The Surest Sign there are No More Weeks of Winter

There is one bonifide signal that Spring has set into motion in earnest.

Last minute school projects.

Every parent has had that dreaded moment when they struggle between teaching responsibility for time management and the urge to become a Superhero and pull an all nighter with the child in question to ensure a decent grade. Most of the time, we wind up circling the wagons and helping the delinquent student to finish their work before 1 am, but not without occasionally morphing into the adult from the nether regions...if YOU EVER...I am NOT DOING THIS AGAIN...

The other day, I got a text message. "Need three fold before weekend!"

I ransacked my brain in the desperate hopes of having at some point purchased such an item that went unused. It would have helped if I knew what a threefold was. I text messaged back but before I got six taps in, I grew irritated and just phoned.

“Can’t talk. Turning off phone now.” was the response from my beloved teen.

Now, I couldn’t even text message. I knew a fishing expedition to the local office supply store was imminent.

We had just loaded up in the car from my second son’s baseball practice. It was 6:30. Dinner had yet to be served, showers and bed routines were being thrown out the window, and even microwave pot pies were looking like a time consuming chore.

Twelve year old to the rescue! She knew what a tri-fold was, I thought it was either a hat or a way to properly stow a flag. I had my atm machine card at the ready. We would go to the bank and then the art store. We could do this seamlessly if I booked.

Alas, the errand gods were not with us.

The ATM refused to cooperate. The drive thru had closed thirty minutes before we arrived. We also needed gas. Having experienced the engine light read “Low” before and actually run out, I wasn’t taking any chances, so we tanked up before proceeding with the poster hunt. It was now 7:24.

The art store was closed, but I knew of an office store still open, so I gambled, scrounging through my purse and the pockets of the car. Collectively, we found change amounting to$3.57. I did have to promise to pay the two toddlers back their respective 64 and 12 cents. It was 7:37 pm. They’d get showers the next day. For bed time stories, I handed a book from my satchel to my ten year old and instructed her “READ...aloud…expressively,” although I had to conceed, "Writing Query Letters that Rock!" wasn't my first choice for my children's night time supplimental literacy program. She abandoned it in favor of a discarded Avenger's comicbook. I was in no position to argue.

I drove at a not entirely state approved rate and we arrived at five minutes to eight. The twelve year old went in, I looked at the clock. We’d not get to dinner before 9 o’clock if I cooked.

I phoned the local roasted chicken establishment and placed an order for the family feast for four plus a few extra sides.

My daughter returned triumphant, carrying a poster board as large as herself. She had 17 cents left, so I paid back the 12 cents and listened to the other toddler howl at not receiving prompt reimbursement. For a kid who can't add or count past 15, he knew getting a nickle was getting stiffed. I offered to pay interest. He wasn’t moved. I handed him a credit card, but discovered he was a cash only kind of guy until his sister offered him a turn on the game boy.

We drove to the chicken store, but the cash problem still loomed. Five cents was insufficient to buy the family meal order I had placed, and I wasn't even sure my son would lend me back the five cents!

I took out the toddler rejected credit card and hoped my daughter could go two for two. In she marched, and returned. The card had expired one day prior. Maybe that’s why my son refused it.

I handed over another and waited. Driving in circles in the parking lot, hoping the restaurant would take it, hoping they would let her sign for it and go, the phone rang, but I was too stressed and distracted to deal with it. We saw my daughter waving with her hands full. I drove up, joyfully anticipating an end of the struggle.

Her sister went in to help bring back the bounty.

Driving home, while congratulating ourselves on a successful mission, I planned out bed time routine in my head. Then I got another text message.

“I tried to phone you. Project due Monday moved to next week.”

Quantum Leap Year

If you’ve ever studied Quantum physics or even watched the series, “Quantum Leap,” you know the principle behind Schrodinger’s Cat.

For those non followers of the captain of Enterprise before he was Captain Jonathan Archer, the theory works as follows: The scientist puts a live cat in an enclosed chamber with a compressed bottle of poisonous gas. The gas is released into the chamber. At some point, the cat inhales the substance and ceases to be alive. But until one opens the box, one cannot know if the cat still lives or has ceased to be. In the interest of full disclosure, this summation comes via the internet and it's many wise references, I am not taking physics on the side in my spare time.

Schrodinger meant it as a mental illustration of more complex issues that are beyond my wee brain. Some yahoos who didn’t get this as a theoretical exercise, created the Many Worlds interpretation, and gave rise to multiple bad cross issue storylines in comic books and television shows in the late 80’s.

In the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which does not single out observation as a special process, both alive and dead states of the cat persist, but are "decoherent" from each other. When the box is opened, that part of the universe containing the observer and cat is split into two separate universes; one containing an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, one containing an observer looking at a box with a live cat.

In other words, in one universe, I am looking at a winning ticket for the lottery. In another universe, I’m looking at a worthless scrap of paper that entitled the state of Maryland to two extra bucks of my money. I have trouble with this theory if only because I wonder what determines a decoherent universe creation. The flap of a butterfly’s wing? Chosing Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi? The consequences of not just a decision but every action and even inaction take on cosmic significance. Inhale, a universe now exists. Exhale, oh look, another.

The range of alteration I presume depends upon the origin of that other world’s existence. For example, in some universe other than this one, decoherent is a word that means something other than how I am before my first diet coke in the morning, because someone created a “Don’t Tase Me Bro Leave Brittany Alone!” moment for Youtube that made it “The Word for 2008.” I imagine in that other universe, I fulfilled the resolutions I made last year, rendering this year’s resolutions superfluous.

Living in that wonderverse, where Wikipedia is accurate, baseball players never used steroids and campaign commercials are banned until after the 4th of July the year of the election, I’m a discovered highly financially and professionally revered author. SUV’s emit gases that smell faintly of chocolate chip cookies, eliminates unwanted cellulite and provides additional conditioning for dry or dyed fine hair. All toddlers in my home are toilet trained and I’ve mastered Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, including the hard middle part that has kept me trying to learn the piece since I got the piano back in 2003. I’ve also lost twenty pounds via diet and exercise.

So this year, my resolution is to find a way to live in the universe where the Schrodinger cat still lives, and hope this week’s winning lottery numbers are 3, 7, 8, 11, 23, and 25.

Happy New Year!