On Public Schools
“The problem is not public schools; it is poverty.”
I feel like that line alone says so much. I mean, I knew that poverty was part of the problem, but still, that it might be the major factor in our schools, and to say it so starkly — that the more well off the population of the school, the better the school is, so all these reforms that we are always hearing about aren’t all that useful.
“And as dozens of studies have shown, the gap in cognitive, physical, and social development between children in poverty and middle-class children is set by age three.”
Ouch. Read Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools. [via Longreads, which is pretty much full of interesting things to read.]
Medical
Fluffleupagus turned six months old on January 8th, and in anticipation, we scheduled her for a spay yesterday. The vet kept her overnight (I think it’s standard with Fluff and Hellspawn’s doctor), and we picked her up today. Hellspawn really missed her all night. He was all freaked out, wondering what we’d done to his girl Fluffa.
She has a crazy shaved area and wound on her underside and a little hairless patch on her arm from the iv. 
So she’s stuck in her cage for a week or so, which is fine for now, but I know she’s gonna hate it once she starts to heal more. She’s used to having the run of the whole house, not some itty bitty cage. At least Hellspawn is in there with her.
Oh, and while she was at the vet’s office, they did another fecal float, and she has coccidia, so she’s going to have to take antibiotics. Last time they tested her, in November, she tested negative, but maybe it was a false negative. We’re going to have to start them both on medication in a few days after she heals a bit. Poor girl, one thing after another.
At least she’s eating!
Crown
I just got a temporary crown. Not the “yay I’m the Queen” type either. Way more blech. But there were four cracks in one of my teeth and evidently, that means crown. And now I have to go back in two weeks or so and get the actual crown. Until then, I’m not supposed to chew on that side of my mouth too much. And for the first time ever at the dentist’s office, I was told not to floss (around the tooth with the temporary crown, but still). :p
Okay, seriously, I don’t remember much of what happened in 2010 after July, now. But obviously the most significant thing was our bunnies! We picked up our little baby Flemish Giant bunny Fluffleupagus on September 18th. 
And then we (well mostly I but whatevs) were really concerned that our poor girl was lonely while we were at work all day, so on November 7th, we went to RabbitEars and picked up Hellspawn, who we think is a Mini Lop. (Okay, we didn’t think anything except maybe smushy faced lop. The vet thinks he’s a Mini Lop, much better source of information than us.)
She’s basically the sweetest bunny ever (although she’s chewing up our carpet and we have to watch cords around her, she’s destroyed quite a few ’cause we’re not always conscientious and we didn’t wrap all our cords). 
He doesn’t look like it, but he’s the biggest grump ever! When he’s upset (or by this time, it could be habit, we’re not sure anymore), he jumps on our bed and pees. Just one spot, surrounded by 2 (or 20) poops, so we know it’s him!
She still jumps up on our bed now and then, but he’s currently banned from the bed; we’re too scared to test him. (We’re well trained. :p) On the other hand, when we adopted him he basically had perfect poop habits, always in the litterbox, except when angry, but little lady Flufflela is a bad influence and now we pick up poop all the time. Good thing the little poop balls aren’t gross except for when they’re soft.
By the way, bunnies can be litterbox trained. When misa and neb got their bunnies and told us about that, it was a game changer. We were talking for a long time about getting a dog, and afterwards it became maybe a dog and a rabbit (or two), but now (years later) that we have Fluffa and Hellspawn, we’re pretty settled — I don’t think we’re getting a dog anymore. I’m not claiming zero pee mistakes, but pretty close. Also two bunnies is not much more work than one, except when they’re not bonded. When they were still working on becoming buddies, it was so. much. work. They kept peeing in and near each other’s areas (we were keeping them separate) as a territory marking sort of a thing and it was awful. Now that they are chums, it’s not too much extra work at all. So worth it.
Advice Worth Listening To
Really enjoyed Jeff Bezos’s commencement speech at Princeton — thought provoking, and not boring, about choices and choosing.
When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
<via kottke>
Glad it’s Friday, I Guess
This morning, I woke up, and for a second I really thought it was Saturday! I thought I’d set my alarm by mistake; I even started to think of what I wanted to do. Soooo disappointed. Hot chocolate for breakfast to make up for it! Actually this is the first time since Trader Joe’s that I haven’t had a chocolate covered cherry for breakfast. Or three.
Ode to Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s is Evil. OMG, I don’t know how my sister goes to Trader Joe’s all the time. A new one just opened nearby and we went and you know what we bought? Chocolate covered cherries, chocolate covered blueberries, and chocolate covered espresso beans. And in fact, if memory serves me correctly, when I go with my sister to TJ’s, I always make her buy chocolate covered something. And now it’s walking distance away and the first thing I ate when I woke up was chocolate covered stuff. Uh oh. Hopefully the novelty wears off. But those chocolate covered cherries are so delicious.
Watson
Watson, an IBM supercomputer, is supposed to be able to answer natural language questions (or I suppose in this case, provide questions for natural language answers?). First Deep Blue played chess, now Watson’s going to take on Jeopardy. I hope it has a chance to play again Ken Jennings. :)
Don’t Run Out of Internet*
Many years ago we were trying to decide what to do, and since Jimyo was always looking for people to play Monopoly with him, we agreed to play Monopoly. Hours and hours later, we were still at it, and I had a headache. Compounding this was that we’d all made terrible deals with Jimyo (terrible for him; he was in elementary school I think) and it looked like the game was going to last forever. We were playing as fast as we could but omg, Monopoly had stopped being fun. We don’t play Monopoly anymore, it just takes too long! Longer even than Trivial Pursuit! But that’s a topic for another day.
Too bad it didn’t go like this:
[via kottke]
I don’t know if it’s actually the theoretically shortest game of Monopoly, but they are so funny with their nerdy glee! I wonder what’s the shortest game of Monopoly wherein everyone plays the way people normally play (but without auctions). I mean, like buying properties when they have the chance and stuff.
* CT likes to complain that she’s run out of stuff to look at online. I like to tell her that it’s impossible to run out of internet and then send some random interesting link to something. :)
One Month Late, More or Less
Okay, okay, I know, I am really late! And it’s not cos I’m playing Flash games, cos I’m kind of sick of Flash. It’s not like I own lots of Apple junx or anything, but I am so sick of updating Adobe Flashplayer (and Acrobat) and I’m so sick of security warnings about ‘em and I hate stupid webpages that are Flash based for no good reason (like practically every restaurant site for example) and so… if Apple wants to stop supporting Flash in some of their products, and it causes more websites to require less Flash, then I am happy, and I don’t care about the whys and wherefores!
But also, as y’all know, we moved this year, right around the time of the tournament (I know, what were we thinking?!) and it was so busy. I am sure there are people out there who are organized and label their boxes and then unpack them and clean and blah blah, and even they don’t like moving. Well… I am NOT organized and there was no labeling, and at the end, we were throwing stuff in paper bags and moving those over and then the cleaning! There are floors that need mopping, and trees dropping branches and leaves, and laundry, and etcetc. It’s calmed down a lot since the beginning, but still. (Hrmmm, actually quite a number of you have had to deal with my litany of complaints every time you say “hey” so let this be a preview and warning to you. Although CT gets it the worst, I have been sending her whining unsolicited emails inviting her to visit me so I can show her the new place but we both know I just want someone to unpack stuff and put it away and organize and clean and get me a drink!)
But ANYWAY, enough of that, FOR NOW (more coming, that’s a threat, not a promise)! For doing so well (note how I am being gracious, although less so now that I am pointing out my graciousness), I thought K deserved an acknowledgment, late or not.
This year’s Know-Nothing Official Final Standings although we all knew how it was going to pan out a long time ago:
Special K (nice job, only one to break 60 points): 63
mim, Pol (beginner’s luck!): 59
Yut: 56
President of the US: 55
Lew, Chalk: 54
CT, misa, Seth (way outta the cellar): 48
shio: 46
YuHK (alone at the bottom!): 45
I have put CT in charge of your prize! Collect it when you see her. Congrats, aren’t you glad Air Force wasn’t in it this year:)
