Pay Attention!!!

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Is there an adult in America today who doesn’t wonder, if they haven’t already been diagnosed, that they might have attention-deficit disorder? (And if there is, can they tell me their secret?)

A study done at Harvard in 2010 showed that people’s minds are not on the task at hand 47% of the time.

That’s all?

This New York Times columnist, quoting a survey, says currently the average human attention span is eight seconds, shorter than that of a goldfish.

That sounds about right.

As I’ve sat here, my daughter, away at college, texted me. So did several other people, including a spammer. Even if I don’t respond, I look: Who is it? Is it an emergency?

Then, the stupid thing beeps a second time several seconds later.

I supposed I could figure out how to reset that.

But meanwhile, since I looked, I see my mom responded to my email.

Oh, and I have some notifications from Facebook.

Facebook is its own particular distraction vortex. Oh, awful: A childhood classmate died. Oh, sweet: Another is getting married. Oh, a sponsored ad is looking for women who suffer from ovarian cancer who used talcum powder. Is that something to worry about? Oh, I feel sick: A video automatically plays of an abused dog so skinny, he can’t stand. Oh, but there are some sweet horses or goats or kittens or babies who are obviously doted on … My brain struggles to process all of this.

Where was I? Oh, yes, distraction.

But who am I kidding? I can remember the pre-Internet days. And I distinctly remember veering away from tasks I didn’t want to do.

Attention, at least for me, is this fleeting, fluttering, easily damaged thing.

It’s like herding butterflies.

And I still don’t have the hang of it.

My Life is Shit

These two produce an inordinate amount of poop.

When we decided to get our second dog, Tony, I did not think of how I was going to have double the dog shit in our tiny yard, nor did I think house-training him would be a big deal.

Where we are with the house training: I am inordinately proud of myself for teaching Tony to ring the bells I hung on the doors when he wants to go out.

Honestly, though, that was easy, took about a day for him to get it.

The hard part: convincing Tony that, yes, it is important to never pee or poop in the house.

Also, he abuses those bells, sometimes ringing them every few minutes, and for a wide variety of reasons, such as he’d like to lay out in the sun.

Which is fine, except we have discovered that it is impossible to make our driveway gate “Tony-proof.” He can get under it when it’s closed. However, we can’t make that gap any smaller or it won’t open.

(Contemplating an “invisible fence,” if you’ve got any advice about that.)

So, for weeks, I have been at the other end of the leash, poop bag in hand, every time Tony (and Lola, who always comes along) has pooped or peed.

There are times in life when biology is much more front and center than usual. 

I told this to my husband, a gastroenterologist. “Yeah, tell me about it,” he said.

I am reminded of bringing home new babies with all that entails, from spitting up (etc.) for the baby to let-down (etc.) for the mom.

Working on getting Tony's and Lola's biology back to humming along without quite so much of my involvement.

Be Glad You’re Not A Honey Bee

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Even being the queen bee is no prize. The queen bee doesn’t issue orders; she doesn’t control

anything in the hive. Her one role is to lay eggs, which she does all day long, in 30-second intervals. She’ll lay up to 2,000 per day, which is more than her body weight. She only leaves the hive once or twice in her life. Oh, and she gets to be queen by assassinating all the other baby queen bees.

Drone bees famously exist just to have sex. Sounds like that might be OK, right? Except the “lucky” drone bees who get to get it on with the queen die because they explode during sex, which happens in the air, with their genitals tearing off to remain lodged in the queen while the rest of their body falls to the ground.

And the ones who don’t have sex with her get driven out of the hive to starve to death.

If you’re a bee, keeping a low profile and just being a worker doesn’t make things much better. Worker bees make honey by transferring the nectar from the tongue of the bee who collected it to another bee who holds it on her tongue until the liquid evaporates, turning the substance into honey. (Changes how you think of honey, doesn’t it?)

And the wax they make? It oozes through pores on their bodies and they chew it off, to make it soft enough to use.

And you know what keeps honey-bee hives warm – 93 degrees Fahrenheit in the center – in cold weather?

The worker bees’ shivering.

Yeah, be glad you’re not a honey bee.

Why Are DMV People So Rude?

My son got his driver’s license this week. (Watch out, world!)

I was once again struck by how rude the people at our DPS (Texan for DMV) are. I am not the only one to wonder why: look here and here and here, for starters.

It’s almost comical. The first woman we encountered, who just had to hand my son a form, was absolutely stone-faced and clearly was trying to speak without moving her mouth, like that would be too much effort. The second, to whom my son handed a certificate from his driving school, barked, “It’s not signed!” And indeed, there was a blank line, marked “Instructor Signature.” “Oh, no, did they forget to sign it?” I asked. “How do I know?!” she said. “Did he have 10 hours of nighttime instruction?!”

My son and I looked at each other. Of course, he hadn’t been at the driving school at night. It isn’t even open at night.

Yes, we both answered.

Turns out I, the parent, was supposed to sign that he had driven at night with me (which he had), something she could have just said, the jerk.

After we caught on and she had had her little thrill, I signed it.

I have been around long enough to realize if everybody in a certain group acts a certain way, they probably have some sort of reason. Like when we arrived in Houston and wondered why everybody drove those big, piggy, gas-guzzling SUVs. (The streets flood.)

And I found this about a fascinating study. Turns out the “petty tyrant” theory we all have is correct. When someone is in a “high power” but “low status” position – like DMV clerk, they have a tendency to use that power to behave like jerks.

Explains a lot, about a lot of people.

To Neuter or Not to Neuter

My husband and daughter were discussing who could be fiercer, him or me. 

My husband’s clincher: “Your mother’s bringing Tony to have his balls cut off – and she likes Tony.”

It’s true: Last week, I brought our new dog Tony to be neutered

Originally, I was going to write about how men do seem to feel some … ummm … resistance to the idea.

I’ve been surprised by the number of men I’ve met who don’t get their male dogs altered. Some owners will neuter but then have false balls implanted so the dog doesn’t look neutered. (Some wives will do that without telling their husbands.)

But in preparation for writing this blog post (after getting Tony fixed), I started Googling – and I fell into a wormhole.

All my life, I’ve heard that responsible pet owners neuter and spay their animals. Millions of unwanted animals are killed every year. Indeed, shelter euthanasia is the #1 cause of death for American companion animals.

But there are people against it. According to my Google surfing, these people tend to take their animals to holistic vets, feed them only raw food (which, and I’ve seen this myself, is a raging controversy), and are concerned about vaccinating.

The arguments rage. Some pro-neutering articles (like this one and this one) point out that the risk of certain cancers, which they say are deadly, are greatly reduced or eliminated by neutering. Anti-neuter people (including this vet and this vet) say those diseases aren’t deadly, but there are other deadly ones for which the risk goes up. Pro-neuter people point out that most dog bites are from unaltered animals; some anti-neuter people argue the opposite might be true.

This article nicely sums up much of the contradictory information. And here’s another.

Yikes.

Directing Traffic

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After Hurricane Ike, my father-in-law suggested that regular people should get out into intersections without working traffic lights and start directing traffic. 

I said that’s the worst idea I’d ever heard.

He thought (thinks?) I was an idiot.

But haven’t you seen people, even those who should know what they’re doing, like the flagmen at construction sites, just suck at it?

Like the kid, who looks 12, in an oversized reflective vest, his hard hat falling over his eyes, his sign swinging around (Is he trying to say something or just fiddling with it?) who might be making some sort of gesture, but it’s unclear and he’s not looking at any of us. Drivers hesitate, stop, inch forward, have no idea what they’re supposed to do.

And you know those police officers who dance and play tunes on their whistles and put on a show, the ones who are covered by the local paper or news station (like this one and this and this)?

Bah, humbug: Just clearly and decisively direct traffic, please.

Actually, police officers are usually better than flagmen, maybe because they are used to having what my husband calls “the voice of command.”

According to people who have been on the other side, directing traffic is no picnic. This police chief says, if you want to see your officers fall over themselves volunteering for any other duty, just mention directing traffic. According to this retired police officer/professor, “It's fun for about three minutes. It's a little like conducting an orchestra, except all of the musicians have lethal instruments and a random number of them will try to kill you.” Directing traffic is one of the most dangerous things police officers do.

So, we might all want to thank our lucky stars, we’re not out there, directing traffic.

Remember: Failure Is An Option

As I’ve mentioned, I don’t drive on Houston freeways because they scare the crap out of me.

One Sunday, I was driving my son to his test-prep tutor when we got detoured because of the Houston Marathon. Oh no, oh no, oh no. After much fretful and fruitless driving around in circles, it became apparent even to me (policeman directing traffic that way) that the only way left open to get where we were going was the freeway. And then it became horrifyingly clear that the only way out of the little loop of marathon I had blundered into was the freeway.

We ended up finding a restaurant (thank God), calling the tutor to explain my ridiculous predicament and having a leisurely breakfast till the marathon was over.

Well, last weekend, we were driving to his tutor again, when we got detoured because of the Houston Rodeo.

Part of the rodeo is people doing old-fashioned trail rides, coming into the center of Houston on horseback and in wagons.

Oh, yeah, well, great.

My palms were already sweaty as the GPS recalculated to an unknown, and therefore scary, route.

And that’s when my son, seeing that I was barely keeping it together  – and OK, maybe thinking breakfast is more fun than doing ACT math problems – said:

“Remember, Mom, failure is an option here.”

I have been thinking about this ever since.

Don’t get me wrong: This isn’t about not trying. In fact, this is all about being able to try, because it’s OK to fail. Nothing bad is going to happen. You can just pick yourself up, maybe have a nice laugh about it with the tutor, who confides her own imperfections, and keep going.

By the way, there was a non-freeway route to the tutor this last time. So, yay.