Merry almost Christmas.  I know some people start opening gifts the night before, so pretend that I have wrapped a bunch of treats and placed them under your tree to be opened throughout the day.  They are all Candy Crush tricks that will help you get through the various level*.  I thought we could all use a bit of mindlessness.  So the first box you open contains advice on how to balance Odus, the Candy Crush owl in Dreamworld.

Oh Odus, I love you.  You are so cute.  I like hanging out with a bird while I play.  It is much nicer than hanging out with that incredibly tall man or the squat girl with the long arms.  They stare at me and make me uncomfortable.  Actually, the girl doesn’t look at me insomuch as she looks through me.

It took me until about board 30 before I realized that the Dreamworld board is pretty much EXACTLY the same as the regular Candy Crush board with the added task of balancing two colours.  So they’re actually harder, even though in retrospect, they seemed easier at first.  The two colours are — of course — imbalanced on the board.  There always seems to be more of one than the other.  And beyond that, sometimes you have a great move fall into place, such as a speckled doughnut next to a striped candy, but you can’t use it because if you do, it will clear off too much of one colour and not enough of another.

So how do you balance Odus the Owl?

I deal with him the same way I deal with a toddler on the verge of a tantrum: don’t look at him, don’t talk to him, don’t even breathe near him. Instead, I look at whatever the other colours are on the board that I DON’T have to balance (for instance, if Odus’s two colours are red and blue, I will make matches with yellow, green, and purple) and make matches with those.

It’s difficult to count just how many matches you need to get to Moon Struck, but suffice to say, it’s better to focus on making matches to get to Moon Struck and then allowing Moon Struck to work its magic.  It usually ends up clearing large chunks of the board, and you don’t even really need to use a move within Moon Struck to do this.  The sad part is that you’re not really using a strategy per se.  You’re winning because you reach a point in the game where the board starts exploding and for a few brief seconds, balance flies out the window.

But still, I’m not one to look a gifted Sugar Crush in the mouth.

Another tip for the Dreamworld is that if you ever get a speckled doughnut, combine it with one of the non-balance colours on the board so it doesn’t accidentally mix with one of the balance colours.

Another present will be ready to be opened in the morning.  I figured if you were stressed out with Christmas stuff, you could use the distraction.  At the very least, know there is someone Jewish hanging around during the next 24 hours if you want to talk.  All I’m doing is reading, lounging, and crushing candies.

Merry Christmas.

* Uh, I guess this is sort of just like real life gift giving because maybe I’ve gotten you a completely sucky gift.  Maybe you hate Candy Crush, and if that’s the case, I’m sorry because it’s not as if you can return these posts and get store credit.  Feel free to skip or skim, though even if you don’t play the game, you’ll understand the last post.

It’s the week of Christmas, and you’re only sort of going through the motions at work.  So here are some more interesting things to read and think about, though all non-IF related.

Your OED Birthday Word

The OED has a fun search tool that you can use to see which word originated in the year of your birth.  The word for my year was “Internet.”  Perhaps a premonition of my life to come.  What is the word for your year?

Twitter Royalty

Did you know that if you have more than 1000 followers on Twitter, it puts you in the top 4% of Twitter users.  Meaning, 96% of people on Twitter have under 1000 followers.  While it may feel as if everyone and her mother is on Twitter, the real numbers are very different.

According to the Daily Dot, “The vast majority of Twitter users basically haven’t used their accounts since creating them, and they generally have one follower or less.  Among active users, the median follower number is 117. This means that more people are following than being followed.”

So… it’s interesting to see the hard numbers and then to also see things like the implosion of Justine Sacco play out.  Is everyone on Twitter, or are few people on Twitter, or do people run to Twitter just to watch trainwrecks when the people who are actually on Twitter call them over to see?

The Justine Sacco thing made me sad, actually.  The stupidity of the tweet, the piling on and glee at her insensitivity, and then the self-righteousness of believing justice had been served.  The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth from start to finish, and I only heard about it in retrospect.

SIRI and the Gates of Hades

If you ask Siri, “what is July 27,” Siri will tell you:

And if you ask her, “what is September 3,” Siri will say:

Isn’t that… odd?

I read about this trick on the Daily Dot, and the most common explanation I’ve read is a glitch on Wolfram Alpha.  But still… I will be looking around cautiously on July 27th.

The Memories You Inherited

Linda sent me an interesting article on how memories are passed through families.  It sounds like they were looking at traumatic memories; nothing about good memories or a fondness for things was mentioned.  So, for example, if I developed a fear of crickets, and then I had children, even if they weren’t raised in my cricket-hating house, they would have inherited my fear of crickets.  Or something like that.

Or perhaps not since the study was related to smell.  And my fear of crickets is not tied to smell.  Though I despise perfume.  Maybe I’ve passed that along to the twins since they also seem to dislike perfume.  Or maybe they’re just saying that to bond with me because they know I don’t like perfume.  Either/or.

Your thoughts on any of these things, or tell us some interesting things you read this week.

So I read a bunch of posts in a row which were worth a mention but not worth a whole post.  This is the part where I vomit them all out at you.

Who Gets the Say?

Yahoo News had a story about the change in donor anonymity in Australia in 1998.  Gamete donations made after 1998 are not anonymous — donor-conceived children can know information on their donor if they choose.  Gamete donations made before 1998 were potentially anonymous.  Donor-conceived children born before 1998 wanted information on their origins.  Before the government changed the rules and made information from before 1998 donations known to donor-conceived children, they asked a group of donors their opinion.  Half were okay giving the information to the kids.  The other half asked for continued anonymity.

The question then becames whose rights superseded the other’s rights?  Is it more important for donors to get to keep their anonymity if they donated believing they would always remain anonymous?  Or is it more important for children to get information and understand their origins?

While I feel for the donors and don’t think it’s fair to change the rules down the road — when they donated, they donated with the understanding that they would remain anonymous — I have to side with the children in this case: the only people who had no say over their creation.  Donors had the choice to donate (or not donate) their gametes.  Parents had the choice to use (or not use) donor gametes.  But those donor-conceived children who want their information never made a choice about the way they were conceived.  I think they have a right to information that affects them if they want it.

At the same time, I feel the donor’s frustration.  Parents are under no obligation to reveal to their offspring that they were donor-conceived, yet donors — the people who provided their gametes — are under a different set rules?  And as they say, this violates a contract.  How damaging will this be for the donor world in the future if contracts are changed without all parties’ consent?  As a side note, half of the donors who were against losing their anonymity were for personally giving their information to those donor-conceived.  They didn’t mind that contact or trading of information insomuch as they didn’t want a blanket rule thrown retroactively backwards.

And that’s what Australia ultimately did in the end: they placed the rights in the hands of those anonymous donors.  They can choose whether or not to reveal themselves or pass along information.

Your thoughts?

Cowardly Confessions

The Stir had a post that I was certain was going to be IF-related and then turned out to not be… sort of.  The title: “I Secretly Hate When My Friends Get Pregnant.”

Oh, I thought, this must be about how they also wish they were pregnant, and how they need to be happy for their friend while still feeling sad for themselves.  But no, it’s just an anonymous rant about how friendships change when one person gets pregnant and the other has older children.  And then it becomes a mom-petition: the author claims you’re bumped down in your friend’s informal ranking system because your friend will connect with other people in a similar situation.

At the very end, the author acknowledges that she totally gets where childfree people “are coming from when they can’t muster a whole lot of happiness over a friend’s pregnancy.”  Except… for the most part… this isn’t why we’re upset.  It isn’t about worrying about being ousted from our friendship status by other women with similarly-aged babies.  It’s about being confronted on a daily basis with salt when we have a very large, painful wound called infertility, and that salt is being inadvertently shaken (emphasis on the word inadvertently) by someone we love.  As much as I love babies, it is sometimes hard to be around babies; seeing that tangible reminder of what I can’t have.  But if I want to see my friends, I have to also see that baby.  So I deal.

Friendships change as life changes.  The lasting ones weather those obstacles and even use them to ultimately climb closer to one another.  But not every friendship is worth that sort of effort.  Some friendships have a shorter lifespan; which is not a comment on their worth.  Both those people who remain with you through the years as well as the ones that are intensely in your life for a short period of time all have a place in the friend continuum.

So I really wasn’t sure what to make of this post.

Your thoughts?

Social Media: a Feeling-Hurting Space

Amy Poehler had a quote on People.com on how her feelings are always hurt inadvertently (there’s that word again) by social media.  We say things, and we don’t think about how they’re being taken by those who read our words in the same way that we self-censor and think through what we say (for the most part) when we’re speaking to a single person, face-to-face.  This is not to say that we don’t put our foot in it during private conversations, but there’s a lot more room for those inadvertent hurts when it comes to directing comments to a large group of people simultaneously via social media.

Poehler is talking more about seeing herself discussed online, but it did make me think about the inadvertent hurts of Facebook.  And if it’s inadvertent, how deeply do we let it cut us?

What do you think of those sound bites?

It has gotten veeeeeery quiet in the blogosphere as people get ready for Christmas.  The blog post reading is thin.

For the first time ever, we’re not volunteering on Christmas.  We’ve declared it a day of Nothingness: no commitments, no running around, no getting dressed, no stress.  We’re going to sleep in and then lounge about in our pyjamas watching movies and reading books.  Okay, fine, and play Candy Crush.  I’ve been looking forward to this all month.

But it’s very odd to not celebrate Christmas and yet have to navigate Christmas regardless since it’s everywhere you turn.  For instance, nothing being open.  That doesn’t phase me on Thanksgiving because I’m ensconced in hanging out with family at Thanksgiving.  But on Christmas, we sit there, twiddling our thumbs and saying things like, “we could… well… no… we probably couldn’t because I bet it’s closed… maybe… no… that’s probably closed too…”

So we’ll plan ahead, stocking up on milk and bread as if it’s a snow storm.  And then we’ll settle down inside the house.

So… what are you doing for Christmas?

*******

I have a question for all iTunes users.  I suddenly have over 6 GB of “other.”  This has been since updating to iOS7.  I’ve deleted my Safari cache, deleted old text messages… what else can I do?  Have you ever had this happen and how did you reduce the size of the “other” column on the phone?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Dam. Open Adoption is Hard” (Lavender Luz)
• “Then. Now. Always.” (Mrs. Spit Still Spouting Off)
• “Adjusting to a New Sound: The Voices of Childless & Childfree Women” (TheNotMom.com)
• “The View Through the Windshield” (A Crack in Everything)
• “Fertility Privilege, Part One” (Schrodinger’s Catbox)
• “Fertility Privilege, Part Two” (Schrodinger’s Catbox)
• “A Change in DH Helps a Change in Me” (An Unexpected Trip)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Bickerstaff Blog has a post digging down to the roots of the argument between working and stay-at-home parents; namely, “There is no rank or betterness to one way or the other, yet because of the judgement and strong opinions of others, we always feel the need to defend what we do.”  I really loved the post because it spoke more to our personalities than to benefits or detriments to either situation.

Not an IF blog, but definitely worth a read through an IF lens.  Sassymonkey has a post about situations where words fail us.  It begins with her admitting: “I’ve had a difficult year with words.”  And it continues with the question of what happens when writers can’t find words beyond the overused “I’m sorry” when they hear bad news.  “Shouldn’t I know something better, something less cliched? Something more meaningful? You rail against your lack of mastery of language because there’s got to be something better to say.”  I especially love the thought she comes to in the end.

I held my breath through a post about loss on Inconceivable!  Intuition tells her something is wrong with the pregnancy, and a visit to the doctor confirms a lack of heartbeat.  It is a heartbreaking post; a gut-wrenching post.  And just as the fall from the jungle gym took her breath away, she took my breath away with her retelling of the death.  Sending a hug to her.

Lastly, Stumbling Gracefully writes about the happily ever after… and what comes next.  After achieving the family she wished for, she wonders about setting a new life goal.  She writes, “I wonder, what does one do with her life when has everything she ever hoped for? What do you work for when it’s all been achieved?”  She sets patience as her goal for 2014.  It’s really a lovely post.

The roundup to the Roundup: What are you doing for Christmas?  How do you reduce the “other” column on the iPhone?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 13th and December 20th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Earlier this week, I was in the back of a craft store, purchasing yarn to teach the ChickieNob crocheting when I got an email (well, an email that led to a phone call) asking if I wanted to come down to the White House the next day to be the officially pooler for the press.  For some meetings, such as ones in a small space like the Oval Office, they send in one or two people from the press to take notes that are sent out to everyone else in the press pool.  So that’s what I was going to be: the person who went in, took notes, and wrote the report that went out to everyone else.

Kids, this is where I tell you that my copious note taking once again paid off.  This is actually the second time in my life that I have been an official note taker.

Back in college, I was also an official note taker.  We had a program where if you thought you were an exceptional note taker, you could turn in your notes for consideration, and be chosen to be the note taker for your classes.  Our notes were then collected at the end of class and copied to be used by anyone with special needs or learning differences who were also taking the class.  I thought that I just might be that person, that person with neat notes and an impeccable attendance record.  So I applied to be an official note taker and was chosen by the university.  So if you went to Wisconsin in the 90s and we happened to be in the same class and you happened to be a special needs student, you had MY notes.

Sometimes, I would make a little doodle at the top; a little cartoon just to say “hey, wasn’t this class fun?  Don’t you also love to talk about Shakespeare?”

I was told by one person that I was her favourite of all her note takers because my notes were easy to read and use.  I secretly hoped that she kept my notes after the class was over.

So I was a note taker there for four years.

Fast forward 17 years.  Pretty much no one has asked for my notes in almost two decades.  I’m not going to lie; it was a little bit of a letdown after my sweet time in college being an official note taker.  Which is why when the White House asked me to be the pooler for the press, I rescheduled my dental appointment and asked my parents to help get the kids from school.  I’ve been waiting for this moment for 17 years; to once again be asked to step up to the plate and provide notes for others.  Thank you, White House, for noticing my copious note taking.

So I got to go to the Oval Office for a rare appearance of the President and First Lady holding a joint meeting with eight mothers about the Affordable Care Act.

It is pretty amazing to be inside the Oval Office.  To be standing next to the President’s desk, listening to him talk about our health.  Pretty please read my post about the meeting over on BlogHer because my article came from my notes.  And because I am a very vocal supporter of the Affordable Care Act.  How could I not be?  Its point is to not only ensure that people who need health care right now have adequate coverage, but it gives ALL of us a safety net.  None of us know what we’ll encounter healthwise in our future.  Please sign up for insurance under the new plan if you don’t already have insurance.

After the meeting, I went back to the press briefing room to type up my notes, wishing I had that special paper official note takers used to college to mark our notes as the official set of notes.  Apparently it is unhelpful though to write your notes on carbon paper since they need to go out to all these media outlets simultaneously.  So I typed them on the iPad, and then Tony took a picture of me at the podium before I headed home because I had actually left my hair down for the entire duration of my work day.  This is as rare an occurrence as the President and First Lady holding a meeting in the Oval Office together.

I would like it stated, for the record, that I was so serious about doing a good job as note taker that I did not play one round of Candy Crush from the press briefing room.  I could have because I had a short wait when I got there.  But I didn’t.  Because I’m an adult, and every once in a while, I show some restraint.

So that was my Wednesday.