I Do It Myself

I carved the Halloween pumpkins by myself this year. It was fun. I freehanded the faces, did a cursory job of clearing out the gooey interiors, and had a few beauties completed in a half-hour.

Although I have great memories of carving bright orange faces with my kids, this year had its advantages. Nobody complained that there were stringy squishy pieces hanging down behind the eye holes, no one was upset that his brother got one more crooked tooth in his pumpkin's mouth than he did, and no one insisted that we clean and roast every single seed.

Still, I do miss moments like this:



Happy Halloween!

Signs of Fall

This time of year may be my favorite. The air is crisp and there are so many lovely things to see.

Pumpkins and mums,



Leaves changing color,





And bright berries.



And then there are these signs of the autumn season. Don't they just say October to you?









And they're everywhere you look!



Gaaaaaaaaa.

Verifying Me

So I just posted a comment on a friend's luscious blog entry (www.ofsofterearth.blogspot.com), and as always I had to type in a nonsense word before my comment would be posted. I have two things to say about that:

First, my word today was "calserne." I like the sound of this word and have spent more time than you would think wondering what a calserne might be. Any ideas?

Second, because the sites always show the code word in some sort of scriggly typeface, the "r" and the "n" were hard to distinguish from one another. I had to guess what the letters were before entering the word. I got it right but, Google verification people, "calserne" is not the ideal choice for this sort of thing.

And third (oops, that's three things) why do we have to do this anyway? If anyone were using my account to post a counterfeit comment, presumably that person could type in "calserne" as well as I could.

Now I'm sure there are many highly technical and cool people out there who can tell me what the purpose of these goofy words is. Because the word "calserne" is so diverting, I didn't mind typing it. But can someone explain to me what's up with this?

Heavy Metal Typo

I'm proofreading something that refers to the 1st Armor Division of the U.S. Army, instead of the 1st Armored Division.

The 1st Armored Division is a more than half-century old fighting unit of soldiers known as "Old Ironsides." And the first Armor Division would be what? Knights on horseback? Those suits of armor that come alive and clunk around Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies? It's kind of a cool image.

But it's stlll a funny typo.

Survey Results

Recently I read a discussion in the New York Times about shifts in gender norms. According to Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage," evidently more men report feeling stress from trying to juggle work and family responsibilities. This suggests, she says, that men are increasingly identifying themselves as nurturers, not just providers. Excellent news, and no big surprise.

Then there was this:

"The best predictors of a man’s marital satisfaction are how much sex he gets and how little criticism he gets. And numerous studies show that women feel more intimacy and more sexual attraction toward — and are less critical of — husbands who participate in childcare and housework."

Wow, really??? Someone needed to conduct a survey to learn this?


Here's a link to the full discussion:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/for-women-redefining-marriage-material/