Footle and Grok

Messing about with empathy

Love is like a box of chocolates

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Are you giving or receiving a box of chocolates today?

Oh, I hope you remembered that today is Valentine’s Day. If you have shopped at Walmart in the past two months, you couldn’t forget. I was in my local Walmart two days after Christmas, and they were putting out Valentine’s Day cards and stuffed animals. In December!

Recently, the entrance to my Walmart has been wall to wall heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. They range in size from six inches to over two feet across. Wow!

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday. It might be one of my least favorites because I used to work at a Hallmark store. When I helped frantic men (it was always men) on February 14th pick out a card and gift for their loved one, not because they wanted to, but because it was a particular day of the year, I thought the whole thing was silly. Wouldn’t the gift mean more if people weren’t forced to give it?

Still, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are popular, and I wondered who created the idea. It turns out it came from everyone’s favorite chocolate-egg-laying-rabbit company, Cadbury.

It should be noted that while Cadbury is known for small chocolate eggs in America, they are the Hershey of England. I like Cadbury eggs and was excited to learn that Cadbury is responsible for the heart-shaped box of chocolates.

In 1840, Victorians in England celebrated Valentine’s Day big time with elaborate gifts and cards. Richard Cadbury had improved chocolate making, and his eating chocolates were very popular. Heart-shaped boxes existed, but he was the first to decorate them with images of cupids and roses and then fill with chocolate.

The gift was actually two gifts. Once the chocolate was eaten, the box could be used to hold trinkets or love letters. Over the years, the boxes became more and more elaborate until World War II when sugar was rationed.

The heart-shaped box might have toned down to the printed cardboard container most of us buy, but antique Cadbury boxes are still prized by collectors. Even with a simpler style, 36 million heart-shaped boxes are going to be sold, especially to men who forgot today is Valentine’s Day.

Whether you celebrate today a lot or not at all, I appreciate all of you for reading this blog. Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Podcasts, science, and cats

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

I love all animals, but I am glad that I only have cats.

My hubby used to be a dog person, like an “all cats should die” dog person. Now he is a cat person! So when he heard about a podcast discussing cat behavior, he sent it to me.

Short Wave is a ten-minute, daily, scienced-based, NPR podcast, not much different than my podcast (except sponsored by NPR, so the podcasters get paid.) Both podcasts encourage people to feed their curiosity, and each episode is on a different topic.

If you think cats are the best, take a listen to this episode of Short Wave. If you believe dogs rule and cats drool, you still might like this episode because some of the hosts are dog people.

And of course, if you like Short Wave, you should try the Footle and Grok Podcast. I’ll have to do a cat episode someday.

To collect or to abandon, that is the question

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

I’m always looking for topics to write about.

Writing a different post every day can sometimes be difficult. However, I like a challenge, so I follow unusual Facebook pages and receive a lot of e-newsletters on varying subjects to keep my curiosity fed. Today I stumbled upon a question worthy of consideration, and that made me think of another, more important question.

If you fly, you know that you have to place small bags, laptops, wands, jackets, liquids, shoes, belts, and furry monsters (under three ounces please) in gray bins that then go through the scanners. One passenger can easily use three or four bins.

As people gather their items after they themselves go through the “assume the position” scanner, all those now empty bins are lying there, slowing down the conveyer belt. On a good day, a TSA employee is removing the bins faster than you can empty them, but that is the exception. So here is the question:

  1. Do you take your bins down to the cart at the end, do you take all the bins you see down to the cart at the end, or do you leave the bins where they are sitting?

This question was tweeted by Meg! Lewis! (I learned about it in a Nat Geo e-newsletter.) No one responded that they left their bins behind. I’m not surprised. Someone who does that isn’t the type to read travel tweets.

However, there was a split between those who only take their own bins and those who take all the bins. I do either, depending on how long I have before boarding.

You can let me know your answer to this question, but I would rather know the answer to the following connected question.

  1. Do you take your empty grocery cart to the collection site in the parking lot, or do you just leave it near your vehicle?

  2. Do you take other orphaned carts to the collection site?

Not everyone flies, but everyone goes grocery shopping and uses a cart sometimes (I prefer a basket, but it’s not an option when I’m buying cat food.) So, what do you do with your cart?

I always, always, always, return my cart, and sometimes I rescue other carts. Abandoned carts are a huge pet peeve of mine.

Feel free to let me know your answer in the comments. I won’t judge you. Of course, I hope that no one just abandons their cart, but obviously, some people do. I see them all the time.

For those who help others by collecting bins or grocery carts, thank you very much.

Beeeeep, beeeeep

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

That’s the sound of your computer backing up!

Just kidding. It would be really annoying if your computer beeped  like a big truck when being backed up . Instead, it’s time to silently back up your computer.

If you back up to the cloud on a regular schedule, excellent. Ignore this post. If you do it like I do and use USB drives, today is a good day to back up your computer. Yesterday was Clean Your Computer Day. It might have been a good idea to back up your computer before cleaning it in case you deleted something important. Oh well.

Even if you didn’t celebrate Clean Your Computer Day, you can back up your computer today and breathe easy.

Really. Do it. Today.

The only way I consume beer

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

I love beer bread.

I hadn’t had any for awhile, so I pulled out the recipe my Aunt Patti gave me over twenty-five years ago and made a tasty loaf.

Have you ever made beer bread? You can buy mixes, (hubby got one for Christmas that was good,) but the recipe only has five ingredients so it’s super simple. I heard one time that cheap beer works best so I use whatever we have in the house. If I was more adventurous, I would try a better beer, but I am afraid I won’t like the results. (Try different beers and let me know what you like.)

I don’t drink alcohol, but beer bread doesn’t taste like beer. It just tastes delicious. I have provided a recipe below, and I’m sure there are a lot more online.

Aunt Patti's Beer Bread

3 cups flour
4 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3 tsp. sugar
12 oz. beer of your choice

Preheat over at 350 degrees. 
Grease bread pan. Mix dry ingredients. 
Add beer and mix until doughy. Pour batter into pan. 
Cook 50 to 60 minutes.

One more hint, I think the bread is better the next day. It’s very moist when it first comes out of the oven. Of course, I couldn’t wait and enjoyed every bite.

A tale as old as time

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Have you ever read Gilgamesh?

I always wanted to, and finally listened to a translation on Audible. It was amazing, and like nothing I expected. Anyone who studies writing learns about Gilgamesh. However, hearing the story itself was so much more.

I highly recommend the version I heard. The narrator was excellent. You can get it from Audible. The story itself is only about two hours long. The other two hours are an essay by the translator, Stephen Mitchell. I appreciate that they put the essay after the story, and I loved how he went into the decisions that translators have to make.

One of the things I liked best about the story was its repetitive style. At one point, Gilgamesh has four or five dreams. The verse leading up to each dream is identical, and by the third dream, I could repeat it myself. This helped me understand how oral stories were passed from person to person, and I felt part of the history of Gilgamesh.

One warning, there is a lot of sex talk in the book, and they don’t hold anything back. It might not be appropriate for kids. There may be other translations that toned that part down. It’s mostly at the beginning of the story and is important to the plot. I can understand why this translator didn’t mince words.

Let’s all create a holiday

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Today I am answering a question sent in by my friend, Judy.

“National Margarita Day is February 22. How do you go about getting a National Day? Joe asked if it had to go in front of Congress. How does that work?”

This is an excellent question because I talk about holidays all the time. On the Footle and Grok podcast, I devote every Monday to the topic. Today, I will explain the different types of holidays and how they are made.

First of all, anyone can declare a holiday. The trick is making it popular. For example, two guys decided that September 16 should be Talk like a Pirate Day. And so it was. But it wasn’t until they enlisted Dave Barry’s help that the holiday became well known and celebrated by other people.

Some people copyright their holidays. In theory, that means we have to pay them to celebrate. That makes no sense to me. I stay away from copyrighted holidays, and so we all lose.

Next are national holidays. They sound official, right? The truth is anyone can call their holiday “national.” It doesn’t mean anything, it just sounds important.

If you are a business or an organization, you can create a “National” holiday and get it registered with the National Day Calendar. Then your holiday becomes easier to find and more popular. National Margarita Day, which Judy mentioned in her question, was created by Karma Tequila. 

Some countries have a National Holiday, where everyone gets the day off. We here in America do not. Lots of people work on holidays.

There are ten federal holidays. (None of these holidays have “National” in their title.) These are created either by Presidental proclamation or a vote by Congress. Non-essential government workers, schools, and banks take the day off.

Creating a federal holiday is difficult. One way to have success is to start in the states. If you can get several states to celebrate your new holiday, then Congress might notice.

You can also start an online petition, but this can take time, so be patient. Remember, it took Sarah Hale* thirty-eight years and thousands of letters before Abraham Lincoln finally made Thanksgiving a federal holiday.

There you have it. Anyone can create a holiday, and add the name “National” if they choose. It’s up to you to spread the word. Businesses and non-profits can register their national holiday for more exposure. If a holiday becomes popular enough, then it can be adopted by the states and voted on by Congress. This doesn’t happen very often, or else we’d never get any work done.

I hope this answers your question**, Judy. I have added links throughout this post so you can learn more. Everyone should make a holiday and spread happiness. What holiday would you create?

*Amazon Affiliate Link

**I would love for more of my readers to send in questions. Answering them is fun.

Cookies in space!!!

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

How long does it take to bake a cookie in space?

This is not an easy question to answer. First of all, you can’t just make cookie dough on the International Space Station (ISS) because flour and sugar in zero gravity would just float around and not stay in the bowl.

There would also be baking challenges. On Earth, the hot air in an oven moves around and heats the dough. This doesn’t happen in zero gravity. Likewise, gravity makes the cookies spread out and flatten, so a cookie in space would look different without a lot of baking changes.

Last November, these issues were tested. A tin of DoubleTree (the hotel) cookie dough and a zero-gravity oven were used on the ISS to bake cookies. (Here is a short video about what the oven looks like.) It was an interesting experiment.

First of all, they baked five cookies, one at a time. Each one was cooked at a different time and temperature. The first one was undercooked; the other four smelled like baked cookies. Unfortunately, the astronauts couldn’t eat the cookies. They were put in individual containers and sent back to Earth for testing.

Here is the answer to our opening question. The cookies on the ISS were baked between 70 and 130 minutes at 300 and 325 degrees. The best looking cookies were numbers 4 and 5 that baked for 120 and 130 minutes. Two hours!!!

This may seem like a frivolous experiment, but if we are going to have colonies on the Moon and Mars, it will help to have real food, including cookies. Plus, a fresh-baked cookie is better then one that’s been in a box for months, especially if you have a bag of milk with a straw to go with it.

Mispronouncing words

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Hi, my name is Jennifer Vandenberg, née Ice.

The word I mispronounced in the above sentence was née. My hubby and I were doing a crossword puzzle (it takes two of us to figure out the answers), and one of the clues was a three-letter word that meant born. We never guessed the answer but figured it out by answering other clues.

The moment I saw née, I knew what it meant. However, I pronounced it like “knee.” I doubt I’ve ever heard it said, although I have seen it written. Well, I got it wrong.

Née, which means born and is usually used to show a woman’s maiden name after her married name (see the first line of this post.) is pronounced “nay.” It rhymes with “hay.”

Oh well, this is hardly the first time I’ve mispronounced a word, and it won’t be the last. At least I won’t mispronounce née ever again. Plus, I am definitely adding this word to my vocabulary. It sounds very formal and high brow, which is just what we all need to be occasionally.