Personal Statement

Personal Statement

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Potpourri: Recent Additions to the Master To-Do List

1.  Clean out the DVD drawer that has all of the Baby Einstein and Thomas the Tank Engine stuff in it and take a BIIIIIIIIIG box to Goodwill.  This task has to be completed under cover of darkness, lest the children who have not given a second's thought to Baby Einstein or Thomas in the last three years attempt to argue that these items are still of some value to them.  Actually, only the "cleaning out" part needs to be completed under cover of darkness; the "dropping off" part can be completed during the day - maybe when they are at camp and I am on a break from work?  I mean, I guess I could just attach a brick to the box and throw everything through the window in the middle of the night.  But I probably wouldn't end up getting a receipt out of the deal. 

Note that I did not say "put some of the DVDs in a box in the attic and donate the rest to Goodwill."  I hold no illusions that DVDs will be of any use to my future grandchildren.  By the time my kids get around to having kids, we will all have neural implants that will play videos on demand, ACTUALLY IN OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL HEADS.  So, I'm thinking so much for the DVDs.

But the trains themselves, I maintain, are transcendent, like the Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs and basic LEGOs that my parents kept and that my children still find fascinating.   ("Transcendent" is code for "we spent a small fortune on magnetic wooden trains, so our grandchildren darn well better find them fascinating, or at least intriguingly quaint.") 
2.  Learn how to play Pot-Limit Omaha poker.  Because "Pot-Limit Omaha" is more fun to say than "Texas Hold 'Em."  And because it appears to be crazy-complicated, so you would look kind of smart if you knew how to play it.  And, finally, because (according to Wikipedia) it is a game of "the nuts" - "the nuts" referring to the best possible high or low hand, but also being another phrase that is crazy-fun to say.

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