Suspense is worse than disappointment. Robert Burns

(tonight being Burn's night)

A rather random collection of thoughts and events today.


I had a longer drive to Starbucks than I had anticipated just now. Having left the car lights on this morning the battery was too run down and weak to start the V6 beast under the hood/bonnet of our dilapidated Dodge Caravan. The advantage of being at a Senior High is that they teach 'shop' here (car mechanics) so I was able to borrow a jump box and start it up, but I needed to run it for 20 minutes or so to get the charge up. I also needed a run to Starbucks to jump start my brain as three hours supervising our immaculately well behaved grade 12s doing their English diploma had left me dazed and dopey. Driving back there was a slight breeze blowing along Northmount Drive knocking marshmallows and feathers of snow off the trees to drift eerily by under a clear blue sky. A tiny moment of joy in a year that has abounded with them.

Sitting here with my Starbucks cup I am reminded of an incident in Vegas (of which much is yet to be written, I know. Bear with me). Early one morning Vic and I were in a queue at the tour company we were going to the Grand Canyon with. The family behind us were clearly, like me, of the fraternity of caffeine fans/addicts. They had been to Starbucks that A.M. and noticed as they were stood behind us the spot of wit and wisdom printed on the side of their cups; Starbucks contribution to enlightenment "The Way I See It." This particular item said something like "if you disagree with someone, try shutting up. You can often learn something by listening." This seemed to be something of an epiphany to the lady who exclaimed at length and volume what a startling lesson it was, and I was gobsmacked. Surely nobody in their Fifties should be seeking their life lessons from a paper cup, although I was not surprised after 5 minutes queuing in front of her that the twin concepts of quietness and reflective listening were new to her. I proceeded to spend the next few minutes in a cycle of hoping we were not going to be sat by her on the coach or in the helicopter down into the canyon followed by guilt for judging my fellow man and for my ego in feeling myself superior to anyone else. I guess I still have some way to go in the humble stakes, not corners I look forward to getting rubbed off by the Big Man Upstairs.

Anyway, moving on, try this if you can. It's a BBC psychological test to see if you can tell if smiles are real or fakes. I got 16 right. I found it on someone else's blog (http://sscalia.blogspot.com/)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml

Yesterday's news in Calgary was dominated by Lulu Lemon Athletica, a gym and yoga fashion company very much in vogue with twenty- and thirty-something women. It really is nice stuff, but this blew me away. They took over the Stampede Hall for a giant warehouse sale for a day and let the word just slip out through stores and face book. They spend not one cent on advertising, but everyone I spoke to knew about it. Word of mouth took it from pillar to post. Victoria went down with Carmen only to find about 2000 people in a 5 hour queue to get in. All this on a day well below freezing. People had taken days off work. The streets around were gridlocked as gym-bunnies from all over Calgary flocked in to this rarest of events. Vicky and Carmen soon gave up and moved on but many stayed and queued.

And finally, I spent too much of last night in front of the TV. One of the shows was "Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader?" on which adults compete with fifth graders (8 or 9 years old I think) to answer questions from the elementary school curriculum for large cash prizes. The format is a lot like who wants to be a millionaire but with allegedly easier questions. It was amazing how poorly people did, especially the guest 'class' of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders who got most things wrong. I finished up getting about half of the questions wrong myself, but I think mostly because I'm English. I simply never learned that much about the geography of the United States and I have never used Fahrenheit in my life. Still, no excuses; as the contestants are forced to admit on camera before leaving, I am NOT smarter than an American 5th grader. For your interest here are the questions, please post answers as comments.


1 How many states above tropic of cancer?

A 52 B 50 C 49 D 48

2 Zero degrees centigrade is how many degrees Fahrenheit?

A zero B 28 C32 D 37

3 What is 7 x 13 (no calculators now!)

4 What is the singular of the word 'lice'