Melts in the package, disappears

I think every kitchen has them, the cabinets no one ever really opens. When I was a child they were those spaces above the refrigerator. One of my grandmothers has cabinets that are entirely in violation of the feng shui of her kitchen, if she’d ever heard the word when she had the cabinets installed, far off to the right of everything and practically on the porch. My other grandmother, I imagine, has some low cabinets she seldom uses. You likely have some too. Your glasses and plates are over there. Your junk drawer is here, the occasional small appliances are stored just so and of course all of that stuff under the sink. But then there’s the hodgepodge cabinet, the one that you forget about when you lament for more space.

Ours is a left-handed cabinet, in particular the high shelves. Everything else in the kitchen moves to the right, and the spices are in the one next to it so, really, we already have everything we need in life.

But occasionally you need that giant bowl. And that means that occasionally I have to wash it and, later, put it away.

Doing that this evening I found a smaller bowl inside the larger bowls and inside the bowl was a handful of candy.

You’ve been hiding your stash, I said, thinking it was Halloween candy.

“We’ve been hiding that from ourselves and you should probably throw that out,” The Yankee laughed, telling me where we got it, which instantly dated the stuff.

So I ditched most of the stuff, but kept the one that featured the protective candy shell. A perfect dessert! Tear open the bag and receive:

candy

That’s not really a lot of fun, but everyone has a different scale. I’d say it is more Bemused Size.

Things to read … because reading always brings fun or bemusement.

Mighty George Gring is now Cam Newton’s Mom’s favorite football player:

Looking back, it’s prophetic that Clayton and Katherine Gring of Houston nicknamed their oldest son “Mighty George” when he was born.

Maybe it’s his quick sense of humor, or the sparkle in his blue eyes, or his positive attitude. In any case, there’s something about him that naturally draws people to him. “He’s a little bit magnetic that way,” Clayton Gring said of his 6-year-old son.

These lists never include the word “that” or most adjectives. Nevertheless, 10 words to cut from your writing

A relaunch for The New Yorker, with high stakes:

The new site is the largest overhaul of newyorker.com in years, Thompson said. The last redesign, Thompson said, occurred before he switched from the print side to the web, and was little more than a “fairly minor reskinning.”

The current relaunch has been in the works for about a year, Thompson said, and it’s been in intensive development since the magazine brought on Michael Donohoe as Director of Product Engineering in January. Donohoe, who was hired from Atlantic Media’s Quartz, has been working full-time on the new site for the past seven months, Thompson said.

Every post, in Thompson’s opinion, should apply the magazine’s superlative sensibilities at Internet publishing speeds. “We want it to feel like the best-written story you’re going to read,” he said.

Still, the speed of the Internet necessitates some sacrifice. Overall, posts on NewYorker.com are subjected to a less rigorous editing process than magazine articles are.

They’ve got the talent, and they’ve convinced a lot of people on their payroll to shift their thinking, which is a victory of its own. I hope this works out.

Lawmakers passed it. Aviation experts criticized it. The TSA says they didn’t want it: TSA fee on plane tickets more than doubles.

There is some great data here, now we just have to sort it all out and make sense of it. Dollars per student is something of a simplistic metric, I’d think. See which Alabama school systems spend the most — and the least — educating your children:

Public records provided by the Alabama State Department of Education show significant disparities in per-pupil spending between public school systems statewide.

Due to variations in state, federal and local tax funding, the state’s highest spending school district spent $13,084 per student in fiscal 2013 while its lowest spending district spent $7,201 based on average daily attendance.

That’s a difference of 45 percent.

There are some issues of local monies and political will, but, all the same, that’s a huge variance worth addressing.

Tech links:

20 WordPress Plugins You Can Install Today for Easier Sharing, Better Posting, and a More Powerful Blog

Here’s how Facebook pitched brands on buying ‘likes’ in 2011

Facebook adds a ‘buy’ button

And, now, off to the Monday dinner party!

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