First, we finally have power again. A strong thunderstorm last night knocked down a bunch of trees and power lines. We lost power around 8 pm and got it back at 2:45 pm. That’s a little better than the 7 pm to 4:30 pm outage last week, but still, two overnight outages in one week seems a little steep. Ice cream does not improve in multiple thawings and freezings.
I have a column in today’s USA Today called “You’re Not That Busy After All” based on this year’s American Time Use Survey.
I’m still getting my head around the recent study on hurricanes finding that those named after women were more deadly than those named after men. My family faced down Hurricane Arthur on the Outer Banks recently, so I’ve been drawn to hurricane stories, I suppose. It turns out that in hurricanes, people have to make all sorts of judgment calls — whether to order mandatory evacuations, whether to heed evacuation orders or suggestions, etc. On the margins, it seems that people may be more likely to assign feminine qualities to hurricanes with very feminine names. If you think a hurricane will be gentle, you’re less likely to take it seriously. Hence the higher death counts. People have come up with plenty of criticisms about the study, but it is fascinating.
The SHU Box is doing a 14-day blogging project during her 14 consecutive days of call. We got to meet in person last weekend while she was visiting Philly, and we went for a run together. She was very gracious about the fact that I required her to go much slower than usual.
My husband and I managed to do date night last night, and — humorously — we walked into the wrong restaurant. He was waiting outside a restaurant, and when I saw him on the street I assumed he was waiting outside the correct restaurant, so I just walked in. Then the waitress asked if we’d brought our bottle (Philly has many BYOBs). I said “Isn’t this a tequila bar?” She looked at me strangely. My husband did Google street view and realized that the restaurant next door looked like it had the name of the one I’d sent him… Whoops. Fortunately, we hadn’t ordered. We left a few bucks for our water and slipped over to the correct place (Verdad Restaurant and Tequila Bar). The tapas were great, except the restaurant was short-staffed and then the power went out. We had to attempt multiple routes home around downed trees. Fortunately, my 7-year-old told the babysitter where the flashlights were, so they were fine.
My 2-year-old daughter has been successfully wearing underwear for 3 days now. This is epic. She starts day camp next week, and while I was told it was OK to send her in Pull-ups, it’s nice that she’ll be like the other big kids.
What’s going on in your life this week?
re: the criticisms of the hurricane study– from my professional opinion and given my understanding of econometrics, the criticisms are entirely valid. Their results don’t exist during the time period in which hurricanes have both male and female names and the controls they put in for the pre-period aren’t valid because the name change regime wasn’t the only thing going on with how dangerous hurricanes are. They argue it’s a small sample problem, but it’s not just that. Another technique would be to do a regression discontinuity around the name-change break, but it is likely they’d find nothing there too.
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This week has been pretty bad. DH is traveling on business. I had a horrible jury duty experience on Monday (was not called because they crossed my name off after my first lecture about the patriarchy, not using that word of course). Yesterday I got a call at 4:40 that DC2 is sick, so she was home (not sick) all day today. And I’m running out of time on a grant deadline but still have another paper I need to get out before my coauthor disapparates. Also Caillou is seriously annoying. We’re thinking about getting amazon prime just so we can get access to Nickelodeon shows streaming. And I ordered the wrong size hiking sandals (note size 7 men is not size 7 women– look before you buy!) I assume everything is going to be perfect again once DH gets back from his trip because that’s how it always is. He’s like magic or something. (Or really, things like DC2 being sick aren’t a big deal when there’s a second adult around.)
@NicoleandMaggie – doesn’t sound fun. Yes, do Amazon Prime — it’s good for many things, and the streaming is one of them. On the occasions when I have my kids around and absolutely have to do something, so I shut my office door and tune everything out, I am guaranteed to emerge to chaos. It’s like they know they can get away with it…
In my home country (Philippines) who is prone to typhoon,feminine names are given most of the time (normally in alphabetical order).The last typhoon that hit us was Typhoon Haiyan,in Filipino,they named it “Yolanda” which is feminine.It really interesting about the hurricane study.
And good job for your daughter! Our girls never used training pants though,they did pretty good with their potty-training although there were couple accidents but after that they did great.
@Gladys – thanks! She really seemed ready, so it’s been exciting to see how proud she is. This is several months earlier than my sons were, but I’ll take it!
You have such bad power luck lately! What a bummer, especially when it’s so hot. (or maybe I’m imagining it’s hot everywhere because it’s a blistering 85 degrees here in Seattle…)
I think it’s awesome that you went running with the SHU Box. Yay, Internet.
@ARC – yay internet indeed. We had such a fun time with you guys at the zoo last year too!
Yes!! Anytime you’re back, let me know 🙂
I watched a friend’s 2-y/o daughter on Tuesday and was amazed at the difference in age/personality/gender between her and my son. She pretended to cook and fed Elmo lunch and made Badger go “night night” and was so cute and sweet and… dare I say it… independent and easy. Scott’s idea of fun is to have me hold all 26lbs of him while he opens the kitchen cabinets and slams them shut over and over and over again.
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Friday night we have a babysitter and are going out for sushi (prob our last time at our favorite place in Madison 🙁 ) and to see The Importance of Being Earnest at an outdoor theater just out of town.
@Chelsea – are you moving? Or is the place closing? I hate losing a good restaurant…
We’re moving. But from the land of fried seafood (WI – This is pretty much the only local restaurant I even trust for sushi) to the land of wonderful seafood (FL) so I’m sure it’ll be easy to find a replacement.
hehe, they should just not use feminine names for hurricanes. That would solve it, right? 🙂
As for my week, I got to reorganize some of my kitchen cabinets. Needed to make things simpler and cleaner. Every time by the end of the week piles of stuff just accumulates everywhere. I kinds of hate it, so hopefully with reorganization things get a little better. My hubby went for a walk with our little one when I was doing it… Makes me sad, that I can’t spend that time with him, but hopefully it all will pay off at the end.
And, good job to your 7-year old! Good idea on what to train our baby in the future.
our 2 year old has been doing great with underwear the past week, too! Amazing, he goes to school and comes home with the same dry pair!