Absolutely ludicrous.

Pinterest nonsense du jour: Someone posted one of those videos of a yuppie with too much free time using the Marie Kondo method to fold and store clothes, and a commenter advised everyone to Google “adhd clothes organize method” to find out how to do it. If there is anything in the known universe that is less ADHD-friendly than turning ten minutes’ worth of laundry into a 30-minute craft project, I’m sure I don’t know what it is, but just for giggles, I followed the suggestion and Googled “adhd clothes organize method” to see what popped up.

I found two people claiming that the Marie Kondo approach to folding clothes is even remotely beneficial for anybody with ADHD. One was a life coach who refers to ADHDers as “Creative Geniuses”* because she loves “their passion” and finds “their us-against-world attitude” so “exciting” that she decided to make a living telling them how to mask their neurodivergence “live up to their true potential.” She is qualified to dispense this advice because her daughter and husband have ADHD, which she likes to talk about all over her website.

The other KonMari fangirl was a mommy blogger who still folds her kid’s clothes and puts them away, which is a very ADHD-friendly way to handle laundry, because the person with ADHD doesn’t have to deal with it. When this child is old enough to do her own laundry, I guarandamntee you she isn’t going to do origami with her T-shirts. She is just going to do what the rest of us do: leave them in the basket and forget they exist until she needs one, whereupon she will rummage through the basket and pull the shirt out through one of the slots in the side, the way God intended.**

I’ve got nothing against Marie Kondo. I wanted to love her, because she came highly recommended as a less problematic alternative to FlyLady.*** The autistic part of my brain that craves order and find refrigerator bins soothing was all in, and I immediately set about reorganizing the closet and dresser, but when the ADHD part of my brain saw the amount of executive functioning involved, it noped right out and dragged me off to find a better dopamine hit.**** Fortunately, that Pinterest commenter’s Google search recommendation yielded one useful idea for laundry management: Kelly Baumgartner, an ADHD coach who actually has ADHD, doesn’t fold laundry at all; instead, she just sorts her clean clothes into bins in her closet without folding them.

BRB. Gotta go buy some bins and labels.

Emily

* To paraphrase the late, great Dorothy Parker: “And it is that phrase ‘Creative Geniuses,’ my darlings, that marks the first place at which Wedfork Hippie fwowed up.”

** If I’m not supposed to pull laundry out of the basket sideways, then why are the slots in the sides big enough for socks, underwear, and T-shirts to pass through, hm?

*** Back in 2005, when I started this blog, the FlyLady website was about as good as it gets for ADHD-friendly housekeeping methods, but at some point when I wasn’t looking, Marla Cilley decided to use her platform to promote crazy conspiracy theories, so I’m done with her.

**** It wasn’t a total waste, however, because one of my colleagues listed home organization as one of her hobbies on the getting-to-know-you form we had to fill out last fall, so I gave her my copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Beaker being Beaker

This is Beaker, the dog we took in as a hospice foster in May. He was in pretty rough shape, as he’d been wandering around a vacant lot by himself for several weeks by the time somebody finally called Animal Control to come and pick him up. When he came to the city kennel, he was filthy, malnourished, and sickly, with nails so long they were affecting his balance, and all he could do was tremble.

That’s no way for a little old man to live, so I pulled him from the kennel and brought him home. Nobody really expected him to survive long, but I groomed him, put him on high-quality feed and a glucosamine supplement, and braced for the worst. I figured if he didn’t get any better, at least he’d have someone familiar to hold him while the vet put him to sleep.

Nine months later, Beaker — so named for his habit of squeaking like an agitated Muppet when he’s upset — is still unsteady on his feet, but he’s in much better shape than he was in May. His coat is softer, and his mobility has improved to the point that he can climb into and out of Marley’s toy basket to sleep on her plushie collection; he walks back and forth over the rungs of the cat’s birdwatching stool; and from 5 to 7 p.m. every evening, he goes wandering around the house, squeezing himself into the narrowest spaces he can find and then complaining until we come to rescue him. (I am pretty sure that last bit is a ploy for attention, as he’s figured out that I’ll pick him up and comfort him if he gets himself stuck somewhere.)

He’ll probably break our hearts one of these days, but in the meantime, at least he’s got a pack to protect him, humans to hold him, and plenty of soft places to sleep. In exchange, he entertains us with his antics and reminds us that every day is a gift to be cherished.

Emily

Get a brain, morans.

Email I received this morning:

Protip: If you’re going to run a phishing scam that hinges on luring people to a phony spellchecking service, don’t hire this guy to write your spam:

Something tells me my sophomores will find this absolutely hilarious when I share it with them.

Emily

 

 

 

Best. Final. Ever.

So I gave my creative-writing final this week. That class has only three students, so instead of giving a conventional final, I walked in yesterday, handed each kid a Barbie doll, and gave them their choice of three writing prompts involving a sentient Barbie.

Prompt 1: Barbie lives in a Dream House owned by a 9-year-old girl with affluent parents and a bad habit of losing small objects. Barbie has several housemates who may or may not be sentient. She has a crush on one, and another is incredibly annoying. She has access to a Corvette, Jeep, and RV. Despite her luxurious surroundings, Barbie is dissatisfied with her life and has resorted to unhealthy coping mechanisms. She views the 9-year-old as a destructive monster, benevolent deity, or obnoxious landlady (your choice).

Prompt 2: Barbie lives in a crude dollhouse lovingly constructed from a cardboard box by her owner, a precocious 9-year-old girl from a working-class family. Barbie is the girl’s only store-bought toy; everything else is a hand-me-down, yard-sale find, or something homemade. Despite her meager surroundings, Barbie is satisfied with her life. She and the child are each other’s only friend. Barbie wants to help the child, who is being mistreated, but is hampered by the limitations of being a plastic doll.

Prompt 3: Barbie is living rough in a city alley after falling out of a dumpster that was being emptied into a garbage truck. Once a 4-year-old girl’s favorite toy, she was separated from her owner through some tragedy and is now fending for herself. She either desperately misses the child or is grateful to be rid of her. She is in mortal danger from some threat. She has no survival skills and is learning on the fly, acquiring or creating her own shelter and other necessities in whatever way you deem appropriate for a small plastic doll.

I’m not sure this prompt would have worked with another group, but these girls are clever, caustic, and fully capable of turning Barbie’s perfect pink fantasy world into a biting commentary on modern capitalism, a dystopian hellscape, or an existential nightmare.

They’re supposed to be turning in their final drafts tomorrow. I cannot WAIT to read them. I’ve promised the girls that anybody who makes an A on the final gets to keep her Barbie, so they are MOTIVATED.

Emily

I can’t stop watching this.

I know it’s old, but this video makes me laugh harder every time I watch it.

I’m still trying to figure out where she found a cat that isn’t terrified of the vacuum cleaner. Walter hides under the bed every time we get ours out. He doesn’t even like for me to use the Dustbuster. And God help you if you try to put some kind of clothing on him.

Anyway. Cat in a shark costume, riding a Roomba. Get into it.

Emily

Kitchen help

I was hungry when I got home tonight, so I decided to make myself some seasoned oyster crackers. I didn’t get the bag sealed properly, though, so when I turned it upside-down to make sure the crackers were coated evenly with the margarine-seasoning mixture, it popped open, and at least a third of a bag of greasy, Italian-dressing-mix-coated crackers fell all over the floor.

This is just one of many reasons I insist on owning a rat terrier at all times. Without canine assistance, this could have been a real pain to clean up. Dog spit is much easier to scrub off the floor than margarine, and since Riggy couldn’t see where the crackers were, he had to rely entirely on his nose — which meant every square inch of tile that smelled like food got a thorough licking. (Yes, I’m the kind of a-hole who takes advantage of my dog’s disability to get him to pre-clean the floor for me. Trust me: He doesn’t care. He got a third of a bag of oyster crackers out of the deal.)

Reminds me of somebody I used to know.

“Mom! He’s eating all the treats! Make him share!”

“Oh. I can just take some if I want? OK.”

Walter and Songdog still haven’t figured out that Riggy can’t see them, so both of them were veeeeeery hesitant about eating the crackers off the floor once Riggy came scrambling in to get them. Walter finally worked up his nerve, but as soon as Riggy came in, Song backed off and waited until he was all done to eat one he’d missed under the edge of the stove.

Riggy didn’t even growl at anybody; the other animals just deferred to him. I’m not sure what they think an 18-lb. rat terrier with no eyes is going to do if they try to make him share his crackers, but I think it’s pretty clear who runs this pack.

In related news, the dog wasn’t the only one who thought the crackers tasted good, so they’ll be a Vegan Friday offering in the near future.

Emily

Presented without comment.

On Route 66 in Gallup, N.M.

Emily

Joie de vivre

Here is a thing I love about Cape Girardeau: The kids here seem to be animated by a sort of crazy wild joie de vivre that exceeds anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else.

Examples:

When I went house-shopping a couple of weeks ago, I found myself at a stoplight behind a school bus. Three or four little kids turned around to grin and wave out the back windows at me, and when I passed the bus a couple of minutes later, more kids were grinning and waving and opening the bus windows to shout, “We love your car!”

Last weekend, a pack of about four or five rugrats on wheels came barreling down the hill in front of my house. Two or three were on bicycles, and two were on skateboards. One little guy who looked to be all of 8 years old was flying hell-for-leather down the hill on his board, shouting, “Sh*t! Sh*t! SH*T!” in a tone that was somewhere between gleeful and terrified as he picked up speed on his way down. (He interspersed this with a couple of heartfelt “F*** yous” when the other kids laughed at him.) Toward the bottom of the hill, he managed to stop the board. One of his companions, a little girl on a bicycle, looked at me, beaming from ear to ear, and announced, “That’s a longboard!” as she pedaled past.

Yesterday morning, as I was heading to the office, two little kids came hopping down a side street on pogo sticks. Really. Pogo sticks. When was the last time you saw a kid on a pogo stick?

The sign says something else, but I think the real name of this street is Klickitat, because my young neighbors are like something out of a Beverly Cleary novel. If I don’t end up with a children’s book out of this, it certainly won’t be for lack of inspiration….

Emily

Kids are so funny.

I’ve been on kind of a Judi Dench kick ever since we watched Skyfall earlier this week, so Ron downloaded Mrs. Brown for me this evening on the Roku. He’d seen it a few years ago, but I hadn’t. Charming movie, and Billy Connolly is … yeah. Um. Wow. I don’t know if I’d trade Ryne Sandberg for him, but I’d probably consider it.

Ensuing Facebook conversation:

ME: Just watched the movie Mrs. Brown. Why are Scottish men so ridiculously sexy?
FORMER STUDENT: That awkward moment when your old English teacher says “sexy”….

Thirty is going to be SUCH a shock for these kids, isn’t it?

Emily

More bee drama

Remember last summer, when we shucked out $800 and pretty much went through hell and back trying to move our hives all over the yard to get the city off our backs after some jerk called to gripe about our bees?

Remember when I said that I really hoped the guy behind me was responsible for the visit from the city inspector, because the changes we were required to make pretty much ensured that his backyard was going to look like O’Hare International Airport, what with all the hives now facing his property and the big ugly privacy fence guiding them over there?

The guy outed himself today by taping a little handwritten nastygram to my front door, telling me what a horrible neighbor I am because my honeybees are drinking all the nectar out of his hummingbird feeders and scaring his dog away from its water bowl.

I would like the record to show that the letter I am sending back to him does NOT say, “Baaaaaaahahahahahahaha!”

But really:

Baaaaaaahahahahahahaha!

Emily