Tuesday, January 4, 2011

clothing, plans, and an important physics question

Since no one could be arsed to care about my crucially important lunch question last week, I have little faith you people will explain physics to me, but I just thought I would ask. Here's the thing. I have this cheap travel mug I found in my kitchen cabinets. I have no idea where it came from, but I was looking for something big to drink my green tea out of, since that has proven to be my solution to this winter's hydration problem. I put two teabags in this (16 ounce?) mug and I get 32 ounces of tea out of that. (Yes, I reuse teabags like my old Polish grandmother who lived through the depression. God.) Anyway, the mug is metal with a plastic bottom and when I wash it, water gets trapped in between the metal and the plastic. You can hear it swooshing around in there, but there's no way to get it out. No way to get it out, that is, until you pour hot water into the mug to make tea, at which point the trapped room temperature water comes flooding out of the bottom of the cup all over my counter. WHY DOES IT DO THAT?

I'm sure I would know the answer to this, but (ask the Benevolent L about this!) our 30-ish high school physics teacher who was also our senior class advisor spent at least nine out of ten classes either discussing senior class business or regaling us with tales of his semi-misspent youth in Nahant. Which was cool with me. I had him last period and he would generally let me go home early if I asked, with the caveat that if I got caught, he knew nothing. But we did not learn a lot of physics. (Though the Benevolent L says I used to do really good lab reports with excellent diagrams, which she would copy, but I really don't remember that.) So, c'mon, help a sister out and explain this to me.

In other news, my posting of that cyooote outfit on Sunday inspired me to dig out my short green cowboy boots that I wore all the damn time last spring and wear them yesterday. They are very cute and I have no idea why I hadn't yet worn them this fall or winter. Well, I do suspect there's a deep psychological reason, because unconscious motivations and associations are powerful. Ask Freud. Ha! But anyway, they are super cute boots and I should be wearing them more. I get into a rut and start wearing the same things over and over, even though I have plenty of cute clothes and shoes. Not as many as I did, say, ten years ago when I use to shop a lot more--that was before I blew my life savings on massage school, all y'all--and I will admit I am limited in the number of pair of pants I have that actually fit me now. I only have 4 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of cords, and one pair of stretchy black yoga pants that can pass as work pants. Oh, and three pairs of black leggings, but YES I KNOW, leggings are not pants. Everything else is actually gym clothes and cannot pass as anything else, and the odds of my wearing a skirt to work once it's down coat weather are very small. So, my bottom options are limited, but that doesn't mean I can't mix it up with different shirts and shoes. The reason I don't is that I am lazy.

So it occurs to me that if I, like many fashion bloggers do, posted pictures of myself in my outfit every day, it would motivate me to wear different combinations of my clothes and to actually put some thought into it. I think that's a fine plan, but I'm not really going to subject you guys to it. Not, at least, until I get a new camera. But it might happen. Stay tuned.

Oh! and speaking of outfits, I need to figure out what to wear to jury duty tomorrow, in the event I actually have to go, which I won't know until late this afternoon. I'm thinking that I want to look intelligent, because I think that no one actually wants an intelligent person on their jury and thus if it comes down to it, I won't be picked. So at the very least, I shall be wearing my glasses. Because they make me look smart. Or at least like a hot librarian. Who is also smart. Should I wear a dress? Would that make me more likely to be picked or not? Maybe I should just rehearse some obnoxious opinions to voice! I'm sure if I went on a spiel about how the judicial system in this country is a travesty, they'd send me on my way. Oh, so much to think about.

xoxo

3 comments:

Craig H said...

One possible explanation is that heat expands the metal at a different rate than the plastic, which could create just enough of a gap to let in the water inside the dishwasher, and then spill it out when you make your tea...

My depression-era grandmother never trusted dishwashers.

Uncle said...

I think Mr B is spot on. That's also why I always hand wash that sort of mug--like my depression-era mother, who when she finally had a dishwasher only used it to store dishes.

malevolent andrea said...

Okay, I will accept that explanation. It sounds like something that someone who paid attention in physics class would know.

And I do handwash that mug! But I usually soak it, which I am sure is where the water is coming from. I will endeavor to knock that off. How many cooties can green tea leave in it anyway?