852 Catching Up On Thoughts

Sunday, August 27, 2006

After living most of the hottest summer in ages with inadequate air conditioning, I am now freezing. I was so cold today, goosebumps and all, I considered going down to the basement and flipping all the switches and baffles to put the heat on. Then I checked the thermometer. It was 77F in the den, and 75F in the living room. I guess I've over-acclimated.

I left out some sessions I attended at the Mensa World Gathering. There was Jean Auel, who spoke about the research she had done for the Clan of the Cave Bear books, and one on current and new scams, wherein I learned a quick and easy way to counterfeit a $100 bill, the one on walking tours of Paris, and a talk by the Mensan who was on Beauty and the Geek (which I had watched, and which was a much better show than it sounded like it would be).

Shawn (nerd, maybe, but not geek) said that he had heard that Warner Brothers was looking for intelligent single guys, emphasis on single, for a reality show, and he was on a break and decided to check it out. He was interviewed, was offered the opportunity, accepted, and was told to show up at a mansion with enough clothes for a few days. What amazed us is that until they actually started taping, he had no idea what the show was named, what it was about, or that he'd be sharing a room with a beautiful woman. His most embarrassing moment was when he, listed as the boy scout leader, flaked out on the outdoor challenge, and threw up on camera. He was soooooo sweet.

Something else I forgot to mention, I did an informal survey of toes. Most people's big toe is longer than their other toes. My second toe is longer than my big toe. I gather that most people find it odd, because so many people look at my feet and say "Eeew!", "Weird!", "That's not normal!", "Ugly!" (Well, I find that the middle toe longer gives the end of the foot a nicely rounded shape. Big toe longer is ugly! It makes the foot look all lopsidedly pointy. Especially when the big toe is all bent sideways toward the middle. You deformed your foot trying to make it look like mine! So there!)

At the Gathering, a lot of people were wearing sandals, and I noticed something odd. On five out of six of the literally hundreds of Mensan feet I looked at, the second toe was longer than the big toe! So then I started looking at non-member feet (hotel guests without the badge, and at the Animal Kingdom), and the numbers were reversed! Very strange. Could there be a relationship between the length of one's second toe, and one's score on logic tests? Sort of like the relationship between the size and shape of a man's nose (not his feet, his nose) and his ... um ... wait a minute ... survey not yet complete....

An interesting statistic, the Gathering had members attending from 38 different countries, and from 49 US states. Wyoming provided no attendees. Somehow I'd have thought it would be Utah, but Wyoming isn't a complete shock, either. (Sorry, Wyoming. And Utah.)

Another thing I noticed was the absence of bare skin. Around here, the fashion among young women is extremely low-sling pants and skirts, and short tops, which leave between 1 and 9 inches of midriff bare. With the obvious exception of bathing suit parts, I didn't see any of that in either the resort or Disney World (and no, I don't recall any dress code, certainly not at the resort). The resort had a few thousand guests other than Mensans, from all over the country and the world, and almost all of them were wearing the waistbands at the waist (that's the narrowest part of the torso, just above the hip bones, for those who may have forgotten).

The few who were wearing low-riders were wearing long tops over them. When it was a skirt, especially, it looked odd. The band has to be tight to stay up on the hips, and if the woman had the least bit of excess hippage, it causes an ugly bulge, and without all the bare skin to distract one, the bulge looked sloppy. Especially above a skirt.

So, are our young women locally more daring? More desperate? Or just sadly out of fashion?

The Dodge minivan is still sick. For a few days it looked like it was getting better, didn't stall on the short trips I was comfortable giving it, but last weekend it started stalling again, on Tuesday the "check engine" light went on briefly, and on Wednesday it went on and stayed on. So it has an appointment with the dealership tomorrow. I'm so frustrated. I've been keeping a log, and when I stopped in at the dealership on my way to the fair on Thursday I tried to tell them what I've noticed about when it stalls, and they didn't want to hear it! They said, and I quote, "We'll just put it on the machine and the sensors will tell us what's wrong." Hey folks, we've been doing that for eight months and over $2,000 now, AND IT ISN'T WORKING!!!! Somebody has to do some LOGICAL THINKING about this. Sheesh!

I had mentioned that I didn't see any chess tournaments or even any boards at the Gathering. The other thing I missed was Carnelli. I thought Carnelli was a staple at all large gatherings. Maybe they don't do it any more because people have gotten too familiar with it and have memorized the best sequences? I'm not very good at Carnelli because my memory doesn't work that fast, but I love to watch it.