new posts in all blogs
Viewing Blog: Two Kinds of People, Most Recent at Top
Results 51 - 75 of 145
I believe there are two kinds of people in the world: coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers; keepers and tossers; readers and skimmers … all kinds of two kinds of people. Come visit.
Statistics for Two Kinds of People
Number of Readers that added this blog to their MyJacketFlap: 1
By:
Susan Bearman,
on 1/16/2011
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
blog,
Blogging,
writing,
writing contest,
two kinds of people,
2kop,
Susan Bearman,
Lisa Romeo,
Murray Abramovitch,
Add a tag
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are entirely self-motivated and those who need a nudge — a poke, a prod or even, if you will, a prompt.
Last year, I posted my first ever
Two Kinds of People New Year's Writing Challenge. Firsts are great. They're exciting. They're new. But you never know whether they are something you can count on or just a flash in the pan. Breathe easy, my readers. I am happy to announce the Second Annual 2KoP Writing Challenge. Once something becomes an "annual", you know you can trust that it will always be there for you.
Last year's challenge was thrilling for me, but a little intimidating. There were so many wonderful entries and I got a whole new perspective on what it must be like to be an agent or editor flooded with submissions. With the help of my judges, however, we picked a real winner in
Murray Abramovitch's wonderful 2KoP essay on mushrooms entitled:
Important Distinction or Just a Truffle?What I really liked about Murray's essay was his passion for his subject, the information he shared, his excellent writing and, perhaps most important, his sense of humor.
I've been thinking a lot about Two Kinds of People in light of the recent tragedies in Arizona and the Red State/Blue State mentality that has taken over our public discourse. I started this blog in part to show the folly of arbitrary divisions. No matter your political beliefs, I'll bet if you read through all three years of my posts (please, do so now) and picked a side on every issue, your choices would be different than everyone else's. People are too complex to put into a single box. It's the combination of our choices that define us.
Writer and teacher Lisa Romeo occasionally offers writing prompts to readers of her blog,
Lisa Romeo Writes. While I'm rarely without a writing idea, every once in a while I like to stretch my creative muscles and do a little free writing based on her prompts at my alternate blog,
SFD @ 2KoP. A good writing prompt can take you to places in your own imagination that you've never explored before.
So, join me in a little fun. Pick your own favorite Two Kinds of People topic and write about it. The rules are that simple: write an original Two Kinds of People essay and
email it to me by February 16, 2011. The publisher of this blog (
c'est moi) and a group of judges of her choice will determine the winning entry.
Prizes: that's right, there will be prizes, as I strongly beli
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who play a musical instrument and those who wish they did. I have always wanted to be one of those people who could sit down at the piano and play any song by ear, so people could sing along to their favorite tunes. I took piano lessons for years, but don't practice now and am not very good. I keep saying I'll take it up again, but I already have too many (
way too many) projects.
I also played clarinet during middle school. I was always second chair. First chair was held by a boy named Mike, who I believe went on to study at Juilliard. I retained second chair status not because of my clarinet skills, but because I was a good sight reader (thanks to those piano lessons). I never wanted to play clarinet. I wanted to play oboe, but our conductor said I didn't have the right embrasure and that we already had an oboe player. Never mind that we had 13 clarinet players.
As any parent of neophyte musicians knows, those early years can be painful. Squeaks and squawks, missed beats, wrong notes and rhythmic challenges are all part of the territory. Among our children, we have
suffered through enjoyed two trumpet players, two violinists, a saxophonist, two pianists and a drummer. This does not count their
Rock Band sessions.
We beg them to practice. We rent instruments and pay for lessons. We attend school events euphemistically called "concerts". We provide "black bottoms, white tops and black dress shoes" for said concerts. We smile and clap and pretend to recognize the songs they are playing. We endure 73,248 performances of "Hot Cross Buns". We buy band and orchestra fund-raising
crap products. We schlep them to rehearsals at 7:15 in the morning twice a week. We secretly wonder why.
But then one day, usually sometime during middle school, the squeaks and squawks turn into sounds that vaguely resemble … music. At first, you're not quite sure you actually heard what you think you heard. But, then, sure enough, you identify a melody. Your ears stop bleeding. You recognize that though your child may not be a prodigy, there is a certain level of proficiency that has been attained. You pat yourself on the back for providing this cultural immersion, knowing that they will carry their love of music with them for the rest of their lives.
It's usually about this time that they decide to quit.
Last week, we attended the winter concert of our two youngest children. It was the school's "Winter Concert", as our public school no longer gives holiday concerts. The short video (I promise, just it's just 33 seconds) showcases the one holiday medley they played and features our curly blonde mop-topped saxophonist (in about the middle of your screen) and our shaggy brunette trumpet player behind him to the left.
If you still think this does not sound like music, then you either never took up an instrument yourself or your children have not yet started. If you thoroughly enjoyed it, then your children are still at the squeaky, squawky stage. I feel your pain. Either way, I hope it brought a smile. Donations may be sent to the Bearman Musical Scholarship Fund. Any level of contribution welcome. Comments are also welcome
3 Comments on Play On, Said Shakespeare, last added: 12/17/2010
There are two kinds of people in the world — those lamenting the decline of publishing as we know it and those who believe that books are just too important to fade away. I love books. I love the Internet, too, but it's not the same as reading a book. I think e-Readers play an increasing and interesting role in the world of writing and reading, but they aren't books.
This holiday season (like every holiday season in my past) — I will be celebrating with books — giving some and, if I'm lucky, receiving some as gifts. Imagine my joy when I learned that
Chronicle Books is offering bloggers the opportunity to win $500 worth of books. Even better, if you
comment on this post, we could
both win. Simple as that. This is my first-ever giveaway post here on Two Kinds of People. I hope it makes you as happy as it has made me. Here's my
Chronicle Books wish list, in order of discovery:
Lotta Jansdotter
Seedlings Journal $9.95
L is for Lollygag — Quirky Words for the Clever Tongue $12.99
Show and Tell — Exploring the Fine Art of Children's Book Illustration by Dilys Evans $24.99
This is NPR — by Cokie Roberts, Susan Stamberg, Noah Adams, John Ydstie, Renee Montagne, Ari Shapiro, and David Folkenflik $29.95
You're a Genius All the Time: Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, by Jack Kerouac $12.95
Secret Lives of Great Authors: What Your Teachers Never Told You About Famous Novelists, Poets, and Playwrights — by Robert Schnakenberg $16.95
You Know You're a Writer When … — by Adair Lara $9.95
Writer's Workshop in a Book — The Squaw Valley Community
By:
Susan Bearman,
on 11/16/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
National Prematurity Awareness Day,
Mike and Ollie,
memoir,
twins,
two kinds of people,
2kop,
Susan Bearman,
Prematurity Awareness Month,
preemies,
prematurity,
Add a tag
There are two kinds of people in the world: those born full-term (at or about 40 weeks gestation) and those born prematurely (before 37 weeks). Today, November 17, is
National Prematurity Awareness Day. It is also the birthday of my two favorite preemies in the world, Isaac and Molly. (Happy birthday!)
Those preemies are 19 years old today. I know, I can't believe it either. Part of the reason that's so hard to believe is that the struggles they faced for the first five months of their lives are vividly etched in my brain. I remember more about those five months than I do about the last five months. That's what crisis does to us. It makes us hyperaware.
We've lived through it and those tiny little babies, born at just about a pound and a half each, are now young adults, off on new adventures. For years, people have encouraged me to write their story, but I wasn't ready. I needed to get them safely here, to this place, before I could gain the kind of perspective needed to write a compelling, meaningful memoir. The time has come for me to write
my part of this story, because from here on out, Ike and Molly's stories are theirs to tell.
Many of you know that I have been participating in
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I'm here confessing that I'm a NaNo Rebel, writing a memoir, not a novel. Along the way, I reread and transcribed the journals I kept during those long days in the hospital. I took me right back to their bedsides (I should say, isolette-sides). I've been bawling my eyes out, but they have been good tears — cathartic tears, finally letting me shed the fear of that desperate time.
As part of this project, I have decided to launch a new website today, chronicling that time on the neonatal care unit of Evanston Hospital by posting the actual journal entries, day-for-day, 19 years after the fact. I hope you join me on their journey at
Mike&Ollie: 24-Weekers Who Beat the Odds. You're in for quite a ride.
We have been so lucky at every step along this journey. We have had wonderful doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians, teachers, helpers, family and friends who have helped and supported us. You know who you are. If I haven't said it recently, thank you. I am mindful even as I write our story, that many families with similar stories have not been as lucky as we have been. My heart is with you. My hope is that this project will help those who are at an earlier point along their path.
I welcome your comments
here, as always, but I hope you'll visit the
new site and leave your comments there, as well. Don't miss the video page, which has the commercial they made for Evanston Hospital and a short video they made as a gift to the parent support group of the Infant Special Care Unit. Bring tissues.
FYI, you can now find me posting occasionally at Technorati.
7 Comments on Happy Prematurity Awareness Day, last added: 11/18/2010
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe in the value of public education and those who feel it is a failed experiment.
I stand firmly with
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and author of the Declaration of Independence, who believed that public education for all was essential for sustaining democracy. Are there problems with the American educational system? Certainly, but that should inspire us to action, not abandonment.
There is a
valedictorian address by a 2010 high school graduate, Erica Goldson, that has gone viral. If you haven't seen or read it, you should. Goldson makes a passionate argument against the current state of education, going so far as to liken it to enslavement, brainwashing and insanity.
Many of her points are well taken. The goal-driven, standards-based, business model of contemporary education plagues me, as well. People are not interchangeable parts; we are not standard issue and cannot be evaluated nor educated as if we were. Here is part of Goldson's eloquent argument:
"We are all very special, every human being on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still."
The irony, of course, is that Goldson uses her very education to speak against those who taught her to think for herself, to write a coherent speech, and to stand boldly in public to deliver her treatise. She states that were it not "� for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed." Well,
brava for Ms. Bryan. Many of us can recall a special teacher, sometimes even the exact moment, when our minds were opened. We should bless those teachers, thank them, and encourage our best, brightest and most enthusiastic minds to become educators.
What I know that young Ms. Goldson does not, is that educational philosophy operates like a slow pendulum across a wide arc. This year, Ms. Goldson is the product of an increasingly competitive, narrowly-focused, goal-oriented pedagogy that we will, for the sake of argument, say is at or near the far right of that arc. In 1978, when I graduated from high school, the pendulum was at or near the far left of the arc, poised to begin a swing back that has taken more than 30 years.
Back then, we weren't so goal oriented as process minded. Our classrooms were filled with bean bag chairs and progressive educators and
choices. I took photography as a science, and the only requirement for changing that course from an art credit to a science credit was that I had to learn the names of the chemical formulas we used in developing photos. That's it, just the names. I could have gone further, questioned the theory behind using light and photo sensitive materials to capture images on film in a negative format and then transforming it again into a positive image on paper. I could have, b
sjdkdkkdkdkakntf;jg
jwef;wefk;en
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who do NaNoWriMo and those who do not.
What is
NaNoWriMo? I'm glad you asked. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's a voluntary act of craziness whereby participants pledge to write 50,000 original words during the month of November.
What do you get if you "win". The right to say you did it. And you get to change your website badge from "participant" to "winner". That's it. No writing contract. No money. No fame. Just the satisfaction of showing yourself and the rest of the world that you can do it.
In other words, it is the literary equivalent to running a marathon.
Why am I doing it? Oh, well that's a whole other question. First, this is absolutely the closest I will ever get to running a marathon. I don't actually run IRL, but I am happy to take the metaphor and run with it.
Next, I have a project that I've been wanting to get on paper (or on disk, as the case may be). It's a story that I know well and have been meaning to write for a long time. This seems like the perfect opportunity to splatter my
shitty first draft all over my screen.
NaNoWriMo is about quantity, not quality. As their website explains, "The Kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." For me, personally, it's a chance to tell my extremely vocal inner editor to shove it for 30 days. My goal is to let the writing take me where it may.
Last week,
Mary Scruggs, a writing teacher at the famed
Second City, talked to us about an improvisation game called
"Yes, and …." One of the golden "rules" of improv is that you are to take what others say, acknowledge it and build on it. In other words, be supportive of your fellow cast mates and what they want to say. Mary pointed out that writers tend to hear our inner voices and respond with "No, no, no, no, no." What if, instead, we listened to our inner voices — our characters — and responded with "yes, and …"? Where could that take our writing? Would we go places we've never gone before? In other words, be supportive of your characters and what they want to say.
I'm looking at NaNoWriMo as one big experiment in saying "yes, and …" to my inner voice.
A writer friend who I have only met online, the fabulous
Lisa Romeo, suggested that we partner up for this year's NaNoWriMo. When she asked, I jumped. First, I respect her as a writer and teacher, and if she thinks it's worth doing, then I believe it is. Second, it's always better to be accountable to someone. Who else would care whether I do this or not (except you, of course, Dear Reader)?
BTW, I won't be posting this month of writing here on
 |
| Laura Munson at a reading sponsored by the wonderful Book Stall of Winnetka. |
You never know when or where or how you are going to meet someone who will touch your life in a meaningful way. I "met" the lovely and talented
Laura Munson through an online writing forum called
SheWrites. We struck up an e-mail conversation, which resulted in a phone conversation and then a real life meetup last month when she traveled from her home in Montana to visit family in Illinois and promote her touching, best-selling memoir,
This is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness.
While she was in town, Laura spoke at a benefit and shared the podium with Dr. Gary Hammer, director of
the adrenal cancer program at The University of Michigan (go blue!). Laura posted about her personal experience with adrenal cancer on her blog
These Here Hills. The post, "Rare Cancer, Rare Doctor" also ran in the
Huffington Post on 10/18/10.
Because this is such an important message, and because Dr. Hammer's hypothetical letter to a hypothetical patient is a powerful treatise on the doctor-patient partnership, and because the post includes a beautiful Two Kinds of People reference, I am honored to include it here today as a guest post. Please read and share.
Rare Cancer. Rare Doctor.
by Laura Munson
Amazing people have come into my life lately, and I can’t help but feel a deep knowing that it is nothing close to coincidence. Doctor Gary Hammer is one of them.
 |
| Dr. Gary Hammer |
I met Gary because my sister-in-law was dying of a rare cancer that was supposed to kill her within months of diagnosis. Adrenal Cortical Cancer, or ACC for short. Doctors looked at her gravely. Mayo threw up their hands. There are only 300-600 cases in the US annually. That’s 1 to 2 per million. There was no cure. There was very little r
There are two kinds of people in the world: regular people and superheroes.
I was never a huge superhero fan. Sure, I watched hours of Superman reruns (the black and white one with George Reeves) and Batman (Pow! Bam!), but that was only when there was nothing better on (like reruns of Petticoat Junction and Gillgan's Island).
Maybe it's because there weren't many great female superhero role models. I hated
Wonder Woman's outfit. Bat Girl and Super Girl were a lame wannabes. Then there was Catwoman, but she was kind of an antihero whose only superpower appeared to be sex appeal. Besides, I could never have pulled off that
skin-tight black thing she wore.
The guys had the real super powers — faster than a speeding bullet and all that. But if I could reinvent myself as a superhero and choose my own super power … hmm, what would it be? Time travel? Invisibility? Teleporting? Flying? So many choices.
I first started thinking about this after hearing the
Superpowers episode on This American Life, way back in 2001. (Subliminal message: it's pledge week —
support NPR if you can.) But the question resurfaced today when I was tagged by E. Victoria Flynn of the fabulous blog
Penny Jar. The first question:
If you could have any superpower, what would you have?
It has finally become clear to me that the only superpower I really need is the ability to be two places at one time. It all started when I married a man who had two children, and the two places at one time thing would have come in very handy. It would have been handier still when I had twins. And then two more boys, just 16 months apart. It would be really handy tomorrow at "Take-your-parent-to-school Day", because those two boys are both at the same school. At the same time. You see where I'm going with this.
2. Who is your style icon?
It's my daughter, who was recently voted the style icon of her freshman (college) class. The girl has the "it" factor and, man, can that girl accessorize.
7 Comments on Split Personality, last added: 10/14/2010
By:
Susan Bearman,
on 10/4/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
MFA,
Woody Allen,
2kop,
Susan Bearman,
carpe diem,
University of Chicago,
college,
Catcher in the Rye,
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby,
two kinds of people,
Robert Benchley,
Add a tag
"I am at two with nature." — Woody Allen
There are two kinds of people in the world. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either.
Robert Benchley wrote it into
law.
Ian Gibbs writes a comic called Two Kinds of People and
this guy stole my first choice for my blogspot URL, even though he has never written a single post.
Lately, everywhere I turn I see two kinds of people. In comedy,
"There are two kinds of people" ranks right up there with "A priest, a minister and a rabbi" as the start of a groaner joke. I recently even ran across the
Two Kinds of People List (good fodder, if I ever run out of my own ideas).
But now it seems Two Kinds of People has gone highbrow. Most colleges and universities ask applicants to submit a personal essay (or two) as part of the admissions process. This year, applicants to the University of Chicago are
offered five options, and Essay Option 2 sounds mighty familiar:
"Dog and Cat. Coffee and Tea.
Great Gatsby and
Catcher in the Rye. Everyone knows there are two types of people in the world. What are they?" They claim this was "
Inspired by an alumna of the Class of 2006."
I'm telling you here and now that while I have yet to post my coffee essay (I call it "Regular or Decaf"), I wrote it long before I read U of Chicago's prompts and have only been waiting for the right time to post it. You can find one variation on the dog and cat theme on last year's post called
"Pet People and Proud of It". And if you have to ask whether I'm Team
Gatsby or Team
Catcher, then clearly you never read
"Sensory Perceptions".
I hear the University of Chicago calling to me, but I can't quite decipher the message. Is it saying: "
Carpe diem (which it would definitely say in Latin, because it
is The
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who struggle with transitions and those who embrace change.
When it comes to transitions, I hide, I
deny, I run as fast as I can in the other direction until the change swallows me whole. Then, like Jonah, I sit in the dark counting whale teeth until life spits me out before those digestive juices can do their job. It's not a brilliant strategy, but it's mine.
Normally, I cling to my imperfect strategy and it gets me by until things settle back into a predictable routine, but this fall, this season of change, finds me overwhelmed by the sheer number of transitions.
My twins graduated from high school in June are now in their new roles: one as a part-time community college student also exploring his opportunities through the new high school Transition House (I'm not making that up); the other as a full-time student at a schmancy east-coast school where she is learning to look down her nose at us Midwesterners even as we speak. They have handled their respective transitions quite smoothly (damn my superior parenting skills).
Me, not so much.
The next boy literally has one foot in the high school (for math) and the other in the middle school, while the youngest is working toward that great Jewish transition, becoming a bar mitzvah in April. They're doing well.
Me, not so much.
The oldest son got married this summer; the elder girl just got a new job and moved to a new city. They actually sought out these changes.
Me, not so much.
I wish I still embraced change with the joy and anticipation of my adolescents. They're lives have been blessed enough that they believe all change is good. I can still touch that feeling in my memories of the first days of college. So when did my feelings about change change?
I can tell you exactly. When I was a kid and even into adulthood, I loved roller coasters. The rush and swoop, the climb and fall, the tingle up the spine as your stomach rolls along the curves and your brain floats high above it all. I could get off one ride and run to the next, panting and laughing and wanting more.
Then sometime between my last two pregnancies, my body lost its equilibrium. Maybe it was carrying those alien beings around in my womb. Maybe it was three pregnancies of hyperemesis that made the idea of flirting with G-forces somewhat less appealing. Maybe it was simply the fact that I was now responsible for other human beings (how boring is that?). In any case, I really can't do roller coasters any more without throwing up.
In a college philosophy class, we spent a great deal of energy on the constancy of change, the perception of time, and the seeming acceleration of both. If we're lucky, when we're young change means new schools, new jobs, new friends, new relationships, new places to live, and new things to see and do. But now I know that many of the changes to come in my life will be sad ones, irrevocable and final.
In just a few days, I'll be forced to acknowledge a "significant" birthday. My usual tactics of duck and cover have been working pretty well, unless I make the mistake of looking in a mirror. Just a bit ago, my friend Kate gave herself a fabulous "significant" birthday party, complete with dancing to songs where I actually knew the words. I swore then and there that I would not hide, but would welcome the dawn of a new age with just such a fe
 |
| Just outside of Devils Tower, WY |
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who take vacations and those who travel.
A vacation is someplace you go to relax, rest, rejuvenate. It often involves travel —sometimes a little, sometimes a lot — but usually the travel is direct, getting you from home to your point of destination. Once you arrive, there may be the occasional side trip or adventure, but usually you have a base of operations. Cottages, second homes, beach houses, resorts, and destination vacations, like Disney World, all fall under the realm of vacation. Visiting the grandparents in Florida is a vacation, even if it takes two days of driving each way. You could arguably include cruises in this list, as well.
Traveling is a whole different ball game. The point of traveling isn't where you're going, it's what happens along the way. Writer Miriam Beard once said: "Certainly, travel is more than seeing the sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
I hope that's true, otherwise the nearly three weeks that my family of six just spent crammed into a minivan were for naught. I like a nice vacation every once in a while, sitting on a beach or going to an island resort. I like to travel, too, but to travel successfully requires a lot of advance planning — something I don't enjoy. Fortunately, I have a husband who thinks vacations are a bore, who loves to travel, and who dives into all the research and prep work like a man on mission.
Traveling with three teens and a 'tween may not be everyone's idea of a good time, but this was
our last hurrah before we send the girl off to college. From now on, chances are that when we gather it will be more of a vacation than a journey. One of the delicious things about this particular trip was that, with the exception of our furtherest point (a wedding in Seattle), every place we went was virgin territory for all of us.
A family is constantly in transition, but the changes are usually subtle. Suddenly, your boy is wearing flood pants and you realize he has grown three inches. Or your girl makes dinner for
you and you realize how independent she is. Some of the changes are accompanied by physical symbols — that shiny new set of braces or that shiny new drivers license. Others are unheralded, almost unnoticed, like when toddler temper tantrums subside, or two consecutive years of whining taper off into the occasional eye roll. These are all signposts on the journey of a family.
But what do you do when you get to the end of the road; when one of your co-travelers is striking out on a new path of her own? If you are our family, you take
By:
Susan Bearman,
on 7/18/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
food,
birthdays,
two kinds of people,
pie,
2kop,
Susan Bearman,
Cindy Fey,
Roy Blount Jr.,
Lisa Romeo,
Andie McDowell,
Joy of Cooking,
Add a tag
There are two kinds of people in the world: cake people and pie people. Guess which one I am.
I'm a little surprised that I haven't tackled this particular 2KoP dichotomy before, but I'm grateful to
Lisa Romeo's Summer Writing Prompt project for reminding me of it. A bit of research shows that both
cakes and
pies have long, venerable histories dating back to the ancient Egyptians, who are believed to be the world's first bakers.
Cake is fine. It has it's place. Much as I love it, a traditional wedding pie would be a hard to pull off, so my husband and I chose carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. (A mutual disdain for butter cream is one of the things that attracted us to each other.)
But
pies (I'm talking fruit pies here) are a different sensation all together. Diet wise, cakes and pies weigh in about the same — both running at a not-exactly-healthy 250-300 calories a slice — but fruit pies somehow
feel more virtuous. There's a complexity to homemade fruit pies — sweet and a salty, wet and dry, creamy and flaky, all at the same time — that makes each pie a singular experience.
Pies were originally called coffyns, then pyes and finally pies, and the delicious flaky pastry of our modern tarty desserts does not much resemble the typically inedible crusts of their early ancestors. Back then, the baked shells primarily served as cooking and storage vessels for savory meat dishes. I've had a few meat pies in my day, and a fair share of other crusted dishes, like quiche, but my true love is fruit pies.
Though the romance developed over time, it probably stems back to warm memories I have of baking pies as a child with my grandmother and cousin. My mother's mother was a less-than-stellar chef, coming from the school of cooking where you began making dinner first thing in the morning and boiled or baked the hell out of everything until it was served as barely distinguishable portions of mush and gristle.
That may be a bit harsh, but I will say the woman knew her way around a rolling pin. She made delicious
pierogi (Polish dumplings), as well as all kinds of pies. When my cousin Cindy and I, who were the only girls on that side of the family, visited for a day or two, Grandma always made a little extra dough and would give us the trimmings to make tiny tarts. Wrapped in hand-embroidered aprons, we pretended to be grown-up women by pummeling and playing with that dough until it was more like rubbery silly putty than delicate pastry. My Grandma's pies, made from the more tender, earlier version of that self-same dough, were wonderful — delicately lattice woven and flaky on top, moist but not mushy on the bottom.
Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog:
The older I get, the more people I know, the harder it is to stay connected — even to people I've known my entire life and love very much. It's hard to say exactly what happens: we get busy; our lives are crowded with people, activities, chores and events; we move far away; we have families of our own. Perhaps the biggest culprit is time, or lack of it. Recent scientific evidence proves that the older we get, the faster time passes (or so it seems so to our aging brains). With all that goes on in our day-to-day lives, it's easy to lose touch.
Then tragedy strikes — someone dies and we feel lost and guilty. When my aunt passed away last week, I drove to Michigan for the funeral. My parents came up from Florida. My brother flew in from California. The aunts, uncles and cousins gathered around to mourn our loss. Without exception, when I encountered someone I hadn't seen in a long time, we greeted each other with an awkward combination of joy at reconnecting and sadness that these were the circumstances that brought us back together.
My aunt died at an inconvenient time for most of us. I'm not being flip, simply honest. For my immediate family, it was not possible for anyone else to take time off from work or the final days of school to attend the funeral, so I went alone. In many ways, it was a blessing. I was able to spend time with my family of origin without the burdens of being a mom and attending to the immediate needs of children. I could focus completely on another part of my family that had not had my undivided attention in years.
Funerals are strange rituals, to be sure. We laugh and we cry. We tell stories and sit in silence. We are reminded of our founding families. We treasure and relive old memories. And we regret. We regret that we don't seem to make the effort to get together more often, just because we're family and we don't want it always to be at a sad occasion. We regret that we didn't call or send that birthday card or even a simple e-mail. We regret being selfish and absorbed in other things. We regret the lost opportunities, the missed chances, the unsaid "I love yous".
But I've come to have a new respect for and understanding of funeral traditions. My brother and I both commented that when we were younger, the whole idea of funerals was creepy and bizarre. As we got older, we understood that the funeral rites themselves provide comfort to many people, giving us concrete things to do in a time that seems chaotic and uncertain.
1 Comments on Staying Connected — CMB Post, last added: 6/29/2010
"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth,
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who were lucky enough to be part of the
Silicon Valley Moms Group and those who never had the opportunity. Even if you never contributed to the blogs, I hope you read and enjoyed many of our posts. For me, the SV Moms Group really meant the Chicago Moms Blog, but there were 13 other regional sites that, along with the Chicago Moms Blog, comprised the SV Moms Group.
I also got to
meet some really cool women (these are links to just a few of them; there are too many to count). Some I met in real life (IRL), some only online through this vibrant community. And it was and is a community. About 450 writers currently contribute to the SV Moms blogs, and there have been nearly 800 writers in all, not to mention the thousands of readers who have clicked on our posts. Until I joined the SV Moms, I didn't really understand the concept of an online community or how powerful it could be.
By:
2KoP,
on 6/13/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
pets,
inspiration,
animals,
passion,
two kinds of people,
Antarctica,
Sea World,
Center,
The Animal Store,
Dolphin Research,
Emperor penguins,
Becky Bearman,
Shedd Aqarium,
Julie Scardina,
Add a tag
There are two kinds of people in the world: those whose work lives and personal lives are two separate entities, and those who live, work, dream and breathe their passion.
I'm trying to make that work as a writer, which is my passion and haunts my dreams. There isn't much about writing that I don't love (although I wish the pay was better). Writing fulfills, renews and excites me like nothing else, and that passion seems to increase the more I do it.
Not everyone is lucky enough to discover his passion. I have high hopes for my son, who recently graduated from high school. I know in my soul that when he finds his own passion, he will know no limits. But finding that passion and convincing him to look for it have so far been elusive.
Our oldest girl, on the other hand, has known her passion at least as long as I've known her. When I me her dad, she was about six years old and already crazy about animals. When my husband bought
The Animal Store, she was just 10, and she has logged many hours in the shop helping him. Even from afar, she continues to be a valuable contributor, writing the employee handbook, as well as much of the material for our soon-to-be-updated Website.
But it is the animals she truly loves. In high school and college, she participated in internships through the
Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. She worked at the
Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, FL. She studied marine biology at the University of Miami and received a masters degree in primate conservation from
Oxford Brookes University.
Her master's thesis was on a study she did training select individual animals within a large group. She developed the protocol herself and conducted the study on a group of baboons at the Six Flags Wild Safari in New Jersey. That study will soon be published in a scientific journal. Her methods revolved around the concepts of positive reinforcement training, and her depth of understanding and commitment to these concepts are remarkable.
Her passion has taken her from Chicago to the Bahamas to Florida to England to New Jersey and back to Florida, where she is now working with birds of prey. It has also taken her to the hospital with three (count them!) monkey bites. Her passion sometimes makes us a nervous wreck, but not even those three monkey bites has dulled it for her.
Those who work with animals must do it for love, because it's certainly not for money.
As I have mentioned, I'm a reluctant pet
"There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness, but of power."
There are two kinds of people in the face of emotional events: those who maintain a dry-eyed dignity and those who weep. If this post is splotched with mascara stains, I apologize, but I'm a crier.
We criers fall across a broad continuum, with the misters and dabbers on one side followed by your leakers, snifflers, huffers, whimperers, sobbers, bawlers, wailers, howlers and
ululaters (not typically Americans; we're too uptight for that). I've always envied the misters — the ones who can show that they're feeling the deep emotions, but who are able at the same time to blink back the tears, avoid the runny nose, and preserve their makeup. I also envy the ululaters for their total abandonment and commitment to the emotion.
I fall somewhere between a sniffler and and sobber, with the added quirk that once I start to cry, it's almost impossible for me to stop until dehydration sets in. My biggest fear is always that I'll lapse into the ugly cry before I dry up. Remember when
Halle Berry, that beautiful woman, slipped into the ugly cry at the Academy Awards. I'd like to say it was a beautiful thing, but the fact is that the ugly cry usually makes everyone, crier and observer alike, uncomfortable.
I know I'm a crier, because during my wedding I looked at my groom and the waterworks started. Those who were there will remember that things were a little chaotic, what with my mom almost dying and everything, so when I reached for my pretty little lace hanky, I realized I had forgotten it. The tears kept falling, my nose started to run and all I could think about during the rest of the ceremony was that I wanted to grab the little red pocket square from our rabbi's suit coat. I would have, too, but he was 80 years old and I was afraid that kind of sudden movement toward his person might give him a heart attack.
I also know I'm a crier because our brand new elementary school principal caught me yesterday during the first grade play, where the twins played a hip-hop weed (the boy) and a swaying flower (the girl) in award winning performances. The minute the stage lit up, my tears started and our principal whispered: "Oh, you've got it bad."
"You have no idea," I said. "They shouldn't even be breathing and here they are performing, on stage, with all the other first graders." I couldn't say any more. The tears were crowding my voice and the ugly cry threatened.
But how, if that first grade play was just yesterday (and I know it was), are those same twins now experiencing the final few hours of their senior year in high school. I've done a pretty good job so far putting off the inevitable deluge, mainly because I've just been too busy and far too deep in denial (
By:
2KoP,
on 5/18/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
2kop,
horoscope,
Virgo,
George Bernard Shaw,
writing,
Religion,
paranormal,
control,
astrology,
two kinds of people,
Robert Benchley,
beliefs,
Add a tag
There are two kinds of people in the world: believers and skeptics.
George Bernard Shaw said: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
Sober or not, I fall pretty comfortably into the skeptical category, though I'm not quite as jaded as my mother. She can't even watch a magician without saying: "It's a trick."
"Of course it's a trick," my dad says, "but the illusion is fun."
"It's just a trick," says my mother.
Her sister, my aunt, reads her horoscope pretty regularly. When my mother says that she doesn't believe in horoscopes, my aunt says: "Of course you don't. You're a Capricorn."
On the Zodiacal chart, I'm
Virgo, often described as: perfectionistic, anxious, hardworking, self-sacrificing, reliable, logical, observant, helpful, precise, interfering. I am all of those things.
Virgo is also described as cold, fussy, inflexible, introverted, fastidious, health conscious, fit, and emotionally secretive. I am none of those things.
If I am sitting in a doctor's office and if there is no good celebrity gossip to read, I will glance at my horoscope. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. But do I believe? No. Nor do I believe a single word that tarot card reader told me at that party last summer.
In fact, the older I get, the less I believe in much of anything. The folly of youth seems to be to believe that things will simultaneously change completely (for the better) and yet never change. Experience shows that fashion and technology change, but that human nature does not.
The belief systems of the world's religions have never seemed particularly helpful to me. I worry enough about this lifetime to spend much energy worrying about the next. I'd like to believe, as many ancient cultures do, that everything has a spirit, but I don't really care whether a rock has an inner life and I don't want to have to worry about the soul of that mosquito I just snuffed. One of the big reasons that Judaism appeals to me is that it offers more questions than answers. That seems right. Answers are elusive, maybe even irrelevant. It's the questions that count.
On the other hand, some things aren't even worth questioning. They just … are. And despite a pervasive skepticism, I do believe in a few unbelievable things. Like most parents, I know for a fact that my babies are miracles. Life itself — the spark of it — is miraculous, even if it is just a random accident rather than divine design.
Part of this miracle that it is finite. Our lives are limited and unpredictable, and most belief systems seem to stem from our need to answer the answerable: where do we come from, how long will we be here, where do we go? I don't believe that anyone really knows, at least not for sure.
I don't believe in ghosts, either, but I do know that my grandmother came to say goodbye to
"Ideas won't keep.
Something must be done about them."
mathematician, logician, philosopher
As author and pool playing expert
Robert Byrne once said, "There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on." You know what he means. It's one thing to have a good idea, it's a whole other thing to follow through with it.
How many times have you been watching late-night infomercials only to discover some bozo took the idea that
you've had for years and converted it to pure gold right there for everyone to see at 3:30 in the morning. Oh, you don't watch TV infomercials 3:30 in the morning? I guess it's just me, then, but surely someone along the way has stolen one of
your brilliant ideas.
"Everyone is a genius at least once a year.
The real geniuses simply have their
bright ideas closer together."
physicist, mathematician, astronomer and writer
I don't know whether I'm a real genius or not, but for writers, ideas are our stock and trade. Every once in a while, I get a little nervous that all the good ideas have been taken, but then I remember
The Crescent Rod™ shower curtain rod. The first time I saw it, I thought the thing was pure genius. With a simple curved rod, it was now possible to take a shower in a tiny hotel tub/shower combo without that gross, plastic curtain sticking to you with its ger
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who perform as part of a group and those who fly solo.As a family of six, we are definitely a group act, but I've recently come to the conclusion that I'm lacking something in my life, and I've decided what I need is … backup singers.
Think about it: what mom couldn't use backup singers? Instead of repeating myself 237 times a day, I'd just have to sing the chorus through a couple of times and my backup singers would pick up the slack.
Me: "It's 5:30, baby. Turn off the screens and do your homework."
My backup singers: "Do your homework, do your homework, yeah, do your homework now."
Me: "It's bedtime, honey. Put your jammies on, brush your teeth and get into bed."
My backup singers: "Get to bed, get to bed, yeah, get to bed now."
Brilliant, right? And I'm not the only writer to think along these lines. Turns out some pretty famous authors have formed a nearly infamous rock group known as the
Rock Bottom Remainders. Current members include:
Mitch Albom on keyboards,
Dave Barry on lead guitar,
Roy Blount Jr.,
Greg Iles on lead guitar,
Kathi Kamen Goldmark on vocals,
Stephen King on rhythm guitar,
Matt Groening on cowbell,
James McBride on sax,
Amy Tan on vocals,
Ridley Pearson on bass, and
Scott Turow on vocals.
I thought of joining up with the Rock Bottom Remainders, who are performing their
Wordstock Tour this month in DC, Philly, NY and Boston. Lest you think this is a bit of a leap, given my not-quite-published status, it turns out I have an in. Scott Turow's mom, the lovely Rita Turow, is a long-time member of the Off Campus Writers' Workshop, the very writers' group of whi
By:
2KoP,
on 3/17/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Today's Chicago Woman,
Betty Friedan,
Gloria Steinem,
Cassandra Gaddo,
blog,
Blogging,
New York Times,
feminism,
two kinds of people,
Virginia Woolf,
Chicago Moms Blog,
Add a tag
How good does a female athlete have to be before we just call her an athlete?
— Anonymous
There are two kinds of people in the world: bloggers and mommy bloggers.I've been thinking about this post for some time, not necessarily in terms of blogging, but in terms of feminism and the role it plays now that we are a decade into the 21st Century. I'm getting ready to send my daughter off into the world. She is bright and shiny and full of expectations about college life and beyond. Throughout her childhood, I've been reluctant to saddle her with baggage from times gone by.
On the other hand, I'm a little dismayed at the number of women I've met (many just a shade younger than I) who think that
feminists are man-hating, humorless old windbags who have no relevance in today's world.
Today's Chicago Woman editor
Cassandra Gaddo wrote a great post called
Dropping the F-Bomb: Why is Feminism a Dirty Word, that speaks to many of the controversies surrounding feminism and invites us to reopen the conversation.
And we do need to reopen it, because even if feminism is dead (although I hope not), sexism isn't. In fact, it's alive and well in the venerable
New York Times, where just this week writer Jennifer Mendelsohn penned an article insultingly titled
Honey, Don't Bother Mommy. I'm Too Busy Building My Brand. Not surprisingly, it's gathered
a lot of
buzz in the
blogosphere.
Here's the thing: I don't mind being called a Mommy Blogger (although in this house, I'm Mama, so I guess that would make me a Mama Blogger). After all, I'm a mom and I blog. On this blog, sometimes I write about being a mom, sometimes I don't. I am a proud contributor to the
Anybody recognize these cute mugs? I thought this old shot was a great illustration for my latest Chicago Moms Blog post called
It's Not Nurture, It's Nature. I bring it up here because it is a Two Kinds of People post — perhaps the ultimate two kinds of people, boys and girls. Points for anyone who can guess how old the twins were in this shot; bonus points if you recognize the location. Leave your comments about it
here.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
There are two kinds of people in the world: those satisfied with naming their own children and a few pets throughout their lifetimes, and those who obsess about names, collecting them and hoarding them like precious gems and jewels.
Guess which one I am?
My family has collected names since I was a little girl. There were Ben Zen, Terry Berry and Pam Schram. Back in the day when, as children, we still called all the grownups "Mr." and "Mrs.", I knew a woman named Mrs. Carden. Her husband's name was Bob. I remember snorting with laughter when I found out that her first name was Arden. Arden Carden. If my name was Arden, you couldn't pay me to marry a guy named Bob Carden.
Then there are the lyrical names, like Marissa Madrigal and Asha Bhataley and Tenley Overseth. And the funny ones, like Hortense Wigdorf and
Prudence Dalrymple (don't you think it's perfect that she is a librarian?). Perhaps my favorite is a parent of a child from my kids' high school whose name is Evanella Fullalove. These are all real names of real people.
You would think that having the privilege of naming four children would have been enough to satisfy my fascination with nomenclature. I took the whole thing very seriously, gathering baby name books around me and reading them cover to cover (I was on bed rest, so I had a lot of time on my hands). When we chose Isaac for our first son, people looked at us like we were from Mars. That was back in 1991. By 2008, Isaac had risen to the 37th most popular name for boys in the country (according the
Social Security Administration Website on baby names — Internet heaven for name geeks like me).
I have to admit, I'm not fond of my own name (sorry, Mom), but I would be terribly sad if my children hated their names. My husband,
a thrower-outer, nearly lost his arms one day when he tried to chuck my baby name books. "Put those back," I yelled. "But, why? We're not having any more babies," he said. That's logic trying to squash creativity.
I think I first became interested in writing fiction when I realized that every time I create a new character, I get to make up a new name — and I'm not limited by pesky legal last names or honoring dead relatives, either. I can choose any name I want.
Still, all that freedom doesn't neces
For two years now, I've been telling you all about the two kinds of people who populate my world view. To celebrate the second anniversary of my blog, I issued a writing challenge to my readers to come up with their own Two Kinds of People essay. It was wonderful to read the entries and difficult to choose a winner. Thank you to all who entered and to my panel of judges, who chose a culinary essay by Murray Abramovitch.
The judges felt that Murray's essay best captured the spirit of the 2KoP blog: a solid basic recipe of good writing, seasoned with some interesting facts and quotes, and topped with a great big dollop of humor. (Please note that the opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or its owner. Also note that Murray is from Canada, and his quirky spellings and those of his countrymen are also not our fault.) Without further ado, please enjoy the winning guest post:
Important Distinction or Just a Truffle?
by Murray Abramovitch
Anything that simplifies life and peels away its many layers of ambiguity has to be a good thing. The two-kinds-of-people exercise, seeing the world in a binary way, is certainly a good thing because it is clarifying; like a rinse, it washes out the grey.
It is important, however, to stick to comparisons that are meaningful and not get caught up in splitting hairs, constantly splicing and dicing and dividing into neat but useless sections the world-at-large.
To this end, I have separated humanity into two very simple but important groups: those who like mushrooms and those who don't. This is a comparison with gravitas.
I am one of the latter group, one who sees a mushroom as a the fleshy, spore-bearing fruity body of a fungus. Mushrooms are part of a noxious family that includes puffballs, stinkhorns and morels. They thrive in the dark, dank and decaying habitats of forest trolls.
The best advice to unsuspecting diners who can't tell a Jack-o-lantern mushroom from a chanterelle is: do not eat a mushroom unless it was collected by a competent
mycologist or become a mycologist yourself.
Putting their toxicity aside, mushrooms are fundamentally unattractive, rubbery and without taste unless heavily seasoned or sauteed. Like tofu, they simply take on the flavour of what they are cooked with. Portobello mushrooms in a Madeira wine reduction? Honestly, from
By:
2KoP,
on 1/26/2010
Blog:
Two Kinds of People
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Susan Bearman,
Orson Welles,
compari,
limoncello,
Hotel San Pietro,
writing,
renaissance,
two kinds of people,
Italy,
Add a tag
a revival or renewed interest in something;
origin FR, meaning "rebirth"
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Italy and those who have never been there. If this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it's a slightly revised version of the introduction I used for
this post — a renaissance of the topic, if you will.
In case you haven't noticed, it's January and 23°F here in Chicago. January wouldn't be so bad if it didn't end in February. Everyone knows that God made February the shortest month of the year because we just couldn't take it for more than 28 days (29 tops).
At this time of year, I never feel warm. All I want to do is take a steaming hot bath and crawl under the covers to hibernate. But winter lasts forever in Chicago and then crashes directly into summer, so I've decided it would be far better to start my rebirth in Italy
now, rather than wait for an unlikely spring awakening here at home.
Don't get me wrong — I don't want to become an expat. I love my country and my city, for at least half the year. If only I could live in Italy between, say, November 1 and June 1 — oh, wait, that means I only want to be here five months a year. Well, so be it.
Why Italy and not, for example, France? Well, I've never been to France. I'm sure it's very nice — lovely, in fact. But in Italy, blue is azure, lemons make
limoncello, architecture is old, fashion is new, and life is
dolce.
I don't want to do the whole
Under the Tuscan Sun thing, where I dump all my (nonexistent) savings into a dilapidated villa. I have a hard enough time maintaining our 117-year-old Victorian.
No, I want a little
pied a terre (it's the same in Italian as in French, only without the hyphens; I looked it up), and I want it
here, at the Hotel San Pietro in
Positano. Today, it was 54°F in Positano, not exactly tropical, but way above freezing. Seriously, look at these pictures and tell me you couldn't be reborn in such a setting:
View Next 25 Posts
Nice idea. You're so ambitious with all your contests and clever ways of involving people. I'll certainly try to enter.