So, as everybody knows, the Obamas are planting a vegetable garden

Which is just peachy. Zillions of pointless comments have already been made on the subject. (My favorite are the ones going on about how "unimportant" this is when there are other things, the economy and whatnot. Guess what? Only one member of that family is getting paid to be President. Everybody else can spend their time gardening if they like. Man, sometimes...)

At any rate, possibly the strangest comment I've seen so far is that the Obamas should plant beets. Now, I've taught myself to like beets over the past year. (I need a new goal for this year, you know.) I can enjoy them now. But seriously - nobody has to plant beets if they don't want to! HONestly! I can't imagine anything more frustrating than dealing with root vegetables as a newbie gardener anyway.

An article on teaching

In Finland.

Finland, Finland, Finland. Sometimes I think I'd like to move to Finland. The six months of darkness would be more than offset by the fact that they've got a ridiculously high standard of living.

Course, I'd have to learn Finnish, at which point this whole idle notion comes to a screeching halt.

I'm pointlessly boasting here, but I want honest opinions:

How brilliant is Evangeline?

We started getting some jigsaw puzzles a while back, maybe a month ago. Small ones, 24 - 36 pieces. Prior to this, we had done *no* puzzles with Evangeline at all. Like, not even peg puzzles because they're such a pain to keep track of, not having boxes or anything.

I showed the niecelings how to make a frame of the outer pieces first (an idea they really didn't get) and how to look at the box to figure out the puzzle (an idea they both glommed on to fast). They put together their puzzles. I didn't see either one use them for a couple of weeks. Then Evangeline started putting together the puzzles alone - but she'd done them before.

I brought up a new puzzle today, 30 pieces. She'd never seen it before. No help from me, she got it done in 15 minutes. Slow for an adult (one can only hope), but exactly where is that for a three and a half year old? Average? Slow? Super fast?

I don't want to go around feeling smug (because somehow her puzzle prowess is all me...?) until I know how smug to feel!

Man, I'm update-tastic today. Sorry 'bout that.

Saw the NEW 1 train station today. OMG. I know it's wrong to get hyped up about what the MTA does (they'll always screw you over in the end, of course) but - I'm so thrilled. It's not a cramped, claustrophobic death trap anymore! OMG! (Seriously, I have only two words to say about the old station: Fire hazard.)

I'm a little irked that it doesn't enter directly into the terminal anymore, but that's more than made up for in the fact that I now have the freedom to enter the 1 train going down to the boat and sit wherever I want. No running for the front! No endless delays at Rector while the clueless suddenly run to the front! I cannot express how blissful this thought is. BLISSFUL.

Of course, now that all that construction is over, we can see that we have this massively clear and empty space in front of the terminal. Not even pretty, just plain asphalt. They ought to put something there. Trees, benches, public art - something. Anything!

~~~~~

Recently, I've been reading this series of books about... well, it's hard to explain. First one is Fairy Tale Detectives. Reading them at the library because they're not *that* great that I want to buy them. Bit predictable, really. In one of them, the main characters end up (back) in New York, on a runaway 1 train. Talk talk talk, you can't speed into the South Ferry station because it's the "end of the line" and presumably you'll crash. This was published well before the new station, of course. Somebody didn't ever ride the 1/9, that's for sure - getting off at the boat, at the old station, the trains didn't stop. They just turned around. A very tight turn, of course, so you wouldn't want to drive in on a train at any speed - but nobody's crashing headlong into the wall at the end of the line because there wasn't one.

Then they headed up the ramp into the terminal, which again - wrong. I mean, the timeline in these books isn't that clear, but the ramp's been gone. Pretty sure it was already gone when the first book was published back in 2005. In fact, I'm certain of it. Gosh, I miss that ramp.

They're little details, of course, but they're really annoying. These details aren't that hard to check. How hard can it be to get them right? (If the author had ever posted over on little_details you know I'd've been there to set him straight! But now it's published, and a little late for that.)