Thursday in History: We Didn't Start the Fire

Every week, I sit down to research a new Thursday in History. I start by searching the date on Wikipedia. I know that sounds “unscientific” or whatever, because anyone can edit Wikipedia, but the truth is that most Wikipedia articles have tons and tons of sources attached, and these sources can take you to actual scholarly places that can show you how and why they know their stuff. Wikipedia, to me, is like a Cliff’s Notes version of whatever I want to research. I scan the article, and if it catches my interest, I dig deeper.

This stage of research is pretty fun. If you’ve ever searched a date on Wikipedia you’ll know that major events are shown first, and then who was born on that day, followed by who died on that day. Finally, at the bottom of the list, there are feast days and celebrations from various religions, along with national holidays from different countries.

There are weeks when I don’t get past the events section, because there are a zillion awesome things that just happened to fall on the same day. Some days are more boring. That’s just life on earth. Sometimes I get inspired to write a bunch of stuff just by looking at the title of an article, and other times I prop my chin up with my hand and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, trying to keep awake.

This week, I found myself thinking, “who even cares about some of thes stuff?” Obviously, everything that appears on the list is important to someone, otherwise it wouldn’t be there. The birth/death of a Czech footballer might not be super important to my life (the only connection we’d have is that some of my ancestors are from that region), but there are people using wikipedia who showed up just to read articles about Czech footballers. (I have nothing against Czech footballers, by the way, I was just using that as an example; before you throw kolaches at me, know that I think Czech footballers are rad.) (Mmm, kolaches.)

Some cool things have happened on this day in history. There was an attempt made to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London by a thief dressed as a man of the cloth in 1671. A horse drawn bus was used for the first time in Mumbai in 1874 (which gives more meaning to the term autobus). And in 1950, a man named Robert Schuman presented a paper on his idea for a cohesive and peaceful governmental body in Europe, which is why today is celebrated as Europe Day in what is now the European Union.

It was also the day that a pop star was born. A pop star who loves history as much as I do.

Happy Thursday in History Birthday, Billy Joel.

Exigence

This morning I herded my cats (children) out the door, grabbed all the stuff they’d need for the day, and walked out myself. We piled into the car and headed toward my mom’s house. And it wasn’t until we got to 56th & R that I realized something.

I forgot my phone.

If this were 2003, it would not have been a big deal. I wouldn’t have had a mini-panic attack in the driver’s seat waiting for the light to change. But it was like someone had sliced off one of my limbs without my noticing.

It took me a few minutes to talk myself down. I didn’t need it to call anyone (but of course I had terrible daydreams about crashing the car and not being able to summon aid while bleeding to death). And it’s not like it’s a fancy smartphone, so I’m better off than one of those people who is constantly connected to the internet and social media. I wonder if there’s an app for reminding you not to leave your phone at home.

I calmed down a little bit and continued on the drive, but it wasn’t long before I was plotting when I could go home and retrieve my phone. When that realization hit my conscious mind, I told my subconscious to chill. “I don’t need it,” I informed myself. “Just because it’s usually always there when I happen to want it to send a text or check the time or call my husband doesn’t mean it needs to be within my reach every single second of my life.” My subconscious came back with, “well I wouldn’t have been thinking about it if my boss wasn’t going to try to get ahold of me later today.” I acknowledged that as a good point and allowed myself to continue to contrive a time to reacquire it.

This is one of  Dave Richardson's one liners.

The final decision was that I would just have to live without it until I could get it again. Even though I knew that I didn’t need it, I still felt like I was going to die without it. This isn’t a great snapshot of our society. What are we going to do during the zombie apocalypse when all of the cell towers go down and we can’t coordinate our counterattacks that way? The way we’re going, the harshest sentencing for criminals in the future will be that we take away their iPhones.

I can live without my cell phone for a while. I know this in my head, but it’s hard to remember when it’s usually something I have every second of the day. Today, I think I’ll be okay without it.

But I did just reach for it to take a picture of my kid.

Crash and Bruise

These things suck.
(image courtesy of
wikimedia commons)

Crutches are super fun to play with. You can test your balance, use then as stilts, or pretend you’re a pirate (hook hand and parrot optional).

Crutches as a necessity? Not so fun. They’re bulky, your armpits start to hurt after a while, and you never know where to stash them when you sit down.

The last time I had to use crutches was about nine years ago when I sprained my ankle jumping around giggling and spitting raspberries torturously at my roommate. I was paid out for my folly.

Thankfully, when I sprained my ankle on Thursday, I could still walk on my foot (once the excruciating pain went away, anyway). The doctor took an x-ray and determined that there was no fracturing, and I was so happy that I could have danced. You know, if I hadn’t had a sprained ankle.

I’ve never broken a bone. I am the Accidental Bruise Queen, and have had bruises in a range of colors (including yellow, green, blue, and purple, and once even all of those at the same time), but I have never any broken bones.

My brothers broke their bones all the time when they were kids. Maybe they were just more daredevil-y than me, riding down the hill at our grandparents’ house endlessly on various homemade vehicles of questionable safety, ending up in the ditch occasionally, sometimes with broken wrists or blood gushing out of a knee or two. One of my brothers did this so often that my dad nicknamed him “Crash.”

In sixth grade, one of my classmates broke his leg so badly that he was hospitalized for several months. We sent him videos of us waving at the camera and saying “get well soon!” and gathered on the stage in the gym singing and dancing to “Hey Jude” and “Feelin’ Groovy” (it happened to be during my awesome teacher’s Beatles/Simon & Garfunkel phase). We even took a field trip to the hospital to see him once.

So, as a kid, I could definitely see the advantages to having a broken bone. You got a cool cast which people could sign, your mom and other family members went out of their way (more than usual) to get you anything you might want or need, and everyone paid attention to you.

I could also see the drawbacks. Having a cast on your arm apparently itches. A lot. You can have people sign your unbroken arms or legs anytime, really. You don't have to break them to get an autograph. Having people wait on you hand and foot gets frustrating after a while, especially if you physically can’t get up and do things for yourself. And I’d rather have people pay attention to me because I’m hilarious or because they actually like me than just because I’m injured.

This thing is a work of art. Purple, blue,
green, orange, yellow... It's like having
my very own sunset to walk around on.

Having a sprained ankle might suck, but at least it’s not broken. If it were broken, it’d take more time to heal and probably hurt a heck of a lot more. This way, I can hobble down the stairs and do the laundry or put the dishes in the dishwasher without my husband fussing at me too much to go put my foot up.

And at least I don’t have to deal with the annoying crutches.

A Few of My Favorite Things (Always Break)

Have you ever had a really awesome pair of jeans? Like the kind that you’ve had so long that they fit you perfectly and you’d rather wear them than anything else you own? Or maybe it’s a writing utensil that you use at every meeting, that never leaves your side, and chances are that if you’re writing, you’re using it? Or perhaps it’s a computer or laptop that’s six or seven years out of date that has all the buttons just where they’re supposed to be and when you try to use someone else’s, none of the buttons are where they need to be, or (horror of horrors) they don’t actually have any buttons at all (I’m looking at you here, tablet users).

No matter who you are, it’s probable that you have at least one treasured possession. Maybe it’s a fancy smartphone. Maybe it’s your car. Maybe it’s your shoes. Whatever your favorite thing is, the rule of the universe dictates that it will break. Stuff wears out. It gets battered. It runs out of ink. It rips. It tears. It cracks.

The other law of the universe regarding stuff is that when you go back to the store to get a new one, the manufacturer will have made changes, to produce a “better” product, so you will not be able to replace the thing you love. And even if you do somehow manage to procure a product exactly like the one you had before, it will not be “broken in” like your previous possession. You’ll have to bend the rim of the hat until it’s just like the one you had before, and probably wear it for a couple of months before it feels even remotely the same. (And even then, that’s mostly likely because you’ve just gotten used to the new thing and not because it’s like the old thing at all.)

Man. Stuff breaking is the worst.

I keep old pairs of jeans in the bottom of the closet when I have to go buy new ones. Even if they’re too small (or too big). That way, I’ll be able to wear my new jeans twice and then go back to wearing my old ones for a couple of days, just to complain to them that the new ones I got just aren’t as good.

My friends and I used to have pen funerals in high school. No joke. We would crowd around a trash can, and recall fond memories of the dearly cracked or ink deficient instrument, followed by promising to remember it forever before casting it into the chasm of half eaten lunches and crumpled notebook paper. I don’t treasure my pens now like I did then, but every time I have to toss one out, I remember Elizabeth faking tears and Carolyn whining, “we’ll miss youuuu!” and I laugh.

And there’s nothing like a comfortable bra. Cacique is a great company, but they’re one of those places that never stops making changes. I’m never sure if I should buy six of the same kind because the next time I walk in that style will have been discontinued, or if I should just buy one in case I end up hating it.

What always happens, unfortunately, is that I buy one or two and hate them for a couple of months until my old ones break beyond repair, and then I get used to the new ones. The new ones then become the old ones, and I have to buy newer ones, which by that time have been canceled forever, so I buy different ones and hate them for a few months and the cycle continues.

"Data, there's a chance this replicator unit may be damaged."
(Terrible image mash-up by me, original images appropriated from
the Star Trek wiki & cacique.com.)

In conclusion: buying new stuff to replace your old favorite stuff is the worst. I’m waiting for the day that a Star Trek style replicator gets invented so that I can just be like, “Bra. Cacique. Off White.”

Bag Count: 63

Bag the Bag is getting so tall! Actually, I think I’m done. I meant it to be the same size as a standard reusable grocery bag, but since I didn’t make the bottom quite as large, the height won’t match the bottom if I continue. At the moment it’s about an inch shy of the top of the reusable grocery bag I measured it by, but the proportions already look a bit off.

That’s okay. It’s my first try.

Now this means that I actually have to make a decision about the handles...

Bag Count: 63

Bag the Bag

Bag Count: 9

Bag Count: 17

Bag Count: 30

Bag Count: 35

Bag Count: 44 

Bag Count: 50 

Bag Count: 57 

Bag Count: 70 

Bag Count: 80 

Bag Count: 86 

Bag Count: 87 

Bag Count: 88 

Bag Count: 92 

Bag Count: 94 

Bag Count: THE END

Thursday in History: Great

Two hundred eighty four years ago, a little German Princess was born. Her name was Sophia Augusta Fredericka, but they called her “Figchen.” She wasn’t the son her mother wanted, but despite that, she grew up to become more famous than the rest of her siblings, and her parents, combined.

Her mother loved court intrigues, so when Figchen was betrothed to her second cousin, she resolved to do all that she possibly could to become the person she needed to be. Not for her mother’s sake, or even for him, since he repulsed her ten year old self on their first meeting (she disapproved of the nine year old boy’s inclination for alcohol), but for her future crown.

She had been baptized into the Lutheran church and learned French in school, but now she made plans to convert and got up at night and paced her room, studying a new language.

When she was sixteen, she became the Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp, and settled with her husband, the crown prince of Russia, in a palace west of St. Petersburg. Their marriage wasn’t a happy one, for many reasons: opposite political views, the taking of lovers (by both of them), and the fact that they just plain did not like each other. The son they had together was probably his, but when he confronted her with the accusation that the young prince was a child of her lover and she denied it, he told her to “Go to the devil.”

Shortly after becoming the Empress Consort of Russia, Figchen and the groups that supported her decided that her husband was not the right Tsar for the time. Since he had made the critical error of leaving his wife and her supporters at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg while he returned with his entourage to their home in Oranienbaum, he wasn’t there to keep anyone from deposing him, much less to prevent his wife from being proclaimed ruler in his place. And though he was killed soon after the coup took place, there is no evidence that his wife ordered his death.

Little Figchen, princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, took her husband’s place as monarch of Russia in 1762 at the age of 33. She had long since joined the Russian Orthodox Church, so she was crowned using the name she had taken when she converted: Catherine.

Catherine on her horse, 1762.
by Vigilius Eriksen

What made Catherine so great?

Catherine II, Empress and Autocrat of Russia, was a pioneer of the Enlightenment in Russia. She was a correspondent of Voltaire. She held conferences with forward thinkers about education and politics. She founded the first college for women in Europe. She allowed a certain amount of religious freedom for non-Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Jews (although they were taxed twice the amount and were offered incentives to convert).

One of the coolest things about Catherine was her personal slogan: “Happiness and unhappiness are in the heart and spirit of each one of us: if you feel unhappy, then place yourself above that and act so that your happiness does not get to be dependent on anything.”

Happy Birthday, Catherine.

Buying Stuff like a Real Grown Up

It’s raining.

Yesterday it was gorgeous. Not too much sun, not too many dark clouds, and the wind was blowing a little. My husband and I walked around on a car lot looking at cheap (> $5000) vehicles. We had a pile of cash and a need for something that could be used to drive us around the city for the foreseeable future. It was our first time buying a car.

Walking around, nervous about the whole car-shopping experience, I couldn’t help but remember the first adult purchase we ever made. You know what I mean by “adult purchase.” When you’re a kid with your own money, you buy candy, toys, IBC Root Beer, video games, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, or sporting equipment for yourself. When you’re an adult, you can buy all of those things, but a truly “adult” purchase is something that not only usually costs a ton of money but also has been carefully considered and weighed, and its use is projected over years instead of minutes or hours.

I remember standing in the middle of Men’s Wearhouse on 53rd and O Street, and freaking out a little. “It’s so much money!” I’d said. “I need them,” my practical husband had replied. We paid eleven hundred dollars for those two suits, and every interview my husband has had since has been in one or the other of them.

Yesterday, sitting in the the dealership’s business manager’s office, we recalled that acquisition. “We probably paid too much for them,” my husband admitted. “I dunno, less than six hundred bucks per suit? Think about how much you’ve used them!” He acknowledged my point with a nod as the business manager returned to collect the money we had agreed to pay for our “new” car.

Just because you’re making an “adult purchase” doesn’t mean you have to be absolutely serious the whole time. When my husband pulled out the cash, we both bid “Uncle Beeeen!” a fond farewell; we are both going to miss the money we worked so hard for (so hard, in fact, that those hundreds have almost become part of the family).

I was in a different emotional state when that money was taken away than I was when I wrote a check in 2008. Both times, I knew that the thing that we were buying was something necessary. I wonder if it’s just because I’m more of an adult now than I was then, since this time, I was totally cool about it. I’m more excited that we made a purchase than worried about the amount we spent.

I thought about it while we waited for the car to be washed. Maybe it’s because I know we’re free and clear.  I could have wrecked that thing on the way home, and since we saved up the money and paid for the whole thing in cash, we wouldn’t have had to argue about how we were going to make the car payment on a totaled car for the next couple of years.

Don’t worry, we got it home okay. It sat in our driveway last night, sparkly and clean.

And of course, today it’s raining.

TauTau is a ruby red 2003 Ford Taurus.
Serve us well, TauTau, we're not in Kansas anymore.