Tent Syndrome

Public Service Announcement:
Do you have tent syndrome?  This temporary condition afflicts thousands of people every year.  People go camping and think that no one around them can hear what's being said inside the tent.   This may be due to a temporary loss of object permanence once you step inside the tent.  If you can't see it, it's not there.   This dangerous condition has threatened many relationships.  Its insidiousness is not limited to tents but can be observed in other situations including the dreaded "This is a private conversation that no one else should hear but I'm talking about it at Starbucks."  You too can raise awareness and help stop tent syndrome by talking loudly about tent syndrome in public places that might give people the illusion of privacy.  A public restroom is a good spot to start.

----End of Public Service Announcement---

We've all seen tent syndrome in action:
Like when we'd go to Mexico...  You'd have a line of tents, a boy half and a girl half.  Invariably, someone in the girl half would be talking about a boy who is just a few tents over...  Until someone in boy tent starts talking and all of a sudden the girl side realizes that the fabric walls don't stop the sound.  Oops! Both sides would do this.... the things you would hear! 

I think I'm living in a tent.  I used to want to live in a yurt.  I take that back now.   My neighbors were in their yard late last night and early this morning.   I was half asleep; but this morning, I woke with a memory of someone talking about Jesse being gay.  Tent syndrome strikes again!  Just because you're talking to someone doesn't mean the rest of the world can't hear.  You're outside.  Sound travels. 

I have a partition dividing my room from the entry way so if you stand in common area, I can hear just about everything you say.  So at 6 am, my housemates came in and started to settle some friends in to camp out on the floor in the common area.  My favorite bit: housemate says to friends, "I'll see you both in the morning."  I respond: "Um, it's 6 am; it is morning!"  Silence.  Tent syndrome. 

Yes, thanks to tent syndrome, I watched the sun rise this morning.  It was beautiful. 

Now, I'm going to go dig out my white noise machine and plug it in.

So neighbors and housemates, if you can hear my "ocean", I can hear you!

  

Garden Day

Today, I went to play in my garden and took my camera along.

 My favorite heirloom bean: Rattlesnake.

 Best part about rattlesnakes is that the pattern on the bean differentiates it from the stem.  Most beans blend with the stem color which makes them harder to find.  Although, I still miss finding them even with the pattern! 

 My cilantro grew nice and big earlier in the summer.  I came out one night to cut it for dinner only to find that something had been nibbling on it.  I'm going with rabbits here since deer aren't usually in the residential areas.  Both plants were nibbled back over two days.  When the cilantro grew back it started to bolt.  I left them since I think the flowers are rather beautiful.  The flowers have larger white edge petals.  The centers are trimmed with pink.  They work as cut flowers but smell like cilantro.

So far I've lost 4 different plants to gophers.  The gophers have breached the chicken wire under the plot.  Plants lost: 1 tomato, 1 nasturtium 1 cilantro, 1 cucumber.  

I'm taking bets on what plant will disappear next!

 The tunnels are collapsing but I don't have a clear entry point to work with.  I'm curious if planting poisonous plants like poison hemlock or oleander around a garden would do anything to deter gophers.  When I first started my garden plot, there was a large poison hemlock plant in the center and no gopher trouble.  The hemlock died and was taken out.  Now I have gophers...  Of course, I may just have the five star plant buffet or the gophers took advantage of our wet spring to go forth and multiply.  Who knows?  :)

Update

It's been a fun couple of weeks.  The program I work for at the University was going through an accreditation process and we ran about making sure everything went smoothly.   It went incredibly smoothly and the program passed with flying colors.  My new nickname is "the Dean's Assistant" as someone mistook me as such.  I'm not going to complain about that... I just need to live up to it!

Tonight, in my multicultural literature class, we were looking at Jacqueline Woodson's book If You come Softly. It's an excellent book that will be added to my library.  In the book. Jeremiah makes a comparison between rain and the looks he and Ellie receive  while dating (he's African American and she's White).

"Think of it..." Jeremiah said slowly. "Like weather or something. You got your rain, your snow, your sunshine.  Always changing but still constant, you know."

In class, snow was compared to the overt acts of racism and sunshine to the days where racism isn't present.

Jeremiah continues with, "Let's say it's rain- the people who've got problems with us being together-let's call them and their problems rain."

A little later, the snow is melting on Ellie's face and I made a point about snow as a metaphor for racism in the book.  This got my professor really excited.  And he proceeded to emphasize snow as he read the rest of his selections in the book.


But what he didn't know was...




My mom was an English major in college. 

 

She would do this thing when we were growing up, pointing out the symbolism and metaphors as we watched movies or read books.  She ruined more movies that way. :)  We'd be watching a movie and all of a sudden there's Mom talking and pointing out patterns and symbolism (see the waves crashing, that implies...or when Mr. Darcy goes for a swim, that's a symbol of rebirth...  yada yada yada ).   This is all wonderfully helpful as an adult but when you just want to watch a movie, not so much.

I caught myself doing the same thing recently while watching the "other" Pride and Prejudice (2006). I'm turning into my mother! When Lizzy wanders through the statuary room at Pemberley, there's an awakening and Lizzy gains the awareness of a woman. It wasn't a very subtle metaphor though.   I have to have a disclaimer here. This was my first time watching this version all the way through.  The first time I tried to watch it, I wanted to smack Bingley for acting like a 15 year old boy, walking into a girls room WHILE knocking, being coached on proper etiquette and his general silliness....  I just couldn't take it. ;) 

Anyways, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to post.  The picture at the top has nothing to do with the post.  I just wanted to add a picture.  Plus, I had been thinking about the trip Mom and I took to Washington a year and a half ago. 

Thanks Mom for making me look smart!  Love you!  :)