Posts Tagged "color"

It’s True: Dad Is Going Car Shopping (Finally)

Dear Kid,

Dad is going car shopping. The red car finally gave up the ghost. More accurately, it gave up the radiator and is now a lump of un-drivable red metal sitting pathetically in our garage. There is no question that it has worked very hard over the years, but it is now time to get a car that doesn’t have a crank in the front and an 8 track player inside.

The conversation at dinner last night, predictably focused on the most important part of an vehicle: color.

Pi: Don’t get red. Red is not a cool color for a car.
Me: If we get a red car, you won’t have to drive it
Pi: Silver. I think silver is a very good color for a car. It’s very chic.
Tal: Silver is gray?
Dad: Yes
Pi (uninterrupted): And don’t get green.
Me: Watch it, kid
Pi: Green is only good for small cars
Me: My green car wasn’t small
Pi: It was a compact car
Me: It was a full size car
Pi: It was smaller than your car is now
Me: Not really. It had a bigger trunk. I miss that trunk
Pi: It wasn’t as big as your car is now
Me: It wasn’t as high, but it was as big
Pi: I think green is a good color for small cars, but we shouldn’t get green. And we shouldn’t get blue.
Dad: You mean so when we say “the blue car” you don’t have to ask WHICH blue car?
Pi: Exactly. Black is cool
Dad and Me: No.
Pi: Why not?
Dad: Black will show ever dent and ding and piece of dirt
Me: It will get much too hot in the summer
Tal: No one in Israel is driving black cars because of this
Me: Really? Not even official cars? That’s what they show on NCIS.
Tal: Well, maybe official cars, but not regular people because it is getting too hot
Pi: So silver
Me: We’ll have to wait to see what they have
Dad: Not necessarily. We could order one. We’ve waited this long, another month or two won’t hurt.
Me: WHAT?
Pi: WHAT?WHAT?
Tal: How long it takes to get a car
Me: It varies a great deal
Dad: We can wait a week or so
Me: A week or so and a month or two are not exactly the same thing.
Puppy: I want to ride in the car
Me: Girls, please clear the table

At which point the talk turned to whether Pi would get moving quickly or slowly and the girls going to Orange Leaf (planned for this evening).

The things you miss.

Love, Mom

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Suburban Mom’s Car Held Hostage by Pale Attack Spider

Dear Kid,

Me: We can’t go out tonight
Attack spider. DearKidLoveMom.comDad: Why not?
Me: There’s a spider in the car
Dad: What?
Me: There is a spider in the car. We can’t use the car
Dad: You’re kidding, right?
Me: Nope. Spider. In car.
Dad: How did you drive home?
Me: Not very well once the spider attacked me
Dad: Attacked you
Me: Yup
Dad: Want to tell me about this attack spider?
Me: I thought it was outside the car. It wasn’t
Dad: And it attacked you
Me: Yes. And then I smacked my knee on the steering wheel
Dad: Why?
Me: I don’t know why it attacked me. It must just be a vicious spider
Dad: Why did you smack your knee?
Me: Well I wasn’t trying to smack my knee. I was trying to get rid of the spider and smacked my knee as part of the process
Dad: Getting rid of a spider involves smacking your knee?
Me: Only if you do it wrong. Which is why we can’t go out tonight. And why I need ice for my knee.
Dad: What happened to the spider?
Me: If I knew, one of us—and by “one of us” I mean you—could probably do something about it
Dad: What color was the spider?
Me: Pale
Dad: Pale isn’t a color
Me: On this spider it was a color. Or maybe it was Drab Pale
Dad: Is that one of those weird colors you made up like teal?
Me: Teal is a great color. If the spider had been teal, this might be a very different conversation.
Dad: It would?
Me: Actually, only the color part would be different
Dad: We leave in 3 minutes
Me: Maybe I wasn’t clear
Puppy: I can be ready in three minutes
Dad and Me: No
Me: Unless you want to eat a spider
Dad: No! I’ll go look for the spider
Note: Some sighs are small and subtle. Dad’s was neither.
Dad: No spider. Let’s go.
Me: Are you sure?
Dad: I’m sure. Let’s go

We went. I was not attacked by a spider. Although I’m still a little concerned about driving to work today…

Love, Mom

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There is More to Color Than Meets the Eye | Color Interpreted

Dear Kid,

There is more to color than meets the eye.

Partly that’s because (according to scientists) color doesn’t exist—the concept of colors is all in our fabulous brains. Never mind that we all see the same thing—it isn’t there. Whatever.

Turns out that (nonexistent) colors have a huge impact on us.

What's Your Color? DearKidLoveMom.comWe all know that walking into a room with color we like makes us feel better. We also know that most moms will not paint their teenager’s room black. This conflict may be the source of all teenage angst.

Red is an interesting color. It tends to make people eat more (so do yellow and orange) which makes it a fabulous color for restaurants hoping to get us to order dessert. It was trés trendy to paint dining rooms red for a while. Red is not the official color of Weight Watchers.

Red can also increase muscle reaction time, raise your blood pressure, and make you want to gamble more. Guess what the predominant color in most casinos is?

You can celebrate a red-letter day, see red when you’re angry, or red-shirt a freshman. You can be distracted by a red-herring, take a red-eye flight across the country, or find your business in the red (none of which are great things).

Yellow is a harsh color (I did not make that up) and should never be used in a baby’s room because studies have shown babies cry more in yellow rooms. Yellow can also make people nauseous which is why designers don’t use yellow on airplanes.

Green can increase concentration. I’d suggest you go study on a nice lawn somewhere but the distractions probably outweigh the green. Which it is not easy to be.

Pink is (officially) a soothing color and is therefore used on walls in mental facilities and prisons (except where they use a horrid shade of green). Some sports teams paint the visitors’ locker room pink in the hopes that it will dissipate some of their energy and enthusiasm. Pink is also the color Pepto Bismol which some people find soothing to their tummies.

Purple is the color of royalty and 7th grade girls.

Blue conveys trust, reliability, and loyalty (which is why people wear blue suits to a job interview—think “true blue”). Studies have shown that blue is calm and peaceful and can help people be more productive. Weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights in blue gyms. And if you’re feeling blue you can listen to the blues.

Wishing you just the right shade of today.

Love, Mom

 

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8/30/13 Being Color Blind is Passé—It’s Time to Embrace Every Shade

Embrace every shade of every color--advice for college studentsDear Kid,

Yesterday my heating element went out. Which is weird because I’m usually too warm. But all of a sudden my circulation stopped working and my fingers and toes were ice cold (not to be concerned—this has happened many times before). Wherefore and hence, therefore and ergo, I went outside for a little bit to sit in the sun and warm up (how ridiculous is that for the end of August?).

As I sat there sunning myself like a happy reptile or the fuzzy boy (yesterday was crazy warm and Booker wanted to go out on the porch. In an act of indulgence Daddy said, “I’m not going to tell you no” and let him out where he flopped in his favorite corner and promptly fell asleep) …as I sat there baking in the sun waiting for feeling to return to my digits, I had the opportunity to reflect on all sorts of things (like I don’t have menus for next week figured out).

Just because I’m that kind of mom, I am going to share an important musing with you (that has nothing to do with menus).

Back in the day, we talked about being color blind—not the can-you-read-the-green-dots-number kind of color-blindness but the not-paying-attention-to-the-color-of-a-person’s-skin kind. It seems to me that the concept of ignoring color is completely out of date and that we are at a time when we should be embracing every color—because most people are many colors all at the same time. And I’m not talking about skin although I think skin color adds beauty to the world.

We should recognize and welcome the things that make us different. Can you imagine if everyone were the same? It might be momentarily fascinating but it wouldn’t take long for it to be just boring.

I love that different people celebrate the New Year on January 1, the first day of Tishri, tenth day of Muharram, or the first day of school. They each bring different colors to the world.

It’s wonderful that someone 6’5” looks at the top shelf very differently than I do. And that our ingenuity is tested very differently to get something off that shelf.

We should embrace people because their circumstances made them who they are as well as people whose choices made them who they are. We should be thrilled that some people study engineering and some study fine arts and still others study accounting or even forensic chemistry. It’s time to be delighted with all those different colors.

I’m not saying you have to love everyone. Just that it’s time for us as a society to get rid of the notion that the only fair way to think about people is remove all color from the equation. So if you’re going to dislike someone–just be sure you’re doing it because you really don’t like them, not because of something superficial like the color of their skin or the style of their hair or the Greek organization they belong to.

Being color blind is passé—it’s time to embrace every shade of every color. Except one or two shades of green that make me look like I am insanely ill. Those I will embrace from afar so no one will rush me off for a vitamin treatment.

Lecture over. There will be a test. It’s called Life.

Love, Mom

August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice a fact I did not discover until after I’d written the blog…

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