Knowledge Is Power

The motto of David and John’s elementary school was “Knowledge Is Power.” I loved that as soon as I heard it.  I mean, what kid doesn’t aspire to more power when someone is always telling you “It’s time for bed,” “You’ve been out in the snow long enough” or “No more candy.”  The message is, if you want to take charge of your life someday, memorize those times tables, get the state capitals straight and finish that book report on “James and the Giant Peach.” How true!   As I come to the end of 2011, I’m taking stock of all the knowledge I’ve picked up this year.

For starters, I’ve learned if the toenails on your big toes die, it takes two months for them to fall off and five more months before they grow back and are long enough to be trimmed.  I’ve learned if I buy Christmas cards with glitter on them, even just a little glitter, I'll spend the holiday season with sparkles in my tablecloths, my dish towels, my fleece pullovers and my egg nog.  I’ve also learned there is a limit to how many cutting boards you can fit into one kitchen drawer before it gets hopelessly jammed.

I learned that, even when you have known someone since kindergarten and been roommates for 40 years, there are still some surprises left.  A few weeks ago, PAUL THREW OUT A RADIO.  I couldn’t have been more shocked if he had said to me, “I’ll take care of all the Christmas shopping this year.”  He has this thing about audio equipment – stereo speakers, turntables, records and, most of all, radios – and, to my knowledge, he still has every piece of equipment he has ever owned. After all, you never know when you might need radios that only crackle and hiss, records garbled with skips and screeches and disabled speakers the size of file cabinets.  I gave up nominating audio candidates for the trash long ago.  Granted, the discardee was a digital clock radio that was hard to tune and has not kept time properly since 1994, but I was worried. I guess Paul’s all right since his temperature was normal and the pupils of his eyes were the same size, but I’m still keeping an eye on him.

Although I’ve been cooking a lot over the past 40 years, I have learned some things this year that Martha Stewart, the Barefoot Contessa and my mom never told me. For example, flour and sugar bags look and feel a lot alike and, if, in the middle of multi-tasking, you dump the sugar into the flour canister (or vice versa), it’s a real mess.  Also, if your rice cooker has the dry heaves and, when the timer goes off, the rice is still crunchy, you probably forgot to put in the water.

While my mom says you’re more likely to get cut with a dull knife, I learned that you get the fastest, deepest cuts with a sharp one.  Somehow, I spent most of Thanksgiving with bandaged fingers – souvenirs of  chopping vegetables for minestrone soup, cubing bread for dressing, slicing apples for pie and mincing onions for just about everything with newly sharpened knives, courtesy of our butcher shop.  I learned to do a headcount every so often to be sure my bandaids hadn’t disappeared into the turkey, the mashed potatoes or the pumpkin pie filling.

I’ve learned that, once you’ve established a hostile relationship with a car (my post, “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”), you can’t let your guard down.  Early in December, we came home late from a holiday party and in my hurry to get inside to the bathroom, I apparently left the door of the Lexus slightly, and I do mean SLIGHTLY, ajar.  The door stayed open all night and, next morning, the battery was dead.  With the holidays coming, you might have thought the car would give me a little break but, NO. So, Paul missed his early morning run and it took forever for AAA to recharge the battery. Okay, I did make an uncomplimentary remark about the Lexus in a recent post but I didn’t think our garage had internet access.

I’ve learned that 60+ is not a good time of life to start on some big housecleaning jag. That Lysol tub and tile cleaner is strong stuff – so strong it took out the good, royal blue polo shirt I was wearing along with the mold in the shower – I’ll never try that again (and I don’t mean wearing the royal blue polo shirt.)   The reason the touch pad on our laptop stopped working is that I made the mistake of dusting it and accidentally hit the button that turns the touch pad off and on, which I didn’t even know was there.  The Geek Squad guy who fixed this for me promised not to tell my kids but I forgot to ask him the purpose of a button like that.

I’ve learned not to accidentally leave a frozen block of vegetable soup on low heat when I go out for a three hour walk, unless I want a pot containing black concrete flecked with bits of carrot, corn and green bean.  This mishap turned out to be a knowledge bonanza, however, as I also learned from the internet that you can save the pan by boiling a mixture of salt, baking soda and water in it.

Unfortunately, I’ve also found that you can’t trust everything you learn on the internet.  When I spilled red wine on our beige love seat, my frantic online search for remedies came up with salt, again. Heavily salting the stain and leaving it overnight was supposed to draw out the red wine. I visualized waking up to a miraculously cleaned cushion, but, instead, I woke up to a pink, salt-encrusted mess.  The dry cleaner just laughed.  He made some progress but the fabric still has a faint pink tinge and feels like it was left out at the beach all summer.  I had to turn the cushion over and that loveseat is now a “White Wine Only” zone.

Saving the best for last, here’s my favorite bit of new knowledge from 2011.  If you want to put real pizazz into your Halloween party (or any other outdoor party), drop a can of Reddi Whip on the pavement.  It instantly turns into a little whirling dervish, spewing whipped cream droplets all over baskets of chips, sandwich trays, paper plates and napkins, shoes and hair. What an icebreaker!  The only downside is that, if your car is parked nearby, you’ll need to hit the carwash the next day.

So, as 2011 draws to a close, I may not be thinner, have fewer wrinkles around my eyes, or be better at remembering why I went into the laundry room, but I do feel more powerful.  Here’s hoping you have a powerful New Year.

P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure, here are some things I have not learned this year – how to get my wristwatch off of military time, how to tie a scarf, or how to text, store and find phone numbers or do anything except make calls from my cell phone.  I also have not learned how to keep New Year’s resolutions.  Maybe in 2012.

P.P.S. Thanks to Megan for the photo of Willem, the Brooklyn Powerhouse