As I was considered a bright kid -- the best part of high school is probably the fact that your intelligence is judged almost solely by grades -- and had a certain affinity for games, it was probably inevitable that the cube and I would go a couple rounds. I can tell you for sure, though, that I never laid a glove on it.
I read an article not long ago about some of the top solvers. In fact, one of them was on Beauty and the Geek last year. And it was one of the beauties, as it happens... no, of course that's a lie. Rubik's cube has become one of the reliable geek-indicators, on par with the legendary pocket protector, a fondness for Dungeons and Dragons, and a record of regular attendance at Star Wars conventions.
This guy's claim to fame is that he can solve it in something like 10 seconds with his hands behind his back. My claim is that even if I'm looking directly at it, it takes me more than 10 seconds just to get the rows lined up enough so I can turn the thing... although for me, there's no hurry since I know it's not going to do any good anyway.
I actually picked one up just the other day, but I ended up setting it down and backing away slowly. I've got enough puzzles in my life as it is...
... for example: parenting itself is puzzling, and parenting a little girl is filled with mysteries. I may have mentioned this before, but once and for all: males and females may be equal, but there is no way they're identical.
As mysterious as her personality might be, perhaps the puzzle most terrifying to me is her hair. I've come to understand the way she thinks, but I don't think I'll ever get the hang of hairstyles. We have a couple of drawersful of various hair-holding devices... I was going to list them all for the proverbial comic effect, until I realized I don't really know what any of them are called or how they're used. I do know that even rubber bands are a challenge for me; even the tiniest ones have to be doubled over to hold a ponytail, but it's really hard to get that second loop around... And hairbands! You know, those plastic semicircles -- my wife says, "OK, just give her a hairband, then." I can't even get that on right; for some reason both the band & the loop stick up and she ends up looking like she's wearing one of those rabbit-ears antennas with the UHF loop in the middle.
It's really all I can do just to brush her hair, what with all the whining and crying... and she's not very happy about it either. She has long, fine hair that in the morning ends up looking like Charlie Brown's kite string. Apparently there's some kind of Secret Girl Trick in handling this stuff that I never mastered -- despite the fact that I've gone through periods (known as "high school" and "college") when my hair length was close to hers. What can I say, late 70s-early 80s, mirrors hadn't been invented yet.
Mornings around here can be fairly chaotic; we've even voluntarily increased the degree of difficulty by watching another 5-year-old before school 3 days a week. My plan goes like this:
Me:
- get up with the kids first
- make breakfasts (no easy task since my son decided he needed three each morning)
- make lunches (no easy task since my daughter is essentially a conscientious objector with regard to sandwiches)
- pack bookbags
- arbitrate disputes
- get teeth brushed
- oh yeah -- get my own shower & clothes & breakfast to get myself ready for work
- take them to the bus stop
Her:
- pick out clothes
- brush the girl's hair
Seems about even to me.
Posts
I used to tell Doug when Elizabeth was little, "If I die first, just promise you'll hire someone to do her hair!" Good luck...you have a long road ahead of you:-).
ReplyDelete