I am not writing my blog right now because I want to spend time with the twins before they leave for their summer plans. I scheduled these posts so the blog wouldn’t be empty, using a random date generator (from random.org) to choose the posts. Having the kids go is still really, really hard. I’ll be back soon.

When I was eight-years-old, I fell in love with a boy at camp. He was older–12–and he played trumpet. We were in the camp play together. I was a tree. A non-speaking role. He was the ecologist. He saved my life when the Queen’s men wanted to chop down the trees. We went on a camping trip together. We were an hour late leaving for the trip because the boy had to have his trumpet lesson. My sister told me that this made him a loser. She was pissed that the bus had to wait for him and that we had to wait on the hot steps until he finished his lesson. I used my wish on him anyway.

Read the whole post here.

If I said to you: Miss Lucy had a steamboat…

You would answer…

The steamboat had a bell. (Ding ding!)

Kottke had a post about childhood lore — the comments are pure gold — but it raised an interesting question. How did these rhymes or games or traditions spread before the internet?

Everyone around my age who grew up in the US knows what a cootie catcher is and how to use it. I know this because people came from all over the US to our wedding, and we put a cootie catcher at every place setting that people could use to strike up a conversation with their tablemates. So instead of your fortune on the inside flap, you had a question that you could ask the other person to get the conversation started. Everyone in our age group immediately started using it. People much older didn’t know what it was.

Everywhere I’ve gone, kids have made a tugging motion with their arm while passing a truck to see if the truck driver will pull the horn. Or lifted up their feet when going over railroad tracks. Or typing 80085 on the calculator. But how did we know? I know it passed from older kid on the playground to younger kid on the playground, but how did it jump from playground to playground, across the country? Fast enough that people around the same age would know the same thing, but kids a decade older or younger wouldn’t?

It is clearly easier now with the internet, but how did those common childhood beliefs or games spread across the country or world before it?

It’s a not-very-birthday-y birthday because it’s a work day, and I’m trying to get the twins ready for their summer plans. But that’s just what being an adult is all about, kids. It’s not all popsicles for breakfast and being queen of your own bedtime. Sometimes your birthday passes without big fanfare.

Which is okay.

My birthday will still contain cake, zoolbia, and gianniotiko (with chocolate!) because go-big-or-go-home when it comes to birthday desserts.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Last weekend, we were out and about, and I needed something for lunch. I commented that, ideally, we’d run into a grocery store and I would get a yogurt. But as we were walking around, we found a cafe that advertised Greek yogurt parfaits in its window. It was kind of perfect, except that the fruit-to-yogurt ratio was way off. Why didn’t we eat yogurt parfaits at home? Why did we eat boring fruit-flavoured Greek yogurt when we could build gorgeous yogurt concoctions in glass jars?

Our newly-discovered parfait lifestyle lasted for two days. I think I’m just not that fancy. But I’ve been enjoying eating through the rest of the bag of granola.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

Before I check a book out of the library, I do two things: I read the first few pages, and I check the rating on Goodreads. I look for books with at least a 3.5 rating and read the last few reviews, trying to pick out one or two 2-star reviews and one or two 4-star reviews. If I click with the first few pages but the ratings are low, I’ll usually still check out the book. But if you needed a reason for why you shouldn’t look at ratings first, Erin McKeown wrote about a famous study that proves how other people’s ratings influence human opinion.

[Hint: click over to read about the study because it’s super interesting and hard to summarize.]

She writes: “I get it, there’s an element of social belonging in liking the same things as other people, but once the boulder starts rolling, it’s hard for other rocks to get noticed.”

The author or musician or filmmaker who gets those first low reviews may receive additional low reviews because the next people who come along are influenced by the opinion of the first random people vs. their own feelings about the work. And then YOU are harmed just as much as the artist because you miss out on great work.

I can think of so many books that fit this description. Fair Play by Louise Hegarty. It was one of the most profound mysteries I’ve ever read; I still think about it. The reviews I saw on Goodreads clearly missed the point of what the book is actually about. You think it’s a mystery; it is something so much deeper than that. I think anyone who has lost someone important will read this book in a very different way once they get the twist.

Would I have given it a chance if I had seen the ratings before I read the first pages? Probably not, in all honesty. And I would have missed out on a profound story.

Erin always gives food for thought. One of the most talented writers (and musicians) I’ve read/heard.