Learn new words, help feed the hungry

Yesterday CV posted about the growing demand for rice in the world, causing prices of the grain to skyrocket and certain companies to impose buying limits. In a crazy coincidence, last night on the way home from Taekwondo my daughter told me about this online computer game she and her friends have been playing, called Free Rice, in which they earn grains of rice for correctly matching vocabulary words, which are then donated to the hungry. (Um, the rice not the words, lol.) For each word guessed correctly, 20 grains of rice are donated to families in developing countries. She and her friends have collectively donated hundreds of thousands of grains of rice.

Upon hearing about this, I immediately questioned: what kind of macabre game is this, that someone is sitting on major stockpiles of rice and doling it out on the basis of middle schoolers guessing word definitions?? I raced home to the computer to find out.

Freerice.com is a non-profit game run by the U.N. World Food Program and is financed by advertisers. As you play the game, advertisements flash across the bottom of the screen. These advertisements pay for the purchasing of rice which is then distributed throughout the world. Since the game’s inception on October 7, 2007, 29,724,130,370 grains of rice have been donated.

Of course it would be nice if those advertisers simply donated money out of the goodness of their hearts, but that’s not the world we live in. And kids are actually brushing up on their vocabulary skills, which is never a bad thing. In fact, it’s not a bad thing for us, either. So if you’ve got some time to kill, head over there and test your vocab skills and help feed a hungry family at the same time.

http://www.freerice.com/

Warning: it’s addictive! Noelle is on vocabulary level 36, which has words like orbiculate and intumescence. Man these 8th graders are smart!

The best lemon bars you'll ever eat!

Okay, maybe that's pushing it, lol. But they're the best I've ever eaten. I got this recipe online and decided to make it Saturday in celebration of Spring finally arriving to the Miami Valley. Alas, they're calling for 30 degree temps overnight with the possibility of a flurry or two. Don't they know Thursday is May 1st? Didn't they get the memo???Sigh.

Crust:
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened

Filling:
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 lemons, juiced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, confectioners' sugar, and butter until butter is in very small crumbs. Press into the bottom of an 11x7 inch pan. Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until firm and lightly browned.

In another bowl, whisk together the 1/12 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. Pour over the baked crust. Bake for an additional 20 minutes in the preheated oven. The bars will firm up as they cool. When cool, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Talkin' to myself and feelin' OLD

My baby is going to her first concert tonight!!

Can you hear me plucking my gray hairs? LOL. She is going to see this group called Paramore, about whom I know virtually nothing because, frankly, they make my ears hurt. Jimmie Eat World is opening for them, about whom I know not much more.

Noelle’s best friend just had a birthday and to celebrate, her mother is taking them to this concert. She assures me that it’s all good. I know it is. But honestly, I want to cry like I did on her first day of kindergarten. I’m so old, not only could I not handle taking teenagers to a concert, I don’t even get their music. When did THAT happen?

The first concert I ever went to was U2, who I still really love. What was yours?

Earthquake!

The 5.4 earthquake that hit Illinois early this morning was felt right here in Dayton, Ohio. Woke me out of a sound sleep! I was asleep at 5:30 this morning when all of a sudden it felt like someone was shaking me. I woke up and realized that my entire bed was shaking! And no one was in it! LOL. I laid there for probably close to a minute trying to figure out if I was dreaming or what the heck was going on. Then it stopped so I concluded I must have been dreaming and tried to get back to sleep. I was getting ready for work when Noelle came out of her room and told me that the radio was saying we'd had an earthquake. At least I knew then I wasn't losing my mind!

Then around an hour ago, several people here at work said they felt an aftershock but I didn't feel that. The news confirms it was an aftershock of 4.2. Really bizarre stuff for Ohio.

Have any of you ever experienced an earthquake?

Finally!

I didn't take this picture, I just found it online and it made me smile.)

It finally got above 50 degrees for the first time in 6 months last weekend….first time above 40 with no rain! Both Saturday and Sunday were almost 70 degrees and sunny. So naturally, I crammed as many chores as I could into Saturday and spent all of Sunday outside! I can’t even tell you how amazing it was to be outside in a tee-shirt and feel the warmth of the sun again. I literally felt like crying tears of joy.

Noelle and her friend have started geocaching. Do you know about this? It’s a worldwide game in which people hide small containers with log books, post clues on a website, and others look for them and mark their visit in the log book. You can learn more at www.geocaching.com .

On Sunday I really wanted to go to Cox Arboretum, but Noelle and her friend wanted to geocache. We did an online search and found that no one had placed any caches at Cox yet, which was surprising. So we made one! Then we hiked out on one of the trails and hid it. The only problem is that you are supposed to post GPS coordinates when you post your cache on the website, but we don’t have a GPS unit. I looked up the coordinates for the park online, which was the best we could do, and told Noelle to just make that clear in her description. People familiar with the area should figure it out.

Then we all went out for ice cream. As we were sitting there in the sunshine, licking up drops of melting ice cream, I was suddenly reminded of a quote in my Buddha’s Little Instruction Book:

“There are no holy people and no holy places. There are only holy moments.”

I told them I felt like it was a holy moment. They didn’t think it was very holy. But I still say it was. I hope you have a holy moment of your own today.

Are you aware yet?

As you may have noticed, it is Autism Awareness Month. Everywhere I look there are stories regarding Autism, which is a good thing. I’m so glad the national media has taken it up as an issue so that the mainstream population can be become educated about this skyrocketing condition. The other day CNN had a fantastic article written by a woman with Asperger’s Syndrome, which is the Autism spectrum disorder Noelle has. Honestly, after two years of intensive therapy, you would hardly even know she had it anymore. She has really made amazing leaps and bounds. The only part of her life that is really still affected is her school work. I imagine she will continue to need accommodations and intervention specialists until she graduates high school. Anyway, I thought I would post the CNN article here for you because it is really a perfect picture of what life is like for those with Asperger’s.

Asperger's: My life as an Earthbound alien

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/autism.essay/index.html

Recently, at 48 years of age, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For most of my life, I knew that I was "other," not quite like everyone else. I searched for years for answers and found none, until an assignment at work required me to research autism. During that research, I found in the lives of other people with Asperger's threads of similarity that led to the diagnosis. Although having the diagnosis has been cathartic, it does not change the "otherness." It only confirms it.

When I talk to people about this aspect of myself, they always want to know what it means to be an "Aspie," as opposed to a "Neurotypical" (NT). Oh, dear, where to start . ...

The one thing people seem to know about Asperger's, if they know anything at all, is the geek factor. Bill Gates is rumored to be an Aspie. We tend to have specialized interests, and we will talk about them, ad infinitum, whether you are interested or not. Recognizing my tendency to soliloquize, I often choose silence, although perhaps not often enough. Due to our extensive vocabularies and uninflected manner of speaking, we are called "little professors," or arrogant.
I don't quite understand small talk, and early in my adult life, solecisms were frequent. At meetings, I launch into business without the expected social acknowledgments. It's not that I don't care about people, I am just very focused on task. Do you have to rehearse greeting people to reinforce that you should do it? I do.

I am lucky to have a very dear friend who savors my eccentricities. She laughs, lovingly, about one particular evening at a restaurant. Before she could get seated, I asked her what she knew about the golden ratio and began to spew everything I know about it. I re-emphasize how lucky I am to have her as a friend, because this incident occurred long before I was diagnosed.
A misconception is that Aspies do not have a sense of humor. It is true that we can be very literal, so we often miss the humor in everyday banter, but we can and do enjoy even subtle humor. Our literal interpretations, however, can be problematic.

In first grade, whenever someone made a mess in the classroom, the teacher would ask a student to get the janitor. The student would come back with Mr. Jones (not really his name), who carried a broom and large folding dustpan. When I was asked to get the janitor, I looked all over the school and reported back to the teacher that I could not find it. After all, the person was Mr. Jones, so the janitor must be the object, right?

I lack the ability to see emotion in most facial expressions. I compensate for this deficiency by listening to the inflections in people's voices and using logic to determine emotional context. The words people choose, their movements, or even how quickly they exit a meeting can provide clues to emotion.

I also have intensified senses -- touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound -- so I am attuned to lights, noise, textures, and smells. In a "busy" environment, I will eventually go into sensory overload and my mind will go blank. When this happens, I have to "go away" mentally for a brief period to regain focus. When I "return," I have to piece together what occurred while I was "away." The additional mental processing I must do to function every day is fatiguing, and I don't handle "ad hoc" very well. Being asked to respond quickly in the midst of all this other processing is difficult, sometimes impossible.

I am so sensitive to touch that a tickle hurts me. This is the hardest concept for most people to understand. How can a tickle hurt? All I can tell you is that it does, so I avoid being touched except by those who have learned how to touch me.

Hugs are dispensed infrequently, but if I do hug someone, I resemble Frankenstein's monster, arms extended to control contact. When my dad (who I suspect is an Aspie, too) and I hug, we both have "the approach." We sometimes miss and have to re-approach a couple of times until a brief, awkward hug is achieved.

In school, other children noted my differences, and I was bullied (and tickled into fits of despair) for years. Already needing extended periods of time alone, my response was to become even more of a loner. Uh oh. When you are weird, you are a joke. When you are a loner, you frighten people. It's always the quiet ones. ...

I am married (wow!), and my brilliant husband is an absolute sweetheart. I don't know any other man who has the self-confidence to be pushed away (sometimes sharply), both physically and mentally, as often as he has been. He has been gentle and patient (and, yes, frequently emotionally depleted) as we both worked through my need for space, tendency to go so deep into my own world that the real world and everyone in it cease to exist, and sensitivity to touch during the 26 (soon to be 27) years of our marriage.

I live with anxiety, because the world can be overwhelming and people have expectations that I always, sooner or later, fail to meet. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been told that I am rude, inaccessible or cold, yet I have never purposely tried to harm anyone, nor do I mean to be, well, mean.

I could tell you so much more, but instead let me share one last insight. Don't pity me or try to cure or change me. If you could live in my head for just one day, you might weep at how much beauty I perceive in the world with my exquisite senses. I would not trade one small bit of that beauty, as overwhelming and powerful as it can be, for "normalcy."

Penguins!

Don’t you just hate it when you learn something new and feel like the biggest idiot in the world for not knowing it sooner? Yea, me too. I just found out last week that there are penguins in Africa! Penguins! In Africa, people! How could I not have known this?

I went to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY (which is really Cincinnati) to celebrate a friend’s birthday and we all got tickets to go behind the scenes and actually play with three of the penguins who live there - Paula, Simon, and Randy. We spent about half an hour with the little cuties, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Paula bit me but I forgave her ‘cuz she’d had Simon on her ass all day.

I noticed right away that there was no snow or ice anywhere in their pen, and it was warm. Well, that’s because this species of penguin comes from the southern coast of Africa. Their bray sounds just like a donkey’s, which is what led them to originally be named Jackass Penguins. Poor things! Thankfully someone had the good sense to rename them the Blackfooted Penguins. And get this...the pattern of spots on their bodies is unique to every penguin, just like human fingerprints. These little guys were way cool.