Driver's Ed Required to Graduate

My sister's visiting our parents on her summer break from her doctoral program.  Parents are wonderful, because no matter how old and distinguished we become, they still remember having to wipe our asses and blow our noses. 

Yesterday she sent me this message:
Little Sister: i can't wait until i have my phd

  and then i can say "I HAVE MY PHD>I CAN BACK A CAR OUT OF A GARAGE"

Sounds like a plan!  As long as she's taken this course.
 

Air Horn Behavior Plan

In a bitter moment several years ago, I invented the air horn behavior plan* to address aggravating team meeting comments and other times that staff drop the ball.

Someone must have leaked it to xkcd.  And there went my research article.

Maybe I can figure out a way to fit it into the Methods section. 


*A replication of an earlier study in referee whistle techniques.

CashHack: fun in the recession

One benefit of marrying the love child of Punky Brewster and Lucille Ball is the high frequency of hilarious events, some absurd, some merely entertaining, that occur in our home on a daily basis, for little to no money.

Having fun on little to no money is always important to us, even as we supposedly ease out of this recession, because what we do to make money ever threatens to take over our lives and fill them with worry, which is technically unbillable time, though I'm working on it.

We have developed a catalog of highly accessible blood-pressure lowering activities that require minimal preparation and no cost.  The quality of "you had to be there"ism reduces over time as repetition of said activities increases one's ability to embrace the funny and be less completely uptight.


1. Fake French
Living in a (nominally) bilingual nation offers many opportunities to sound out les signage francophone using les phonetics anglaise.  As past students of American high school French, we of course are fluent in a) the names of fruits and vegetables (pamplemousse, mon petit?) and b) specific statements for specific circumstances, such as a traffic jam, flat tire, and public demonstration.  We feel at liberty to make up the rest.

2. Radio roulette
You know this one:  on long drives, you put the radio on scan and try to name the artist before the other passengers.  For some reason in our car you have to add "my nickel!" to the end of your play.  I think we copied this from my cousin, but any logic behind it completely eludes us now.

(We just invented another car game while sitting in an hour+ border line-up over the long weekend.  It started as a variation on the geography game where you name a place that starts with the last letter of the previous place.  The rules were dumbed down considerably due to the lateness of the hour and our mind-numbing boredom remaining in the line until they consisted of the following:  name all the things you can think of in a category.  We chose "restaurant franchises."  It got us all the way home.)

3. The long con
More accurately termed "the mid-sized con," but who says that?  This typically involves a little planning but can arise spontaneously when inspired by materials at hand, such as chopsticks at the sushi restaurant that one party places in her ears while waiting for the second party to look up from her menu.  The joy in creating the long con lies in never knowing exactly how long it will take for the reveal.

As a word nerd, I enjoy changing Microsoft Office's autocorrect to swap my target's name or other commonly used information for something witty (you know, like "Hot Buns").  When I want to switch it up, I change my name in her phone contacts to "Your Amazing Wife."

The LWW most frequently operates in the realm of physical comedy.  Several Fridays ago I came home to find her and a friend dressed in pajamas and camel backs.  Super bonus points were earned when I returned an hour later than expected, and they gamely waited out the delay, being total pros.

White Spot, Ruby Tuesday's, TGI Friday's, Chili's, Wendy's, Arby's, Earl's, Cactus Club, Starbucks, Tim Horton's, Coldstone Creamery, Marble Slab, Shark Club -- challenge!  Not a franchise! -- Dairy Queen, Quizno's, Subway, Macaroni Grill, Outback Steakhouse, Sizzler, Pizza Hut, Boston Chicken, Boston Market, Boston Pizza, California Pizza Kitchen...

TimeHack: Chick nugget salad

I mentioned before that my claim to culinary fame within these four apartment walls is my ability to make a semi-balanced dinner in fifteen minutes or less.  The best weapon in my meal plan arsenal is the chick nugget salad, prepare-able in the time it takes the nuggets to bake.

Chick nugget salad requires one treat ingredient.  We (I -- the LWW would eat fake meats daily if the fridge permitted) try not to eat too many overly prepared foods, but we still manage to go through two or three packages of fake nuggets per month.  It's a treat, and we love it, and as they say back home, we deserve.

To make: 
1. Put your nuggets in the oven as the package directs.  You can risk the microwave on this one, but I've never had that result in anything other than a soggy, unevenly cooked, albeit quicker version of what you could have made in the oven.  Kick the heat up or turn on the broiler if you really need to save time. 

2. Wash and chop lettuce, distributing into bowls.  My mother hosed me throughout childhood and made me rip individual lettuce leaves into bite-sized pieces.  I'm sure we could argue that the irregular edges provide more surface area for dressing, but the palate on this uneducated rube doesn't notice a difference.  Ditto the whole make-it-in-one-bowl, serve-in-others concept.  Just divide as you go, it's faster on prep and clean up and you don't risk giving one person dressed lettuce and the other all the goodies from the bottom of the bowl.

3. Chop all other ingredients that could reasonably go in the salad.  I am a big fan of fruit in salad, so apples and red onion are my go-tos at this point.  I might tolerate a cucumber, though really not my fave.  Nuts can be fun.  (Go ahead, quote me.)  I would forgo watery items like tomatoes, as I haven't found they hold up to the more pungent ingredients in this spicy, salty, sour, sweet dish.  But you do what you want.

4. Make dressing.  Again, I have few rules about what "should" get included in a dressing.  I (and the body of culinary knowledge) recommend that it contain an acid, a sweet, an oil, and something to make it exciting.  For example, cider vinegar, maple syrup, olive oil, and dijon mustard.  Or balsamic, raspberry jam, grapeseed oil, and hummus.  (Ooh, sexy, right?)  Salt, pepper, and chili sauce (every meal's friend) to taste.  Mix it in a jar to make shaking easier and store excess, or, if seriously pressed for time, throw everything right on the salads and blend in the bowl.  You really can do this without hurting your results.

5. Nuggets out of oven, chop, and serve.  Soak up any extra flavor (i.e., apple and onion juice) left on your board by chopping the hot nuggets wherever you did the other ingredients.

TV Night Considerations:
This whole process is reliably over and done with before the first commercial break, or, for multitaskers, you can prep everything at one commercial break and assemble and serve at the next.  Sweet juice. 

To accommodate both limited counter space and a loyal partner/sous chef who likes to participate, chopping and bartending* should happen on one side of the kitchen and oven and dressing prep on the other.  This prevents busy, tired, hungry people from crossing the kitchen with knives.

We eat this salad at least twice a week and can usually get 2.5-3 family meals out of a bag of nuggets.  Other proteins (tempeh, tofu, chickpeas) are okay in a pinch, when the organic grocery is out of nuggets or we're in a fit of budget-consciousness (beans are included in the original recipe from The Great Depression).  Be careful with your tempehs, some varieties are as flavorful as packing peanuts and just will not be coaxed out of it, no matter the marinade. 

I'm no enemy of slow food (especially when cooked by someone else), and I do get a big feeling of accomplishment from completing a recipe that requires twenty-five ingredients, three stages, two appliances, and four hours.  That's on a rainy Sunday when the MTV line-up has already looped from the morning.  And I get just as much sense of achievement from creating something quick and tasty that won't leave anyone feeling like the morning after leaving the party with that loser you'll need three more months to get over.

Cheers, dears!

*We also delineated the important role of "atmosphere" in dinner prep.

Reason #147 to read fantasy novels

"Dwarfs are very argumentative, sir.  Of course, many wouldn't agree."

Cake Bess

In an effort to spend more time doing activities that feel good (as opposed to feel bad but make money, which gets a lot of my time these days), I purchased a new cookbook, breaking a long-time rule about not buying cookbooks because I never use them.  At our house, I am the weekday chef, the one who can make a more-or-less balanced dinner in 15 minutes or less.  Cookbooks are the LWW's domain, since she has the patience and obedience to put up with ingredients like arrowroot powder, the world's least measurable substance.  I am too cheap and oppositional to follow a recipe to the letter, unwilling to buy things like coconut extract, which comes in handy about once a decade.  But I digress.

This weekend I got my hands on a book that I have secretly coveted for a while, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (pictured below) to honor the LWW's return from Nerdtastic Annual ABA Conference, San Antonio, TX.  I chose Banana Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Buttercream frosting as the inaugural recipe, knowing her love all things fruity, even though I tend to think fruit in a desert is a waste of space. 

You may judge the results for yourself.

Pre-icing.  Isa tells you to stir melted preserves and chocolate bits into the top of each cupcake before baking, a classy touch.  Makes the final product taste deliciously like a banana pb&j.

Welcome home, babe!

(One final note, though I am on the fence about including this photo, since I kind of think the unsprinkled tops look like cow pies -- there's no hiding the color of peanut butter icing.  My -- and maybe your -- cheap trick for icing is to fill a ziplock with the stuff and snip off the end.  Pow, instant pastry bag!  Shine up the old brown shoes, etc.)

My Sister the Reader

Happy Friday!

Babies

Shifty-eyed Blog

Without a doubt, my wife is my best friend, but my mother is my other best friend.  She's been in town twelve hours.

She dropped this gem at breakfast:  "Two things I don't trust are blogs and journals."  To which I replied "Jewels?"  I mean, I guess they're a little suspicious, sure -- oh, "journals."  Duly noted.

Last year she tried to convince me that debit cards are a scam by the banks.

Parents Are People.

To Do List

How does a person keep up with Huffingtonpost.com?  300+ posts since this morning.  We might have to break up.  I'm just not ready for this kind of commitment.

Super-ego

My mother flies into town this evening, and I am so excited to see her.  We will take long walks along the beach, browse for used books and furniture, and linger in the unique and numerous coffee shops for which the city is famous.  And so far today I have swept (hall, living room, office, bedroom, bathroom), dusted (living room, bathroom, office, kitchen), and scrubbed (tub, toilet, sink).

To put this in context: my mother majored in home economics as a college student, and my mother is famous in my marriage for casually commenting, "you girls don't like to clean."

Therefore I scoop the hair out of the drain, wipe mystery grime off the moldings, and otherwise clean the apartment within an inch of its dust and soap-scum ridden life (conscious that most of it was last cleaned before her last visit).  I ponder the new crop of tumbleweeds that catch on the electrical cords and the sticky things that help chairs slide on the floor.  Some of it is hair, and I can even discern whose, but how come this self-attracting fluff?  Maybe it's the stuff that used to be where there are now holes in other things.  A new definition of antimatter.  Chores, like car rides, are so good for philosophy.  I'm sure Newton did plenty of both.

In my labors, and to avoid worrying that I am fanning the smoldering fire of my perfectionism, I tell myself that a good host anticipates a guest's needs and provides an environment that makes them feel comfortable.  Furthermore, this is an important exercise in perspective-taking.  I am a considerate, empathetic daughter who is comfortable in herself and above all, very grown up.  I put the broom in the hall closet, envisioning my mother next to me and spying each exposed grain of sand and wisp of dust in the shadows. 

When I imagine an omniscient mother, it is easy for me to understand Western religion.  There's an appeal to having a wondrous and terrible overseer, when the alternative is only you.

Update:  within hours of arrival

My other car is a dragon.

One day I will write the post "why I read fantasy" (or maybe I'll start simply with a bullet list).  Suffice it to say, there were times in my life when harpies, goblins, and tough little pull-herself-up-by-her-bootstraps princesses were just as real to me as Brownie leaders, lunch ladies, and the office of the registrar.

As this school year draws to a close, the number of families clamoring for diagnostic reports exceeds that which I can hold in my head, and I've rediscovered Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern.  I first read these books by checking them out of the high school library, but I enjoy them just as much now, if not more so, as a quasi-adult who actually reads the subplots concerning grown-up characters in between the major developments in the YA love story.  At least most of the time.  And when I skip ahead to the good parts, I almost always go back and read what I've skipped.

When I was a teenager, one of my Christmas gifts was The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, containing, among other things, a recipe for bubbly pies that I never got around to baking.  But maybe this weekend is the time.  Happily, my fellow nerds have posted several recipes (most regrettably restricted to "Terran blueberries") across the interweb.  Berries have been half price for a few weeks  now.  And it sure beats report-writing.

Skinny Pants

In general, I feel as friendly towards "today's" clothes fashions as my father does towards today's music (read: not friendly at all, Limp Bizkit/triangle fringe scarf was the last straw).  However, I (Dr. Stylez, PhD) am tickled by the emergence of stretch pants (or, as we called them in my house growing up, "skinny pants") as a real and true thing people wear outside their homes.

As a kid shaped like a ravioli on two pieces of spaghetti, I insisted on soft fabrics and elastic waistbands.  I also avoided sports of all kinds, learned to jump rope in fourth grade, brought a selection of novels to Field Day, and earned the famous report card comment "needs to play more with others" -- all stories for another time.

At any rate, corduroy, khaki, or, heaven forbid, jeans had no place in my childhood wardrobe, at least until as a preteen I started caring more about what other kids thought than my own comfort.  25 years, yoga, vegetarian diet, and an arguable waist later, and getting dressed on non-office "jeans days" feels like stepping into a dark-washed field trip to Adventureland.   And now the skinny pant has become a respected wardrobe element (you've come a long way, baby).  Not exactly business casual perhaps (though what, as we have established, do I know?), but widely regarded as "cool" for weekends, extending to a sub-class of the skinny pant that disguises itself as jeans.  Which begs the question, how many fashion editors and trend setters are skinny ravioli all growed up?

Imagine Her

My sister, whose amazingness is as certain as her fate to appear in future "blugs," lives on the post-colonial East Coast (East Coast!) of our fair continent.  She runs marathons and writes important articles about very tiny invisible fossils shaped like pasta.  (Seriously, this worries me a little bit.  When she has to speak at conferences, she has a first grade class paint her a new diorama.)  Nevertheless, my sister is considerate, creative, very pretty, and Very Smart.  And if one day the teeny tiny invisible fossils turn out to be pretend, well, how could she have known?

Anyway, she and her significant other just bought a boat!  (A boat!)  It's not even invisible!  More importantly, four life jackets go with it.  Hooray summer vacation!

Fingers crossed we won't turn into a starchy glob out on the water.

Outside the Touch of Time

It's hard to believe that the second half of my sibling workshop is tonight (scheduled in November).  Whew, where does the time go?  By the time I finish this post I'll be 45 years old.

In the five or so years that I've been (occasionally) researching and presenting on sibling issues, I've learned some important things:

1. The sibling relationship is the longest-lasting close relationship in life.
2. Conflicts (compromises, communication) with siblings provide important preparation for our adult relationships.
3. Significant pieces of our identities develop in the context of the sibling relationship.
4. Most typically-developing siblings of kids with autism see themselves as more similar than different from their brother or sister with special needs.

(Those interested in more information about the importance of the sibling relationship could certainly start here.  For ideas and advice on parenting siblings, try here.)


In preparation for my talk, I'm reading John Gottman's Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, which one could describe (and he sort of does) as the perfect union of science and parenting tips.  And stopping to give thanks for my parents (both oldest siblings) and my sister, who enabled the practice of my communication skills until they were nearly functional.


Sometimes I sing this at the office, just to keep things real (and groovy).  It's amazing how much we accomplish in therapy (or our own intimate relationships) when we start with permission to feel.

In other news, it's my sister's 28th birthday next week.  Happy Birthday, Dooze!

Like thinking about a thought that you've already thought.

In the autism world, rumination means the same thing that it does in the farm world.  So when I tell my colleagues that I've been thinking something over, their first reaction is usually a wince.

There is limited room for metaphor, so inimical to graphing, in ABA.

Rookie mistake.

Now, if I could just get this cognition out of my back teeth.

Letters Not Worth Sending, Part I.

Dear That Bastard,

I was so happy to see on Facebook that you and whatshername had such a lovely time touring that place I've always wanted to visit on your recent honeymoon.  I can see you're in love!  And I'm really happy for you that you've finally got over your pathological penny-pinching enough to invest in quality life experiences like a trip that doesn't involve staying with your parents.  The photos were so sweet.  I hope you got that sunburn treated, though.  Looks ouchy.

I've attached a few photos of my own, from our recent trek through Brazil.  You'll notice that bikini is the one we bought at Old Navy years ago.  How time flies.  I finally got up the courage to wear it, since I had that intestinal infection in March and lost a little weight (fifteen pounds, wow!).  Sorry I was such an insecure little whiner the whole time we were together -- whoops!  There I go again, and after I swore I'd get through this email without mentioning it!

I really hope we cross paths this Christmas; it would be so nice to grab a cup of coffee and catch up.  I know [my new partner's name] would love it.  It'd be refreshing to hear news from you rather than reading your status update, blog, and twitter feed.

Seriously, I'm so pleased to see you've found well-deserved happiness with someone who completes you as much as [my new partner's name] does me.  I'm sure it will be awhile before you find time to reply, so in the meantime, know that I think about you, with love, still.  Nothing can stop me from being your biggest fan.

xoxo,

Totally Over You

Girls on Wheels

My favorite part is when the lead jammer calls the jam.  It's so sassy.

Terminal City Rollergirls