Thanks to Miles, much of our house is in disarray.  A recent exploration of his uncovered a notebook, which I didn’t pay any attention to until Denny picked it up and opened it the other day.  There’s a handout there on the subject of educational technology, and some notes from what was obviously a conference (though I couldn’t tell you anything more than that; the notes aren’t very exciting).

A couple of pages in shows what was actually on my mind as I sat in the conference.  I have no memory of writing this, but it’s in my handwriting and follows my general aesthetic, so there you go.

Some good inventions:

• A necklace that sends tiny electrical shocks through your neck, keeping your hair fluffy and exciting.
• Tiny robots that live under your tongue and periodically squirt minty juice, which keeps your breath fresh.
• A giant dictionary that lives in the sky and falls on people’s heads when they misuse words [examples]. [blogger’s note:  I guess I was going to fill in the examples later]
• A robot that looks just like you—it follows you around and apologizes to everyone you’re mean to.
• A tiny human that grows inside you, then comes out and can be molded to believe the things you believe and hate the things you hate. [blogger’s note:  maybe I was pregnant when I wrote this.]
• A pair of shoes made entirely out of shrimp—walk home on a hot day, have dinner.  Added benefit:  popular with cats.
• Opposite scissors:  put things back together again.
• A pen that uses pee instead of ink—-good for writing letters to your enemies because the letters smell bad.
• Wine that tastes just as good in barf form as it did originally.
• Disposable kittens:  when they stop being cute, they turn into plump red strawberries ripe for the eating.
• A giant mouth that you can sleep in.
• A flame-thrower that looks like a fire extinguisher:  handy when your enemy is slightly on fire but you wish he/she were completely on fire.

Our friend Danny is visiting right now, and his 6-year-old wants to be a scientist/inventor when he grows up.  I think I’m going to recruit him to make these dreams a reality.

You know what I think is weird?  I think it’s weird that many people seem to have a strict separation in their minds between cooking and baking.

My mom, for instance:  she’ll pooh-pooh her cooking skills and say my dad is the cook in the family, and it’s true that my dad is a very good cook, but my mom is a baking machine.  She makes the best pie crust I’ve ever had, a thousand different cookies and candies around the holidays, lots of different quickbreads and bars and other treats.  Why does this not count as cooking in some people’s minds?  It’s just as complex a process as any other culinary one, maybe more because of the chemistry involved.  That’s another thing my mom will pooh-pooh—her science skills.  She blames a mid-century Catholic school education in which the answer to every scientific question was “God did it.”  It’s true that she might not have a strong foundation in the periodic table or the geologic record, but understanding what ice water does to fat in pie crust, or how baking soda and liquid interact in pumpkin bread is no mean feat.

Anyway, this is cooking.  I think it’s dumb to demote it.  I also think it’s dumb that pastry chefs get less glory in the culinary world than other chefs.  Last night I made a fairly complex dinner by weeknight standards, but it took nowhere near the effort required for the dessert I’m planning to work on tonight.

Also, continuing  yesterday’s theme, I am excited about how I got to say pooh-pooh twice in one post.  I would say it’s because I spend so much time with an immature boy, but we all know it was always in there.

Miles now thinks farts are funny. I love that little boy more every day.

Also, I was making a sandwich yesterday, and as I tried to coax mustard out of the almost empty bottle, it made those farty noises. Miles imitated it with lip blurbs.

I have the greatest kid ever invented.

It is a clarbity clarb of a day.  It makes me want hot food.

Fortunately, Past Aprille got that started this morning.  Future Aprille just needs to get a few items finished up and Future Family will have dinner.  I think there will be cornbread involved, maybe even with honey butter made from Ken’s super-special honey.

Miles had a fun Easter, visiting the kitties and baby calves on the farm and playing with Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Denny and Uncle Michael.

I’m getting my brain organized for a book I’m working on.  It’s really hard to find time/energy to write these days.  The best thing to do, I’ve found, is prioritize time for reading.  Reading helps get me in the writing mood, and being in the writing mood is a good step in the direction of writing.  Then at least I have lots of ideas stewing around should the opportunity to actually write arise.

Here’s an attempt at embedding a Flickr video.  I think the quality degrades a little in the journey to Flash, but it’s browser agnostic and even works on the iPhone, so something’s gotta be right about it.

[flickrvideo]http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprille/3416231200/[/flickrvideo]

As you may know, I am a big anti-fan of April Fools Day.  I think more often than not it is an excuse for people to be mean-spirited.  The only really good thing that has come out of April Fools Day in the last few years is a career resurgence for Rick Astley, and lord knows the poor guy needed it.

Now, nothing specifically traumatic has happened to me on April Fools Day since the eighth grade, and even then it wasn’t truly awful, just another example of why people should be locked in closets at age 12 and not let out until they’re 16 or so.  Still, every April 1, I live in a constant state of cat-like readiness in anticipation of rude hijinks.  This is not my preferred way to interface with the world.  It is all the worse being named Aprille (pronounced April, if you didn’t know).  Everybody thinks he/she’s the first to think of a joke related to April(le) Fools Day.  Har.

On March 31 of this year, I was griping to Denny about the upcoming day of chodery (that’s choderie in French), and he suggested an alternate holiday:  April 2 is April Awesome Day.  He also suggested that at our house, we spell it Aprille Awesome Day.

To celebrate, you say something that is true and pleasant, and then afterward you say Awesome! For example:

“Miles’s new favorite book, Let’s Dance, Little Pookie, by Sandra Boynton, is really fun to read, especially when we dance along with it and do funny voices.  Awesome!”

You can also go out to dinner if you want, and maybe have a margamarita.

Happy April(le) Awesome Day to everyone.

What, because playing at the pool or the beach is insufficient entertainment in its own right?  You have to bring an inflatable whack-a-mole?

This is how Rome fell.  Inflatable whack-a-mole.

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