Why ...

... is it so hard to peel a hard boiled egg sometimes? Sometimes a shell peels easily revealing a perfect white and sometimes it clings to an egg white and totally ruins its smooth finish.

Seriously why?

Early Morning Question

"What is a prime number?", was the question my older son fired at me in the morning while half-awake I was slowly emerging from the bedroom. "It is a number that can be divided only on one and itself," muttered I without stopping and froze in place. How did I know this? Math never was my strongest subject, plus all that I learnt about it was in Russian, so it wouldn't have spilled out of me so readily in English. My mind kept working on this puzzle for a while and finally I remembered. About four years ago I watched " The Mirror Has Two Faces", a romantic comedy with Barbra Streisand, where two main characters had a discussion about prime numbers. Being intrigued I did a bit of reading on the subject and apparently some of it was retained. The power of media!

The reason for such a strange morning greeting was a game boy game "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?", which my boys and I like to play. It often makes us run for the dictionary, encyclopedia or atlas. And I don't care to admit how many times it does make me feel less smart than a fifth grader.

Questions and Answers

In the middle of a nice email exchange with one of my former classmates I was ambushed with a question: “So, what is your greatest dream?” Firstly, it is a moral equivalent of stepping in a muck during a nice stroll. Secondly, isn’t there some rule of ethics which forbid asking this question after certain age? What dreams if you are trying to keep up with reality? After careful consideration I’ve decided to add the offensive question to my ever growing list of questions demanding automatic responses:

• “How are you?” “Splendid”
• “Are you happy?” “Delirious”
• “How are your kids?” “Great”
• “How do you like living in …(fill in the blanks)” “Very much”
• “What is your greatest dream?” “World Peace”

In truth I have a dream – I want to have a special power of learning every new language coming my way in 3 three days. First day – phonetics, second – grammar, third – fluency.