Dear Kid,

My friend Sue called yesterday. “I just stepped on an orange,” she said.
“Why do you have oranges on your kitchen floor?” I asked.
“It wasn’t on my kitchen floor. It was on my son’s floor.”
“Why did he have an orange on his floor?”
“I have no idea, but I almost killed myself stepping on it.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Stepping On Oranges is a well-known cause of death to moms of teenage boys.”

Which (of course) made me wonder, can fruit really kill you?

The answer is (unsurprisingly) yes.

When you swallow a cherry pit, nothing interesting happens (despite your mom having told you for years that you would grow a cherry tree in your tummy). But should you chomp on a broken cherry pit, you could die. Not just because you might choke on the pit, but because cherry pits are full of stuff that your body will turn into cyanide. And unlike other fruit pits that also contain cyanogenic compounds, you only have to ingest one or two crushed up cherry pits to die. So don’t do it.

Almonds (which it turns out are a dried fruit) are also full of cyanide (especially “bitter almonds”). It’s illegal in many places (like the US) to sell raw almonds so as to reduce the number of almond fatalities. Once almonds are heat treated to remove the cyanide (and any lingering bacteria) they are perfectly scrumptious.

Jatropha is a fruit I had never heard of before. According to My Friend the Internet, the Jatropha fruit is good but the seeds are highly poisonous. Some people roast the seeds to reduce the toxicity. At least somewhat—personally, I don’t recommend trying it since as few as three untreated seeds can send you from this mortal coil (extra points if you get the reference). Also its sap can irritate your skin.

Coconuts can cause concussions (and worse) to anyone standing in the space the coconut wishes to occupy. Falling coconuts are not good sharers.

Then there is warrior fruit. The Sandbox Tree (which lives in the tropics) is a full arsenal masquerading as flora. Forget the toxic bark and the spikes, the Sandbox Tree has seed pods (yep, it’s a fruit) that explode when ripe. This is not “explode” as in “this sandwich is so good it explodes with flavor in your mouth.” This is more of “explodes” as in IED sending seed shrapnel out to wound animals and humans unlucky (and by “unlucky” I mean “dumb”) enough to be standing nearby. So it’s not a great houseplant. Although it might be a good way to deal with the deer and mole problems…

There are a bunch of bushes that produce berries that are toxic to people but are great for birds. Small children have a great time playing with the waxy berries, putting them up their noses, and occasionally eating them (none of these are particularly good for the small children).

Sometimes it’s the preparation of fruit that can be dangerous. Bananas flambé for instance can turn the preparer into a toasted marshmallow if the bananas aren’t properly flambéed.

Most importantly, apples that have been in the hands of wicked witches and evil queens have a tendency to be poisonous.

Here’s to keeping the doctor and the evil queen away.

Love, Mom

From Wikipedia: Mortal coil is a poetic term that means the troubles of daily life and the strife and suffering of the world. It is used in the sense of a burden to be carried or abandoned, most famously in the phrase “shuffle[d] off this mortal coil” from the “To be, or not to be” monologue in Shakespeare‘s Hamlet.

Dear Kid,

Friday night, Pi had a bunch of friends over for s’mores. That was the plan anyway.

She sent text invitations so we knew we’d have 8-10 people.

Then one of her friends asked if he could arrive a little early so we invited him for dinner. Then the dinner friend asked if another friend could come for dinner (since that was his ride). No problem. When they arrived, I put the boys to work stirring and slicing (new recipe—delish) and making salad.

As we were making dinner, Pi got a text from another friend who was coming to have s’mores but needed dinner. Sure, come early. We-Feed-People R Us. I found a new recipe: Gnocchi with Zucchini and Carrot ribbons. To be Slightly More Accurate, I found a recipe for Gnocchi with Zucchini Ribbons and then modified it in several directions. Yum.

The next problem we had was that it was raining. Not monsooning or even downpouring, but raining enough so that the idea of sitting outside was highly unattractive. So I did what any enterprising mom would do—we set up candles and let everyone cook s’mores on the porch over candles. Not quite the same, but no seemed to mind.

Some of the s’mores were the traditional toasted-marshmallow-chocolate-graham cracker variety. Others were a little more creative. There were Reeces and peanut butter and various other ingredients involved.

Here’s to innovation.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Turns out fish think better in groups than individually. I am not making this up.

It’s not that the fish copy each other’s answers (they’re in school after all). It’s more that fish live something of a meritocracy.

A male emperor angelfish lives together with up to five female mates. If the emperor angelfish dies, one of the females turns into a male fish and becomes the leader of the group.

The fish seem to figure out whose summa is the laud-est and they follow that fish. This is the opposite of lemmings who (according to legend) follow whatever fuzzy tail is in front of them.

Scientists figured out the fish thinking thing by giving individual fish choices about which way to swim and then giving groups of fish choices. Turns out individual fish are more likely to pick the “Become a filet o’ fish” lane and groups of fish are more likely to pick the “This way to the plankton pool” path.

Human children do not necessarily behave this way. Human adults do not necessarily behave this way.

Which leads me to wonder if perhaps fish are smarter than humans…

This is an odd thing to wonder since fish have pretty small brains compared to their body size (compared to other animals) which may have something to do with why they rely on the fish with the most smarticles.

Jellyfish aren’t fish. I don’t think very highly of jellyfish. But you knew that.

Fish in the middle of the school control the movement of the school. Think of them as the principal or the most popular teacher.

The term “fish” is used when referring to one species of fish (e.g., 10 salmon are 10 fish). The term “fishes” is used when referring to more than one species (e.g., 10 salmon, 3 trout, and 1 angel fish are 14 fishes). The term “fishies” is used when talking to a small child. The term “dinner” is used when referring to fish found in the supermarket.

Here’s to a day that’s not fishy.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

There are lots of great things about the summer. Fresh fruit, long days at the pool, summer concerts, the opportunity to launch a full-blown attack on moles—the list goes on. Here are five of my favorite things about summer.

Flip flops

There is something about flip flops that just screams “summer happy!” Maybe it’s the bright colorfulness or maybe it’s the onomonopia-ness of the walking in them or maybe it’s just that my toes get to wiggle when I wear flip flops. The reason doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they say “summer” and make my feet happy.

No sleet

There are good things about winter, but sleet isn’t one of them. There is no such thing a gentle sleet, either. Sleet somehow is ragingly, unhappily aggressive, determined to get under your collar, into your eyes, and to turn the roads into skating rinks. It’s also ridiculously hard to scrape off the car. Next time the thermometer hits 97 degrees and the humidity is somewhere north of comfortable, remind yourself: no sleet today!

Hammocks

I don’t take advantage of the hammock in our backyard enough. I love relaxing in it, letting the trees shade me from the sun, hoping the mosquitos are still napping. Somehow, even looking at the hammock makes me relax a little and take on a little of that summer spirit.

Grilling

There are people who grill all year long, but none of them are in our family. During the winter, our grill is decommissioned and hidden away, not to reappear until mid-spring. While I am not the grill master, I love eating food cooked on the grill. Maybe because I’m not the grill master.

Long days

I love the long days of summer. I love waking up to sunshine (or almost sunshine) and ending my day with a little bit of light left. Somehow there seem to be more hours in a the day during the summer, and I manage to fill up each and every one of them.

What do you love about summer?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The Deer Wars are heating up. Dad is Unamused to wake up and find hoof prints in the garden and the tops nibbled off the beets. Since he’s tired of providing the deer with a multi-course buffet (try pronouncing it “boo-fay” just for fun), we decided to investigate ways to keep deer out of the garden.

When you ask my friend the Internet to give you ideas for “Deer-proofing Your Garden” you find lots and lots of suggestions. The most effective is “Grow rocks.” Deer don’t generally eat much ore.

Unfortunately, our plan is to grow more than rocks, so we had to go further.

The second step is to abstain from planting things deer like. After a quick inventory, we discovered that the only thing on our entire property that the deer don’t much care for is our driveway. Moving on.

The next idea is to plant things deer don’t like. Errr, we have several things on “Deer don’t like” list. And apparently, the deer really don’t like them—but on our property they just ignore the icky things and move on to the things they prefer.

Wash up. Several sites suggest putting shavings of Ivory Soap or Irish Spring Soap in the garden to keep deer away. No idea why these brands in particular. And not sure how I feel about a sudsy garden. I am pretty sure how Dad would feel about soap run off. Maybe washing will work. Not.

Or we could stink the deer off. “Rotten eggs and garlic seem to be two of the most effective deterrents” to deer. Oh, good. Just what we wanted. In a word, “No.”

“Frighten the deer away.” That sounds promising. Oh, wait. The best frighteners are coyote, wolves, dogs, and people. We’ve got three of the four and the deer keep coming. Sigh.

Another option is to build a fence. Of course the fence has to be at least 7 feet high because deer are pretty good jumpers and the fence has to be built out of some seriously sturdy stuff or the deer will just push right through.

As far as I can tell, all of these will be about as effective as putting up a sign that says “Deer: Go to the Neighbors.”

Daddy has now draped the beets with cheesecloth (it was an adventure purchasing cheesecloth, but that’s another story).

I’m guessing that the score between Dad and the deer is about even right now.

Did I mention Dad saw moles??

Garden vs Nature continues.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It won’t surprise you to learn we’ve been watching a lot of soccer recently. There’s that World Cup thing going on you know.

I know soccer is a physically tough demanding sport. But I’m so surprised by the number of shots that aren’t even close to being shots on goal. These players are the best players in the world—it seems like they would come closer for the majority of shots. Even hockey shots that miss tend to come closer and the goal is a lot smaller. Can’t say I really understand it.

I heard a great quote about soccer. A woman on NPR (don’t ask me who, I missed that part of the conversation) said that—as a short woman—she was absolutely in favor of a game where the best player in the world is 5’6”. Yep, that about sums everything up from my point of view!

Referees are allowed to stop play during the World Cup 2 or 3 times due to weather conditions. This is a most excellent decision. No one quite knows what the criteria are around calling a water break, but given the location (Brazil is great, but major soccer playing in this weather? Seriously? Almost as smart as Winter Olympics in a beach resort town. Oh, yeah. We did that this year too.) In my opinion, this is not only really smart for the players and officials, it is an important message for little soccer wannabes around the world. Water is critical. Drink more. Pay attention to your body. Etc.

This is your mother speaking: Take a drink of water. Stay hydrated.

Love, Mom