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Write With Spike's avatar

I’m absolutely giddy with joy over all of these comments. I already realize that should I attempt to keep up with every single one and write down all that comes to me as I read each, I will be writing for at least 20 hours per day. Please know I am reading and loving it all. Oh I am so excited about our little group here. Regarding math—I was really, really good at math as a kid. I loved it. I ENJOYED algebra. I had a crush on geometry (which at least in theory helped me for the years I hung out in bars and sometimes attempted to shoot a game of pool). Math kind of fell by the wayside for me. But when I picked up knitting—yes, I will talk a lot about knitting in my posts—it occurred to me pretty quickly that this craft that looks deceptively simple actually involves tons of math as well as structural engineering. Working in the kitchen, especially since I often double and triple recipes, is another place where I enjoy practicing applied math. I so agree that if subjects were taught with connections kids could grasp, vs. rote learning, there’d be a lot more eager learners.

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Rachael Sage's avatar

Who's Calling?

From the 1980s through the Nineties, one object stood as the center of our family home. Not the TV, thought that would be a reasonable guess. I'm talking about the telephone.

The phone itself changed over the years, updated from a rotary dial to a push button version, and finally to a cordless phone that always managed to get lost, leaving only its empty cradle sitting in the former seat of glory in the center of the house, the dining table.

The table was more of a catch-all on the way from the front door to the bedrooms or from the living room to the kitchen. Pushed up against the wall with the phone commanding, if only energetically, most of its surface, there was hardly enough room for two people to actually use it as intended, to sit and eat or do homework. Since we were a family of five, dinner was usually a scattered affair, with everyone taking their plates to the couch or to their rooms.

The phone's spot on the family dining table was nearly equidistant from the front door (where, after getting off the school bus, I'd often hear the ring coming from inside as I fumbled among the garden rocks to find our hidden key before bursting inside to try to answer before whoever was calling gave up and hung up) to the backdoor (where, from outside at my spot in the hammock, lounging with a stack of books, I'd more often than not ignore it until it stopped ringing).

It was closer to the kitchen than the bathroom, the latter of which was my mom's preferred place to take her longer calls while she soaked in the bathtub, sometimes for hours, the coiled phone cord disappearing under the bathroom door and mom's voice, relaxed and jovial, coming out in a cloud of steam.

It was closer to Mom and Dad's room than to mine, which meant that my mom had a good chance of beating me to it when the phone rang and I was expecting a call. I'd standing in front of her with my hand out and my eyes boring into her as she asked, eyes staring right back at me, who was calling— as if she needed to know.

When the phone rang, everyone hoped it was for them and everyone was disappointed when it wasn't. There were calls from friends, family, offices with appointments, school and neighbors, and sometimes calls from kids asking if so-and-so could come over and play. It was the hub of our social lives.

For my mom, it was also the hub of her business as a self-employed massage therapist who, in order to try to avoid creeps and people with bad vibes, only advertised by word of mouth and made almost all appointments over the phone. This meant that phone rang a lot. And as she was often not home because she was out working, we kids were responsible for answering the phone and taking messages. Taking a message meant writing down the person's name, number, and reason for calling. There was a stack of notebook paper and a pen sitting right next to the phone for the collection of these messages. Mom liked when I answered these calls because I had excellent penmanship and I could make myself sound very professional on the phone.

That phone was always in use, and when the call waiting feature arrived and would let another call come through when the phone was in use, it became clear that we'd very likely missed a lot of calls back when callers would just the busy signal and have to hang up and try again later.

If a call came in for one of the adults while one of the kids was on the phone, the adult call took precedence— even if it wasn't important, as my calls clearly were— and kids would have to unceremoniously end their call and relinquish the phone to an elder.

And if a call for one of the kids came through while Mom or Dad was using the phone, there was the agonizing realization that the call was for you ("She's here, but I'm on the other line") but that your caller was being told you weren't as important as some other people in the house were and you'd have to call them back later when the phone was free, if it ever was again.

Yet as frustrating and minimizing as this experience could be, it couldn't completely dampen the feeling of being pleased that someone thought you were important enough to pick up the phone and dial your number.

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