Word Play

 We've all seen and sent the email or text which is open to interpretation and which we wish we could take back. Sometimes it's a casualty of speed: we're in a hurry, and don't fully think through the answer before we hit send. Other times it's a confusion with language, assuming understanding of terms or prior knowledge where there is none. And sometimes it's that darn spell correct feature that jumps in at the last possible moment. I once sent a note to my mom, where I intended to say "I'm fine." But I obviously mistyped it, and just as I hit the send button I noticed, too late to stop it, that it automatically corrected itself to "I'm dead." I had to call her to assure her I was not.

And then there're those that you send intentionally, but where there is a gap in understanding due to age, culture or language. English is a notoriously quirky tongue, with countless expressions, figures of speech and metaphors which make no sense if you take them literally. Or as the great George Carlin put it, "In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Park in the driveway and drive on the parkway? Sit in the waiting room and wait in the sitting room? Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane."

There's also the fact that things that work in person with a wink and a nod don't always translate well from spoken to written. Something said out loud that is accompanied by a raised eyebrow or exaggerated expression might play well to a physical audience of one. But transpose that same delivery to words on a page or screen, and the hole you dig may be far too deep to climb out of.

A recent exchange for me went off course for these very reasons. For privacy purposes, I'll call the unwitting victim Danielle. I dropped her a line thanking her for a kindness, trying to be off-the-cuff, snappy and irreverent. In notes to others I try and steer towards fun, though it can cross the line, and I'm afraid that I miss the mark more than I'd like. That said, most people who know me usually take it as planned, with no malice intended or aforethought. But not in this case. Her husband thinks I hate her.

And why would that be? Because I said exactly those words. 

Wait! Let me try and explain (defend myself???)

My wife, among her other volunteer work, is a conversation partner with Danielle. This a program which helps students who are studying English as a Second Language to integrate into their new environment. She and Danielle meet once a week to chat about any and all. They talk about family, life, jobs, all as a way of making Danielle more comfortable with her adopted tongue.

Along the way she mentioned that she works a number of jobs to support herself, one of them at a Dunkin' Donuts. My wife mentioned my love of that treat, and Danielle very kindly one day brought a half dozen for her to give to me. I was very touched by her generosity, and asked my wife for her phone to text her my thanks. My message, in my normal breezy manner went like this: "Marc here. I hate you!!!!! 6 chocolate donuts is hitting the weakest spot I have!!!! Seriously: so sweet. Thank you so much for the treat!!!!"

Danielle, with her increasingly better grasp of how Americans speak, got it, laughed and responded in kind. Her husband, however, not quite as fluent, was baffled and thought I really was mad. The fault was all mine, not his. I was lucky that she didn't take offense, not so much with him. I'm lucky he didn't come and make me eat the 6 donuts in one sitting.

The playwright Tom Stoppard said, "Words are innocent, neutral, precise. If you put the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." Or in my case, send it crashing. I won't stop trying to reach out, or to do it in my own way, but perhaps I need to use a litle less force and bit more nudging. 

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes to meet new people anywhere anytime anyway. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Breakfast of Champions

You roll out of bed, do your morning routine, maybe exercise, choose an outfit and eventually find yourself in the kitchen. You choose your beverage of choice, then contemplate the options as determined by any number of factors: the time you have available, what is in the fridge, your plan for the rest of the day, what kind of cooking appliances you have at hand, even where you are in the country. Then based on those criteria, you pour a cup of coffee and are off to the races.

Experts say that that first meal is the most important meal of the day: it gives you fuel, can lead to higher cognitive performance, helps prevent disease and promotes a healthy metabolism. Unfortunately many of us honor that sentiment in the breach as much as in practice. But if given the time and a full refrigerator, by far and away the most popular breakfast selection is eggs: fully 65% of those surveyed ranked them as their top pick. Scrambled, hard-boiled or over easy, there are as many ways to prepare them as people. After that comes sausage, toast, pancakes and cereal. Only after the satisfying stuff do you get to the healthier choices, such as fruit and oatmeal. And bringing up the bottom of the top ten is the worst but the best: doughnuts.

But while those may be the most traditional options, they are hardly the only ones. Smoothies and yogurt get many going, while choices common in other countries and cultures such as breakfast salads and meat and cheese are the choice of some. Bean stews, fish and different types of porridges give others a kick start. And if given the option, a survey says that over half of Americans would pass on bacon and eggs if there was a cold slice of pizza sitting in the fridge.

Of course, like many things, popularity and practicality don't always coincide. I for one would love to make a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage with a side of fruit and toast. But along with a third to half of my fellow adults, my choices are constrained as I would have to wolf it down in a hurry, forgoing a leisurely intake in favor of getting out the door. Or just as likely, along with 4 in 10 of my fellow sufferers, I often just skip it entirely as I race for the train.

That situation has led to the popularity of grab and go options. The breakfast sandwich has been around since the 1800's, with the first recipe appearing in a cookbook in 1897. And while it grew in popularity in the 1960's along with a focus on all things fast and convenient, it took the fast-food industry and McDonald's Egg McMuffin in 1972 to cement it in our lives. More recently, as Hispanic culture has increased its reach, the breakfast burrito has become a staple as well. Both approaches have it all: your favorite ingredients, packaged in a way that enable you to eat and drive/walk/work/study/juggle a kid.

Trying to pair this reality with American tastes, the Swiss food giant Nestle is thrusting its DiGiorno brand into the mix. As the leader in frozen pizza, they have considerable experience in that arena, just on the dinner side of the ledger. But starting last month they rolled out their Croissant Crust Breakfast Pizzas, available in three flavors: Eggs Benedict Inspired, Sausage & Gravy, and Cinnamon Roll ("cinnamon cream sauce, cream cheese crumbles, churro pieces, and cinnamon flakes on a croissant crust"). Never mind that "cinnamon roll" and "pizza" seems at odds in form and construction. It would seem that if it's flat, round and you can slice it as a wedge, it's a pizza no matter if the topping is peperoni or brown sugar.

While the flavors and format might be attractive, the preparation would seem to be at odds with the intended use. The directions call for you to pop the pizza in the oven, bake it for 25 minutes, then cool it and serve. If they really wanted to be true to what people wanted, then the directions would be as follows: 1) Make night before. 2) Put in fridge onto top of leftover bowl of dip. 3)Grab slice and enjoy.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes cold pizza, but more as a snack. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Balancing Act

In 1965, the co-founder of Intel Gordon Moore made an observation about the trajectory of technological innovation. Tagged in popular culture as "Moore's Law," it stated that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years. While there is some agreement among experts that we may be bumping up against some physical limits to continuing on this path, for nearly 60 years it has more or less turned out to be accurate. 

While Moore's focus was on silicon, more recently this same construct could be applied to another area as well. This particular standard, which was set in 2016, was bested in January of 2021 by 25%, then bumped up again in December of last year. And just recently, it was pushed up once more, nearly doubling the original mark in under 16 months. Not transistors this time: rather, the world has seen dramatic growth in how many M&M's can be stacked one on top of the other.

In your idle moments you might have been playing around in this arena, and can appreciate how hard a task it is. But while most of us watched our towers topple and just ate the debris, others saw it as a challenge, and aimed for notoriety as defined by the Guinness Book of World Records. Those arbiters of all that is strange have stringent criteria for the marker. To be official the stack must be "completely free-standing and able to stand for a minimum of 10 seconds once completed. Flavored M&M's such as peanut and mint are not permitted; only plain chocolate ones can be used." Technicalities like that rule out using a Skittle ringer.

The candies themselves have a worldwide following, and the pursuit of this mark does as well. Building on Silvio Sabba's achievement of a tower of four in Italy, Britain's Will Cutbill's moved the crown across the Channel, and increased the record to five. Then in October Australia's own Brendan Kelbie did what no one had done before, and aimed six at the sky. And now comes word that the Middle East has seized the trophy, as 29-year-old Ibrahim Sadeq grabbed the title for Tallest Stack of M&M's by stacking seven of the small circular discs in Nasiriyha, Iraq.

Not that it makes much of a difference, but it is interesting to note that pushing the envelope has become the province of experts. While Cutbill was an amateur who embarked on the quest out of boredom during a pandemic lockdown, both Kelbie and Sadeq are professionals of a sort. In addition to this new mark, Sadeq shares the world record for most eggs balanced on the back of the hand (18). And Kelbie actually tied Sabba's original record and held the crown jointly until Cutbill broke it. He also holds a baker's dozen of other records, including most drumstick flips in one minute (98), longest duration spinning a basketball on a pair of spectacles (29.67 seconds) and fastest time to build a 10 toilet roll pyramid (3.49 seconds).

While it looks deceptively easy, the achievement requires certain skills and attributes. Sadeq told Guinness that while people think of it as a gravity defying act it is all about control. He discovered his particular skill in balancing after being fascinated by a clip he saw of a man stacking rocks on top of each other in nature: "It was amazing to watch. I started balancing stuff around me and discovered that I was really good at it. After a while, I became even faster in balancing than the people I watched online." And as to how he can do what others cannot? "I can't easily describe the secret behind the art of balancing, but what I can say is that it needs a lot of patience, focus and a sense of calmness. You also need to be able to handle your breathing [as it] might affect the success of your attempt."

Our quest for taking things one step further never stops. They're rolling out 5G to connect us all, they're perfecting the next generation of mRNA vaccines, they even figured out a way to change the clothes on your memoji. And chocolate construction is no different. You can bet that right now someone somewhere is searching for eight slightly flatter M&M's, and is shooting for the stars.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers the peanut variety to eat, not stack. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Nest

There is so much happening in the world right now that it makes your head spin. Or maybe you just want to pull the covers up a little higher and not get out of bed. Added to the things that are causing my head to spin under the pillow is a new and unexpected diversion, even if it's minor by comparison to the rest. Not the war in Ukraine or the plummeting stock market, not the cost of gas or the attacks on democracy, not the effects of climate change or even the pains in my knees and back. What's concerning me is the robin nesting on our deck.

Every year come spring we discover nests all around our house. Sometimes they are snuggled into a light fixture, sometimes in the front bushes. A favorite spot seems to be the supports that hold up the deck. While not a bird, if consulted I would concur that this last seems to be a good spot: out of traffic, covered by the deck itself, easy access in and out. Perhaps that's why almost every year we find a new nursery there. Word of beak, I suppose.

Once we discover our newest neighbors, we keep a casual eye on them. We usually stumble on a new nest after it's pretty well built, or even contains eggs. A random check eventually discovers some chicks who crane their necks thinking I have a worm. Eventually we notice the nest is empty, and assume the kids have, quite literally, flown the coop. And that's the whole National Geographic special for that year.

Last season, perhaps because we were home more than usual, we noticed one in the early stages of construction. Because of the location, under the deck but just below our outside table, we were more aware of mom's comings and goings. Having some time on my hands, I rigged a small wireless camera just above it, enabling us to check in more frequently and watch as the kids hatched, had mealtime, and eventually graduated to the wider world. If not grandparents, we at least felt like aunts and uncles.

This year, something new. We both noticed some straw on the deck railing right outside the kitchen. Hardly a hidden or protected location, we thought it might have gotten blown there by the wind. But no, it was the start of a new home. As we watched daily the nest was anchored, the walls raised higher and the inside carpeted with soft stuff. For some strange reason the increased visibility caused us to assume some sense of responsibility. Indeed, when a big rainstorm was forecast, I got some scrap wood and built a little roof to protect it. Felt like picking up the neighbor's paper when they were away.

While we tried to give it a wider berth, mom didn't seem to care much even when we ventured closer. And when she wasn't there we peeked in. Empty at first, we eventually found two eggs one day. As we ate dinner one evening we saw her come back, nest for a while, then fly off, and looked in to find a third. Since then she is there most times, and we have had to tell the workers painting our house to give it some space so as not to disturb our soon-to-be grandbirds.

Some research says that all is proceeding as it should, and the worst thing we could do is to touch or disturb anything. And so all we can do it check on her regularly and worry that it's too cold for the not-yet-younguns. Like all grandparents the best thing we can do is let the soon-to-be parents figure it out on their own. And truth be told, while we raised two human children with a reasonable amount of success, our track record with avian offspring is more limited. Not that we couldn't learn.

As of this writing she's still there and we're still here. It's supposed to take about 13 days for the nestlings to emerge, then a number of weeks until they are ready to head out into the world. Until then all we can do is worry about them and cheer them on. Yes, we have about as much control over them as we do inflation, but somehow I'm happier worrying about this.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes watching his natural neighbors. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.