Let Us All Press On...again

Hey, Hey, Hey friends, (this reminds me of my nephew who while playing frequently refers to the imagined participants as "friend"). Well, since social media is supposed to totally be where it is at, I would like to refer you to a new blog of mine that is specifically for my letterpress passion: The Inky Pinky Press. Yay! Not to be redundant to the first post over there, but I have my press!! I am a fully functional printer! Yes, my dear friends that means you will soon have the benefit of requesting note cards, birth announcements and invitations.  I especially love to print 'house moving' cards, personalized note cards, and soiree invitations.  On that site I will post some samples of some of those types of cards. Come visit the new blog please and when I get a page on facebook, please friend me. Pretty Please?

Oh, and if you are recalling a previous post about buying a printing press, that press was not functional, and I just wasn't motivated to get it so since it wasn't the press I knew I wanted. So I sold it and decided to wait for 'the right one'. Waiting was worth it! 

A Benefit of Biking

OK, so some back story. I used to ride my bike a lot to get around when I lived in the city. Once I got married and found myself trapped in car-commuting it lapsed. Well recently I decided, HELK NO! (HELK is my new word, stronger than HECK, but not quite swearing). I decided that though I couldn’t control how I got to town from home (it has to be by car and Lin doesn’t want to move closer), I could choose how I got from Lin’s work to my work. 

So I started biking again. I brought my sweet little bike down. It is only about 2 miles to get to work, but I love it. I forgot how awesome it is to be on a bike and getting someplace without a carbon footprint. I also forgot how stupid my hair looks after wearing a helmet.  [ I will confess, since I am riding on side roads with little traffic, sometimes I don’t wear one. Why can’t we be like Amsterdam and everyone ride around without helmets? ]  I picked just the right time of year to start biking (a few weeks ago) because I was treated to the musky smell of the Tree of Heaven - Ailantus altissima, in bloom. In my old city apartment there was one outside my window and I got to love that musky (almost body-odor) scent of the Tree of Heaven. I know it is a “trash tree” and as an arborist would never in good conscious recommend planting one, but I am glad they come up on their own. I like the smell. It is gone now for another year. Now the Lindens are in full bloom, and they smell sweet and wonderful, but in truth, I prefer and miss the musky scent of the Ailianthus.

*The Wikipedia article refers to the scent as stink and so on.  Oh well. 

A Persistent Gummy Bear

You may remember my previous incident involving 'off-brand' gummy bears. Well, I have another chapter to add to the gummy bear book of life. I had to travel to Atlanta, GA for work. It was nice. I had a lovely suite that was a block away from the Olympic Park. Traffic flowed under my windows, but not excessively. I was able to walk to a nice pizzaria near by and have drinks on the roof-top patio of my hotel. I liked being alone. I am still adjusting to being married and sometimes I like having absolute autonomy.

Well, now to the reason I write. As I was cleaning my room in preparation for my departure I was giving it a good look-over and imagine my wonderment at finding a little neglected gummy bear under my bed. I had not eaten any gummy bears and so it must have been from a previous guest. Lost and neglected. I ate him, helping him fulfill the measure of his creation. 

Bon Bon De Terres

Today I came across the term PICA and low and behold…the International Classification of Diseases includes geophagia among eating disorders as a variety of pica, the ingestion of non-foods. I have known about geophagia for a long time, but had never heard of Pica. SSOOOO interesting. My grandfather confessed to being a “junior geophagist” he could still recall in his 90’s the delicious and distinct flavor of the dirt in his pantry growing up. (I always mention that perhaps mollasses had spilled in that spot and made it yummy). I don’t think I would like the texture of dirt, I think I could only enjoy the smoothest, silkiest of clays.

Pica (pronounced /ˈpaɪkə/ PY-kə) is a medical disorder characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive (e.g. metal, clay, coal, sand, dirt, soil, feces, chalk, pens and pencils, paper, batteries, spoons, toothbrushes, soap, mucus, ash, gum, etc.) or an abnormal appetite for food ingredients (e.g. flour, raw potato, raw rice, starch, ice cubes, salt). For these actions to be considered pica, they must persist for more than one month at an age where eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate. The condition's name comes from the Latin word for magpie, a bird that is reputed to eat almost anything. Pica is seen in all ages, particularly in pregnant women, small children, and those with developmental disabilities.

 Geophagy is the practice of eating earthy or soil-like substances such as clay, and chalk. It exists in animals in the wild and also in humans, most often in rural or preindustrial societies among children and pregnant women.

While in the US and Europe the practice has often been stigmatized, this is not necessarily so in other parts of the world. Most non-Western societies consider geophagy to be an adaptive, beneficial, and nutritional approach to promote health. There's a trend in recent scientific research to study geophagy not as a pathology, but rather as an adaptive behaviour that supplements the diet with essential nutrients or treats a disorder such as diarrhea.

In Haiti, the poorest economy in the Western Hemisphere, geophagy is widespread. The clay mud is worked into what looks like pancakes or cookies, called "bon bon de terres" (Earthy bon bons), that are dried in the sun and sold throughout the poorer areas. Small amounts of other ingredients, vegetable shortening, salt and sometimes sugar, are also added to the mix. The cookies have little or no nutritional value and are associated with various health problems, but they are eaten because they “fill the belly”.

Do you want to eat some dirt? It was harder than I thought to find dirt for sale to eat. But here a site for clay…mmmhhh, is it smooth and silky? I might have to get me some.

Eight Means Love

Not being the most au courant of individuals, I was both delighted and a little bemused to learn that the combination of the numbers 1 4 3 means = I love you (representing the numbers in the words) http://www.netlingo.com/word/143.php.  Really? Did you know about this? Maybe I am just getting old, and the truth is, even in texting I like to actually spell words out. It seems lazy to acronym everything. But, the reason this delights me is that I love the number 8, and 1+4+3=8. YAY!!!

Oh, yeah, so instead of 1,4,3 meaning I love you I choose to say 8, and since 8 sideways is the symbol of infinity∞, it is like infinite love = rad! You could help me start this new fad if you wanted. Maybe we could get those emoticon folks to make an 8 that rotates from 8 to ∞. But we’ll have to make it popular first.

Currency Incongruity

So I started thinking the other day about how incongruous our currency is.  Usual change for $1, is broken up into a penny, nickel, dime, quarter.  Our bills are $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100. There is no quarter of 100, a $25, but we have quarters in change. We have no 20¢ cent piece. We had one but it was discontinued in 1878, after a short 3 year stint. Where is the consistency? I couldn’t find any. But, I found out so many interesting things with just a little research.

This is some information from Wikipedia about our coinage minting.

·     Half-cent 1792 - 1857

·     Penny 1793–present

·     2-cent 1864–1873

·     3-cent 1851-1873

·     Half Dime 1792-1873 (Not to be confused with the Nickel below also worth 5 cents)

·     Nickel 1866–present

·     Dime 1792–present

·     20-cent 1875-1878

·     Quarter 1796–present

·     Half dollar 1794–present

·     Dollar coin 1794–present

·     Quarter Eagle ($2.5 gold coin) 1792-1929

·     Three-dollar piece 1854-1889

·     Half Eagle ($5 gold coin) 1795-1929

·     Eagle ($10 gold coin) 1795-1929

·     Double Eagle ($20 gold coin) 1850-1933

Coinage of the US dollar

We used to print higher number bills, but currently we only print $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100. I suppose that any higher amount is handled electronically now.

Federal Reserve Notes

Bills wear out at different rates, apparently the $5 is our most commonly used bill.

Denomination	$1	$2	$5	$10	$20	$50	$100
Months in circulation	21	136	16	18	24	55	89

Off Brand Gummy Bears

 In the cafeteria downstairs at the SLCo building they have been selling little baggies of gummy bears and worms for a RIDICULOUSLY high price. Like $0.90 for a small baggie. Yet, they look tempting, so when I was at Smith's last week and saw a bag of Kroeger brand gummy bears...I got 'em! Well, I should have known something was up when I found a gummy with a goiter. I posted about it on facebook, but just ate the fellow without taking his photo. I think he was green. But then I found 1) a wee mutant gummy, and then 2) a set of conjoined gummies, and lastly (I had been intentionally drying them out) 3) a crackly gummy.

1) You can see by comparison, the one on the right is smaller and has a mis-shapened head = a wee mutant gummy. (and as noted in a fb comment, the white gummies look to be glowing...nice).

2) The conjoined bears. Clearly attached at the hips by a band of gummy. The gummy on the left also had its stomach ripped out. I am not sure if it was done by its twin or another bear.

3) The crackly bear. I was drying them out for more chewing pleasure, but this one took the brunt of Utah's arid climate. He is far more crackled and wrinkly than any of the others.

I think there is a lesson here about 'off-brand' purchases. And their potential for amusement. I think I have had more pleasure from this one bag of goodies than from most things. Gummy bears are entertaining.