Dear Kid,

If you happened to have been alive in 1914 (you weren’t), and if you found yourself in Hamilton, Ohio, and if you happened to be paying attention, you might have noticed that there was a new baby. His name was Robert McCloskey and he grew up to write Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal.

Quick! Name the ducklings.

“But wait,” I hear you say, “If he’s from Hamilton, what was he doing writing about ducks in Boston?”

Most excellent question. He went to art school there. And it’s where he met the Mallards. Interestingly, he bought some ducks to study before he illustrated the book.

“OK,” I hear you continue, “But then what about the other books he wrote? Blueberries for Sal is set in Maine! After all, there aren’t that many bears or blueberry hills in Boston!”

So true.

Robert spent much of his life living in Maine.

And we will always be grateful for his stories.

Love, Mom

P.S. The ducklings are Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack. But you knew that.

Dear Kid,

Today is Book Lovers Day.

Um, why?

There are some things that just seem too obvious to talk about.

I mean, we don’t have a National Take a Breath Day (do we? I don’t think we do). We don’t have a National Blink Your Eyes Every Now and Then Day. We don’t have Love Your Pancreas Day. We just do those things.

So why do we need Book Lovers Day?

In my not so humble opinion, EVERY day should be a book-infused day. Everybody should take time to read on a regular basis. And not just texts (I know people read those on a regular basis. But “C U L8R” is not the same as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” or “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” (Penalty points if you can’t identify both of those.)

It’s a little different when you’re in college; I get that. You spend a LOT of time (I hope) reading for classes, doing homework, and studying.

Hopefully when you have a break (summer, winter, etc.) you’ll occasionally pick up a book and read it.

Or, maybe since you haven’t started classes yet, you’ll take a moment or two today to celebrate.

Enjoy.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

With the new year (you remember that we’re in 2016, right?) comes the traditional March of the New Year Trends. Specifically, resolutions, people flocking to the gym, the launch of new diets, and the Prediction Articles.

The prediction articles tell us All We Need To Know for the coming year. It really doesn’t matter if they are correct or not; no one ever goes back at the end of the year to check. There are no grades for prognostication accuracy. Whether you get your prediction article published next year has nothing to do with how well you predicted prior years and everything to do with how many people read your article last year. Also most writers couch their insight with words like “probably” and “in the next few years” and other wishy washy phrases that inevitably translate to “maybe.”

For years (and years and years) most of these articles have focused on technology. Yes, there are also articles about fashion, paint colors, and makeup, but those are actually reasonably easy to predict since everyone in those industries has already agreed about the style trends.

The tech world is a little different. In the tech world, no one agrees on what’s going to happen, only that a LOT is going to happen and that it will be ABSOLUTE.

Apparently, in 2016, all TV remotes will become obsolete, passwords will be replaced with biometric keys, and paper will disappear.

Before you rush out to sell your stock in TV remote companies, let me assure you that not ALL TV remotes will disappear, plenty of passwords will remain, and there is no way we will get rid of paper. You heard it here first.

Do I believe that remotes will be replaced with smart phone wizardry? Eventually, sure. Do I believe that sooner or later biometrics will replace the 8-letter-and-at-least-one-character password? Absolutely. Do I think paper is going away? Um, no.

First of all, pundits have been predicting the demise of paper since I was a little girl, and as far as I can see we use more paper today than we did back then. (Maybe it’s just my perspective.) Digital is good (you’re reading this digitally, which proves that digital is good) but I’ve never had a paper file crash and need the support team’s assistance.

There is something wonderful about the tactile experience of paper. You don’t have to turn off your paper when an airplane is taking off. You don’t lose paper reception when you’re going through a tunnel. You don’t have to pay for more data when you use an extra sheet of paper. And paper interfaces don’t change (do you have any idea how many outdated cords and plugs and whatnot we have?).

I can’t wait to see what wonderful things the tech world will bring us in the next few years. But it won’t be the end of paper.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Some people are energy-suckers. When you read one of their emails, talk to them on the phone, or (heaven forbid) meet them in person, you can feel your mental and physical energy drain. These encounters can leave you feeling like a pile of week-old lettuce. (You need a recovery plan for dealing with those people, but that is a different topic for a different day.)

Some people are energy-infusers. When you see that they’ve sent an email, you grin. When you finish talking to them on the phone, you want to do cartwheels (mentally if not physically). When you get to meet them in person (heaven be praised!), you feel energized enough to power the city lights for a week. Or more.

My friend Carla is one of the energy-infusers of the world. She’s amazing and I was lucky enough to grab some time with her last night (she’s in town for a few days and chose to spend some of her time with me–Yay!). Here’s a link to her website and her soon-to-be-published book. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, go. Have a root canal planned? Cancel it. Graduation? Not as important. Exam? OK, go take the exam so you can graduate. But be sure to catch her next time.

We met for drinks at Carlo & Johnny (where they may have the best restrooms in southwest Ohio–the lighting in there is designed to make even the most tired of us look great). By the time she left for dinner, my brain was abuzz. Partly with all the fab things happening in her life (did I mention the book?) but partly because she makes me THINK.

Carla is an author, a speaker, and a coach. As a really good coach, she asks questions that require insight (hers) and introspection (the person she’s working with). Last night the person being asked to instrospect was me, and self-diagnosis is not one of the things I do really well. Not taking my B.S. is another one of the things Carla does really well.

So instead of just “getting together for drinks” (which would have been good), I left feeling like I could tackle the world and with homework assignments (which was even better).

I hope you have a friend like Carla who can totally make your day an A+. Gotta go do my homework now.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Seven is a very interesting number.

It’s prime (you knew that). It’s also a happy prime and a lucky prime (I looked up definitions for both—they are complicated and interesting mostly to math nerds so I am not going to explain them to you here).

Note: “Math nerds” is a descriptor. Like tall. And other things I’m not.

There are seven deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth), seven days of the week, seven colors in the rainbow, and seven seas (Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, and the Antarctic Ocean. And sloth).

Seven is the neutral value on the pH scale, the sum of any two opposite sides of a standard die is 7, and there are seven SI base units (meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. And sloth.).

There are seven virtues (chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility) and seven acts of mercy. There are seven great saints (in Hinduism) and 7 chakras. In Islam, there are 7 layers of the earth and seven skies. There are seven sisters in the Pleidades and Seven Cities of Gold.

There are seven continents, seven wonders of the world (ancient, modern, and sloth), and seven hills in Rome, Istanbul, and Cincinnati.

There are seven pure notes on the diatonic scale, seven liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy. And sloth), seven honest men, and seven sages (in Greece, India, and in the Bamboo Grove in China). There are 7 ages of man (in Will’s As You Like It), and seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine in Pharaoh’s dream. There are 7 books in the Harry Potter series (and the number 7 is meaningful in them).

There is 7-Eleven (and 711), 7 Up, and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (sloth isn’t one of the habits).

Bond is 007 (which is the same as 7 but sounds much cooler). There are Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Magnificent Seven, and Seven Dwarves. There were Seven Years in Tibet, and Seven Days in May. George Carlin identified 7 words you can never say on TV.

There is the seventh son of the seventh son, the seven year itch, and the seventh inning stretch. In the NHL, MLB, and NBA, the maximum number of games in a playoff series is 7.

And even if I said it seven times seven, I wouldn’t begin to express how proud we are of you.

Happy 7.

Love, Mom