Tiny Pineapple

ananas comosus (L.) minimus

My Head Is Minty Fresh

Mint has been used as a breath freshener for centuries. In the middle ages, young men who were on their way to their beloved’s would alter their course in order to pass by the herb garden first. They would pull off a few peppermint leaves, toss them into their mouths, and chew them for a while in hopes of covering up the stench coming from the abscessed molar that they had yet to have the blacksmith pull.

This historical association of “mint” with “fresh breath” seems to be so ingrained in our collective psyche that nearly every toothpaste and mouthwash you buy today is mint-flavored. Listerine is, of course, the obvious exception, but its competitors mocked it so mercilessly by saying that their own products left your breath “minty, not mediciny,” that Pfizer finally relented and came out with Listermint. This just reinforced the belief that the ultimate aspiration of all human beings should be to have a mouth of which it could be said that it is “minty fresh.”

But our mouths are not enough anymore; now they want our whole heads. Nearly every hair care company has come out with some product that has mint as a featured ingredient. In fact, Aveda’s most popular product line is their Rosemary Mint Shampoo and Conditioner, whose “tonic properties of rosemary and peppermint cool and revitalize your scalp.”

But the “tonic” and “cooling” properties they are touting are not necessarily coming from the peppermint, per se, but a derivative thereof:

mint (‘mint) n. Any of various plants of the genus Mentha, characteristically having aromatic foliage and nearly regular flowers. Some plants are cultivated for their aromatic oil and used for flavoring.

menthol (‘men-“thol) n. A white crystalline organic compound, CH3C6H9(C3H7)OH, obtained from peppermint oil or synthesized, and used in cigarettes and as a mild topical anesthetic.

So, of course it leaves your scalp feeling “cool”; you’ve lost all sensation from the ears up.

I first noticed this “mild topical anesthetic” effect when using American Crew’s Daily Shampoo and Conditioner. They say that the menthol in these products “cools and refreshes the scalp,” but I found that as I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair some of it would run down my body and, if I wasn’t careful to rinse it off completely, I’d get a rather unwelcome cooling and refreshing effect in an area of my body that doesn’t usually react well to being cooled and refreshed.

This mentholic sensation is referred to as a “tingle” by the makers of Denorex, the anti-dandruff shampoo:

The tingle tells you it’s working, and Denorex leaves your scalp feeling fresh and clean!

…and numb. Come on, guys, admit it. The only thing that tingle is telling you is that you just smeared the active ingredient in Vicks VapoRub all over your head.

I firmly believe that when it comes to the bathroom:

Aromatherapy: Good
Anesthesia: Bad

And I can think of a few other rooms in the house where that axiom holds true.

Sloppy Slops Are Satan’s Slippers

Zoë was wearing her sloppy slops this evening during our 4th of July festivities and while runningjumpingchasing she tripped twice…twice…on the concrete, skinning both elbows and both knees quite badly.

Henceforth, my daughters shall only wear these:

Asolo Fugitive Boot

An exception will be made for their Junior Prom, when they will be allowed to wear something a little more formal…

Asolo TPS 520 Boot
…but only for the actual dance portion of evening.

Fair Weather Father

I turned forty a week ago last Saturday.

You’ll notice that I wrote out the word (forty) rather than using the numerals (4 and 0) to represent my age. In recent double-blind laboratory studies, test subjects retained both “generalized allure” and “a certain je ne sais quoi” an average of five years longer than the control group simply by avoiding the use of the numeral 4 in the the tens column when representing their age to the opposite sex. (Side effects are similar to sugar pill.) By spelling out their age, the test subjects benefited from the homonymous relationship of their age with the Latin root “fortis.” Thus:

40 = Old
Forty = Strong-y

Anyway, the girls and I pulled out all the stops and celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese with a couple of their cousins. A good time was had by all, as manifest by my niece who, in mid-bite, looked up from her pizza and enthused, “This is the best birthday ever!” I don’t know about that. I remember my 26th quite fondly, but I appreciated the sentiment.

The next day the girls flew with their Mom to Chicago to attend their Uncle Ben‘s graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. I should have spent my childless bachelor week shopping for a Miata/Boxter/Z4/H2/Harley/<insert your preferred mid-life crisis vehicle here>, but as luck would have it I spent every passing day getting steadily sicker with what I thought was the flu.

By Wednesday I was semi-comatose, but I had to drag myself in to work so I wouldn’t miss getting laid off. They want me to hang around and help out with some big projects that are going live in September, but after that I’ll be looking for work along with the other 6.1% of the population.

The next day I was diagnosed with pneumonia.

So, to recap:

  • Turned 40/forty.
  • Soon to be divorced.
  • Soon to be unemployed.
  • Consumptive.

This is the stuff of opera. Bad opera, to be sure, but opera nonetheless.

So, there I was, having one of those George-Bailey-on-the-bridge moments, feeling profoundly pathetic, and thinking that everyone would probably be a lot better off if I just “died of the damp” (as Dill’s Aunt Stephanie would so eloquently put it). I even had Mr. Potter’s “You’re worth more dead than alive…” ringing in my ears.

You see, if I were to die tomorrow of some tubercular catastrophe, my girls would walk away with about half-a-million dollars for college and a new Mini/Beetle/Jeep/<insert your preferred fun-and-fancy-free-girl’s vehicle here> in about ten years when they’re old enough to drive. And thanks to the modern wonders of Accidental Death and Dismemberment coverage, if I were to die tomorrow in some fiery automotive catastrophe, they’d walk away with twice that amount.

But as I lay there, sicker than a dog and wallowing in self-pity, I had to acknowledge the fact that I’m far too selfish to croak right now. For one thing, I’d miss our weather talks too much.

I’m not sure how it started, but we’ve developed this odd little bedtime ritual where I’m required to dispense some weather-fact-of-the-day before my girls will go to sleep. In the past few months we’ve covered all of the dramatic weather phenomena: tornados, hurricanes, giant hailstones, raining frogs. But they’re even interested in the most mundane of cloud facts.

So, the girls got back late Saturday night and I was able to spend all Father’s Day with them. We all slept in, played on the computer, made paper helicopters, practiced riding our two-wheelers (we just took off the training wheels last week), watched videos, ate too much dessert. To paraphrase my niece, it was the best Father’s Day ever! By bedtime, I was exhausted and so were the girls. But after “hugsandkisses,” as I turned out the light and was about to leave the room, Emma said, “Wait, Dad. You have to tell us something about the weather.”

We covered barometric pressure. We’re going to make a barometer out of a 2-liter bottle later this week.

I know that may not sound very exciting to you, but I live for this stuff. Literally.

We Catch That

A friend of mine teaches a beginning business class to Upper School students at the same school that my daughters attend. As a final project, her students had to break into groups and develop a business plan for a venture of their own choosing.

A group of foreign exchange students from Korea decided that their entrepreneurial effort would be a wig shop. The business plan was broken into sections and the various sections were assigned to the various members of the group. The writing of the “Executive Summary” fell to a young Class 9 student who, bless his heart, has only been in the U.S. since January and whose English skills are…well, still a little rough.

Here it is, in its entirety:

Executive Summary

My business is waiting for a baldheaded person and fall down the hair People. Because we are make bout wig. My company some caller are Old People. Any way we want plan we have to find about what state many people live old man. Then we open that state. We sell about wig and precaution medicine about loss of hair. We divide sell part. Wig is selling about old people and precaution medicine is selling about middle age. Then we make event to wig caller. And different wig put and take off. All old man want looks Young. We catch that. We sell the old man then we think about the old man That is first thinking. And we make event to middle age. Then we show the different part, animal experimentation then give to we company are good and reliable company.

That is, indeed, first thinking.