Mini mini Bagels

The room was hot. We were sitting in the living room, looking up at Ryan Seacrest as he announced the next contestant on American Idol, and I was sweating, I felt flustered, and things were starting to look blurry.
"Do you feel okay?" I asked my husband. He was lying peacefully on the couch, empty bowl of popcorn resting on his chest. He was the imagine of someone content. And he raised his eyebrow at me.
"Do you feel okay?" He responded. A question with a question. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I was confused, and it had nothing to do with the song selection by the contestant (note: why do they always make that mistake? Have they never seen the show before?).
"Nooooooooo." I am a horrible sick person. I had work to do, I have a conference to plan, I wanted to exercise, lunches to make, I had paperwork that needed to be done...what? Sick. Nooooooooooo.
That's when the husband gets to work. He somehow tricks me into walking past the exercise bike and into the bathroom where I am somehow brushing my teeth. My mind starts wandering. I think about the laundry, about the conference this weekend, about how hard it is to predict what people will want to eat at 7:00am. If only bagels weren't so big and ugly and hard to handle because you can't really eat a bagel all lady-like and shake hands with a CEO that wants to hire you...
"Honey, you know what would be a good idea? How about if they made bagels really tiny, like a Tim Bit (from Tim Hortons) or like a munchkin? Just a little something that you could still smear some cream cheese on, and pop in your mouth. I think people would like that."
My husband takes the toothbrush out of my hand.
"This is what you're thinking of? Bagels?"
Yes, yes I was. As the world was getting more blurry, and even though I was sweating like a sheep in wolf's clothing (is that the expression, because that's what I was thinking), I knew that the mini-bagel bit was a good idea, and that someday soon I would see it at a conference. Would I be organizing that conference? Maybe. And when I see that I have the option of including on my menu tiny little bagel bits, yes I will order them. Because I dream, yes I dream, of being able to put a perfect bit of bagel with a tiny smear of cream cheese into my mouth while the guest speaker is giving his lecture, and still look professional.

GTL, Baby?

This isn't my idea. Far from it. It's the idea that resulted from a good idea in Montreal that could have resulted from another good idea. Because that's how good ideas work, like ivy on a old brick wall, it keeps growing and growing and growing...
I'll start from the good idea number one, which came from a teacher of early education in Montreal. The task she gave the students was to create their own daycare, with lesson plans and activities that meet the general requirements of the province (i.e.: plan a variety of activities that meet all the needs of the children, like physical, motor, etc).
Then she told them that they had to market it to a certain target audience. Now in a world of straight-A, hit-the-books, toe the rope sort of class, the students might have thoughts, "Um, okay, I guess my target market is the neighborhood I live in, and we live near a park, soo...".
Boring, right? Because most likely, that is what the students will do. Open daycares in their neighborhoods, and lead pretty amazing lives as educators of our youth.
No, the teacher wanted them to think big.
"Think...daycare for rap stars. Think daycare for Donald Trump's kids. Think daycare for urber trendy parents that jet-set around the world, and want their kids to be jetsetters, too."
My friend, who is in the class, told me that everyone's eyes just lite up.
"So we can create a counting activity with 1000 bills?"
"Yup."
"And we can have dress-up with Prada and Guchi?"
"If you have a lesson plan as to why you're playing dress-up, then yes."
"And we can teach the kids to play drums if we open a punk rock daycare?"
"Yea, pretty much you can do whatever you want, whatever you can think of."

And that's how the GTL Daycare, for babies of the Jersey Shore, came about. My good friend who is an excellent child carer, and who has brilliantly aced the courses and is setting a whole new standard of what it means to be a good student, decided she wanted to have a daycare where the children went to the gym, tanned, and looked good.
"For a fine motor skills activity, I'm going to teach them how to put on fake eyelashes."

In some ways, I'm a little nervous, because I'm sure that some parents would love it if their kid was raised to be just like them. Tanned babies in three inch heels and drawn-on abs? But on the other hand, it makes me laugh so much at all the crazy and well-thought out ideas that are coming from this class, that, yea, I'm just happy that the world has more new ideas.

Not New, but Personalized

What do you get the person that has everything? I'm not talking about material things, like buying a new car or a second coffee maker. Stuff is stuff, and unless some engineer figures out how to put a small speaker in a toaster that says, "I love you!", each time your toast pops, no one really needs things, and toast is toast.
I'm talking about the amazing people in this world that inspire us to be better people, the rare persons that have love in their heart, good friends, and a lovely family. How do you let these people know that they're extra special on their birthday, when they're extra special in everyday life?
More love. We need to dig deep in our minds and figure out how we can take something ordinary and make it more, infuse it with more love and creativity, and then sprinkle on top of it some amazing, and thoughtfulness.
Take something old, and make it more personalized. This is a great idea, and you can apply it to pretty much anything. If all you can afford if french fries from McDonald's, why not spell their name in ketchup on the napkin? Buy a bouquet of flowers, and then come up with a special memory for each flower in the bunch.
At this past birthday I attended, we decided to have a scavenger hunt. Pretty popular idea right now, and it was easy to organize because you can find lots of templates and "How to..." web pages on the internet. But here's where we take it to the next level of "good idea". Take an extra hour or so and figure out a list of things to scavenge for that are really relevant to the birthday girl (or guy).
The generic list suggested finding a receipt from a restaurant: we edited it so that it was the birthday girl's favorite restaurant. We added things to the list that we knew she loved, such as swing sets and fortune cookies and talking to strangers and finding amazing things.
It's easy to buy a toaster, but it takes a bit more work and reflection to come up with a gift that has been personalized. And it's in the details that the beauty in life can be found.

A Way to End Cyber Bullying

A few weeks ago, two students in Vermont took their own lives. We don't know why. The news was on television, and my heart went out to the schools, the parents, the community, the whole state. One part of being an adult means working towards creating a world for a younger generation to prosper, to not forget that this whole experience "of living" is newer to them than it is to us. Somewhere we all missed a beat when we let these two slide away.
As I sat in front of my computer, writing emails to my best friend in Montreal, my mind wandered towards bullying, and specifically cyber-bullying. We're these kids being bullied online by someone? Was someone saying hurtful things to them? That's when I noticed that my gmail account had picked up that I was talking about Montreal and was advertising Montreal hotels in the side bar.
I have always had great faith in google. They are run by mathematicians, and I believe in numbers.
The AdSense Ads know what I want. Then there must be a way for them to know what I don't want, or more specifically, to be able to read a combination of words that would detect bullying.
I put myself in the role of a parent, or a guidance counselor: if the student has an school email address, and if they are under the age of 18, wouldn't it be possible to subscribe them to a No-Bullying AdSense that would notice a combination of "bullying words" and notify the parent/guidance counselor?
I think about the rights to privacy and all, but then I also think that if I was a parent, and someone was sending hate mail to my kid, I would want to know. What could I do with this knowledge? I don't know....I'm just thinking, wouldn't knowing be a good place to start?

360 Degree Computer Cameras

It's where the good ideas come from: you find yourself in a situation that could be better, and then you realize what could be better.
It all started yesterday, the day after the groundhog was suppose to see his shadow and the day after Vermont was hit with a massive snow storm. The roads were horrible, it took twice as long to get anywhere in your car, and one staff member couldn't even get his car out of his driveway. Understandable he couldn't be at the 9:00AM meeting physically, but with the grace of technology he could.
We had skyped in staff members before to meetings, and there was always the same issue: where do you point the camera? We would start the meeting with the camera pointed at the director, and then move it when the next person would speak, and then back, oh wait who's commenting, turn the camera right, left, ooops, bad view, till finally...
"Jacqueline, just leave the camera where it is. I can hear."
Hear, yes, but how is it that we can't have skyped in staff members feel like they are 100% at the meetings. This is the future, isn't it? We can figure this out!
And then I realized, that's what we needed. A camera that would have a 360 degree vision, and then could recreate a view that a human would normally have if he was sitting in the room.
Does this camera exist? I don't know. But we should popularize this camera if it does exist. Let's make meetings better, friends, by making sure that we're all there, even if it's only virtually.
360 degree cameras. What a good idea.

Highlight your Town with a Rap

Really? Really. This is probably the best way that you can show your hometown, whether it's NYC or No-where Minnesota, that you're proud of where you're from. And also it allows for some great ways to see how creative you can get with your free styling. Free styling isn't free. It's hard.

So if you want to do something creative this weekend, a good idea would be to write a song.

Cat Lovers can finally get Meow-ried!

I love weddings. The dresses, the cake, the misty eyes of the groom as he watches his bride walking down the aisle towards him, the weeks and weeks of planning that lead up to that moment.... It is all so good.
People have so many good ideas, too, when it comes to planning an executing a wedding, but that's also the moment when good people who have good ideas get brain freezes. I like to think of it as a sparkle/butter cream overload, and hence the reason why smart brides are surrounding themselves with a harem of smart women: if the bride gets bridal brain freeze, and if the maid of honor gets overwhelmed looking at rouge, you can always pull a third or fourth bridesmaid off the bench.

And though you would think I would advocate a good idea at this moment, I get sucker punched each time a wedding rolls around and I love all things that have to do with weddings. For the past three years, whenever a friend would tell me that they were getting married (heck, when the neighbor told me that her niece was getting married), I like to suggest going to Hawaii and getting "Maui'd".

Now I have something better for all my cat-loving friends out there. They can all get "Meow-ried".

I searched for this word on the web, and it does exist. I'm just going to bring it to the present of our marriage language.

Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Bird Feeders for your Bike

Montreal in the summer, especially around the plateau area. Not where the students live, not the McGill Ghetto, but the dirty and artsy and creative vivacious part of the city where the tourist will walk around and think, "Yes, this is a city."

In the summer, when it gets hot, too hot to even ride your bike anywhere, you just want to lay down on the concrete floor of your friend's apartment, sipping water because even beer can't get cool enough, wouldn't it be nice if we did something for the birds?

Chicken T-Shirts, Least We Forget

This past weekend, while the boyfriends and husbands and the men of Montreal took to the ponds and outdoor ice rinks with memories of glory and hockey sticks, I thought, "Why not me too?"
Actually, it was my best friend of 12 years who prodded me to get on the ice. With a wrench and a promise of a hot chocolate, she told me to lace up my skates and show those boys a lesson or two.
As Bruce Springsting likes to say, I had my glory days, and with each year that goes by, I looked better and better as an 18-year old girl on the boy's junior Varsity team. Sure, I was smaller and I got the heck beaten out of me. The best part was that I was arrogant. I thought I was good, neigh, I thought I was great. I thought my skating skills would keep me from getting killed (they didn't), and that I would be smooth enough to get a few past the goalies. Turns out you need brute force to keep you on your feet, something that I forget about when I watch NHL games. Those guys out there are strong.
But I laced up. Actually, before I laced up I had to find my skates, which hadn't been used in over 12 years. They were tucked away behind some extra dry wall in the garage, and with my eyes closed I reached into each foot to make sure some mouse or spider didn't make a nest. They didn't. Phew.

Without going into too many details, I am still awesome. For someone who hates to be outside, and who isn't a fan of watching hockey, I love to play the game. I love it when my lungs burn from the cold air, and how well my body+brain know the game. Playing against teenagers and old men, well, it's not rocket science, but at least I got the nod.

Which brings us to the idea of the day. While my skates were cool back in the day, and cost a very cool $120 dollars, they look really lame and not that good today. Today a good pair of skates start at around $200-400, and people will pay, even if they'll only play pond hockey. While I bought the best in my day, the average of today wasn't available.

So let's make a t-shirt that says, "Even the smartest chicken in the world can't read this shirt", with a picture of a rooster or chicken on it. Why? Because times may change, and what will once be good will become average, but that doesn't affect the point that chickens today can't read.

But maybe someday they will.

Harry Potter Bolloywood Style

Two great ideas: wizards and a cast of over a hundred dancing and singing the storyline.

The Harry Potter movies have gotten a little depressing, dark and emotionally turbulent. It would be nice to add in some bright colors, a few solos, and yes, the dancing.

Gorillas in the Mist-The Musical

Gorillas in the Mist-The Musical. The words sound magical together, glittery and sparkly, as if they're already lite up on a sign in front of a theater on Broadway. The moving story of a young woman in her quest to understand the gentle yet murderous Gorillas. Jane Goodall herself is a herself an iconic figure of our history: a woman, a person learning, the concept of field work, the idea of being along in all this, yet the world was able to watch through the pictures in the National Geographic.

And Kayne West should write the music.

The Cheese Egg

There are a few words I have spoken in my youth that I have come back to eat in my old (30 years old) age.
1. Running is dumb, Age 22. At age 25 I completed a marathon.
2. Buying a home is for people who give up on traveling, Age 23. At 29 I started house hunting because paying rent, especially exorberant (SP) amounts in order to live in a 'nice' place, is cutting into my travel funds.
3. Foodies are just old, fat people who are too lazy to leave their home, age 19. At age 26, I realized that no only am I a better cook than most chefs that hack away at a tomato (and call it salsa), but I have ideas on how food should look, too.

Plating is fun, whether it's adding a sprig of fresh basil on the side of the plate or buying a funky bowl to serve soup in. But can't we take it farther?

At a Serbian Christmas party that I recently attended, I was blown away by the amount of food they put out on the tables. There were trays and trays of hard boiled eggs, sliced in quarters, and slices of cheese. Cheese and hard boiled eggs.

"It's a shame that you couldn't combine the two...."

At first I thought of getting a huge block of cheese, and then carving a hole in the middle in order to insert the egg. "And then you cover the egg in some melted cheese, let it harden, and then you can slice it and have hard boiled egg wrapped in cheese."

I wasn't focusing on taste (do hard boiled eggs taste good with cheese? Or is it a hat attack waiting to happen?), but I was focusing on vision. I was seeing the cheese-egg combination on a plate, and then thinking, "if you take white mozza cheese as the egg white, and then sharp orange cheddar to be the yolk, you could make cheese look like a fried egg, sunny side up.

Or you can make a combination of mozza and cheddar cheese look like a hard-boiled egg. Wouldn't that be fun to slice up for your friends?

Now all I need to do is create a prototype of a cheese mold that will make my cheese look like eggs, and a market for cheese that looks like eggs, and I'll be rich...

Empty Box Trumps All Other Gifts

The thing about buying gifts for kids these days, or adults, or your pets, is the reality that there will always be something cooler, trendier, or with aps that you're not buying. You decided that the perfect gift for your grandmother is an electronic reader, because she loves to read so much. You buy the latest kindle online, a pretty smart move because kindles are sold out in stores all across the state of Wisconsin and Minnesota. You're feeling pretty good about yourself and your purchase, but oh, wait, what's that? Your co-worker tells you that he tried both the Ipad and the Kindle, and the Ipad is far superior. You read an article that says Google is coming out with something in February that will make the Kindle look archaic. Suddenly you're wondering if you're grandmother didn't prefer going to the library for the social aspect of the checking out book process.
Now replace the word "grandmother" in that last paragraph with "sister", "niece", "estranged bff", or "scary co-worker who expects a gift", and replace "Kindle" with "hat", "earrings", "car starter", or "box of organic, fair traded and locally made chocolates". While Google may not be entering in the confectionery business any time soon, gift giving is really a leap of faith because what you will buy will never be the best.
Unless...you let the person decide for themselves what the best would be.

This year for Christmas, after much hemming and hawing over what would be a good gift for a six-year-old, we decided to go with...an empty box. It was three feet high by two feet wide and two feet long. For whimsical sake, we did throw in a couple of helium balloons, so that when she opened the box she would be surprised by something jumping out at her (note: we did toy with the idea that grumpy Uncle Mike would jump out of the box, but that would mean making breathing holes, etc, so we left it at helium balloons).

"What is it?" cried out the six-year old after she opened the now-empty box.
"A space ship?" I suggested.
"It looks like a secret fairy house." Her mother loved the idea.
"I think it's a toy box." The father called out.

Pretty soon the six-year old was deciding what the box could be, creative ideas ranging from a a spy box from Russia (no idea where that came from), underwater house for bathtime Barbie, Cave Land, and storage space for all the house pillows.

Empty boxes are pretty entertaining gifts for six-year olds, but would 80 year old grandmothers feel the same way. I handed my grandmother a pretty box. She opened it and saw that it was empty, and then looked at the lid.

"It's peace." I said, pointing to the label at the bottom. She looked at the box again, smiled, and laughed.

"The women at the bridge club will love this! Can I give it away?"

"Of course!" I responded. In my bag of presents I also had an empty box of Harry Potter's used magical spells for my sister, an invisible hug from a unicorn for my estranged bff, and a box with the promise of a better year for the co-worker.