So, a couple of weeks ago, Mrs. Mau and I took Mini Mau to see his Great-Grandmothers (That's all we have left.) Luckily, Mrs. Mau is from Augusta, GA, and my family is from North Augusta, SC (right across the state line, and the river), so we were able to kill two birds.

So, we're at my Grandmother's place. She lives in one of those apartment complexes for senior citizens? Right. One of those.

So, we're in there, and I hear this beep.

"What's that beep?" I say.

"What beep?" Says Grandma.

"I just heard a beep."
This is where it becomes a good story.

Grandma says: "Your mother was here a week or two ago, and she said she heard a beep, too. I ain't heard no beep."

Me: "Well, has anyone else heard it?"

"No. Ain't nobody else heard it."

A little background here. My father's family is from North Augusta, so that means that no less than FIVE of my aunts and uncles are probably back and forth through my Grandma's place on a regular basis. Perhaps even daily. And NONE of them have heard the beep.

So, during the time I'm there, I hear the beep several more times, and each time, I mention it. Maybe 15 minutes between beeps. My wife could hear it. My aunt that came by during our visit - couldn't hear it.

Epilogue

So...a week or two later, my parents, or maybe just my Mom, visit us.

My Mom says to me: "You heard that beeping at your Grandmother's house?"

"Yeah! I heard it a few times! Grandma said that you could hear it too. I was busy with Mini Mau, so I couldn't really look around for it, but it sounded like it was coming from the corner. Maybe even from next door."

This is what my mother tells me: Apparently, after both I AND my mother heard beeping, she decided there just might be something amiss. She called maintenance. The maintenance guy came. HE heard the beeping.

Okay, the beeping sounded like it was coming from right around her favorite spot to sit. Maybe even coming from somewhere on my Grandma. Now to eliminate possibilities. They took my grandmother outside. Still heard the beeping inside. Okay. One possibility eliminated.

Okay. Eliminate more. They cut the power to her unit. Still heard the beeping.

Still 15-20 minutes between beeps. So at this point, I'm thinking they were at it for the better part of the day.

Turns out that the beeping was coming from a prescription bottle. The beeping is to remind my grandmother to take her medication. Not to say that the pharmacist, or the physician didn't explain the bottle properly, but my grandmother is 95 years old! When it was all said and done, she seemed to remember the doctor mentioning something about a timer on the bottle, but that little 30 second tutorial clearly wasn't enough.

I'm glad I got my hearing from my mother's side of the family.

Know What I'm Sayin'??

Reading is Fundamental

I like to think that I'm a pretty bright M.F. One thing I think has helped with that is that I read a lot. More importantly, I read a lot during the formative years. A great side-affect of all that reading is that I've got a pretty decent vocabulary. It's not often that I come across a word I don't know, or at least can't comfortably figure out via context clues.

Well, today I was stumped, ladies and gentlemen.

I was reading this post on the Ideafestival website. The post talks about a magazine article, which discusses a book that submits a theory about video games being engaging, engrossing, entertaining, and perhaps even intellectual because they force players to solve complex logic and reasoning problems and players may even end up employing the scientific method in their quest to complete a game...rather than just being a mindless slack-jawed waste of time. It's a pretty decent read.

BUT, that's not the point. The point is that this quote from the magazine article:

Since the publication [of Everything Bad is Good for You] in 2005, [Steven] Johnson's argument in favour of what he labels the "Sleeper curve"—the steadily increasing intellectual sophistication of modern popular culture—has become something of a shibboleth for futurologists.

Like I said...stumped me.

What does "shibboleth" mean?

Well, we all know what I did next, right?

So, a shibboleth is something that a certain group of folks LOVES to talk about - that in the long run either doesn't mean anything or doesn't mean anything to any other groups of people, or both.

Like people who went to North Carolina A&T and this whole "Aggie Pride" thing, or George Bush supporters and the idea of his administration somehow being a good thing for this country.

Know What I'm Sayin'??

Just you wait.

If anyone would like to put his picture in a magazine or a feature him in a commercial or a major motion picture, drop me a line at mau (at) imsayin.com.

I dub thee: Mini Mau.

But Edith Macefield is(was) not me.

Edith was the sole holdout who refused to sell her house in a blue-collar neighborhood in Seattle.

Even when AlL of her neighbors moved away, she stayed.

Even as new construction and "progress" brought luxurious condominiums and fancy restaurants, she stayed.

Even as the construction company built the walls of a parking deck around her house, mere feet from her windows, she stayed. Looks like they even cut her poor tree.

Even when they offered her $1 million, she stayed.

Yup. $1 MILLION. 6 zeroes. Count em.

I mean, she coulda taken the money and found her a nice little condo, and bought herself a little Chevy Cobalt or something and let that old Cavalier go. I mean, at 86 years old, don't you owe yourself a comfortable ride? I had an ex who used to drive one of those, and they're pretty crappy. Lemme tell you.

Well, Edith has gone on now, and you gotta give her her props. She went out on her own terms.

I woulda taken the money. Know What I'm Sayin'??

I realize that many, if not most, of the readers here don't actually know my name or have a great idea of what I look like besides the "About Me" photo, which is a pretty nice photo in all honesty. That's on purpose, right? After all, people know me, and sometimes I may not want my personal and relatively anonymous thoughts to intersect the people who know me. In some circles, I'm kind of a big deal.

At any rate. The point is, this blog is intentionally faceless and nameless (I do realize that the dogged researcher could find out more about me than just my name and picture).

That being said, I'm breaking my personal blog code, and posting a picture of myself, several actually. Below is a letter that "my son" wrote and gave to me (with Mrs. Mau's help). Printed up and framed.

This by far MADE Father's Day for me. One time for Mrs. Mau.



Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there. It's a great job to have, huh?

Know What I'm Sayin'??

So yesterday, I'm riding along, and I come up to a stoplight. After a few moments, I glance into my rearview mirror, and I see writing on the windshield of the car behind me.

It says "Just Married 6/9/2008".

I think to myself "That's great. I support Black Love! I hope it lasts." Stuff like that.

Then...something registers on my internal "Oddness Meter".

I realize that it's 2008, and it's a free country, and anyone can pretty much do whatever they want with their personal lives, BUT...

Who gets married on a Monday?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I live in Decatur.

Know What I'm Sayin'??

This movie was NOT GOOD.

Cleaner has a pretty decent pedigree behind it:

• Samuel L. Jackson
• Ed Harris
• Eva Mendes
• Keke Palmer (Akeylah and the Bee)
• Luis Guzman

That being said, the movie was...just okay. The story itself was decent and workable, but the performances by the actors were a bit stiff and forced.

I felt that in trying to develop the characters fully, the movie ended up giving background information on the characters that ended up doing very little to further the plot.

And that's all I have to say about that.

One thing about the whole pregnancy and deliery process that's been nagging me and that I've been itching to write about is the confluence of the traditional and the new, the superstitous and the scientific, LONG-believed and trusted methods and new medical methods.

It's really amazing to me that human beings have been having babies for thousands of years, but there is so much speculation and intuition to the whole process.

Also, in the hospital I experience the battling concepts of "Good" and "Bad" babies. Apparently, a baby who cries often is a "Bad" baby, and a baby that is generally quiet and agreeable is "Good". How can you label a newborn infant as bad, though? How? At least come up with a better term for that, huh?

I mean, the technological advancements are positively astounding:

• Ultrasounds
• 3D Ultrasounds (the new hotness)
• Sensors that detect the occurance and duration of contractions
• Infrared heaters
• New drugs
• New ways of performing cesearian sections

But the superstitions:

• If you raise your hands over your head during pregnancy then the cord will wrap around the baby's neck.
• If you have heartburn, then the baby will be born with a lot of hair.
• Babies sitting high or low or to the left or right in the belly indicating sex.

I'm not sure there's a huge point to all of this. I just found it all very interesting and slightly offputting.

The confluence.

Labels: babystuff