Just when you thought things could not become more unsettled, the earth shakes and the landscape changes. There is the human drama in Haiti. There is the political drama in Washington. And then, there is the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Jan. 21 made a ruling that will affect how the nation’s business is conducted — beginning at city hall, extending to our state capitals, and reaching our nation’s legislative and executive branches of government.
Our 8-year-old daughter, Emma, is beginning to show a real interest in cooking. Last weekend she whipped up a stack of chocolate chip pancakes for the family breakfast. They were a little on the sweet side, particularly the last few, dredged from the bottom of the mixing bowl with big clumps of chips.
As a child, I was afraid of ghosts. During that phase — where “phase” is defined as “from my earliest memories until high school” — I was convinced that invisible, malevolent forces were coming to “get” me whenever I was alone.
It started innocently enough when I saw a “Bewitched” episode in which an enchanted chair moved around by itself. That was supposed to be amusing? A possessed chair is funny? For years, I refused to enter the dining room by myself.
“You can observe a lot just by watching,” Yogi Berra said.
So, too, can you learn a lot just by getting off the chairlift.
You can learn, for example, that an athletic 12-year-old girl, who has just made her first run on a snowboard down the Snow Bowl’s Allen trail, is nonetheless susceptible to falling as she gets off the lift.
That when she falls, it’s likely to be on her back. And that she’s probably going to reach her arms behind her to break her fall.
Which vastly increases the odds that like so many boarders before her, she will sprain her wrist as she topples backwards.
