe it or not, he talked or lectured almost every minute of every period for the whole course. It didn't matter whether he was teaching a non-academic, freshman high school class or an advanced, senior, academic group, for Evan had one lesson plan for each and every day — talk ... and talk.

Every day, every period, a group of students would walk into his room and would sit down for the 75 minute session. Evan would open his mouth and begin to speak. He would speak for 75 minutes. This, folks, was not the height of advanced and perspicacious, pedagogical approaches. Students, especially the younger ones, are known to have short attention spans. Supposedly, teachers should find a variety of activities to keep their young charges fresh and stimulated. But that didn't concern Evan.

You see, he thought he was great, that the kids loved him and hung on his every word. He never clued into the fact that most of them were gone for about 70 of the 75 minutes. An introvert would have been more sensitive and read the cues better, but not Evan.

Don't get me wrong. He was wonderfully interesting — to me! a mature adult, who frequently listened in amazement from the department office just off the back of Evan's classroom. I constantly admired his knowledge and his oratory. He was truly remarkable but out of touch with adolescent reality and, in effect, the exact opposite of what he thought he was. For he was not the great teacher that he supposed — far from it. He was smart and talented but not a good teacher, not for secondary school level anyway. His brain and abilities dwarfed mine, but in one unfortunate year when we had to share a class (take turns — weeks on and weeks off), one of our lesser-light students once confided to me that while Evan was a nice guy, he never learned anything when Evan was in charge.

My point isn't to slag Evan, and I would feel simply awful if he ever read this, which he wouldn't. No, my point is this: that every person and personality type has his or her strengths and weaknesses and that it can be quite a challenge to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Evan had a rare gift, but, in my opinion, he abused it, and it actually became his achillies heel. It's easy to do. In my case, my introversion gives me the gift of being fairly self-motivated, self-reliant, and competent, but, on the flip side, I tend to let myself become too isolated and independent.

I think there really is a fine edge between any trait being a strength or becoming a weakness. It's my guess that most us us cross back and forth over that line. Perhaps awareness can lead us to spend more time on the good side of the line than the bad. And if you ever read this, Evan, I respect and admire you, for you am what I ain't.

Introversion, Addendum

Just a few brief additional thoughts to yesterday's post.

It's interesting to delve into personality types, isn't it? I have actually requested that the library reserve a copy of Laney's The Introvert Advantage for me. I don't expect it to appear anytime soon, for I'm 40th in line, but there is more than one copy in circulation, so it might not be too long either.

One thing that I didn't mention in the previous post about introversion was that they claimed that this was something that is hard-wired into us. It has to do with the construction of the brain, as I understand it. I had always thought that these sorts of things had more to do with nurture than nature, but it seems that I was wrong. I would think it likely, however, that nurture could certainly modify one's degree of introversion — or any other personality trait for that matter.

When I ponder my days of teaching and how much I enjoyed teaching English, I can see how personality may have come into play. Whether you discuss Shakespeare or a novel or a poem, there is always room for interpretation and the sharing of thoughts and ideas. As an introvert, I was quite happy to hear what the kids thought of this or that, and, as most of them were extroverts (apparently), I'm sure that many of them were pleased with the opportunity to voice their opinions. My other subject, geography, was more of a tell it type of subject, so it was probably less of a natural fit for both teacher and many students.