The Posture of Exploration

I recently attended a conference that began with Story Musgrave (astronaut, farmer, and mechanic on the Hubble telescope) showing us a picture from his childhood in the 1930’s. In it, he was a small boy, crouched down, looking at something in the grass. He called this pose “The Posture of Exploration” and said that creativity stems from a childhood spent crouched in this position.

Later that afternoon, Dayna Baumeister (biologist and biomimicry expert) began her speech. She had a slideshow, too, and was astonished to find that she had a similar slide in her deck as well. In it, her children are crouched near rocks in a creek, looking down at whatever treasure they’d discovered. She said she’d put that slide in to illustrate the point that we should all take time to observe and study nature for inspiration.

As soon as her slide appeared on the screen, duplicating Story’s earlier slide, I immediately wondered whether I had similar slides of my children. I went home that night and pulled out the old photo albums and stacks of snapshots shoved to the back of old drawers. Sure enough, I had pictures of my own children in this same Posture of Exploration pose. Which lead me to believe two things.

First, that this pose is universal among children.  I suppose it’s only natural that children explore the ground beneath them. They often observe things that adults don’t notice, perhaps because they are closer to their subjects, or maybe because they have a more appreciative manner while they’re young. I remember when spying a caterpillar, or ant hill, or shiny quartz rock excited me. The wonder of children captures that old cliché that it’s the little things in life that matter. And as Story and Dayna both pointed out, that curiosity and appreciation of nature can lead to greater results in life.

The second realization I had as I held those two photos of my children in my hands, is that taking pictures of our children in the Posture of Exploration pose is something of a universal truth, too. Why is it that parents grab their cameras and snap a picture of their children crouched in wonder? It’s not because the pictures turn out well. In fact, you can’t tell what the children are looking at in any of the pictures I mention or show here. What we’re capturing instead is the beauty of seeing our children observe the world around them. For a moment, we are as mesmerized with the natural world as our children are, because we are seeing it anew through their eyes.

Tom Swifties

My desk

In the 1960’s, a series of books featuring a character named Tom Swift were quite popular. These books included a writing style that incorporated clever adverb puns. These are known as “Tom Swifties.”

Some examples are: "'I lost my crutches,' said Tom lamely"; and "'I'll take the prisoner downstairs', said Tom condescendingly."

Here are a few Tom Swifties that I’ve concocted during idle moments at my desk:

 “Can I have another cookie?” she asked sweetly.

“I love it when my hair looks wind-blown,” she said breezily.

“You remind me of a witch,” she said wickedly.

“Repeat after me,” she said mockingly.

“I don’t care about nature,” he said woodenly.

“I finished making all the beds,” he said tiredly.

“The smell of that garbage is making me gag,” she said reflexively.

“I hate lemonade,” he said sourly.

“I can’t find the farm animals,” he said sheepishly.

John Comes Courting

Colonial Williamsburg

John has asked permission to court me and Father has consented. I am pleased. He'll join our family for church on Sunday and return to the house for dinner. My sister Clara predicts that we'll be married by June. I hope so. He comes from a fine family and lives in a stately home. I imagine living there as his wife and am filled with pleasure. I have long desired to be mistress of my own house. But listen to me; I'm racing ahead of myself. First we must begin with courting, then see how things progress.

Riding In The Rain

I feel a childlike thrill

Riding in the car when it rains;

Cozy and dry in the backseat

While it’s so deliciously wet outside.

I am quiet in the rain

Content to watch passing neon lights

Illuminate the blurry gray backdrop

And listen to the swish

Of tires against pavement,

The soothing lullaby of the

Wipe  -- per

Wipe  -- per

Metronome rhythm

Battle  the percussive raindrops on glass

I almost hate to reach my destination.

Eat More Vegetables!

The punchline is:  Does carrot cake count as a vegetable?

A New York Times article reported that vegetables are struggling to gain appeal and that baby carrots just tried to reposition themselves as junk food. A $25 million campaign was launched advertising baby carrots with heavy metal music, a phone app and a commercial showing a young man dodging baby-carrot bullets shot by an attractive woman in tight jeans.

I don’t know if that campaign will increase baby carrot sales or not. But here are some of my ideas to ramp up vegetable consumption:

Slap a “Go Green” label on broccoli. Promise consumers they’ll be saving the earth by eating vegetables that look like trees. Show commercial spots of environmental devastation and then crying children who won’t have an earth to call home if we don’t all start “going green” by eating broccoli.

Peas. Lots of nostalgia and fairy tale/nursery rhyme possibilities here. We can tout peas as the vegetables of royalty and show beautiful (and of course, sexy) young women only being able to sleep and wake up beautiful because they’ve eaten their peas and there are no more that could have inadvertently rolled under their mattresses.

Or we could make peas more kid-friendly and appetizing: “I eat my peas with honey; I’ve done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, but it keeps them on my knife.” Now – wouldn’t that be fun? Little lunch-sized pea and honey snack packs with plastic knives. Kids are gonna love ‘em!

The Red Hot Chile Peppers are a natural fit for promoting chili peppers.

And it should be easy enough to bring back “Popeye” cartoons to promote spinach. The hard task will be making the public think a pipe-smoking bald sailor with a smoker’s voice is cool and aspirational. I have no idea how they did it the first time.

In conclusion, launching vegetable campaigns ought to be as easy as sweet potato pie. All advertisers need to do is give the public something they can really sink their teeth into. Ha, ha. Sink their teeth into. Get it?

Cruise Confidential

Carnival Legend

Brian David Bruns, the author of Cruise Confidential: A Hit Below the Waterline: Where the Crew Lives, Eats, Wars, and Parties, is the only American to have made it through the 8-month contract working in Carnival cruise ship kitchens. In his book, he describes his initial training, in which he and I were both surprised to learn that the wait staff have to be trained on how to serve Americans.

His instructor tells the new team of foreigners: “Americans are the easiest people to serve in the world.”

He tells them that Americans on a cruise are interested in having fun and want fast service, not fine service. Very true. They are also told that Americans want to befriend the people waiting on them; they want to know their servers’ names, where they’re from, and like to have their pictures taken with them. Also very true. The author says that the Americans may or may not recognize the names of their countries, and probably couldn’t find them on a map. Fair enough. And that Americans only speak one language – English. I think that’s a fair statement, too.

The staff is told that “Americans want to know you are trying. They eat out almost every day there, so they want something different, something fun. Being in the dining room is not a special occasion for them the way it is for most of you.”

Guess that’s why they make the waiters dance….

How Superstitious Are You?

Marie Laveau's Tomb

Voodoo queen Marie Laveau's tomb is well-marked. People leave offerings at her gravesite, such as flowers, money, or other trinkets that they hope will appease her. Other people mark three XXX's on her tomb, thinking it will bring them luck. Maybe just a silly superstition, but couldn't that be said about most superstitions?

Superstitions have become commonplace in our culture.  In fact, some superstitions are such widely held beliefs that nearly everyone observes them.  For instance, the number 13 is commonly thought to be an unlucky number, so many hotels and tall buildings do not number the 13th floor.  They skip it and number the next floor 14.

Here are some more unusual superstitions (taken from David Pickering's Dictionary of Superstitions) that aren't so well known:

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  If your ear tingles, somewhere someone is talking about you.  If your right ear tingles, something good is being said; if it's the left, malicious gossip is the talk.

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  Putting a hat on backwards means you'll suffer bad luck.  It can only be reversed by going out and buying a new hat that day.

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  If a spider drops down from the ceiling onto your face, it's supposed to be lucky!  And if it runs across your clothes, it's a promise of new clothes.

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  Anyone who sees an ambulance should hold their breath and pinch their nose until the ambulance is out of sight.

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  Anyone who bites their tongue may be suspected of telling lies.