Pythagorean's Theroem and How It's Ruining My Life

Leah and Lorynne - Laughing at my ignorance, no doubt

We are getting a dog. This is such a monumental shock to me that just seeing it typed there on this page makes me want to give it its own paragraph.



It's all because of Pythagorean's Theorem. I was reading something on the internet and that pesky old Geometrical Nightmare popped onto the screen. I immediately broke out in a cold sweat, feeling the ghostly presence of Sister Angelino, my high school Geometry teacher, looking over my shoulder, tapping her ruler on her left palm and impatiently waiting for my answer to her question. “Mary Catherine, how do you find the sum of the side opposite the 60 degree angle?” Quiet Desperation. Silent cursing. Move on Sister Angelino. Move on to the next poor soul. I didn't know it then and I sure as heck don't know it now.

OK Google said it backwards. Very clever Google

At that moment, I happened to have three intelligent teenage girls in the room and I offered the question to them. “What is Pythagorean's Theorem?” If anyone knows, I figured, it would be a teenager. They are right in the thick of genuine academia...mingling with geometric and algebraic equations on a daily basis. They ignored me like a blind P.E. teacher asking them to take another lap. Then Leah (13) looked up. Leah is a Mathlete. Leah is Gifted and Talented. Truth be told, ALL my grandchildren are Gifted and Talented in diverse areas. Lorynne and Kate are smart as whips, and sing and play the piano like angels. Georgia also plays piano, and reads books well beyond her 8 years of age. All 4 boys are Lego Engineering Geniuses and can re-enact every light sabre fight in every Star Wars movie and every sword fight in every Pirates of the Caribbean movie combined. No small feat in itself.  Leah the mathlete finally put down her ipod and looked at me with tolerant affection... like I was a feeble granny asking if Spongebob lives in a treehouse in the desert. “Gram” she said, assuming the answer to my question was Common Knowledge, “Pythagorean's Theorem is A-squared + B-squared = C-squared.” Then she went back to her ipod and her youtube and her gum-popping, giggling cousins.
  
I was impressed, yet chagrined. Unh uh, no way, I quickly said to myself. That's a 5 cent answer to a $10 question. It can't be that easy and how would a pipsqueak 8^th grader know that? I didn't almost-but-never-really-learn Pythagorean's Theorem till sophomore year in High School. (Go away Sister Angelino). Well I'm no math whiz but I do know how to google. Sure enough. Leah was right. That's Pythagorean's Theorem in a nut shell. I read the whole page despite the intimidating charts and graphs and flowery math-language those brainiacs at Google like to impress us with.

Grampy and Suzy on Alice's Couch

And that's when it hit me. I'm getting a dog. “A-squared” = Grampy, adopting his friend Alice's dog. Alice is going into a nursing home and said he could have Suzy. Grampy loves Suzy more than he loves Chuck Norris but hold up there... “B-squared” = Grampy going into the hospital soon to have surgery. Gasp! He's 87 years old and despite what the capitalistic, medicare-gouging doctors say, will he ever “bounce back” from major surgery at his age? I was born at night but I wasn't born last night. He ain't never bouncing anywhere again. He'll be moving in with us. For good. That takes us to “C squared “= Grampy with nothing else to live for but Suzy and then there's me, unable to begrudge Grampy this dog he loves so much. To summarize: I'm getting a dog. A squared + B squared = C squared.

Math is non-negotiable. Resistance to the Nerd gods
of Geometry is futile. I need to stock up on dog toys.
Curse you Pythagorean.

Weather or Not

Grampy has three reasons left to live. #1 is to complain about the weather ,#2 is to collect coupons and #3 is to harass the dog that lives next door.

Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert.
These are NOT the trees I'm talking
about, though.

Grampy lives within spittin' distance of us but I call him a couple times a week to see how he is, and right off the bat I get the weather report. “It's blowing like holy hannah over here.” he'll say (whenever there's a hint of a breeze) “I've never lived in a town that had such god-awful wind storms”. For the record, Grampy lived in the Mojave desert for a good part of his honery life and if you've ever been to that fair region, you'll remember noticing that all the trees grow sideways—being constantly battered by the strong south winds that are a permanent part of the climate there. Here in this town (which sits in a valley, just over the mountains from that desert), an occasional wind storm means that much-needed rain is on the way and we look forward to it greedily. We have a fairly temperate climate here. It doesn't freeze in the winter (I can't remember the last time I wore my winter coat), and the summers are hot but relatively dry. Pretty nice if you ask me...but don't ask Grampy.

Grampy's Thermomoter. It's never wrong.

NO weather is good weather in his book. His rain gauge isn't half full or half empty, it's rusty and broken and he's thrown it in the trash. Every weatherman is a crook and they all have one thing in common—they are all liars. They predict sun and a few clouds might pass in the sky. They tell us it will rain and we'll go the whole day with nary a drop of precipitation till nightfall. They'll give us a high temp of 87 and Grampy will check the beat-up Pepsi thermometer nailed to the outside of his single-wide every hour in hopes of proving them wrong. God forbid we ever see any of our local weather-casters at Walgreens or Foods Co. some day. Grampy won't hesitate to give them a piece of his mind. So I am always prepared when I talk to or see Grampy, for predictions of doom and gloom.

My flowering plum trees this spring.

One beautiful spring day Grampy came over for dinner. The windows were open, the birds were chirping, the hummingbirds were humming, the BBQ was sizzling...it was the quintessential perfect day. He walked in the door and I was eager to hear the daily weather report from him. There was absolutely nothing negative he could say so I beat him to the punch - “Hi Dad! Just look how gorgeous the weather is today!” as I gestured to the open french doors to the back yard. Then I paused. At last, I thought to myself, I will hear his praise for mother nature. “Yeah” he said as he looked out the screen door at two butterflies frolicking in the flowers in my garden. “But it will probably be hotter than hell tomorrow.”

Deep sigh. He had me there.