Date night
Thanks to my in-laws, who provide top-notch free babysitting, Joel and I get to have a date tonight. Sadly we don't make use of this option nearly as often as we should. In the past few months, we've realized how couple time isn't a luxury but a necessity. Especially going through the emotional wringer of infertility yet again, we've needed to give extra diligence to caring for our marriage.
I'm excited about tonight's free concert at our church featuring some superb cellists and a young vocalist who is destined to go far in the opera world. The program is titled "Three Cellists + Five More!" (pdf) and will include Villas-Lobos' work for eight cellos and soprano. Our choir director has been raving about the concert for weeks now. How nice it will be to get spiffed up and have some quality grown up time.
But for now, it's time to bundle up my daughter in the scarf I just finished knitting for her and play in the fresh-fallen snow.
2.18.2005
alphabetically speaking
alphabetically speaking
Now that I'm beginning to teach the rudiments of reading--letters and phonemes--to my daughter, I'm realizing more and more what a truly perplexing language English is.
For starters, I think that simplifying our alphabet would be a good start in making it easier to learn. A number of letters could feasibly be eliminated altogether.
One could easily argue that the letters Q and X are not needed. Other letter combinations make the same sounds. While "quick" might look more elegant (meaning, more Latinate), advertisers know that everyone understands "kwik"
well enough. Despite the X-ie moniker on this blog, I would not be sorry to become Lone Zylophone who eschews zenophobes. And what an honor for the fine German Eck family if hospitals everywhere touted their Eck's-ray machines!
Take the "k" sound. Do we really need 2 letters, C and K, to play this function? I think we could happily give up one of the two. My preference would be to eliminate K, because C is useful in consonant combinations like CH that K cannot really approximate. While we're keeping C, let's eliminate its S-like properties and let S carry its own load for a change.
The question is whether the language is ready for cwic changes and ecstreme new ways of spelling. Before the advent of dictionaries (thanks cousin Noah), English was one of the most flexible languages, adept at incorporating any new words it encountered. Unfortunately, it has never looked back to reevaluate how to enable its most ancient components to live harmoniously with new additions. Thus, we have some incredibly weird spellings hanging around. We've got Viking words like knight and knife, but no longer pronounce the initial K. Could the spelling not better reflect contemporary pronunciation? Latinate and Germanic dialects have been forced to intermarry, with no thought to making them a new family with consistent spelling rules.
As 1337 begins making inroads into our language, it seems high time that linguists start working on a simplification scheme for our excesively complex tongue.
Now that I'm beginning to teach the rudiments of reading--letters and phonemes--to my daughter, I'm realizing more and more what a truly perplexing language English is.
For starters, I think that simplifying our alphabet would be a good start in making it easier to learn. A number of letters could feasibly be eliminated altogether.
One could easily argue that the letters Q and X are not needed. Other letter combinations make the same sounds. While "quick" might look more elegant (meaning, more Latinate), advertisers know that everyone understands "kwik"
well enough. Despite the X-ie moniker on this blog, I would not be sorry to become Lone Zylophone who eschews zenophobes. And what an honor for the fine German Eck family if hospitals everywhere touted their Eck's-ray machines!
Take the "k" sound. Do we really need 2 letters, C and K, to play this function? I think we could happily give up one of the two. My preference would be to eliminate K, because C is useful in consonant combinations like CH that K cannot really approximate. While we're keeping C, let's eliminate its S-like properties and let S carry its own load for a change.
The question is whether the language is ready for cwic changes and ecstreme new ways of spelling. Before the advent of dictionaries (thanks cousin Noah), English was one of the most flexible languages, adept at incorporating any new words it encountered. Unfortunately, it has never looked back to reevaluate how to enable its most ancient components to live harmoniously with new additions. Thus, we have some incredibly weird spellings hanging around. We've got Viking words like knight and knife, but no longer pronounce the initial K. Could the spelling not better reflect contemporary pronunciation? Latinate and Germanic dialects have been forced to intermarry, with no thought to making them a new family with consistent spelling rules.
As 1337 begins making inroads into our language, it seems high time that linguists start working on a simplification scheme for our excesively complex tongue.
2.17.2005
2.09.2005
A good sort
Following Valerie's lead and lacking anything interesting to blog about, I tried the latest Hogwart's sorting hat quiz. I didn't have to cheat to get the house I wanted!
I always thought Ravenclaw sounded cool, and I'm most comfortable around people of the nerdy smart variety. Perhaps this is the appeal of Ravenclaw: nerds of a feather flock together to feel slightly better about their lack of cool and leather. (Anyone who can come up with a better rhyme, please do so. (-:)
Following Valerie's lead and lacking anything interesting to blog about, I tried the latest Hogwart's sorting hat quiz. I didn't have to cheat to get the house I wanted!
I'm from Ravenclaw!
Hogwart's Sorting Hat Quiz
made by The Genki Gang
I always thought Ravenclaw sounded cool, and I'm most comfortable around people of the nerdy smart variety. Perhaps this is the appeal of Ravenclaw: nerds of a feather flock together to feel slightly better about their lack of cool and leather. (Anyone who can come up with a better rhyme, please do so. (-:)
2.05.2005
Chillin'
We saw this cute guy lolling happily in the remains of our rapidly melting snow while visiting the Philadelphia Zoo this morning. When the forecast was for mid-50s temperatures, we decided to take advantage of the relative balminess and our membership pass to have a little fun family time. It felt especially deserved after our attempts to have family fun time the previous evening fell pretty flat (see Joel's blog for details).
We saw this cute guy lolling happily in the remains of our rapidly melting snow while visiting the Philadelphia Zoo this morning. When the forecast was for mid-50s temperatures, we decided to take advantage of the relative balminess and our membership pass to have a little fun family time. It felt especially deserved after our attempts to have family fun time the previous evening fell pretty flat (see Joel's blog for details).
2.04.2005
Twenty five years of laundry
I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud of the fact that I have been practicing the fine art of laundering for 25 years. My mother went back to work when I was 10 and began training me hard to be the domestic queen I am today. She practiced that old school of parenting in which it was essential for children to not grow up helpless, but be able to function as adults before reaching college age.
I took over all responsibility for the family laundry at age 11. With adequate training, this really is a pretty easy chore, even for a preteen (and anyone else at least as smart as a 5th grader, such as spoiled husbands). Not that I didn't have a few mishaps in the beginning--a wool sweater wound up toddler sized, I had occassional dripped bleach and a sneaky black sock once turned a load of whites gray.
Rather than wax nostalgic about washing peasant dresses and terry cloth shirts, I thought I'd celebrate this anniversary year by sharing some of my best laundry tips.
Best time savers
+ Don't handwash hoisery. Invest in some mesh lingerie bags (try Target or Walmart). Stick the hose in the bag and wash with your regular laundry. Wash light colors in warm and darks in cold. Hang to dry on a drying rack or on a plastic hanger.
+ Most "handwash" sweaters can be washed on delicate cycle in the machine, if they are colorfast (dye does not bleed when you get a small section wet and squeeze it). Turn the sweater inside out (to prevent friction pills) and wash in a large lingerie bag or pillowcase tied closed. Wool items seem to shrink no matter how you wash them, so use the machine, but be sure to reshape the item as it drip dries. (Personally, I save time by having wool sweaters bulk dry cleaned by the pound.)
+ Items that aren't colorfast must be handwashed, but forget about squeezing or wringing. After washing and rinsing in the sink, put the lone wet item in the machine and run it through the spin cycle.
+ If you have some consistent types of stains (baby spit up, toddler food drips, grungy socks) you can save time by soaking big vats of stained stuff for 8 to 24 hours in oxyclean or borax or bleach instead of pretreating individual stains.
+ Items labeled "drip dry" or "lay flat to dry" can be helped along by running through a second spin cycle and/or drying on low heat in the dryer for just a few minutes (too hot or too long will cause shrinkage). Caveat: never put wool in the dryer.
+ Speed drying times by mixing the weights of fabrics in the load. A load of all towels, for example, dries far slower than towels mixed with sheets and Tshirts.
+ Unless you have run out of clean clothes, wait until you have full loads before washing. You just waste time and money running the machine half full twice as often.
...stay tuned for more tips in this continuing series.
I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud of the fact that I have been practicing the fine art of laundering for 25 years. My mother went back to work when I was 10 and began training me hard to be the domestic queen I am today. She practiced that old school of parenting in which it was essential for children to not grow up helpless, but be able to function as adults before reaching college age.
I took over all responsibility for the family laundry at age 11. With adequate training, this really is a pretty easy chore, even for a preteen (and anyone else at least as smart as a 5th grader, such as spoiled husbands). Not that I didn't have a few mishaps in the beginning--a wool sweater wound up toddler sized, I had occassional dripped bleach and a sneaky black sock once turned a load of whites gray.
Rather than wax nostalgic about washing peasant dresses and terry cloth shirts, I thought I'd celebrate this anniversary year by sharing some of my best laundry tips.
Best time savers
+ Don't handwash hoisery. Invest in some mesh lingerie bags (try Target or Walmart). Stick the hose in the bag and wash with your regular laundry. Wash light colors in warm and darks in cold. Hang to dry on a drying rack or on a plastic hanger.
+ Most "handwash" sweaters can be washed on delicate cycle in the machine, if they are colorfast (dye does not bleed when you get a small section wet and squeeze it). Turn the sweater inside out (to prevent friction pills) and wash in a large lingerie bag or pillowcase tied closed. Wool items seem to shrink no matter how you wash them, so use the machine, but be sure to reshape the item as it drip dries. (Personally, I save time by having wool sweaters bulk dry cleaned by the pound.)
+ Items that aren't colorfast must be handwashed, but forget about squeezing or wringing. After washing and rinsing in the sink, put the lone wet item in the machine and run it through the spin cycle.
+ If you have some consistent types of stains (baby spit up, toddler food drips, grungy socks) you can save time by soaking big vats of stained stuff for 8 to 24 hours in oxyclean or borax or bleach instead of pretreating individual stains.
+ Items labeled "drip dry" or "lay flat to dry" can be helped along by running through a second spin cycle and/or drying on low heat in the dryer for just a few minutes (too hot or too long will cause shrinkage). Caveat: never put wool in the dryer.
+ Speed drying times by mixing the weights of fabrics in the load. A load of all towels, for example, dries far slower than towels mixed with sheets and Tshirts.
+ Unless you have run out of clean clothes, wait until you have full loads before washing. You just waste time and money running the machine half full twice as often.
...stay tuned for more tips in this continuing series.
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