The World According to Sherry

Today is my birthday. At 43, I’ve decided one paltry wish doesn’t cut it, so I’ve created ten; one for each decade I’ve been semi-aware of my own being on this planet. (I don’t count those three years of supremely awkward adolescence which I’ve blocked out of my permanent long term memory for strictly medicinal reasons).

I wish:

10) That celebrities would not be eulogized for virtues they did not have, nor worshiped in life or death by fans in lieu of finding actual purpose and meaning for suffering and death, or actual people who embody sweetness and light.

9) That politicians would stop embarrassing themselves by never being silent when silence would serve them best, and stop thinking that money and power exonerate them from acting like decent human beings, even towards members of the other party or (gasp) their spouses.

8) That the media would try for one day to cease and desist from

a) espousing hate for anyone who didn't agree 100% with Obama and the Democrats on all things and

b) cease praising every sneeze, look or action taken by Obama and the Democrats. But then, if they did this, and #9 and #10, they'd probably only be left with discussing Texas bar-b-que, recipes for Chocolate Cake and the weather for the upcoming fireworks on the 4th of July.

and for equal measure that those who only find fault would also at least practice the art of backing up all criticism with facts and parallels to illustrate their points. See Helen Thomas if you are looking for tips.

7) That people spend less time online or watching television, and more time reading a good book in the shade of a tall tree while drinking a favorite beverage or eating a fresh peach. Although, if the TV was doing a big bit about bar-b-que, chocolate cake and fireworks, I'd probably be more interested in watching.

6) That people who are fretting about this country going to hell and the people who think we're already there, would find the little bit of the world that they call heaven and breathe in the air there to remember, it isn’t all bad. (And if you have some bar-b-que and chocolate cake, I bet this is easier to remember).

5) That the government would remember it's our money. That we would remember, it is only money.

4) People who asked for advice would actually follow it. (Meaning, enjoy the cake and the bar-b-que and don't start talking about calories or what have you, just eat it and smile).

3) All "reality television" would be banned as destructive to the souls producing, providing, staring and watching it. (Jon and Kate Plus 8 dig). The WashPo did a piece over the weekend on how it was the number of kids, i.e. if only the insurance had covered a more expensive form of IVF, that did in the marriage. Yeah. That was it, the number. It wasn't the 24-7 pseudo transparency of a television "reality" show as opposed to a commitment to each other and genuine intimacy. It was the number of kids because of the type of insurance...yeah, it got under my skin.

2) I’d remember everything I'm supposed to do today.

1) I'd actually do whatever it is.

And we'd have some Texas Bar-b-que and chocolate cake and ice cream for the day after spending a good three hours under a tall tree drinking a diet coke and finishing a good book. Then we'd go swimming and finish it all off with fireworks. So there it is, the pre-planned wish for July 3rd.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your grills.
Enjoy the day. I'm now going to sit under a tree and read my book until someone brings me cake.

Future Politicians in the Family

My daughter doesn’t accept correction easily. She’s five and a quick study of her two older sisters. As such, she is quite convinced that she has everything figured out. For example, the other day I came upon her as her drink spilled all over the table, chair, her outfit and the floor. Grabbing paper towels to clean it up, I said the obvious. “You should be more careful. You dropped your cup.”

She folded her arms and gave me a cold corrective stare.
“I did Not.” She pouted at me.

“Yes. You did.” I couldn’t believe she would argue the point.
“I saw it.”

“NO I DIDN’T.” She shouted back.

Irritated, I stopped cleaning the mess. “Alright then, what happened?”

“I didn’t drop the cup. It fell.”

I suddenly understood that in her world, nothing she did was actually wrong as long as she could omit herself from the picture.

The technique remains the same even as children age. When my oldest was preparing for a special evening out at the local high school, he came down the stairs in jeans and a t-shirt. I explained that this tour of the school was about first impressions both ways and that he needed to dress up a bit. He went back upstairs.

My mom was visiting. She saw him come down, button down shirt and a tie and sensed he still needed a bit of sprucing.

“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked.
“Yes.” He said without looking or smiling.

“I don’t mean during your lifetime.”
He looked down.

“Did you brush your teeth today?”
“Yes.”

He still wasn’t making direct eye contact.

Mom is a veteran of these things.
“This afternoon?”

“Oh.”
Up the stairs he went.

Perhaps it is a consequence of living so close to the beltway where language only holds as much meaning as the speaker and the listener invests. Having such skilled negotiators for children requires that the parents be thinking two or three steps ahead with each and every utterance.

“Did you hit your sister?”

“No.” My son responds.

The sister is screaming, howling, proclaiming to all the world of her outrage at his having injured her and then denied it.

“Why is she crying?”

Rather than directly lie, a severely punishable offense, he shrugs his shoulders.

Knowing I can guess the actual series of events, I chose my next words carefully.

“Did you in any way, inadvertently or intentionally, touch your sister in some fashion that might have caused her to be unhappy with you?”

“What does inadvertently mean?”
“By accident.”

“What was the question?”
“Did you hurt your sister whether or not you meant to?”

He looks down at his feet, buying time to figure a way out of Mom’s verbal trap.
Resorting to a time tested trick of politicians, he tries blaming the accuser,
“She started it.”

Mental yoga aside, they’ll be ready for a career in Washington by the time they leave home.

for more non partisan fun, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/!

20 days until Erma Bobmeck Conference...guess I better start working on being funny.

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!