Three Interesting Things

1. It was Stitch and Pitch (aka Tara's annual baseball game) last week, and due to all the weather we'd been having I might have done some research into field drying times (apparent answer - it depends) and come across this story about one, shall we say, creative attempt to speed drying time by setting the field afire.  (Spoiler - side effects may include field being shut down as an environmental hazard.) 
2. The LA Craft and Folk Art Museum is covered in granny squares.  No really. (h/t to rviser)
3. And drones are being tested out in South Africa to see if they can be used to catch poachers. 

7 Things: The Playing the Part Edition

1. Author Robin Covington is my chapter-mate, so I am predisposed to like her books.  I'm still not required to. 
2.  As you might suspect from my occasional posts about contests, I volunteer to judge quite a few contests.  Sometimes I judge young adult, since it is an area of familiarity for me, and sometimes I judge other categories. People who see my little rants might wonder why.  And the answer, in addition to helping and supporting things for my chapter and other chapters, is that there are ones you read and you just go - oh my god, where is the rest of it?  (It happened again to me this year on two of them.)  I read Robin's entry in a contest, completely unaware that it was hers and loved it.  I kept an eye peeled when they announced the finalists and was shocked that it didn't final.  (Later Robin said something about research for an actor character and I was like wait, did you write this - I loved it!) 
3. So, okay, I've only read the first thirty pages and that was before it got sold and got an editor and all of that. But seriously guys.  I liked this so much.  (I'm on page 47 of the "real thing" now and yum.)
4. And, rumor has it I'm an evil judge.  (I have actually judged something that finaled twice, but my score was the one that got dropped. And neither of my scores were low, according to me.) 
5. I also have read her other books.  Love. 
6. I don't think Robin sleeps.  She also over at Romance University, Waterworld Mermaids, Happily Ever After, I'm exhausted just thinking about all that.
7. So, the book.  I suppose I should talk about that maybe.  Writer Piper has a romance novel that's being turned into a movie.  Only the usually-does-action-movies guy Mick who is playing the hero is having trouble acting like a romance hero.  So they bring Piper out to coach him.  Sparks ensue. 

All About Me

So, once upon a time, I volunteered for this thing called coffee house. My church hosted it a few times a year, and it was an event for teens where local bands would play and it would be a substance free event.  I, of course, thought back to my own high school years, and the negotiations for rides for things and how easy it would have been to get my parents to let me go to an event at a church and thought I want to support this.  (Later one of the teens told me most of the kids don't realize it is a church.) 
There some of the other adult volunteers asked me which were my kids and were surprised to find I did this not to keep an eye on my kids but simply out of my strange desire to volunteer.  (I will tell you it is very loud. And these local bands are often populated by teens themselves so it is a little like a de facto rock talent show. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
So, one adult, who turned out to also run the youth program at our church handed me a folder about being a youth advisor.  I asked to ponder, but found her a few days later and agreed.  It was January.  I was, essentially, a mid-season replacement for another adult who had been over-committed.  I came to a session, was introduced to the group and the teens were told that after today if they had any concerns to let the coordinator know.  My first glimpse into youth empowerment was that they, essentially, had the power to fire me.  (I will tell you, that I never saw them abuse this power.  I did once, have them ask me about another new adult, was that person for sure going to be there for the whole year, and I told them that they could express any concerns they had and it would be taken into consideration.) 
I learned so many things from them.  The strange thing about working as a youth advisor is that, due to the four walls or Vegas rule, so much of what happens I cannot speak about.  I always thought my life would involve working with kids.  There is a long line of teachers in my family (and writer, and cops).  When my career went in a different direction, it now seems obvious that I would end up finding another to work with kids.  I never thought they would be teens.  Teens scared me a bit, because, let's face it, the power balance is pretty tenuous once they are too big for you to pick them up one handed and they are old enough to understand your lack of power.  So it is amusing now that I not only ended up working with teens but working with them in an environment where the power balance was pretty firmly on their side.
The adults absolutely help and monitor and suggest things, but the teens run this program.  They design the program, they often led the meetings.  They worked on things that supported the church and their own activities, it was amazing to see.  And through them I remember that sense of being a teen and having all that energy and all those ideas and being so ready to go make change in the world. 
As an adult its really easy to get stuck on the logistics.  Someone will say we should create a community garden and I'll say, well, I think that requires permits.  And here's the thing, I may be right about the permits, and the logistics are an important part of it too, but as an adult I sometimes get stuck on the roadblocks and they reminded me of all the plans I had to fix the whole world.  (All of it.)
In the time I worked with the youth group they have gone from being relegated to the expansion trailers (which our then minister kept trying to call cottages) out back, to having their own room.  (Well, as much their own as can happen in a multi-purpose building.)  They started the now annual Murder Mystery Dinner Theater.  They used to only meet at second service.  One year when the numbers were high, the choice was made to meet at both services.  And now, echoing a congregational shift, they only meet first service, and hold extra classes second service.  They suckered me on to Facebook.  They have acknowledged me when running into me on the street or on coffee shops.  They give the most amazing service every year.  (Seriously, people, often people who don't know I work with the youth, tell me how it's their favorite each year.) 
And the last batch of years, we've had a winter retreat where as an exercise in our final worship, we write affirmation papers for each other.  It is one of those ides that sounds so hokey and ridiculous, and now you will pry those papers away from my cold, dead hands.  Each person passes around a piece of paper and everybody writes something about them.  Something nice.  Now, it's hard, not because people aren't lovely, but writing thirty individualized nice things is a bit of a challenge.  But here's a sampling of some I got over the years. 

"You are a great person and have a good outlook on life.  Thanks for being an amazing advisor."
"I like your knitting. I also like your silly anecdotes.  I like you too."
"Keep on rollin' and keep on being a BAMF!"

I am, well, right now we're calling it taking a break from being an advisor.  When I started, the max was four years. My fourth (or three and a halfth, since I started mid-year) coincided with a number of other advisors' fourths and the rule was revisited and discarded.  The challenge was that I have seen people who do it for too long get too attached to the way things have always been done, and the other idea for cycling some new blood in is to increase the number of people in the congregation who know how cool the youth really are.  So, that time has come.  And I keep reminding myself that the goal is too leave while it still feels like I am giving something up.  I have been advised to not try and fill this spot right away, even if I already have another great idea.  (That person is wise.)

Three Interesting Things

1. Radiolab did a piece about the case involving the adoptive couple who had the child returned to the biological father as a result of the law regarding American Indian children that contained a little more background about both the law and the father, that I found interesting. 
2. And in my travels across the internet came across these two pieces about women - one a metaphor (and you know how I love those) for the challenges for women trying to get jobs in tech fields and one a post about some experiences a sci-fi writer, who is a woman, has had. 
3. A fellow writer posted this place in DC (they are expanding elsewhere) for writers who seek quiet - Writer's Room.  I am more of a cafe writer myself, but it seems like a great idea. 

Marked Laundry

I seriously think this idea posted over at Lifehacker about using a dry erase marker on the washing machine is so brilliant I wish I could make better use of it.  Sure, I still do laundry, and I don't imagine my neighbors would mind too much if I wrote on the washer to remind myself about the drip dry stuff in there.  (And if they did, they could...erase it.)  But I think this idea would have been even more brilliant in situations where you were sharing the washer and dryer with just a few people. 
In my experience sharing laundry equipment with a few people (sometimes related by blood, sometimes not) was where there was a greater likelihood to be friction both because there was one - you couldn't just use the one next to it.  And because when it's just down in the basement or off in the laundry room you wander away upstairs or turn on the TV or check the internet and then...it's tomorrow and you are trying to figure out, didn't you do laundry?  And should this period overlap with someone else's desire to have clean underwear, then they might fume.  Growing up we had established clear multi-user rules.  (There might have been a family meeting.) They seemed so sensible to me, I got a little thrown when I had other roommates who apparently had not arrived at this conclusion.  (Ah life, constantly teaching you that there are other ways people do things.) 
So, my family's rules were - if stuff was in the washer and you wanted the washer you could do one of two things. Okay, three.  You could wait.  You could attempt to identify and politely remind the owner of said clothes that their clothes were ready to move.  And then wait for them to do that.  Or you could move them to the next phase.  Now, as a high schooler I owned a limited number of things that required special cleaning, so this worked well. (Plus a fair argument could be made that if I was that worried about the clothes, I would not have abandoned them in the washer.)  As an adult, the risk was greater.  Now certainly, I don't mean that if I write "green silk dress" on the washer someone is supposed to both move my clothes and attempt to read the label on the green silk dress and address the next step for me.  But, in a multi-user situation, if I wrote "Tara's laundry" then you wouldn't have to open it an try to figure out who's underpants those are, you could just know. 
And if you did move them to the next phase for me, well, you'd know who to tell.