EMF

In my world, EMF stands for, one of those “Electronic Mother Fuckers.”  I know, foul language and all.  I’ve used it.  I am not ashamed.  I am trying to get it out now, before the Pirate Twins begin to repeat any more colorful language.  It just seems a term that should be used when one forgets the name of something.  “Hey, Mary, can you grab that thing over there?”  “Sure Pete, but what is it?”  “You know, it’s one of them electronic mother fuckers.” 

Now you can not only buy an EMF detector, but protect your pets from harmful EMFs as well (and, it appears, make them walk around and detect EMFs for you)…snicker, snicker, snort.  I don’t think dogs appreciate this sort of treatment.

I am fully aware that I am lying to myself by saying that Wednesday nights are for ironing, and as I get bored just looking at the extra wrinkles I am adding to clothes, I need something to infiltrate my mind-space, and take over for a little while.  Though I suppose it is partially true, it is really a coverup for my guilty indulgence of the stoopidity that is Ghost Hunters.  I need to tell myself a lie to feel better about watching it.  The whole truth, is plainly this:  I love the feeling of intellectual superiority that it gives me, and I love figuring out the puzzle/illusion on my own.  I relish their misuse/mangling of the English language.  I cannot imagine a week without their faulty theories and inconsistent beliefs.  I love to hear them describe air as a “black mass,” which apparently is the only definition of this term they have ever heard/used.  It means something quite different to me…and it seems rather unusual, though air indeed has mass, to use the word to describe a shadow.  Shadow mass…so what does a shadow weigh?

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v61/i4/p4587_1Jason Gans ^* and David Shalloway ^†
Biophysics Program, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

Received 9 August 1999; revised 30 November 1999

It is often assumed, when interpreting the discrete trajectory computed by a symplectic numerical integrator of Hamilton’s equations in Cartesian coordinates, that velocity is equal to the momentum divided by the physical mass. However, the “shadow Hamiltonian” which is almost exactly solved by the symplectic integrator will, in general, induce a nonlinear relationship between velocity and momentum. For the (symplectic) momentum- and midpoint-momentum-Verlet algorithms, the “shadow mass” that relates velocity and momentum is momentum independent only for a quadratic potential and, even in this case, differs from the physical mass. Thus, naively assuming the standard velocity-momentum relationship leads to inconsistencies and unnecessarily inaccurate estimates of velocity-dependent quantities. As examples, we calculate the shadow Hamiltonians for the momentum- and midpoint-momentum-Verlet solutions of the multidimensional harmonic oscillator, and show how their velocity-momentum relationships depend on the time step. Of practical importance is the conclusion that, to gain the full advantage of symplecticity, velocities derived from interpolated positions, rather than conventional velocity-Verlet velocities, should be used to compute physical properties.

I really need to find out more about Hamiltonians and Verlets (though I badly want the word to be “varlet”)!  See, the physicists know what’s up.  Frankly, I think I am stunned to find that a shadow indeed may have mass.  Not sure just yet…need to ask the Ungulate.   

Frankly, I like AnnaKate’s theory that the ghosts we see are really just people living in another dimension that happens to be just a couple of feet up and a couple of feet to the left of our own. 

Hey!  That’s an awesome name, actually…”Shadow Hamilton”…  I now have a new character’s story to write…which I really don’t need right now.  So, maybe some musically inclined physicist should form a band called, “Shadow Hamilton and the Verlets.” 

Right, back to the scads of pieces I should be working on rather than writing my thought train out here…  Can one train thought?  I need a thought trainer.  Or ADD medication.

 

Hoping everyone’s EMFs are running well this week,

Pru

Look for ants with your aphids

I have managed to acquire some contraband plants, but this one is legit!  I took the boys on a rare outing to the local Home Depot, and upon exiting through the garden center, found an honest-to-God, no-kidding, Big Jim NM chile!  Well, loads of them, really.  Now I lament that I only purchased one.  This was our first little flower, but I have counted at least 6 large peppers at this point (4-7 inches)!  Yay! Unfortunately, it also attracts aphids like mad.  As I have never had a chile plant before, I have no idea how to tell when the peppers are ready to be harvested, so I searched online.  What I found instead of the information I was looking for, was information on the aphids.  Well, I found the aphids more interesting, apparently, than the information on harvesting, because that’s all I can recall now.  I got the title of this post from: http://webwonks.org/Hobbies/Peppers/Gardening.html, from a line in the long page-o-info which I found exceedingly hilarious, just before I was wigged out and disgusted. 

When the boys were still pocket-sized, and eating every three hours, Wild Bill brought me a grab-bag of contraband seeds (which he stole) from Arizona, so I could foster them until he could transplant them in his own yard.  I was okay with that.  It was pretty much becoming winter, so I knew that I could wait to baby the plants until well, now.  Unfortunately, Bill is impatient, and at the same time he unwrapped the seeds, he took plastic nursery pots, filled them with dirt, slapped them down, threw in some seeds, slapped some dirt on top, and added a few cigarette ashes and butts for good measure (over the course of the evening…with progressive beer intake).  

I let them lay dormant in my sunroom until I planted Big Jim, and then set the pathetic pots of dirt on the porch along side it.  Needless to say, the only plants that have germinated are the chile peppers, of which, I think Bill deserves none.  Not only because he treated the seeds so abysmally, but because now Big Jim has ceased production of new buds, and I am a greedy, greedy, chile whore.

I have had plenty of bug issues lately, but this just takes the cake.  Not only do you not mess with my caffiene, you don’t mess with my chile.  I have noticed a huge increase in the amount of aphids that I am finding on my chile plants lately, and have been pretty good about getting rid of them with organic methods.  But then I saw the ants.  Once you see the ants on your plants, you can be sure that getting rid of the aphids will be no small task, for ants farm aphids.  Yes, that’s correct.  They farm them.  The little ant cowboys farm the smaller green bugs like cattle, setting them on a leafy pasture, growing them, breeding them, and milking them.  If you knock the aphids down, or kill them, the ants simply go off to market, and bring back more of them.  I don’t know whether to be amused, itchy, or revolted.

On the plus side, I get to watch Finn and Liam run around the house and slap walls, saying, “Die!  God-dammit! Die!”

The Chilé-est of Prus

 

When snails attack

There is no better time to procrastinate than when deadlines are looming…so, what better time to clean the entire house…especially with the fruit fly epidemic raging on.  I am truly, absolutely, nauseated by the bugs.  We have had bugs before.  We have had plenty of worms in the garage and sunroom here, but the only time that it has ever been truly horrific was about ten years ago. 

That was when we came home to a moving carpet.  Being a horrible beige color, the carpet just happened to be exactly the same color as the billions of baby wolf spiders that were using it as their playground.  Now I am all itchy, just thinking about that.  Argh! 

After dealing with the spiders, that Will had convinced me was not only single, but also benevolent, a friend’s child stowed a piece of meat or something under their refrigerator, and well, maggots.  Okay, now my skin is crawling, and if another god damned fruit fly comes this way I am going to lose it!

I have been known to have sleep issues…sleep paralasys being one, and dreaming while I am awake being another.  After the spiders and the maggots, I fell asleep, and though it seemed that I was awake, and the worms were quite real, Will assures me that they never existed.  I was angry.  I was dreaming that there were now worms on our cieling, but not just any worms, no, this was a special variety that was luminescent and green.  I exclaimed loudly, “Dammit!  Now we’ve got worms!”  I recall the outburst, as I recall the anger that those fictional worms induced.  I recall it particularly well, because while on my cleaning binge, I happened to look at the chairs in our family room…

I need to be careful with my flinging out of the “god dammits,” because the boys are starting to use the phrase a little too regularly.  Well, so I am told, I mean, if I cared that they were decent and considerate people.  But the chairs, they had these slime trails all over them…and then it occurred to me.  I had flashing images of Liam using his pacifier as a booger shield, and of Finn (who is a great nose-blower) picking up his blanket and blowing his nose…  And I realized, horrified, and disgusted, that those were not snail trails that were lacing and criss-crossing my chairs, but pocket boy bogies!  ARGH!

I wasn’t even supposed to clean today!

 

Scourge of the Black-Bellied Dew-Lovers…

Less commonly known as: Drosophilia melanogaster; More commonly known as: “fruit-flies,” and still more commonly known (in my home, anyway), as “Those red-eyed suck-bastards!”  They have invaded, hitching a ride on a banana, and quickly expanding their universe to include the entire house.  They make me seethe with anger and a will toward splattery vengeance for their rude and horrible intrusion!

We didn’t have fruit fly problems when I was a child.  We had bees in the walls.  Something sticky dripped its way down from the top of my window, seeping in from the wallpaper, and I could hear them buzzing around inside the wall, and hitting it.  But I was a child with a fabulous imagination, so when I explained that there were bees in my walls, it was simply assumed that it was yet another sad indication of my mental state.  That is, until they came through the outlets and ceiling fixture in my brother’s room.  By that time, it could have spared the entire neighborhood’s toast from going bare, or kept many a cuppa-tea sweet. 

I much preferred the bees.  I don’t do well with bugs.  I get an angry, irrational sense of/need for revenge when I find their little carapaces in my home.  Especially with the fruit-flies.  It was bad enough when they were copulating in-flight, around my kitchen, but it has gotten much worse…oh, so much worse…   

Their first major trespass was upon my caffeine.  Fruit flies like coffee?  What?  The evidence was clear.  There they were, all ten of them, floating in my lovely, bitter, black bile.  Nobody and nothing messes with my mood-enhancer, for I am far less likable without it, and far more deadly, as that particular generation of flies discovered.  Swift of hand, and full of hate, I laid waste to what must have been a thousand or so flies, as the boys watched and cheered me on.  They mimic me now, and have become exceedingly skilled with a fly swatter.  But the flies, they cared not.  The remaining ones seemed invigorated by the caffeine, or by adrenaline perhaps.  It made me angrier. 

The next infraction occurred in the nursery.  There they were, so many of them milling around the window and most disgustingly, around the Diaper Wizard (you know, abra cadabra, dirty diaper be gone!).  Admittedly, my first thought was, Liam is hoarding food to keep it away from Finn and the dogs… The reality of the situation, once discovered was far worse.  Fruit flies not only enjoy coffee, but they like themselves a good dirty diaper too.  Nyaaaaa!

No longer simple irritation or rage, it was now a blind fury, and I was going to get those bastards.  I revelled in their demise, and left their horrible little half-smashed carcasses where they lay, just to prove to the other flies that I meant it.  I laughed with blood-thirsty glee (do they have blood?) at the front half of a fly as it stared up from my computer monitor, attached by the smooshy mess of its horrible fly butt.  And then Will informed me that they will just feed off of the dead ones…reproduce upon their awful corpses (insert sicky noises here).

I had given up.  Stressful day, tiresome, whiny, ill toddlers (thanks for the Ebola virus, Little Gym), and then Kelly came back from Kansas City to make us a fabulous gourmet lunch!!!  I felt the need for a beer, but all we had was hard cider, so that’s what we had.  Empty bottles were set on the counter (and near the coffee maker), as the tender, though unhappy daemons were appeased.  When I was cleaning up and getting ready to put the bottles in the recycle bin, lo, the clouds parted and the sun shone through upon the cider bottle…with TONS of dead and dying bastard flies.  More were still heading toward the neck of the bottle!  I poured another cup of vinegar and added a couple of drops of liquid soap…we shall see who wins this battle, but I feel reinvigorated!

Part II: Samson Vs. Prucilla

The pirate twins. 

Liam has evaded a haircut, despite my best efforts at sneakiness and placating.  The child squints because he cannot see through his bangs, and yet Will is aiding his continued escape.  The last time I was so close, until Will screeched and made all of us jump when he caught me with the scissors.  So, of course, Liam is convinced that scissors are bad, and I mean him and his lovely locks harm.  He won’t even let me touch his bangs now.  Samson 1, Prucilla 0, for now…  I don’t think he understands that although my haircut might make him look like a nerd, that being pinned down in public in a kiddy haircut place is far more humiliating.  Especially the way he carries on. 

Cannibalism, you know, for kids!

Where are the Wild Things?  Here, in my home.  This week has been much like many others, when I have felt like collapsing on the floor and allowing my children to just get it over with and devour my flesh, like I know they really want to do.  I am certain most mothers understand the feeling.  It grows steadily from mild irritation/fear to full-on paralytic incapacity, when I have run the gamut of my scant tricks, and can do nothing more for them, and yet the crying continues.  Maybe it is my mind-set because of my current project, but I have noticed a distinct link to children’s literature/songs and cannibalism. 

Anna Kate and Andrew suggested that it is simply the childhood method of exploration-the oral fixation-but I am thinking there is actually more to it than that.  Maurice Sendak is certainly no fool, and it is clear that he understands the subtle texts that most children will pick up long before (if ever) their parents do.  I loved his books as a child, and I love them more now.  How can I resist reading them, especially after he answered NPR’s Jennifer Ludden’s question of “What is your favorite thing to do?” with: “Scare children.”  But as I read through the pages and recalled how much I loved Where the Wild Things Are, I realized that I had never really considered the cannibalism contained within.  Max indeed tells his mother he is going to eat her up, and the Wild Things’ response to his departure is the only text set off in rhyme: “Oh please don’t go–/we’ll eat you up–we love you so!”/And Max said, “No!” 

The entire story is filled with “eat or be eaten” imagery, as Max even chases the dog with a fork.  Why had I never noticed this before? 

I then realized that even the songs that I have been singing to the boys are remarkably frightening if translated.  The French have lovely children’s songs, but they are indeed evil, which I suppose makes them all the more lovely.  I cannot resist this one:

Promenons-nous dans les bois
Pendant que le loup n’y est pas
Si le loup y était
Il nous mangerait,
Mais comme il y est pas
Il nous mangera pas.
“Loup, y es-tu ?
Entends-tu ?
Que fais-tu ?
“Je mets ma chemise !”

Promenons-nous …
“Je mets mes chaussettes !”
Children taking a walk in the woods, not being eaten by a wolf, how lovely, no? No. The wolf is there, and responds to the children by telling them what articles of clothing he is donning. Piece by piece, the wolf dresses himself, and the very last line is, “Je prends ma fusile!” (I take my gun!)
Then, of course, there is always the childhood perspective as told by an adult, in such novels even as Frankenstein, “‘Let me go,’ he cried, ‘Monster! ugly wretch! you wish to eat me, and tear me to pieces–’”
Maybe it is simply the need to experience the world through taste, but maybe it is something more sinister than that. What? I will have to get back to you on that.  Okay, so that isn’t true.  I know what this means.  It means that I am far too immersed in my essay topic, too close.  It’s like reading a theorist’s ideas and then only ever being able to read from the perspective of that theory…it just seeps its way into every aspect of life, until everything is narrowed and literary blindness sets in. 

Pru

 

Riff Raff!? Hey! That’s me!

A professor of mine shares my experience of parenting twins, and is kind enough to allow me to unleash my pestilential questioning upon him, and even offer up words of wisdom and experience.  I don’t know if it was my awesome fatigue and rage-induced, mixed, cannibalism-metaphors that did it, but he really must have felt badly for me and my lack of sleep, and offered me the link to the “parents-of-twins” group his wife belongs to.  Apparently, this group exists only online, and those who choose to do so meet on their own time.  Great!, I thought.  That means, I can be a ghost or a shadow and never ever open my mouth or have to exist in “real-time” 3D!  Whooooo!  Nobody will have anything spilled on them, and I don’t have to pretend that I like everyone or care about what they are saying, or have to feel badly when my allergic reaction to “stupid” manifests. 

He explained: “It is extremely helpful.  We have found them an invaluable source of information.  You have to be admitted by the group leader, but it’s really just jumping through some hoops.  They have you respond to an email address, telling them a little about yourself, and that you indeed have twins–you know, it just keeps out the Riff-Raff.” 

It isn’t that I am not completely competent to be inside of a group.  Parties are fine, now.  Though, I have terrible memories of them, starting with childhood parties that kids were guilted into inviting me to.  The guilty invites were later followed by the nerd parties/”rejection parties,” or boyfriend invites that produced the teenage self esteem/mind-raping horror of someone looking me over, and asking, “Who brought their mother?” 

Growing up has helped, in that, I no longer attend children’s/teenager’s parties…and can deal somewhat more reasonably with the adult set.  That makes it sound as though that was a recent change, doesn’t it?  Oops.  I can deal, but I get tired of playing the game.  Emotionally, I get stressed out, and develop some strange faux-Brit-like accent and use words I would never use in conversation.  Plainly, I make myself stranger/weirder than I already am, as well as more aware of my all-too visible strangeness, and then I become nervous, and well, accidents start to happen, or I have a drink and say something a little more audible than I maybe should have.  So, all I really needed to say was, “me and groups=no.”

But this was different, this was a webgroup…where I could hide behind my text, so…

I filled out the boxes that asked pretty much nothing.  It appeared that they just wanted an email address they could verify, and a brief description of me and mine.  So, hoops, I jumped ‘em.  They didn’t seem all that difficult.  I explained that I am the mother of 15-month old twins, looking for other parents to talk to so I may divine what manner of terrible things they are going to unleash next.  Procrastination accomplished, I returned to to my essay.

I handed over my final paper, read “Arcadia,” began reading His Dark Materials  (the title is from Milton, how could I even pretend to resist?!) and did lots of other things, without ever considering that webgroup again.  On Friday, I had a lovely email from my professor, with excellent words about my final essay (which, though not coming to a bookstore near you, with his help willbe coming to a Literary or some other sort of scholarly journal before year’s end! And, if he can convince me, maybe it will appear at a conference…If I can gussy up for that again). 

The next message in my inbox came from someone unknown to me, a certain, “Network54support.”  I was at first confused…and then I saw the word “twins,” and realized it was the webgroup.  I opened the email and this is how it reads:

 Your membership request in the group ‘Raising Twins Approved Members’ has been
denied by the group owner.

http://www.network54.com/Group/139500

————————-
A Service of Network54.com
http://network54.com/

I don’t think I have laughed so hard in quite some time.  I am the Riff-Raff that they are keeping out!  I always had an inkling of a suspicion that I was, but until now, I could never be certain.  I really laughed at the hilarity of the situation and the email, until the absurdity of it all really sunk in, and then I almost cried.  
 

Riff-Raff Mother Pru.