the world's going to hell in a hand basket, and there's probably an app to track it

I just read a short article in the Oregonian about a couple of local guys who are designing an app to monitor, track and pay kids for chores. Young entrepreneurs dads Oscar Goodson, 24, and Adam Bickford, 27, are developing an app that would take the uncomfortable exchange of cash for chores and sanitize it by completely removing the human interaction between parent and child.

The article goes on to describe how parents can create a list of chores and assign a monetary value to each chore. Kids can log in and mark off the chores as they are done, and once completed and verified, the parent can transfer money remotely to the child's debit card. The parent doesn't even have to be in the same room with the kid. Goodson and Bickford have even figured out how to keep kids from scamming the system. Bickford said, "As parents ourselves, even though our children are pretty young, we knew that kids are sheisty and parents would want some sort of visual verification if they can't verify with their own eyes." So the app will allow video and photo uploads for that.

Really, dude? Kids are sheisty? According to the article, your daughter is 3 years old.  Three.  If she's already scamming you, you're in for some big trouble when she's 15.

So what's wrong with this whole idea? Lest you think that I'm just an old fart and a Luddite to boot, I'll explain. It's not the fact that it's an app. I have nothing against them. There are useful apps for everything, from creating your own custom music playlists, to flashlights and compasses to help you find your way home in the dark. There are even apps to help you manage your apps.

The big problem here is that you believe you can keep your hands clean in the trenches of parenthood with one. By using an app to monitor your child, to set up the chores, to spy on her remotely to make sure she's behaving, to track her when she's out of your sight, you are setting her up to try and scam you. She will grow up believing you don't trust her, and that she needs constant monitoring to make sure she stays in line. She will feel that she shouldn't have to do anything unless she gets paid for it. You, on the other hand, think this will make your job easier. You can monitor everything from afar, and it's only a matter of time before someone invents a punishment app that doles it out for you.

 In 40 years, I have yet to see a paycheck for cooking, driving, cleaning, tutoring, and the countless other things I did just to keep the household running smoothly. Why should kids expect to?

We gave our kids an allowance every week. We didn't bribe them to do chores, homework or to behave. Sure, it was a big fat hassle to get them to do their chores. Yes, we even tried once to put a monetary value on putting out the garbage, folding laundry and emptying the dishwasher.  It didn't take long before it set up an even worse situation where they started to ask how much we'd pay them to do little things.  (On second thought, maybe kids are a bit sheisty.) It took us far away from our goal of trying to teach them to be cooperative, team players who understood the dynamic of shared labor for the good of the whole family.
It wasn't an easy thing to undo.

When I was a kid, I had chores to do every Saturday. My sister and I couldn't go out to play until they were done. We didn't have to negotiate over whether 25 cents was enough for dusting or watering the plants or cleaning a toilet. We did the chores because our mother MADE us do them. We never thought it was fair. (What kid ever does?) We never had a clue that she was trying to teach us to take responsibility and help out even if there was no monetary reward in the end.  The reward was supposed to be a sense of satisfaction over a job completed.

I realize that cash will soon be dead.  Unfortunately, debit and credit cards really don't help kids gain an understanding that an allowance is a finite thing. If you give a kid a dollar, when they've spent it, it's actually gone. It's not gone in the "virtual" sense. It's GONE. In the actual sense. When they 're old enough to understand that, they're old enough to learn how to manage a debit card. Using that criteria, I know a lot of adults who are not old enough.

How about it? Got any thoughts on paying kids to do chores?
I'll check in later… but now I have to go empty the dishwasher.

farewell, and thanks

"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

~ Robin Williams ~

a gray saturday, and an exercise in gratitude.

Some days, we all need a little reminder that our cups runneth over…

martha doesn't live here

I love a well-run household. I have the greatest admiration for neatly organized and serene spaces where everything has a place, and everything is in its place.

Sometimes I dream of beautiful, clean, minimalist living rooms with all-white upholstery and freshly painted walls hung with a carefully curated art collection...

...Of kitchens designed to be beautiful and functional, all food stored in matching antique glass mason jars arranged artfully in antique wire trays and placed on earthy wood open shelving made from re purposed old-growth fir.

Years ago I was a devotee of the cult of Martha Stewart. I subscribed to The Magazine (archiving all the early issues, of course), watched The Television Show (eagerly awaiting for months the yearly Christmas Special) and hung on the Domestic Goddess' every pronouncement.

I actually believed I could do it all, just like Martha. I baked my own bread, sewed quilts for our beds, curtains for our windows, refinished tag sale furniture and made my own lamps, painted and rearranged and reorganized and once I even made my own wrapping paper. Of course I realize now that I was completely delusional. (More on that later.)

No one could ever measure up to Martha. She's larger than life. A living icon. A paragon of domesticity. She has Staff.

Comparing her to the Big Guy Upstairs, someone once said
Martha could have made the world in FIVE days:
Two Days to create staff,
Two Days to delegate,
and One Day to redo it all to Her standards.

To top it all off, the Domestic Goddess appears perfectly normal when you see Her in photographs. Well, mostly She does. Even Martha has days that don't go exactly according to Her plans.

But when that happens, She still manages to pull it together and makes sure everyone is at least color-coordinated.

She dotes on her animals, who apparently have such perfect manners (who would dare to misbehave?) that they are welcomed for dinner at the Plaza.

Although, some require a little tough love to let them know She's their mother.

Some say Martha has a dark side, but She says Herself that She cannot be destroyed.

Some have attempted to, but I wouldn't recommend it.

But I digress. I wanted to show that there can be Life After Martha. It's often not pretty, but at least it's real. And it can be accomplished with minimal staff. (Mostly of the four-legged variety)
Welcome to my post-Martha nightmare dream:

It may not live up to Martha's standards, but then...

parallels

Existing simultaneously, 

separately,

 alongside,

yet not touching:

parallel.

Yeah, I know: my poetry sucks. It's only a crow and a squirrel doing a high wire act. 

Click here to see this week's other submissions to Thematic Photographic, and feel free to leave a link to your own Parallels in the comments!

grey

As a photo stylist, I work in a field that is incredibly detail oriented and really quite visually stimulating. Sometimes I just crave simplicity: an absence of color and detail. I occasionally find it after the set is cleared and the shoot is over, and it's just me packing up after everyone is done.

I looked at this shot I took with my phone the other day, and it made me just exhale deeply all over again.

Every week, Carmi over at the blog Written Inc., hosts an exercise called Thematic Photographic and invites everyone to join in. This week's theme ( No. 208) is called "Grey". Click on the links to find Carmi's and other photographers' shots on the theme.

your friday inspiration

band: Porkka Playboys, Finland

video: Antti Koivisto

Go get creative this weekend!

getting old is not for the faint of heart

The other day I bent over to pull on my sandals, 

and now I'm walking around like this:

If this keeps up, pretty soon I'm going to have Boy Scouts trying to help me across the street.

Next week my friends and I 

are starting a new exercise regimen.

Last one in the pool's a rotten egg!

flashbacks

Some incidents stick in your mind and heart, even when they don't directly affect you personally. For some, certain dates bring up anxieties and emotions buried just beneath the surface of daily life. For others, it could be a major earthquake or tsunami or hurricane or tornado. You never really know when or why or which events will stir up something deep within you, they just happen to strike a chord, and that chord resonates throughout your very being.

When a large truck rumbles by and rattles the windows, or I'm stuck in traffic under a freeway overpass, it sparks a flashback to October 1989 and a collapsed double-decker freeway in Oakland, while at home in San Francisco my husband and children and I huddled in a doorway riding out the 7.2 earthquake that caused it.

Watching coverage of Barack Obama wading into crowds of people during the last presidential campaign, my heart leapt into my throat more than once at the dangers he faced. It launched an emotional  return to 1968 and the tragedies of the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. 

I can no longer hear a plane flying low overhead without it triggering a memory of that warm September morning ten years ago, of the sight of airplanes cutting through clear blue New York skies to shatter so many lives. How, for the next week, the skies all across the country were eerily quiet while all air traffic was suspended.

Flashbacks are painful, yes, but they serve as reminders to savor and appreciate the good in the world, and the importance of working to change the bad stuff, however we can in our daily lives.

We wish that we could go back and prevent those tragedies, but we can't. The only hope is to move forward with renewed purpose and optimism, and to never forget those who gave up everything for those principals.

what are you waiting for?

word week, day 6

word week, day one

friday potluck: it's an all-pie event!

This week's potluck theme is...pie! What's your favorite? There are so many kinds to choose from: sweet or savory. One crust, two crust, pies you can hold in your hand. One-bite pies.

Let's see if we can come up with enough pie recipes to make up a balanced meal.

I'll do the veggie course.

~ Veggie Pie ~

(Recipe adapted a million years ago from the "Eat It" cookbook.

Written by Dana Crumb and illustrated by her husband, R. Crumb!)

1/2 onion, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

2 carrots, thinly sliced

about 1 and 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced

(I use cremini mushrooms, but you could experiment with any kind you like)

about 4 cups fresh spinach, chopped

1/2 cup each of two other veggies, like:

corn

peas

green beans

lima beans

zucchini

or whatever

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

2 TBS olive oil

2TBS butter

3-4 TBS soy sauce

freshly ground pepper

crust for a 2-crust pie

(I'm a terrible pie crust maker, so I use Pillsbury, but don't let me be a bad influence)

Preheat your oven to 400º

chop your celery, onions, garlic, carrots,

and any other veggies you like

heat olive oil in a large skillet and saute the veggies on medium heat until they're soft and fragrant and the onions are translucent

chop your mushrooms (halve or quarter them first if they're large)

Add the butter and throw in the mushrooms

While the mushrooms get all fragrant and start to soften and soak up all that lovely butter, chop 4 cups of spinach

throw the spinach in, too.

It will be a big pile, but stir and it will cook down to practically nothing in about 30 seconds.

see what I mean?

Add the soy sauce and freshly ground pepper to taste

(the whole 4 TBS of soy sauce might be too salty for some so take it easy and taste as you go)

then mix in the cheese until the whole mess melts into a mass of gooey goodness.

put your bottom crust into your pie pan, and fill with the veggie mixture.

put on the top crust, crimping the edges, and cut a few slits in the top to let steam escape

Bake for about 35 - 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. (But don't do what I did

and take your dogs for a long walk while it's baking)

Let it cool for a few minutes, and Eat It!

Okay, now it's your turn...got a yummy pie recipe? Here are a couple of ways to share:

1. Post a comment with a link to the recipe on your blog, or
2. Post a link to someone else's recipe on their blog, or
3. If you don't have a blog, email it to me, and I'll post it here as soon as I get it.

So what are you waiting for? Let's have a potluck!

P.S. When I decided on the pie theme, I thought I'd google it to see if anyone else had done it before, and whaddaya know? There was an all-pie potluck right here in my hometown of Portland back in January. Check it out here: Mile Post 73.

friday potluck, anyone?

Several years ago, back when we lived in San Francisco, I belonged to a loosely-organized potluck group. We usually met once a month, with everyone taking turns hosting the gatherings. The host got to choose the theme, and because we were a pretty eclectic bunch, ranging from bookkeepers and artists to microbiologists and musicians, the themes got pretty interesting.

I've tried once or twice to drum up interest in forming a new group in my Portland neighborhood, but we all seem to be too busy these days to commit to a regular thing. It's a shame, really - my friends are awesome cooks. The closest we've come to a regular thing has been the five-plus years that three or four families have been pitching in to cook dinner for our local Ronald McDonald House.

It's been a great experience, but cooking a meal for 25 people you don't know generally tends to limit your creative choices. I'm not sure the residents would fully appreciate a meal composed entirely of bite-sized foods or the color purple.

So, in the spirit of my old potluck group, I thought it would be fun to start a virtual potluck, where bloggers could take turns hosting and choosing a theme.

Here's how it would work:

1. The host chooses a theme and posts a recipe on their blog on a Friday evening.
2. Other bloggers will leave links to their recipes in the comments section.
3. The first person to post a recipe link becomes the next week's host, who then gets to choose a theme. The themes can be as elaborate or a simple as you like, and the recipes don't have to look like these, by any means...you can simply post a recipe, or even a link to another blogger's recipe. (Just make sure to give credit where credit is due!)

I'll post the link to the next host's site here every Thursday evening.

So stop by here tomorrow for the first week's potluck theme and recipe!