What It's Like To Be A Teacher in 2021.

Chris Bernholdt, in a still grabbed
from his TikTok account.

 I got this from my friend Chris Bernholdt,  (DadnCharge) who is an art teacher in Pennsylvania and a well known Dad Blogger and influencer.

I love the sentiments, and all of the conflicting information and demands on teachers (and it's absolutely similar for parents as well!  And students-- well fuggetaboudit!)

Chris says on his post that he got it from a friend, so I have no idea who really wrote it, but it's brilliant.

If you know who wrote it, I'd like to give them proper credit. 
Let me know in the comments who is the author, and I will praise them and point to them with awe.

I re-formatted it a little.  

What it is like to be a teacher in 2021

**Shared from a friend**

Me: Ok class, today...

Student: This is stupid. I'd rather be playing video games.

Office: *ring* Send (student) to the office.

Voicemail: My kid told me that YOU...

Email: We need you to sub on your prep.

Teacher coaches: Students are experiencing an all time level of trauma. Form relationships with all students and make connections every day.

SRSS: Make sure to incorporate ELA and math into your lesson plan daily, so we can boost our scores for data.

IEP: Implement these modifications and accommodations for these students every hour. Document it.

504: You are legally bound to adhering to these accommodations for these students. Document it.

Pinterest: Every teacher in the universe has a cooler and craftier idea and classroom than you.

Facebook: Omg. Did you hear about what happened in *insert teacher here* class?! Don't they even watch them? It's their job! How did (s)he miss that?! Yeah, and I heard...

Class roster: 30+ kids every hour, 6 times per day.

Student Services: You have 4 homeless students. You need to provide the following daily.

Student Medical alert: These students will die if you don't monitor these medical issues closely

.

Professional Development: We're trying something new this year even though we're not ready to roll it out and there's no funding for it. Be sure to document that you are doing it correctly.

Media: Your classroom is going to get shot up any minute.

Surprise observation: Be sure goals are set, reports are finished, lesson plans are perfect, and that you hit the learning target and success criteria multiple times. We need documentation and evidence that you're doing this.

Standardized tests: You suck as a teacher. Also, your rating is based on this, but also, make sure students don't feel defined by their performance on these.

PBIS: Teach students the expectations in the hallway, cafeteria, classroom, and outside. Take students in the bathroom and reteach how to wipe, flush, and wash hands. Be sure to only reward positive behavior. Check in and check out with these specific students daily.

MTSS: We have 3 tiers of support. What about your gifted students, pull out students, intervention students? Why aren't you providing enough differentiation? You need to provide documentation.

Door: Keep me locked, so that students are safe. Yes you will be interrupted to open me 10x per hour.

Papers/Grading: Say good bye to your evenings and weekends.

Lesson plans: Are they aligned with school, state, U.S., and world wide standards? Be sure to document that.

The Powers That Be: What can we do to help?

Teachers: Please take something off our plate before adding something new.

The Powers that Be: Sorry, no can do. Btw, you also need to...

Tech Dept: We are working on correcting today's issue as quickly as we can.

English Language Learner: *crying, speaking a foreign language, feeling alone and scared*

The Powers that Be: Sorry, there's just not enough funding for those students.

Department Heads: I've been told we need to align all of our curriculum, assessments, and daily lesson plans. Be sure to document that.

Staff Memo: Be sure to attend the following meetings this week: staff, grade level, core subject, tech, school climate, school improvement.

Counselors: We saw 500 of the 900 students on our caseload, this month.

Social Worker: Yes, I filed that CPS report and the other one. Now we wait on the state to act.

Student: My step dad got arrested last night for beating up my mom.

Tornado Drill: Surprise! Make sure all students are safe. Now go back to teaching.

Fire Drill: Surprise! Make sure all students are safe. Now go back to teaching.

Internal Threat Drill: Surprise! Barricade your door and make sure all students are silent for 45 minutes. Go back to teaching.

External Threat drill: Surprise! Make sure student are silent and out of the funnel of potential bullet spray. Now go back to teaching.

Tutoring: Provided before school, after school, and during lunch.

Technology: Must be implemented into all lessons but also make sure to monitor all 30+ students at all times and make sure they're not doing anything inappropriate.

Data: You suck as a teacher.

Administrators: *literally being pulled in 20 directions at once, everyday, while fielding discipline, making multiple teacher observations, fielding staff, breaking up fights, keeping us safe, performing investigations, cooperating with police, meeting with students and parents, and attending all after school and extracurricular activities*

Employability grade: Be sure to document when students are tardy, not following directions, unprepared, and not collaborating well. Document this for all 175 students.

Academic Grade: Document all accommodations, modifications, retakes, and rationale for grades for each of your 175 students. No we will not provide district time for you to enter these into your grade book.

Special Ed State Dept: You must mainstream all students regardless of behavior, cognitive function, and/or potential violent episodes. Sorry, there's just not enough funding for

additonal support in your classroom.

State: Make sure you are highly qualified, but you must pay for all of your professional development, student loans, grad classess, conferences, hotel stay, food, travel, and substitute teachers out of pocket. And you need to update your certification. You'll need to pay for that too.

Bladder: You haven't peed in 7 hours, you're going to get another infection.

Heart: *racing*

Stomach: *in knots and anxiety coursing*

Brain: You're not enough. You'll never be enough.

Chest/Lungs: I can't breathe.

Eyes: *leaking tears*

Me: *smiles* (Tells self) Stop. Just suck it up. You're fine. You have 30+ students eyes on you right now. Do NOT let them down.

Society: F*ck respect for authority, including your teachers. Must be nice to get your summers off.

Parent of a student: You make a difference.

Student: I know I'm special and have value, because of you.

My own kids: Dad, why are you crying?

Me: *sets alarm for tomorrow to do it all over again*

The Donald Trump Passover

I wish I had written this.  Instead, I am sending it around and posting it in all of its apocryphal glory.

It's clearly not true, but it has truthiness written all over it.

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Donald Trump's Remarks at a Passover Seder
=============

Welcome to this very special dinner. Tonight is when Jews observe Passover, otherwise known as the Festival of Lights, the celebration of the Jewish New Year that started when the Hebrews left Egypt. Though I am not Jewish, I actually know more about Judaism than almost anyone. My daughter Ivanka’s in-laws, the Kushner’s, who are super-Jewish, told me that they are amazed at how much I know, that I even know more than their Rabbi, which is saying something.

To begin with, let’s all put on these little beanies, which are called “chutzpahs”, and are worn to remind the Jews that when they were slaves in Egypt, they couldn’t afford proper hats, not even brims on hats. Now, of course, they can afford hats and lots more, but no one really wears hats anymore, so it doesn’t matter. 

We eat tonight from a Cedar plate, which apparently in ancient times was made out of wood, from the famous Cedars of Lebanon. Today, of course, we eat off fine china, just like the incredibly gorgeous plate ware that you will find at all Trump hotels and resorts. And why do we have to call it china? Let’s give it a better name – like “America”.

On the Cedar plate are all sorts of strange things. There is a bone, to remind us that if God had not given us bones, we would just be flopping around like jellyfish. There is a bowl of salt water, and some greens you dip in the saltwater, to remind us that life is best when you have greens by salt water, just like the golf course at my fabulous Mar A Lago. There is some horseradish, but somehow there is no prime rib to put it on, which I don’t get. There is a hard-boiled egg, to remind us of the chickens that the Jews had to leave behind when they left Egypt. Which was really tough, because they couldn’t make chicken soup, which as you know is a basic part of the Jewish diet and kept the Jews healthy during their servitude in Egypt. 

The plate also has giant crackers called “matzah”. “Matzah”. Funny word. Anyway, God told the Jews they had to leave Egypt so fast they couldn’t take time to make proper bread, so all they could prepare were these big crackers, which was a problem, because once they were out in the desert bouncing around on their camels the crackers broke up into crumbs. There is also some chopped up apples and nuts mixed with wine that you can spread on your crackers, to remind you that the Jews were slaves and did not have any proper desserts like crème brulee or Key Lime pie, so had to settle for not so tasty apple and nut mush. 

Moses was the guy who worked with God to get the Jews out of Egypt. They say he was a Jew, but he was raised by Egyptians, and there was no birth certificate. There’s some cockamamie story about being put in basket and dropped in the river, where he was found by some Egyptian princess, but who would believe such a fairy tale? Where is the proof that Moses was a Jew? It’s fake news.

In any event, Moses goes to Pharaoh, and asks him to let the Jews leave Egypt. And Pharaoh is going to grant the request when God HARDENS HIS HEART! How unfair is that? Pharaoh – who otherwise seems to be a great, great guy, who kept unemployment low -- gets a bad rap, but it’s really GOD who is keeping the Jews in Egypt! And then the lamestream media goes and makes Pharaoh the villain and God the hero. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So God sends plagues to torment the Egyptians. Like pestilence and boils. Those I get. But frogs? Yeah, he sends frogs. What kind of plague is that? I’ll tell you this, we wouldn’t be sheltering at home right now if there were lots of frogs hopping around, would we? In the end, God kills all the first-born Egyptians, but the Jews are spared because they take hydroxychloroquine. So definitely, at that point, God is winning bigly. Also, it’s worth noting that the service involves washing hands at the table, to remind us that even back then the Jews knew that washing hands was important to avoid getting plagues.

After the tenth plague, the Jews are allowed to leave Egypt – which was huge -- but they get to the Red Sea, which they can’t get across because everyone knows Jews are lousy sailors. So Moses parts the Sea, and the Jews cross over, and on the way they gather food from the muddy bed of the Red Sea, in the form of a very terrible tasting fish called “gefilte” which we eat tonight to remind us of how lousy the food was that the Jews had to consume. At that point, just when the Jews think they have it made, Pharaoh changes his mind and comes after them, but God and Moses stop parting the sea and the Pharaoh’s army gets drowned, which is why the Arabs and the Israelis don’t like each other to this very day. The Jews then give thanks to God, who rewards them by letting them wander aimlessly through the desert for 40 years, corresponding to the 40 days of Lent when Catholics stop eating good food like the Jews were forced to do in the desert. 

Also, at this stage of the service, we now spin a top, called a dreidel, which has letters on each of its four sides standing for “a great miracle happened here” to remind us of the miracle of the sea parting. And let me just say, if Pharaoh had built himself a big, beautiful wall instead of relying on the Red Sea to keep people from crossing the border, the Jews would probably still be slaves in Egypt. 

On Passover, there are four sons. One evil, one simple, one wise, and one who doesn’t yet know how to ask. Sort of like Eric, Donald, Jr., Jared and Barron. They ask four questions. I won’t bother with that, because the questions are probably stupid and just asked to try and make me look bad.

You get to drink several glasses of wine tonight, but unfortunately, it’s some horrible kosher stuff that no one would drink if they didn’t have to do so for the holiday. And you have to leave a glass of wine for an invisible man to drink, who never comes, by the way, and the wine goes to waste.

We could also sing some songs. Or not. I haven’t decided yet, it could go either way. There’s one about a baby goat. And one about the invisible man. But believe me, they are not so great. 

There’s lots of praising God, and his mighty hand and outstretched arm, as if we didn’t all know that God is very strong and tough, like me. Very strong and tough. But do you see anyone praising my mighty hand and outstretched arm? Or the fire and fury I can unleash? No. So wrong. So wrong. 

Now we reach the end of the Passover service, and anyone who wants to can search for a broken piece of matzah I hid. And if you find it, I’ll give you a dollar, which is all that’s allowed, because even on a holiday you can’t get Jews to part with more than a dollar.

 Well, that’s Passover. Now let’s finish so we can order in a decent meal. Hallelujah!

Coronavirus, you suck!

Let's do a little hating on the CoronaVirus, shall we?  (And a little laughing)  We need laughing.

These editorial cartoons are culled from the pages of the internet

It seems like Coronavirus is disrupting everything- sports, school, work, etc.


I know it's making me and my wife very nervous.

I went out to the store today-- it took me three hours to go to two stores, and all the paper goods were gone.  Aldi had mostly empty shelves.-- I felt like I was in Russia.

 And listening to the President on the radio is NOT very re-assuring.  He does not seem to know what he's talking about, or is lying pretty regularly.

He seems to get everything completely incorrect and then say it's correct.

I do have to say that I've had some conspiracy theories that perhaps this is germ warfare on a grand scale that has gone amuck.  You know, a kind of Putin doomsday scenario.  I know it's probably not that, but because so much is unknown, that's the theory I keep coming back to.

With everything being cancelled, my wife and son and I are planning on spending some time at home pretending that everything is perfectly normal, (which it isn't)

Somebody asked me how was I doing.  "Well, there is a pandemic that is trying to wipe out my species.  But other than that, I feel pretty good."

Undoubtedly, Halloween will be cancelled this year.

I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to social distance when I vote next week.

I know I won't be socialism distancing  (But will probably vote for Biden.  If Warren were still in the race, she'd be my choice.)

When A Loved Pet Passes On

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a post that I never published.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I wrote it about a year ago, and it was ready to go, but apparently, I never found the right art for it, or was afraid to publish it due to the Reptile Rights Bureau, or perhaps I just plumb forgot about it.  I was cleaning out my draft posts when I discovered it. Mischelle Eggbert the Turtle The turtle is recently on my mind, as my son was forced to clean the turtle aquarium yesterday (on threat of no internet), and that meant that my wife and I were pressed into service to "help", and after a lot of hesitation, he announced (with crying and reluctance) that he has come to the decision that he wants to give up the turtle. Which gave me a sadness, not because I have a great love for this turtle, but I was hoping that my son would choose occasional inconvenience and a little bit of work in exchange for the things that you want in your life over giving up when the road has a slight bump or contains something you don't love doing.  So now I'm in the curious position of not wanting the turtle, but wanting him to want the turtle, and by being right about the turtle in the first place, I now feel like a failure as a parent.  By winning the turtle argument, I feel I have lost a parenting argument, as  I have not led him to make the proper decision (ie, the one I wanted him to make.)  And who is to say this isn't truly the right decision?  It's expedient, it's logical, and it agrees with my point in the first place. Alas, I will not dance on the turtle's grave, even if it is not yet dead.  (And PS, one year later, the goldfish liveth!) So here's the post, originally written in mid-February 2019. And if you know anybody who wants a turtle for the next 20 years, we are looking for a good home (unless my son changes his mind!)

February 2019

The death of the turtle, it seems, was greatly exaggerated.

A NOT SO TYPICAL MORNING

Our turtle/aquarium setup.

A week or so ago my son woke up as he normally does.  He was sound asleep, and I slowly sat him up, hugged him and whispered it's time to wake up.  After him pretending to be asleep for a bit, I stand him up and point him in the direction of the bathroom. He grumbles out of bed, lurches to the toilet, does his thing, washes his hands, and then slowly walks back to pick out his clothes for the day.

I have to stand with him during this period to make sure he doesn't relapse onto the bed.  Once his clothes are picked out,  and I am reasonably assured he is awake, I go to the kitchen to start making breakfast and lunch for him.  He lolls about a bit, slowly getting dressed, and before he comes to eat breakfast, he turns on the lights (heat and light lamp) for his turtle, Mischelle Eggbert, and feeds the turtle her typical turtle grub.

I was in the kitchen when I heard the shriek.    This is not typical behavior.

a mosaic portrait of the turtle.  Thanks Mr. Mondrian.

There's a moment while I wait to see if this is a false alarm.  He starts crying.  My wife (still in bed) runs in "What's the matter?" she asks.  I am still in the kitchen, making breakfast.  She's got this, I think. I assume that he has dropped something slightly heavy on himself, or stubbed his toe, or perhaps he has seen a spider.  I hear him crying.  "The turtle is dead." "Oh no!" my wife says. I drop what I am doing and come to his room.

I am not surprised.  I have been dreading this moment for a while.

Let me start by saying I never wanted this turtle.  In August my wife texted me from a trip to Chinatown with his cousins.  "AA really wants a turtle for his birthday, they are $10."  I text back immediately, "No way.  If he gets a turtle our life and marriage will come to an end." 

At least that's what I thought I wrote.

Here's what I actually wrote.

Which seemed pretty anti-turtle and super clear cut to me, but has some kind of implied acceptance of the turtle from the get-go. At least that's what my therapist says.  And to make a long story short, we ended up with a turtle, which started out about the size of a silver dollar, and has since grown to be the size of a bowl of cereal.  Did I mention that this turtle has a longer life expectancy than I do?  If I haven't, don't worry, I will.

A FISHY ASIDE

As I mention in the text:  we have a fish that he is supposed to take care of, and you can guess who has been keeping this fish alive.  The fish was won by my evil in-laws at a carnival about three years ago, and they gave us one even though I said No.  AA swore he'd take care of it, and we were guilted into accepting it.  (I wanted to leave it at the carnival, but was voted down as being cruel).

 Every one of my wife's siblings got a goldfish.  Want to bet how many of those goldfish are still alive?   If you guessed just ours, you would be right.  All of their goldfish died within 2 weeks.  Meanwhile, I have singlehandedly kept this fish alive for 3+ years.  This goldfish is surviving to spite me.  AA and my wife don't even look at it.

BACK TO THE TURTLE: 

Portrait of the artist as a young turtle

I knew that its care would devolve to me, and I didn't want that responsibility.  Cleaning the tank, feeding it, etc.  Not my cup of tea. And as I say in the text, he hasn't shown himself capable of caring for a fish.

I had a turtle when I was a kid, and it died an ignoble death of neglect when my mom said that I had to take care of it or else.  Which I did not.  (Alas poor Frodo, we knew you.)

Anyway, the turtle is now a fact of life in our house, much to my regret and disappointment.  It's still a sore point with me 6 months later, and I have brought it up during at least two arguments with my wife. 

 I am trying my best not to acknowledge it's existence, but it's difficult.  I estimate we've spent 100+ dollars getting the automatic feeder and the tank bubbler and the special food, and we recently got some fish that are supposed to clean the algae that appear in the tank because my son doesn't clean the tank often enough. (EDITOR'S NOTE:  Those fish all have died.  And perhaps we have an explanation of how the turtle grew so much!)

a 1970's influenced artistic rendering of the Turtle.

And guess who is the only person strong enough in our household to pump the water out of the tank, and then dump the tank when it is low enough?  Yeah, you guessed right.

So my son isn't cleaning the tank enough, and the auto-feeder is overloading the tank with food, and the water level keeps getting mysteriously low, and the filter of the aerator is getting dirtier and dirtier, and nothing gets done.  So I am sad and not surprised when he wakes up and finds it dead.

My wife is consoling him, and I am feeling bad about the turtle, and thinking oh my god, we have to get another turtle.  My wife goes in the other room, and I am in the room, sitting on his bed, talking about whether we should have a funeral for the turtle, and maybe bury it in the backyard, when AA sits bolt upright and says, "It's alive!"

Mischelle Eggbert under the water.

The Apparently, it was sleeping underwater, or just not moving, and he assumed it was dead.  Which it was decidedly not.  The news of the turtle's death was greatly exaggerated.

We tried to make this a learning opportunity, a moment of reform, a chance to reflect on his responsibilities, and I have to say there were 2-3 days when he was really good at caring for the turtle.  But that interest has since waned, and  I am waiting for the turtle to die.  (By the way, this turtle has a natural life expectancy that is currently longer than mine)

Also, he has started agitating for a dog.  He promises that he will care for it.  

My wife seems to be wavering, but I am holding strong. 

Mona Lisa in Braces, the Palatal Expander, and a Dental Emergency

Let me say this straight up-- I am not a dentist, nor do I play one on TV.  So a couple of nights ago, when my son suddenly cried out about 10 minutes after going to bed, "Something is in my mouth!" I was a little panicked.

THE GENETIC LOTTERY OF BRACES

Let me back up a little bit.  My son is in the laborious and painful process of having his mouth and palate expanded so that his next set of teeth can come in, and if all goes according to plan, somewhere around 2026  he will have perfect teeth and an All American smile, not a crooked British smile.  (which would be made more paradoxical by the fact that we are not British.  I apologize to Brits who read this, but let's face it-- your dental history reputation leaves much to be desired.)

Mona Lisa never had braces, if she did she'd have a
toothy smile and not be so enigmatic.

I never had braces-- my parents apparently decided that my smile was close enough to American that it would have to do.  My teeth aren't 100% straight, and I have a small overbite, but not enough for me to have endured the lasting physical and psychological pain that is braces.  And listen, smiling with your mouth closed is enigmatic, damned it!  Does the Mona Lisa show her teeth?  She does not.  It's probably because she didn't have braces either because she was afraid of the pain.  (Or they had not yet been invented.) 


The pain is probably not that bad, but I never went through it, so I don't really know.

My wife, on the other hand, did have braces, and my son's mouth apparently was inherited from that side of the family, so, the genetic lottery being what it is, he's in for braces.

If the Mona Lisa had braces.  (via Pinterest)

BOTTOM AND TOP EXPANDERS

The first step along the braces journey is to expand the space inside his mouth. He's had a bottom expander in for a while, which is a removable piece of plastic and metal that caused him great consternation for the first few days he had it, but now it causes him great delight as he plays with it, popping it on and off while doing complicated lingual gymnastics.  Every few days we were tightening it using a little plastic tool, and now we are tightening it once per week.

The top expander (otherwise known as the palate expander) is not removable.  It's glued in place, and designed to be turned every day, which means that just before bed, my son has to lie down and dislocate his jaw as   I (or my wife) shine a flashlight inside his mouth, stick a little tool into the center of the metal contraption at the roof of his mouth, and turn it a full turn (which is really a quarter turn.)  We have to do this every day!

This top expander was installed about 10 days ago, and I wasn't there when the orthodontist showed my wife exactly what to do.  I was at a funeral in Rhode Island.  The next day I came back, and my wife was at a nighttime meeting, and I was supposed to do it, so I looked it up on youtube, watched a video, and did it no problem!

Here's one of the three videos I watched before attempting the operation


"Wow!"I thought to myself.  "Maybe my superpower is dentistry!"

The next few days my wife was responsible for the turning, and then I went back out of town for a few days, and then I came home on a Sunday, and she left the next day to go to Florida to check in on her mom who had recently had surgery.  "No problem," I thought.  "I can turn this thing.  I've watched the video!"  I turned it on Monday without incident. On Tuesday, I turned it again without incident.  Well, until about 10 minutes later, when my son called out.

THE FEAR OF WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

Trying to look inside my son's mouth.
It's dark in there!

He came out into the living room and he spits out a hard piece of something that looked like a tooth, and there were two pieces.  I freaked out.  I immediately thought-- "Oh my god-- the video was wrong.  My superpower  is not dentistry, it's cranking that little lever inside his mouth, and I must have cranked it so hard that his tooth couldn't take it."  Followed by "These are small, maybe they are baby teeth!"  I have him open up his mouth, and right under the expander, his tooth seems jagged and sharp.  There's no blood.  He's complaining of pain, and I do the only thing I can do in these circumstances.

I call my wife.

Yes, I know she's in Florida, and she can't do anything.  But I wasn't at the meeting where they installed the appliance.  I didn't hear them give the "What to do in case of orthodontic emergency" speech that she did.  And I apparently don't know the power of my fingers, since I just crushed a piece of tooth using the power of my bare hands, I needed to know if I needed to take him to the hospital right now, call the orthodontist, or just wait until morning.

One of my son's favorite anime series features a character
with dental super powers!

We face-timed so that she could try to see in his mouth, which was not very easy to do.  As I said, she was 1600 miles away, so really there was not much she could do. She said maybe it was the glue that held it on there, but I could see the glue in his mouth, which was blue, and this was tooth-colored.  She told me to go to the orthodontist in the morning, which is what I was leaning to do anyway.

I called the orthodontist after hours to see what time they were open (8 am) and emailed his teacher to say he'd be arriving to school tardy due to a dental emergency.    I then called the orthodontist on call, and got a phone number that was all in Chinese with no English explanation.  The hell with it, I thought.  He's going in tomorrow morning.

THE NEXT MORNING:  ALL CALM ON THE DENTAL FRONT

The next morning we're up early.  His breakfast is all soft foods, and so his lunch, just in case. I  Apple sauce, yogurt, pudding, etc.  He's complaining a little, but it's not that bad.

At the orthodontist, the dental assistant looks inside his mouth and smiles, and then tells me the words that as a husband I never want to hear and as a father, I was delighted to hear.

"Your Wife Was Right."

Hmmmmmm....

Dang.  Busted.

 It was the glue, that sometimes breaks free.  Apparently, some of the glue is tooth-colored, and it can get brittle and break.  It's very common.  Of course, I didn't know that.  I had the dental assistant show me how to turn the apparatus, and give me the once over twice on all the other information that I need to know as a proper parent of a Dental Cyborg. 

And he arrived at school at 9:30 am, so he didn't miss any academic subjects!

Crisis averted.  For now.

Jeeves and the Golden Arches

Many years ago, I was challenged to write a restaurant review in the style of a famous writer. I think it was for a contest for the San Francisco Examiner, so it would have been 1992 or 1993.

I, of course, chose PG Wodehouse, with whom I am enamored.

I ended up writing this.  Recently found it, and thought I'd resurrect it onto the internet.

Enjoy!   (And if you'd care to take the challenge of writing a restaurant review in the style of a famous writer, I would love to read it!)

Jeeves and the Golden Arches

Nobody is more alive than I am to the possibilities of a well-turned out breakfast. If there is one thing that old Bertram can be counted on for in the clutch, it is the enjoyment of a solid slice of toast with butter, followed by a precisely measured swallow of tea, and then soundly supported by the well fried egg and bacon sandwich. I have always said that if you give a man an egg, he will be confused; give a man a fried egg sandwich, and his mind will remain sparkling clear.

With this thought in mind we entered the Golden Arches. There was something slightly Moroccan about the decor: Bright orange walls, a subtle air of mystery, and chaps in little hats bustling around. Quite exotic, I thought.

"What ho, Jeeves! This place is a bit of a pip. I quite like it here. Rather cheery."

"If I may be so bold, sir, I might suggest that our appetites will be better served at another culinary establishment."

"Oh come now, Jeeves. It's not quite so bad. I overheard old Fosly-Postlewaite talking about it just the other day, and he said he had a Chopped Meat Something or Other that was quite tasty. Rather hit the spot, he said."

"True, sir, but I had occasion to speak with Mr. Fosly-Postlewaite's man-servant, who spoke rather disparagingly of the bacterial content contained within the victuals. It seems that Mr. Fosly-Postlewaite managed to contract a case of what is euphemistically known as The Arch Revenge."

I did not like the man's attitude. I detected a glimmer of disdain in his approach. I decided to put my foot down.

"I rather like it, here, Jeeves, and Revenge or no Revenge, I shall have the Egg Sandwich upon a muffin, with a spot of sausage as well." The ice in my voice was extraordinary. When a Wooster is determined, he can be firm.

"Very good sir" Jeeves went and ordered from the server, a dour-looking matron with a hideous smile on her face. He brought back the food on a plastic tray.

"Breakfast is served."

"There, you see Jeeves. Not so bad, is it? No revenge or other silly nonsense happening. I haven't turned into a werewolf or anything like that."

The man was silent. Positively sullen.

"This seems a perfectly respectable sandwich. And now for the eating. What is it that that poet said? Something about his kingly breaches?"

"I believe that would be Shakespeare's Henry V, "Once more unto the breach my friends."

"Exactly. Couldn't have said it better, myself." I took my first bite. "And furthermore---"

I gagged. The taste of fried rubber was all throughout my lower larynx. With the reflexes that made me the champion gobber at school, I spit out the so-called sandwich.

"Jeeves. Start the car. We must leave this place at once."

"The roadster is already started, sir."

"Jeeves! But how did you know?"

"I endeavor to give satisfaction, sir."

A disconcerting email that makes me a little paranoid.

So I got an email this morning that made me a little uneasy.

It really shouldn't have, as I knew all about it, but the ramifications of it are a little staggering.

The email was this:

That's right-- my car sent me an email saying that my windshield wiper fluid needs refilling.

It's been snowy here, and yes, I've been using the windshield wiper fluid maybe a little too much.  and the light did go on yesterday, and I do need to bring my excess fluid out and fill it, but I did not really expect to get an email about it.

The Internet of Things issue from Wired

This is the Internet of Things I've been dutifully reading about in Wired Magazine, and other than getting a quarterly report from my NEST account or Alexa reminders that I manually requested to be sent, this is I think my first experience with it.  (Do low battery warnings on my smoke detector count?  I have never gotten an email from my smoke detector,  just an occasional annoying beep.)

I'm not sure how I feel about this new development.  On one hand, I see this could be pretty useful (see smoke detectors), but I drove my car about 30 minutes yesterday, and every 30 seconds the flashing windshield fluid signal chimed and flashed with no obvious way to shut it off.  (well the one obvious way is to fill the fluid, which I will do today without fail.)  Telling me stuff I already know is not exactly the future I was hoping for!

I wouldn't mind a text from my water heater telling me it's about to explode or a friendly reminder phone call once a month from my recumbent bicycle telling me it misses me, but when is enough enough?   I'm a little concerned that my cookie jar will start sending regular messages to my wife about its relative emptiness, and she will start to draw conclusions about my consumption that I would prefer left undetected.

Yes, I know that Alexa is listening to everything I say, but it's not going to act on the information it receives.  If I thought Alexa would send an email to someone every time I dropped an f-bomb, I would have a very different feeling about it (One that, coincidentally, has an f-bomb in it.  Maybe that's not so coincidental?)

How about you? Have your appliances been texting you?  Please let me know in the comments.


I'll respond as soon as I am able--  there's a Nigerian royal refrigerator that needs my urgent assistance...

This is a pyramid scheme...John Oliver

John Oliver has a GREAT episode about Multi-level marketing, including starting his own pyramid scheme to let people know not to get involved with pyramid schemes.

#thisisapyramidscheme

Please share this post with 5 people, and within 14 cycles, everybody on the PLANET will have seen it.  (Hi Tom Waits!)

My week of living medically

The last week or so has been chockful of doctor appointments.

We have hit our deductible for the year, so anything I need to have done, I better start working on it now!

Here's what I had done in the last 10 days:

1) Just before Halloween I had oral surgery to add some bone to my gum line, where I have been losing bone.

2) The day after Halloween, I had a nose surgery.  The docs had done a biopsy before and detected early basal skin cancer.  They excised it from my nose.  10 stitches to the nose.

Me and my nose wound. You should see the other guy!

3) The day after that I had to have my wound checked at the dermatologist.

4) The next day I met with the sleep doctor to see if I need a sleep study to evaluate my use of the CPAP.  I haven't met with a sleep doctor since I lived in NY. I do need a sleep study.

5) The Day after that I was back at the periodontist to have the stitches taken out of my mouth.  We'll see in a couple of months if I get any bone growth.

6) The day after that was another wound check on my nose.  It was hurting a little and I was afraid it was infected.  There was a tiny bit of pus-- oh is this too much information?
Anyway, the doctor says it seems okay.



7) The day after that I had to prep for my long neglected colonoscopy, that you are supposed to get when you are fifty.  (I am 52!)  The prep for that is simply wonderful, if you like swigging salty pee-flavored water that gives you diarrhea and you enjoy not eating for a day and a half. Here's the kind of joy you can expect.

8) The day after that I had the aforementioned colonoscopy, which was less painless thn I expected.  The most painful thing was that they had the wrong blood pressure cuff and they could only fit it on my forearm, which hurt a lot when it squeezed me.

(Fortunately, all was good on the colonoscopy, I have to go back in 5 years.  Oh joy!)


9) Tomorrow I get the stitches out in my nose.

10) Next week I go for the sleep study. That means getting all wired up, probably shaving some portions of my chest hair in various non-goodlooking places, and being woken up every 1.5 hours by the sleep tech.


Fun, Fun, Fun, 'til Daddy breaks a metatarsal fibia!


If you've got any other ideas for other tests I should get done while I have my deductible paid, I am all ears.  (And no, they don't hurt a bit!  At least, not yet.)