Welcome To Gardening

I might have mentioned this in previous posts around this time of year, but I love Earth Day. This year I was in New York City and, though I didn't participate, I did get to witness the March for Science. There were a lot of creative signs. It was fun to see, but I much prefer to spend Earth Day out of the city.

Governor's Palace Gardens in Winter - Colonial Williamsburg VA

Since I was busy last weekend, this weekend I volunteered to help plant a butter fly garden at the New Jersey State Botanical Garden at Skylands Ringwood. It was my first visit to the Botanical Garden and it was beautiful. The flowers were all in bloom and it smells wonderful right now.

If you don't know about the New Jersey State Botanical Garden, it's a large outdoor state park in Ringwood New Jersey. The grounds are huge with plenty of gardens to walk through. They also host events that occur throughout the year and can include bird watching, hiking, and tours. You can click here to visit their website. I look forward to going back and exploring the grounds more.

The actual planting part of my trip was a ton of fun. A lot of people had shown up and we had everything planted in about a just under two hours. I think we even recruited a few of the visitors to help with the planting. I left dirty, sweaty, and excited to come back and see how the garden is doing.

There's something about digging in the dirt that brings out my inner six year old. There's a lot of exploring to do when digging. Earthworms were squirming in the ground (I made sure to gently move it over to the side). Occasionally, I would find a large, odd looking rock. Bumblebees lazily flew by to see what's going on, but thankfully didn't get too close.

I used to do a lot of gardening when I lived with my parents. We had a small vegetable and herb garden on the side of our house that I would work on in the summer. I think my favorite vegetable to grow was green beans, despite the fact that I hate eating them. They were really easy to grow and harvest. Every once and a while I would neglect them for a week or so and find several large green beans, longer than the length of my hand, ready to be eaten.

Gardening is probably the thing I miss most about living in a house. Apartments are nice, but I haven't had a lawn or space for a garden in years. Sure apartment gardens are an option, but it can be hard to get the right lighting and space.

I wish I had grown these myself, but I brought them at the farmer's market.

I also don't have as much time as I used to. When I was in high school, it was easy to maintain a garden during the summer. I had plenty of time to weed and water the plants. Now, I don't know if I would have the time to make sure the plants will be well taken care of, though my Christmas Cactus is somehow still living.

Gardening can be a great hobby if you enjoy getting dirty and being outside. You can have beautiful flowers for any occasion. Herbs are a great addition to any meal. You can watch butterflies and bumblebees dance in the breeze (technically I'm dead scared of bees, but they are important for every ecosystem on land).

Maybe I'm romanticizing. I tend to do that with fond memories. But getting my hands dirty every once and a while was fun, especially when I would come back inside looking like I had just crawled through the mud (mom wasn't as happy with me).

If you are interested in gardening, but don't have the space for one, there are a lot of great resources to help people find the option that's right for them. Community gardens have become popular in recent years, especially in urban areas (I've seen several in New York and Detroit). Some groups on Meetup.com have also specialized in volunteering and outdoors activities which can include gardening. If you find an opportunity and are interested, I definitely recommend gardening.

I'm looking forward to helping out at the Botanical Gardens again. Just because the plants have been planted, there's still work that needs to be done. Weeding is important so that the plants don't choke and die. I want to see what kinds of butterflies visit.

I hope to see some of you guys there too.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week!

Welcome to The Comedy Side of Shakespear

Happy belated Earth Day! It was cold and rainy here yesterday, but today is perfect weather to go outside and enjoy Mother Nature. I spent the weekend in New York City being "touristy" and enjoying spending some time with my mom.

We ended up getting tickets to see Drunk Shakespeare, an off Broadway production that runs six nights a week and starts with a shot of pineapple vodka. Last night we saw the drunk version of Macbeth. It was hysterical. I'm not sure how much of the production was improve and how much was rehearsed.

This night's play started with an action to see who will be the "King" and "Queen" for the night. The two people who win an auction then get to sit on the throne, drink a $30 bottle of champagne out of "phallic looking cups", and can interrupt the production twice to make a critique of the designated drunk actor. The designated drunk actor must take four shots before the play starts and will continue to take more shots (up to six total) if the "King" or (in our case) "Queen" don't think they've had enough to drink.

I can honestly say that it was one of the funniest Macbeth productions I have ever seen. Granted, I haven't seen many versions of the play, but Macbeth is not the Shakespeare play that comes to mind when I think comedy.

I have a complicated relationship with Shakespeare. On the one hand, I hated reading the plays in Middle and High School because they were difficult to understand. As soon as one of our teachers found an audio version for us to listen to, my classmates and I had a much easier time following along and figuring out why the heck was going on with Hamlet. I also remember thinking Romeo and Juliet was the worst example of teen angst rebellion gone wrong and not some horrible tragedy.

Now, when it comes to seeing Shakespeare on stage, I am all for it. I love seeing the plays come to life. I prefer the comedies. I remember seeing "As You Like It" when I was 15 in Canada and laughing my butt off.

Maybe I just prefer comedies to tragedies.

In the 90s and 2000s, adaptations of Shakespeare plays were all over the play. You had "10 Things I Hate About You" (The Taming of the Shrew), Disney's "The Lion King" (baby's first Hamlet), and "Romeo and Juliet" (just Romeo and Juliet). I remember watching these movies as a kid and then realizing that they were Shakespearean after reading the plays.

I know Shakespeare's stories have influenced my writing. He had an a amazing way of captivating his audience and appealing to the common people as well as his wealthy patrons. I especially love the poetic insults, though to be honest I usually have to think about it for a moment before I get it.

I would always recommend seeing a Shakespeare play live (since they can be so difficult to read). Drunk Shakespeare or one of the other many parodies that exist are also well worth checking out. Well, I know for a fact Drunk Shakespeare is worth checking out.

Especially since its a different show ever time.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Age of Machines

Happy Easter and Passover everyone. If you don't celebrate either well, Happy Sunday. I spent today cleaning and binge watching Supernatural (while cleaning). I mean I probably should have gone outside and enjoyed the nice weather (actually I did go to the gym, but that's still an "indoor" activity), but I really wanted to get my place ready for when my mother comes to visit next week. Watching Supernatural all day was an added bonus.

When I haven't been watching Supernatural, I've been enjoying watching the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 (thanks to Netflix). I'm going to try and finish the original series that they have up before starting on the new one. Luckily Netflix seems to enjoy a guy and his two robot friends criticizing bad old movies as much as I do.

Currently I'm watching an episode that features a Public Service Announcement on farming and how fresh vegetables are now available all year long in every part of the USA. Not going to lie, watching the the guy and the robots sing the praises of the almighty truck drivers is hysterical. Granted the PSA was probably made in the 1950s (give or take a decade as I'm never actually sure when it comes to old PSAs).

Despite the humorous antics from the robots, I can't help but notice how automated the farming process is, even back in the 50s. When you juxtapose it to the two robots making fun of it, it really hits home how much technology has changed.

Because let's be honest with ourselves, the greatest threat to our workforce is machines. 

If a robot or a computer can do it faster, better, and more cost efficient, you can bet they will replace the imperfect, slow human. You can see evidence of this going back to the turn of the century. Seriously, look at a picture of a bowling alley 100 years ago and you won't see machines resetting the pins, you'll young kids doing it. Once the bowling alleys were able to automate the pin setting process, the kids who set them were obsolete and had to find new jobs. Now you only see bowling pin setters in gym class.

That's just one example. There are hundreds of others and these types of changes have been accelerating since the industrial revolution. Horses have been replaced by cars. Lamps are used instead of candles to keep the lights on. Everyone has a laptop.

Being apart of a science fiction community has me almost constantly thinking about what types of machines we will have in the future. I mean it's hard to write science fiction without imagining the future machines we will have. Then again as soon as I dream up something to help me with my life, someone has patented it and started selling it within the year.

We are living in an amazing time. We have computers that fit in our back pockets and vaccines that have helped eliminate deadly diseases. And the future is even more exciting. Soon everyone might live in a Smart House (remember the Disney channel movie?) and have self driving cars. Drones will probably deliver the items we order online within minutes of us purchasing.

That's great, but it does raise one big question. What sort of jobs will there be in the future? If there aren't manufacturing jobs or jobs that require people to do the same thing over and over again, will there be something else for the people who originally had those jobs to do?

Certainly the age of the Internet has opened up a wide variety of possibilities, that is if everyone has access and can afford the costs. Many people have become Famous on YouTube without the help of TV executives or have started their own successful website without the use of a brick and mortar store. 

However, if robots can replace one set of jobs, isn't it theoretically possible that they could replace all jobs? Humans therefore wouldn't need to work, but they also might not have money/resources to buy the things that are being made by the robots.

Would humans therefore become obsolete?

That's a scary thought. 

I mean Mystery Science Theater 3000 has already demonstrated that two robots can replace humans as snarky film critics. Yeah sure, the robots aren't actually robots in the show (they're puppets), but we've seen examples of movies and TV shows influencing the types of technology that will come out in the future (see Star Trek for details). The Nostalgia Critic might have to worry he'll be replaced by a robot with a sarcastic program chip sooner rather than later.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into the technology available today. Perhaps I am worrying too much about the future and what sort of jobs will be available for the next generation. Or perhaps I am using my blog as a world building exercise for my own novel as I try to figure out what the economy is like 50 years into the future and you guys are my unfortunate captive audience.

Anything is possible in my mad world.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

And I swear I haven't been replaced by a robot...yet.

Until next week.

Welcome to Stone Soup

I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with the old folk tale called Stone Soup. It was one of my father's favorites and I know I had a picture book of it as a child.  There are many variations of the story that take place in many different countries. Sometimes instead of stones, the soup has a nail or an ax in it. Sometimes the story only takes place between a couple of people instead of a whole town. The version I am most familiar with is the French one that takes place during the Napoleonic wars.

For those of you who don't know the story, three French soldiers are trying to return home from the war. Despite carrying around a cooking cauldron, the soldiers ran out of food and were starving. One day they come across a small village and ask the villagers for a place to rest and some food. The villagers, suspicious of the strangers, refuse to help the soldiers. So, the soldiers go to the river, fill up the cauldron with water, and place a smooth stone at the bottom. They then start cooking.

The villagers are extremely curious as to what the soldiers are doing. After all who the heck starts trying to cook a large stone? So, one by one, the villagers go up to the soldiers and ask what they are doing. The soldiers tell each villager that they are making Stone Soup, one of the most delicious meals around, but it's not quite ready. The soldiers then ask each villager that arrives if they can spare one ingredient and promises to share the soup when it's finished.

I'm sure you can guess how the story ends. Each villager contributes an ingredient. By the time the soup is finished, the soldiers have removed the stone and created a wonderful meal for themselves and everyone in the village. Sure the villagers were tricked into helping out the soldiers, but by the end everyone is enjoying themselves that they don't mind. They are sharing a great meal together.

I really liked this story as a kid, though I think the lessons are a little confusing. I mean, usually morals of the story don't include tricking people, right? Tricking someone is usually considered a bad thing and the trickster(s) are typically punished at the end of the story.

So why does this story teach the opposite? Why were the villagers so unwelcoming?

Well, I think the villagers didn't trust the newly arrived soldiers. After all they could have been anyone. The soldiers could have been bad people who harmed the villagers.

But does that really justify the villager's actions? Personally I don't think so. The story clearly states that the soldiers were starving (and likely looked it). The villagers could have likely guessed that the soldiers wouldn't have been able to hurt them. Would the villagers have been guilty of enabling the death of the soldiers? Yes, they would have. Helping them would have also been the right thing to do.

Now are the soldiers wrong for having tricked the villagers?

No, no they aren't. Sometimes a person honestly needs help and after being turned away over and over again, they become desperate. The soldiers needed to eat something to stay alive. If they had been dishonorable, they would have just stolen the food from the villagers. Instead, they make sure that everyone is able to eat a hearty meal.

I find that this is one of the few stories that teach kids that sometimes it's okay to trick people, just as long as its for a good reason.

It also teaches working together as a community brings people together and can solve more problems.

It is better to be welcoming to strangers than leave them out in the cold. It is better to feed someone hungry than let them starve. It's sometimes okay to trick people.

I think that the story of Stone Soup teaches kids that it's okay to be cunning, how to be empathetic, and the importance doing things in an honorable way. Sure bad things can happen, but I think this story teaches that it's more important to help someone in need than turn them away out of fear.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Rules are Rule are Rules

Spring has officially arrived! Yay! The sun is out longer. Its finally getting warm. And the news is filled with tons of stories about the biggest annual event that takes place this time of year.

I am of course talking about prom. (What were you guys thinking I meant?)

Between over the top "asked to prom" proposals to the never ending controversy over what is appropriate prom attire, I can't seem to escape the high school dance's drama in my news feed. Which is odd, considering my prom was notably uneventful. Oh it was fun, but drama free (at least from my perspective) and I can't remember anyone being turned away because they wore an inappropriate dress.

Heck I don't remember us even having a dress code at all for our prom.

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment (or extremely susceptible to click bait), but for some reason I love clicking on these stories, skimming the article, and then rolling my eyes when I finally reach the comment section. Because you know what the most common type of comment is on anything regarding kids complaining about their dress code (or just how unfair life is in general)?

"Rules are rules."

I really hate this phrase. Even if I agree with the "rules" being discussed, as soon as I hear/see this argument my inner Mindy (the small Animaniacs* child who always almost kills her loyal "silly puppy", Buttons) surfaces.

Why? No, seriously why? Why are these rules the rules? What is the logic behind them? Why do they exist? Why do I have to follow them? Do they serve any purpose other than to annoy me?

If the answer to any of the above questions is along the lines of "because I said so" or "so as not to distract other people", I am liable to burst out laughing. Neither of these so called explanations have had any effect on me since I was six. They are inadequacy and only serve to annoy me further.

Now some people might respond with "well, that's life" or "tough cookies that's the answer". And again I might burst out laughing. Yeah life's not fair. I am well aware of this fact. Doesn't mean I have to take it lying down. As an adult, I can fight back against unfair rules or protest laws I don't like as much as I want. Why shouldn't we expect kids to as well?

See that's the funny thing about rules (and laws) in general. There doesn't need to be anything fair about them. The sole purpose of rules is to maintain some form of order. We as a society need order to properly function (at least that's what I've heard, I don't know whether it's true or not). Thus we have rules.

In theory, rules should make some sort of logical sense. Why can't I go in the construction zone without a helmet on? Because I might get hurt from a falling object. Why do I need to keep the walkway clear on the train? So that people can easily move around in case of an emergency.

However, like many things, rules don't always age well. Society changes and things progress, but our rules don't. The advent of the Internet has certainly been an interesting example of this phenomena (pretty much on steroids). Our rules and laws aren't keeping up with how quickly the Internet is evolving. Remember Napster back in the early 2000s?

If rules don't make sense or feel outdated, then they should be challenged and changed. There used to be a law in the state of Virginia that bathtubs were forbidden inside the house. In modern times this seems like a silly law, but I'm sure at some point in the state's history it made logical sense. The rule/law needed to change to how bathing was treated by society.

Without rules, we would have chaos and anarchy. Now I much prefer order to chaos (this is just a personal preference), but I can't deny the fact that order can get a little dull at times. Throwing in a little chaos challenges order and can even help to improve it. Too much, however, can cause serious damage.  It's a delicate balancing act. Then there are the people who just want to watch the world burn. Though they too might have a point, it could cause all of humanity to go extinct.

So about that dress code thing. I honestly think most dress codes need to be updated and changed. Fashion is always changing and evolving. Women can wear pants now (believe it or not my university didn't always allow women to wear pants on campus). We no longer have people measuring how long swim suits are at the beach. It is, gasp, okay to show an ankle or two. And it is perfectly acceptable to wear socks with your sandals (I will be laughing at you, but it's not against any rules).

To tell kids to not challenge rules (outdated or otherwise) is a disservice to them. Kids and adults should always question authority figures and the rules they make. Rules can be made that give an advantage to a group of players while causing massive disadvantages to another, more vulnerable group. They should be challenged and removed. Challenging authority and the rules they make is an important part of what makes America great. After all, if the founding father's hadn't challenged the rule of Great Britain, the US might not be the crazy independent country it is now.

As David Bowie once sang (may he rest in peace): "And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through."

So the next time you see or hear people protesting rules they think should be changed, don't tell them they should just live with what the powers at be decide. Listen to them, they probably have something important to say.

Unless they want to disenfranchise someone, then you have my permission to laugh in their faces.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Now, I'm off to go protest bathtubs being inside houses in Virginia. Clearly they should be back outside with nature.

Until next week.

*If you guys didn't know, Animaniacs  is on Netflix. I have been enjoying rewatching this show. I think some of it has gotten better with age.