Author Archives: wendywelch

Two Plus Two doesn’t always Equal Five

Posted on by
1

People often talk about this thing called Math. It follows a very specific set of rules and has the same answer to the same question (sometimes, even the same answer to more than one question) every time.

I don’t really believe it exists, though. How can the answer to a question be the same every time it’s asked? See, in Mathworld people tell you that 2+2=4.

Hogwash.

That might work with simple stuff, like fingers, or stones, but try such accounting when it really counts. Take generosity with money. It’s been my observation that the people who wind up having the most money are the ones who spend it on other people. Their fistful of dollars lies in an open palm, and come the end of the month, their freezers are just as full as their neighbor’s, even though he’s been keeping a tight count on every last dime. And now he doesn’t have one, while the generous soul still has a pocket full of change he’s plunging his hand into and giving away.

Try it with relaxation. You sit down at 6 pm to wile away an hour playing a computer game. When you look up, it’s midnight. One plus “a little bit more” equals twelve. Where’s your Math now?

Writing time. I can’t tell you the ways in which this multiplies and divides. You sit down, bang out four pages, and nail a concept that’s been eluding you, that you’ve spend hour after hour trying to whittle out of that big block of wood your brain has turned into, using nothing but a keyboard. You figure you’ve spent a couple of hours at least on this pass-through, but when you look at the clock? Twenty minutes.

And vice versa. An hour stretches into five, and you don’t notice until you stand up and all those little spiny things in your back go “Owwww.”

A candle: today I took an old candle, added another old candle, and made a candle. 1+1 = 1?

Cats: 1+1= 5 easily

Dogs: 1+1=8

Neutering a feral dog or cat: $50 = priceless. You don’t have to put anything else into the equation

An Orchestra 1+2+1+4+2 = 1

Speaking of music, a 3 minute song so good that it makes you sit still, doing nothing but listening to it, turns into….. you tell me. Sometimes 3×0=infinity, but those Math people try to say nothing comes from nothing.

A divorce: 2 divided by 1 = 0

As Einstein said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.”

Yeah, that. So don’t try and convince me that this thing called Math exists. I don’t believe in it.

Of Hookers, Husbands, and Wives

Posted on by
Reply

I like to crochet while minding the bookstore, and joined an online crochet forum a couple of months ago. It turned out not to be much fun. A few days in, people were fussing about announcements of imminent grandchildren “disguised as crochet posts with plans to make a stupid hat or something.”

jack hat afghanWhen I posted a pic of Jack wearing a needleworker’s bag on his head after a crochet-and-knit meeting at the bookstore, the message came from a list administrator that the pic had been removed and I should review the rules.

Everybody knows it’s hard to work with wool that’s too tightly wound—stuff stretches out of shape—so I got off the list. But a few days later someone (I don’t know who or how) joined me to a much bigger group, and over time they seem to be less apt to felt their fibers into itchy knicker twists.

What’s really fun about the list I’m on is how much husband-wife adorability comes up. A few weeks ago a woman went into false labor and was sent home from the hospital to “absolute and complete” bedrest. At seven months, she figured she’d be bored out of her mind, but when she reached the bed, her hubby had stacked on it several skeins of yarn, a five-pack of assorted hooks, and a boxed set of DVDs of her favorite TV show, seasons 1-5.

Now that’ s manning up, ladies and gentlemen.

Another lady’s husband got hurt on the job and has a six months recovery to endure. Depression set in and she despaired. His second week at home, he picked up one of her hooks and some yarn (which she needed for a work in progress). She kept her mouth shut and watched him produce the world’s most lopsided dishcloth, which she told him was perfect; she then photographed it and slammed the thing up on the list with a brief backstory. List members cheered his bad edgings and suggested projects, and several posted pictures of manly men crocheting. He’s about halfway through a very nice granny square afghan, after asking his wife a few days ago, “Hey, how do you change colors?”

A woman’s husband woke her Saturday past with a “get your crap out of the living room today; I’m tired of looking at it.” She gave him a baleful stare and went to see what on earth he was talking about, since she considered the living room “his mancave”—and found he’d paid $230 at an estate sale for about a ton of yarn and several boxes of hooks.

Husbands can be very sweet. So can crochet lists, if you find one where a little humanity keeps the edges in line.chickens