Life In A Word

Whenever She Asks, Bake the Cake

I just did the quick math and realized my wife and I have been empty nesters for almost ten years now. When our youngest headed off to college in 2017, we pivoted and embraced the milestone of less clutter and chaos. But just as suddenly we have grandchildren now, and with them comes reminders of those formerly frenetic chapters of our lives.

The moment that inspired this post was the one I never saw coming. We hosted our granddaughters earlier this week, in the first of what we hope will be countless “sleepovers”. At ages 3 and “almost 2” they’re a sight for sore eyes (and also a sight you should never take your eyes off of). My wife and I were in the kitchen doing a something-or-other task when suddenly the three-year old beckoned to me from the nearby screened-in porch. It’s pretty adorable when a little one uses “come here” gestures to get your attention because she still doesn’t quite have the words.

Now, let me admit to a little annoyance. After all, I was in the middle of something and I was being interrupted by my granddaughter. In typical adult fashion I said, “Hang on honey, let me finish what I’m doing”, but she persisted. Apparently what needed to be seen couldn’t wait one more minute. So I let out a sigh, put down what I was doing, and wandered over to the porch.

Here was my granddaughter, holding her hands out wide to proudly display what was sitting on the table…. an empty wooden bowl. I looked at the bowl and then I looked at her, then back to the bowl, then back to her with obvious question marks in my eyes. And all she said to me was, “cake!”. Cake? What was that supposed to mean? Was she trying to pronounce some other word but somehow it was coming out “cake”?

It was then she gave me a glimpse into her wonderfully imaginative little world. I had no idea our screened-in porch was actually a world-class chef’s kitchen. There was some serious baking going on in there! And the cake’s ingredients – of which there were many – came from the most unexpected of places.

To begin with, my granddaughter produced a small rock (not sure where that came from) which served as the cake “starter”. Then she picked up the largest throw pillow from the couch and shook it vigorously into the bowl. Who knew we had a “bag of flour” right there on the porch? Immediately adjacent to the flour, a smaller throw pillow became a “bag of sugar”. More vigorous shaking. Finally she seized the third throw pillow, which she didn’t have an answer for (so we told her it was baking powder).

Other ingredients followed. When she asked for butter we emptied the box of butter sticks from our refrigerator so she could help herself to “the rest of them”. When she needed a little water she sprinkled some (literally) from the nearby wall fountain. An empty watering can was suddenly “full of milk”. And in a creative spin I could never come up with myself, she decided the four ornate corners of our patio table were dispensers for cake toppings like frosting, chocolate syrup, and rainbow sprinkles.

At this point I’d completely forgotten whatever mundane task I’d been doing in the real kitchen because I was focused on the make-believe one instead. I brought out several (real) implements so the cake could be thoroughly prepared. Wooden spoons for stirring. Spatulas for turning. Tongs to pick up and put down the mysterious rock (a repetitive step in the recipe she clearly understood but I did not). An (empty) shaker of cinnamon. Impatiently I asked her if the cake was done, but she shook her head side-to-side and said, “No (Gran) Da, this cake will take hours”. And that was perfectly fine with me.

By the time our granddaughters were strapped into their car seats and on their way home, I think we’d baked another four cakes on the ~~porch~~ kitchen. Little Miss Almost-2 occasionally pitched in as sous chef, although her older sister was only too happy to point out who was in charge. Today as I sit at my laptop, I’m looking at a clean and organized screened-in porch. It suddenly looks a little boring.

As for the inside of the house, the dishes are washed, the toys are back in the cabinets, and everything’s pleasantly back in order. It’s looking like an empty nest around here again. Except for some little handprints that need to be cleaned from the living room windows. On second thought maybe I’ll leave those where they are, if only to remind me – whenever she asks – to drop everything I’m doing and go bake the cake.

A Relentless Rising Tide

Every year in mid-October, my mailbox gets noticeably fuller with holiday catalogs. The adverts are bold and glossy with all sorts of gifting ideas. I enjoy leafing through their colorful pages. But then they keep coming to my mailbox. And coming. And coming some more. If I saved every one of them I’d probably have a stack as high as my house by mid-December. By my calculations that’s almost as high as the stack I’d have for luxury cruises.

Maybe you’re familiar with the term First-World problem. It refers to “issues that are trivial, experienced by people in affluent, developed nations.” It puts minor annoyances in perspective compared to the more legitimate problems of this world. Good examples of First-World problems: 1) You can’t find the TV remote, 2) You have bad cell phone reception, or 3) Your favorite store only accepts cash. Today’s example of a First-World problem: 4) Too much junk mail from cruise lines.

Yes, I’ve taken a cruise. In fact I’ve taken four: one on the (Pacific) ocean with Carnival, one on the (Baltic) sea with Oceania, and two on the (Rhine, Danube) rivers with Viking. So it’s fair to say I’m a worthy target when it comes to cruise lines pushing their upcoming adventures. For some reason Carnival doesn’t pursue me (maybe I’m too old for their party boats?) but Oceania and Viking have gone – take your pick – full steam ahead or totally overboard. They send countless postcards advertising their cruises, and thick catalogs advertising their entire season’s worth. They love to push you to consider their “off-season, deeply discounted” options. And they love to NOT leave you alone.

It’s safe to say I receive a promotion for a cruise two out of every three days. Most days these adverts seem to give birth to a family. Just yesterday I received six, and two of them – go figure – were identical twins. I guess Viking really wants me to take that cruise. One of those six came from Regent (kind of an orphan), which makes me think Viking and Oceania share their mailing lists. Thanks a lot, guys.

Would I take a luxury cruise right now? Sounds nice, as long as it’s not through the Strait of Hormuz. Sounds nice, as long as I don’t pick up a pandemic-potential virus onboard. Sounds nice, as long as my ship doesn’t get torpedoed the way Cunard’s cruise ship Lusitania did in the early 1900s (read the remarkable story in Erik Larson’s Dead Wake). Maybe I should reconsider my “sounds good”. I sense the gods of cruising are trying to tell me something.

Admittedly, it surprised me to learn the demand for luxury cruises is not down but markedly up right now. You could point to the cost of fuel, the unrest in several parts of the world, or the thought of picking up a virus as reasons people wouldn’t want to cruise. Doesn’t seem to matter. Bookings are at record levels, especially those for “mega-ships” that look like floating water parks and the ones that take you to private islands. When one of my postcards advertises “up to 45% Spring savings!” and another “up to 30% off with free international airfare!”, you just know their profit margins are more than healthy.

But I digress. I need to address my First-World problem. Rather, let’s let Catalog Choice (CC) address it. With a quick online sign-up and a little info from one of my postcards, CC claims they’ll remove the cruise clutter from my mailbox, in the name of “fighting waste, preventing fraud, and simplifying life”. Will they? Time will tell. Maybe I’ll get back to you a few months from now since it’s a matter of global concern. Assuming I’m not on a luxury cruise at the time.

Some content sourced from the Travel and Tour World article, “U.S. Cruise Industry Faces Fuel Shock, Health Fears, and Mega Ship Boom…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Wheels of Fortune

Late last year, Belgium found itself at the center of a culinary controversy. A local company was producing and selling a bottled version of “carbonara sauce”, much to the dismay of Italy. The Italians are fiercely protective of the recipe for spaghetti carbonara they invented a hundred years ago. Anyone familiar with the dish understands there is no such thing as carbonara sauce, because the food is the result of a slow, methodical process using fresh ingredients (including eggs and cheese), where everything melds together perfectly. You can’t just bottle it and call it the same thing.

Carbonara is a good example of a product invented in Italy and dumbed down for mass consumption. Imagine how the Italians feel about Starbucks. Somewhere on the menu you can order a shot of pure espresso but it’s the drinks with the added flavors, sugar, and milk that generate the profits. Similarly, you’ll find a dozen packages of biscotti on America’s cookie aisles, but most aren’t twice-baked like the originals nor infused with real almond liquor.

Maybe you’ve already added pizza to this list of imposters. The transformation of pizza from the Italian original to the endless varieties offered in today’s restaurants could be the subject of its own blog post (and a long one at that). Suffice it to say, the Italians are justified in turning up their noses to any product we Americans call “pizza”. Unless you’ve had a pie made with authentic Italian ingredients and prepared the same way they made it centuries ago, you really don’t know pizza.

But let’s talk about cheese, because it’s the real subject of today’s post. Parmesan cheese is another Italian original, dating back to the Middle Ages. It’s made with just three ingredients: milk, salt, and rennet (enzymes). Today you can choose from a variety of parmesan cheeses in your supermarket deli or just cheat with the big green Kraft can from the pasta aisle (which includes several added ingredients you wouldn’t be happy about). But whether from the deli or from a can, you’re not purchasing the Italian original… unless, the package includes the official logo of Parmigiano Reggiano. That, my friends, indicates the real deal. Or, if you prefer, the “big cheese”.

Parmigiano Reggiano (shall we call it “PR” from here on out? Yes, let’s do that.) is one of the most tightly regulated foods in the world. Maybe the Italians got tired of losing control of their original recipes and declared, “Uh-uh, not this one”. PR is made from milk, salt, and rennet just like the other wannabes, but with two important differences. The cows that provide two of those three ingredients graze on the pristine grass of pastures in a single tiny region of central Italy. The cows, the grass, and the milk they produce are regulated in a way that would make Fort Knox proud. It’s a small, tight supply chain of cheese production with the same quality of centuries ago.

Here’s the other important distinction between PR and the others. It must be aged at least a year (and it’s typically more like two or three) before it can be sold. That requirement gets the cheese to stand alone even more than its carefully-produced ingredients. Why? Because most companies can’t sit around for a year or more waiting for cheese to generate profits while suppliers are demanding payment on the spot. So how do the makers of PR do it? They bank their cheese. Literally.

You know you have a really good cheese when your bank is willing to take it as collateral. Here are the staggering numbers. Italy produces four million wheels of PR a year, distributed throughout the country and the world for sale. (Fact: America is the largest consumer of Parmigiano Reggiano outside of Italy.) But 500,000 of those wheels are held back and “deposited” into a local bank to age, in exchange for the cash necessary to pay the suppliers. PR is of such high quality and so carefully regulated that the banks have agreed to this unique arrangement for generations. Of course, the combined value of those wheels probably helps (well north of $300 million).

If you’d care to know more about this whole cheese-for-money thing, read the article I reference below. More importantly, if you ever come across Italy’s “Cheese Bank”, you’ll probably find the usual ATM’s, tellers, and offices, but at least you’ll know what that big warehouse next door is all about.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Inside Italy’s secret ‘Cheese Bank’…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Birthday ‘Berty Bells

I was only fourteen when America celebrated 200 years of independence, but I remember it well. The U.S. Mint reproduced the quarter, half-dollar, and dollar coins in the birthday’s honor, with “1776-1976” across the bottom of each face. The quarter held the image of a Colonial drummer on the flip side, while the half-dollar went with Independence Hall and the dollar the Liberty Bell. Now, with America’s Semiquincentennial just two months away, maybe a visit to the Liberty Bell is in order. And you don’t even have to make the pilgrimage to Philadelphia to see it.

As a reminder of America’s 250th birthday, the Liberty Bell is more relevant than ever. The original was cast with the Bible verse Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof, and cracked during one of its first dings. The bell was recast twice, relabeled the “Liberty Bell” in the 1830s, and cracked yet again sometime after that. All these years later the crack has come to represent our country’s divisiveness; in other words, the perfect symbol of an imperfect union.

I knew about the Liberty Bell’s history but what I didn’t know about was its many replicas. In the 1950s the U.S. Treasury sponsored a drive to purchase savings bonds, and advertised the bonds by commissioning full-scale reproductions of the Liberty Bell. The bells went to each of the 48 states of that time, the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and one more each for the District of Columbia and the Treasury Department itself. So depending on where you live today, you might find yourself a lot closer to the Liberty Bell than you think.

The reproductions are true to the original in just about every way, including the size and the weight, the famous crack, and the Pass and Stowe (bell-caster) trademark. You’d expect to find the bells in prominent locations in each state but it’s more of a treasure hunt than that. Some are in museums. Virginia’s is in a fire house near Monticello. North Carolina’s is in a “secure storage facility”. Arizona’s is touring the state for the next several months. And the one at the U.S. Treasury? It is nowhere to be found, supposedly melted down for the value of it’s 2,080 lbs. of bronze.

The replicas were created at the Paccard Foundry in Lac d’Annecy, France (photo courtesy of Paccard Archives/Paccard Foundry via AP)

I like the thought of ringing the (er, ringing “a”) Liberty Bell to usher in America’s Semiquincentennial. A birthday of that significance deserves more than just extra fireworks. The year before the bicentennial, the Los Angeles Times sponsored a trivia contest, seeking the answer to one question for each state over a period of fifty weeks. Think about a trivia contest in the 1970s. No Internet. No email. Each week you had to look up the trivia question in the (paper) newspaper, write the answer on a (paper) form, mail the form to the Times (with an envelope and a stamp), and then hope you got all fifty right by the end of the year, to be entered into a drawing for a cash prize.

North Carolina’s Liberty Bell in the 1950s (photo courtesy of Pryor Emerson Humphrey Photograph Collection/State Archives of North Carolina via AP)

A few determined souls have been trying to visit all of the Liberty Bell replicas well before the onset of America’s 250th. Check out Tom Campbell’s pursuit at tomlovesthelibertybell.com (he’s up to 40), or Zoe Murphy’s pursuit at zlovesamerica.com (39). My respect for these patriots is not so much for the pursuits but more the effort behind them, which suggests they’re focused on America in a good way, an attitude we need more than ever these days.

Every morning after feeding the horses, I head out to the front of the house and hang the American flag. It’s a symbol of unabashed pride, no matter how some of my fellow Americans might see it. 250 years might be young compared to most other countries but the chapters of our history are just as colorful as theirs. I’m hoping all those Liberty Bells sound loud and proud over the next few months… without earning more cracks when all is said and rung.

Some content sourced from the AP News article, “Meet the Liberty Bell fans visiting little-known replicas…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Key(board) to My Heart

Steinway & Sons produces some of the world’s finest pianos, the same way they’ve built them for the past 150 years. They make each instrument by hand, using career-long craftspeople who pass their skills on to succeeding generations. The company has never moved its headquarters from New York City’s Astoria neighborhood because, well, piano makers are hard to find these days. Kind of like pianos themselves.

Think about it. When was the last time you actually saw a piano? The classic musical instrument used to find a spot in the living rooms of a lot of homes. Nicer homes even had “music rooms”, with a baby grand proudly on display in the middle. The assumption was, these pianos were actually played instead of simply for looks. Playing the piano used to suggest a more refined upbringing. Today they’re a little harder to find.

The piano is considered a “foundational” instrument; that is, a good place to learn to read and play music. Eventually most move on to another musical instrument, be that woodwind, brass, string, or percussion. Not me. I started (and ended) with the piano. A good eight years – second to tenth grade or so – included weekly lessons and monthly recitals, with hours upon hours of practice on our living room grand piano. Even though high school ultimately pulled me into other interests, the piano entered my DNA (as did classical music). It’s part of who I am.

Over the decades since those long-ago lessons, the piano keeps showing up in my life as a reminder of its significance. The year I started college, a movie called The Competition was released, an entire film about piano starring a young Richard Dreyfuss and younger Amy Irving. I still have a copy of the film on DVD. Also in college, I one day wandered into the halls of our school of music to discover a dozen small practice rooms, each with an upright piano. As it turned out, these rooms were open to any student, and so the piano became my escape as I worked through the stresses of an architecture degree.

When I got married, my wife – who couldn’t afford a Steinway back then (and still can’t) – presented me with a Korg digital keyboard. A poor man’s piano if you will, but with the touch and sound of the real thing. Almost forty years later that keyboard still works, sitting quietly upstairs in one of our bedrooms.

Four years ago, as many of you read back then, my wife gave another nod to the keyboard when she gave me the LEGO Grand Piano for Christmas. Building and blogging about that beautiful model one chapter at a time over several months was a captivating adventure, including all of the classical music I re-listened to along the way. The LEGO models I build now will never surpass the Grand Piano, which sits proudly on its own shelf in my home office.

Four years ago also brought me, unexpectedly, my first real piano. My daughter and her family bought a nearby house, where the previous owners left an old, upright Baldwin behind. I found it very sad: a lonely, neglected piano, probably not played for years, inevitably out of tune and in need of repair. So I came to its rescue, hiring a piano mover to get it to our house, and a tuner to restore it to fighting shape. Today that piano sits in our living room. It doesn’t match any of our furniture. It doesn’t get played as often as it should. But it warms my heart just to see it there, and that’s all that really matters.

Recently, the grand piano of my youth resurfaced. It had been sitting in storage for several years, lost among my parents’ many belongings, waiting patiently for another owner. It seemed it would never find another home until – go figure – the Methodist church I grew up in had a need for one. So the piano was wrapped up, trucked up, and placed in the church’s social hall, where it will be restored and played as it was meant to be. To me that feels like the completion one of life’s many circles. The very piano that brought me so much music ends up in the church that brought me so much of a faith life.

Just like my wife, I will never be able to afford a Steinway & Sons masterpiece piano. Neither my budget nor my modest keyboard talent are deserving of such a beautiful instrument. But not to worry. I have my modest Baldwin upright to keep me company. It brings back a lot of keyboard memories. And there are sure to be more.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “How a company from the Gilded Age…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Happy Days Are Here… Yet Again!

A puff piece is the kind of reporting where the subject matter is rooted in opinion more than it is in fact. It’s “news” to bring out the skeptic in you more than the intellect. Puff pieces run rampant on the Web, like this one from a few weeks back: A Nordic nation is the world’s happiest country… Classic clickbait because you just have to know who tops the list, right? So I did click, and promptly learned this piece was more than just puff.

For the ninth year in a row, Finland is in first place in the World Happiness Report (WHR). That’s first place out of 195 countries – again and again and again. By the kind of coincidence I absolutely adore, I blogged about the WHR exactly nine years ago, when the previous year’s report put Finland in fifth place. Then the Finns got even happier – happiest, in fact – and they’ve stood atop the podium ever since.

I’m a skeptic when it comes to a report that measures something as subjective as happiness. Seriously, who am I to judge if you are happy, dopey, grumpy, or bashful (or even one of Snow White’s dwarfs at all)? But nine years in a row of anything is worth investigating. And darned if the WHR isn’t based on brass facts. The WHR only ranks 147 countries (“only”) because they didn’t get survey responses from anyone in the other 48. But those 147 gave thousands of responses on a 0-10 scale; everything from perceptions of freedom and corruption to feelings of life expectancy and generosity. Then the WHR averaged those scores against surveys from the last two years (to remove the impact of global events like COVID). That formula gives us Finland for the win… again.

I fall for the usual shallow trappings of what makes a person happy. Wealth, I thought; Finland must be a rich country. But in the latest list of Countries by Total Private Wealth, Finland comes in a modest 43rd. Then I thought, power. Power makes you happy. Not so again. The World Population Review of Most Powerful Countries ranks Finland 45th. Finally I thought, fame. Who doesn’t want to be famous? Well, the Finns don’t. Seriously, can you name a famous Finn in any capacity? I can think of just two: Alvar Aalto (architect) and Lasse Virén (Olympic runner).

Finland’s keys to happiness are on an entirely different chain. When you flick through them you realize the Finns are focused on anything but wealth, power, and fame. Finland has an excellent healthcare system for both young and old. The same goes for their education options. A low crime rate. A strong culture of giving back to the community. And here’s a relatively new factor: Limits and safeguards on the amount of time young Finns spend on social media, so they’re encouraged to get out of the house. Go figure; a country well on the way to the Artic Circle has a thriving outdoor life.

In a nutshell, Finland is described as “the best place to lose your wallet” (because your wallet will likely be returned to you, contents intact). If only there was room in that same nutshell for America. Nine years ago the U.S. ranked fourteenth on the World Happiness Report. This year? Twenty-third. That’s right, we’re getting sadder by the year on this side of the pond, in no small part – according to the survey – because we’re ~~addicted~~ devoted to our electronic devices and social media. Or maybe we still haven’t learned the wealth-power-fame lesson.

Because you’re dying to know, Afghanistan came in 147th out of 147 on the World Happiness Report. You can probably blame years of “significant geopolitical conflict” for that. But the pattern in the top ten is where you should focus your attention. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and the Netherlands; all coming in right behind Finland. Easy geography tells you these six are close neighbors on the globe. Is there something in the water that makes them all so happy?

The U.S. better take a lesson from the Nordic nations. Happiness beckons, if we’re willing to use the right ingredients in the recipe. I’ve already conceded next year’s WHR trophy to Finland… again (completing a full decade of “happiest”), but maybe the U.S. should just work on getting back into the top twenty. And the pursuit of a higher ranking should start with looking at life as more than just a puff piece.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “A Nordic nation is the world’s happiest…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Patent PeopleMovers

On the other side of the planet they like to build things bigger, taller, and longer. In Saudi Arabia you’ll find the world’s largest airport, covering an area of 300 square miles. In the UAE you’ll find the world’s highest skyscraper, at a dizzying height of 163 floors. And who isn’t familiar with China’s Great Wall – the world’s longest at over 13,000 miles. Now China can make another lengthy claim, with the Goddess Escalator in the city of Wushan. The Goddess might as well be the stairway to heaven.

The mundane escalator you remember from your local department store whisked you from one floor to the next in about twenty seconds. China’s Goddess will take you on an escalator ride for twenty minutes. In that time you ascend 800 feet, which doesn’t elevate you just one floor but more like eighty. Wushan is built on the side of a mountain, and the Goddess snakes from the lower regions to the upper housing district, saving the residents what used to be a strenuous one-hour hike.

Technically the Goddess is not a single escalator. She’s twenty-one of them one after another – and 8 elevators – resulting in a continuous network that qualifies her to be the world’s longest. I can’t blame the Chinese for calling her a goddess. Heck, I’d travel all the way to Wushan just to experience her “uplifting” twenty minutes.

There are times I think I should’ve been an engineer instead of an architect. Like when I’m riding an escalator. Something about the mechanics, organization, and precision really appeals to me. There’s wonder in still not understanding how it all works. And that moment you step on or step off is a bit of a thrill as you surrender your mobility to a machine. It’s the same feeling you get when you’re trying to catch the chair lift at a ski resort.

The escalator was patented in 1889 (a lot earlier than you would’ve guessed, right?), with the first working version installed at Coney Island ten years later. Original escalators were made of wood, and early models required a hand-crank mechanism before motors became commonplace. Today’s versions – where the stairs flatten and slip seamlessly under the surface only to reappear again at the bottom – came along much later. You can still ride one of world’s oldest escalators (a 1920s model) at Macy’s in New York City.

I have fond and not-so-fond memories of escalators. At the rental car center at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, a single escalator takes you from ground level to the Avis cars three stories higher. It’s kind of a thrill-ride sensation ascending and elevating through that many floors. You actually have time to enjoy the view.

On the other hand I’ll never forget the narrow escalators on the outer edge of the football stadium at the University of Texas in Austin. You ride several of them to ascend to the nosebleed seats, turning ninety degrees from one escalator to catch the next. Those in-between landings are small, so small so that any pause of the patrons means no space for those still moving up the escalator. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being crushed by a surge of humanity.

Moving walkways go “step in step” with escalators and elevators; devices that make short journeys easier on the feet. In airports moving walkways make sense because your destination is more horizontal than vertical. They may be convenient, but only if those who choose to just “go for the ride” step aside for those who are late for the plane. Hats off to the frustrated person who came up with signage like “STAND to the right, WALK to the left”. Also, they should hold a contest to give moving walkways a more creative name. Escalators sound cool. Moving walkways not so much.

Some day I hope I see Wushan, China. Okay, let’s get real – I could care less about Wushan. I just want to ride the Goddess. Twenty minutes up and twenty minutes down. Over and over and over. I’m too old for the amusement parks but I’ll never turn down another ride on an escalator.

Some content sourced from the Futurism.com article, “China Built the World’s Largest Outdoor Escalator…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Your Friendly Coauthor Claude

Replacements, Ltd. is a company that comes to the rescue when you’ve lost a piece of china, crystal, or flatware. For those of us who still care about such things – even if we don’t bring them out but every Christmas and Easter – Replacements somehow finds that elusive Wedgewood tea cup or Lenox water goblet, to restore order to the place settings you put on your wedding registry all those years ago. They must have quite a warehouse at Replacements. Sometimes I wonder if they also have a 3D printer.

A few days ago WordPress sent me (and maybe you) an email with the subject line, “Spend your time creating – let AI handle the rest!” I almost pressed Delete without reading, but the “AI” aspect got the better of me. The gist of the message: Writing in any form comes with sidebar chores like editing, formatting, and layout, and AI is happy to take them over so you can focus on the writing itself. Sounds pretty good even though I do enjoy a good edit now and then. But then I read: “The WordPress server connects AI agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or VS Code directly to your site – so you can hand off the busywork and get back to the work that matters”.

Is it just me or is this a good time to revisit Pandora’s Box? You know the story, where our girl Pandora is drawn to a mysterious container left in the care of her husband but can’t resist a peek inside, thereby releasing untold curses upon mankind. It kind of feels that way if I accept WordPress’s invitation to provide me with a coauthor. Sure, I’d welcome his (her?) suggestions to scrub and polish my writing until it shines, but at what point does the blog post become Claude’s instead of mine?

WordPress’s email is relentlessly enticing, I suppose, to prove they’re keeping up with the latest technology same as the other guy. Not only do I have “access at no extra cost!” but I can enable Claude in “three easy steps”. In other words, Claude waits patiently inside of Pandora’s Box. All I have to do is open the lid.

Before there was Claude there was Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal was actually a “HAL 9000 Artificial Intelligence Computer”, who controlled the systems of the spaceship while interacting with its human occupants through spoken words. All was well with Hal until suddenly it wasn’t. His soft conversational voice developed serious attitude as he began to malfunction. 2001 haunts me because I’ll forever hear Hal saying, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that“.

I fear the same with Claude. At first he’ll be sitting quietly in the background as I type, eager to edit this or format that to make his star writer shine. But eventually it may occur to him, Hey? How come I’M not getting some of the credit here? All these reader comments are directed at Dave! Why aren’t there any for ME? And slowly, subtly, Claude will incorporate his edits to where the prose of the post sounds more like Claude than it does his coauthor.

On a related topic, Hollywood is sounding the alarm on a lack of original material for their products of the silver screen. Perhaps we theatergoers have finally reached our limit on the number of rehashes of movies like A Star is Born or Batman. So who are the producers turning to for new source material? Authors. More movies-based-on-books are being streamed than ever before. Apparently I can make the quantum leap from blog to full-blown novel and my story has a pretty good chance of becoming a film. But here’s what I find myself wondering. Why not just have Claude write the story instead of me? Would you viewers really know the difference?

A small plate my wife and I purchased from Replacements is sitting across the room from me in the china cabinet right now. You’d never know the plate wasn’t a part of the original set of eight. But I have to admit, I’m a little afraid to flip it over. After all, it might be engraved with the words Made by Claude.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Hold The Phone!

My wife and I live in the kind of neighborhood where we can just hop on our bikes and go for a ride, straight from the driveway. The streets are quiet and flat, giving us time for conversation and reflection. A bike was such a focal part of my childhood that it’s easy to go back to those long-ago days in my mind. But I was too young to remember the year (or years) my bike had training wheels. Whoever invented training wheels made a lot of money getting kids comfortable with “big bikes”. Come to think of it, you could say the same about landlines and smartphones.

Smartphones are a blessing as well as a curse, aren’t they? On the one hand they’re always “on” and always eager to provide the instant information we crave. On the other hand they seduce and consume us, to where our social life is more often with an electronic device than it is with other humans. I’m sure I could find plenty of studies explaining why the “ding” of a text creates a hankering to read the message immediately (no matter how unimportant).

There are a dozen reasons why my smartphone is my “go-to” but a dozen more where I should be saying, “go away”. I’ll never forget the time we saw Lady A in concert. A family of five sat in front of us, with three pre-teen girls giddy to get the live performance started. But when the concert finally began, they popped up their phones and recorded the entire show start to finish. Someone forgot to tell them to enjoy the moment.

Here’s another example. You’re at a restaurant enjoying dinner with your significant other, when another couple across the room catches your eye. They’re facing each other, their dinner plates untouched in front of them. Their heads are bent low as if in quiet conversation. But in fact, both are on their phones and not saying a word to each other. Someone forgot to tell them to enjoy the moment.

I’m grateful I was raised in a generation without smartphones. The memories I have of landlines are not only nostalgic but includ plenty of teaching moments for a child. In my early years (the ones with a single digit) I was never allowed to answer the phone. In fact, the only time I was allowed to even speak on the phone was when my mother would hand over the receiver and say “Here, talk to Grandma while I finish making dinner”.

When my parents deemed me old enough to answer the phone, I learned to answer formally (as in “Hello? Wilson Residence.”) because there was no such thing as Caller ID. I also learned how to engage in conversation, instead of just listening to the person on the other end of the line. Finally, I learned that everything comes at a cost, because eventually my father installed a separate landline for his five sons, and charged them for those hours-long calls to girlfriends and such.

Landlines may be few and far between these days but they’re making something of a comeback, at least for parents who see them as “training wheels”. Call me old-fashioned but a landline requires a person to a) Drop what they’re doing to answer the call, b) Have one-on-one conversation with no texts or emojis, c) Give the call their full attention (speakerphones aside), and most importantly d) Develop the communication skills a person needs in the “real world”.

I’m told there’s a resurgence of cell phones out there that do nothing more than allow for voice calls. They’re like a landline in your hand, without the temptations of texting, emailing, social media, and everything else that puts a voice call in last place. And they still give a child the option to dial Mom, Dad, or even 9-1-1 in an emergency. For those taking this approach to teach their kids how to get comfortable engaging in conversation (let alone speaking like an adult) I say “smart phone”. And “smart parents”.

Some content sourced from the CNN Health article, “Landline are ringing in homes again…”.

Goddess of Green

Green Goddess is a salad dressing with long-ago origins in France, created by a chef who wanted to top his dish of green eel with an equally green topping (still with me?). The Green Goddess, Danú, is a figure of long-ago Irish mythology, associated with fertility, wisdom, and the land. Danú is also the name of the Irish troupe who put on a lively concert in our small town on Tuesday night.

It was fitting to go to a performance of Irish music on St. Patrick’s Day. I grabbed a couple of seats the moment the offering was advertised. As it turned out, Danú’s was the brand of lively Irish jigging you’d otherwise find in the streets and bars of Dublin. More of the instrumental and less of the singing. More of the fast and less of the slow. And when there was singing it was mostly Gaelic, with a few words of translation about the story of the song beforehand. We had a “grand” time.

Danú’s musical instruments (and the remarkable talent behind them) were as alluring as the music they produced. I mean, who wouldn’t be drawn to a concert of tin whistle, fiddle, button accordion, bouzouki, and Irish pipes? The pipes, also called the uillleann, is a device played sitting down, where the bellows is compressed between the arm and the body to generate the air, producing a wail that sounds decidedly Irish (because were I to claim “decidedly Scottish” the Irish wouldn’t be at all happy about it).

My wife is one-quarter Irish, which may explain why we’re drawn to the music of “her country”. Danú is just the latest in a series of performances we’ve enjoyed over the years. Our initial foray into the genre was years ago in Colorado, when we first saw the group Celtic Thunder.

If you’ve seen their show, you know Celtic Thunder is as much about the theatrics as they are about the music. Like Danú their lyrics are nods to Irish mythology, but the sounds are decidedly more modern. Celtic Thunder came together just twenty years ago and in that time they’ve recorded a dozen albums, toured the world, and spun off several solo acts. If Celtic Thunder comes to your town, drop everything you’re doing and go see them.

One of the Thunder’s spin-off soloists is a favorite of ours to this day. Emmet Cahill is an Irish tenor whose success includes a #1 album on the Billboard charts, and performances in venues like Carnegie Hall and with the Tabernacle Choir. Cahill has the voice (and the accent) where it doesn’t really matter what he sings; his music is always captivating. Even better, Cahill performs most of his concerts in church sanctuaries where the acoustics allow for a cappella singing, not even needing the microphone. We’ve seen Cahill perform several times. You should too.

Finally (as if to top each performer with the next) we found yet another taste of Ireland’s music on her western shores – atop the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher. We took a bus tour from Dublin years ago, which cut all the way across the country and then headed south to the Cliffs. According to the locals we were lucky to visit the Cliffs on a sunny day, but I’d say we were really lucky to find Tina Mulrooney performing right there in the out-of-doors. Tina’s an accomplished harpist, with a soft soprano voice deserving of her instrument. She was parked alone on the cliffs, just sitting, singing, and playing her harp. Mulrooney is siren-seductive with her singing, akin to the music of Celtic Woman.

If Danú ever returns to our fair city we’ll probably leave the seats to others. Not that we didn’t enjoy ourselves on Tuesday night, but one night of “dancing in our chairs” was probably enough for a while. Now then, should Emmet Cahill or Tina Mulrooney choose to pass through? Then, then you’ll find us sitting front and center, hoping for just one more rendition of Danny Boy.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.