This week The Prude, in the interests of appealing to readers across the educational spectrum, will expand beyond her usual shores of historical fact and fiction, the fine arts and the dictates of grammar.
This week we will move into areas in which she seldom carouses.
Math and Science.
Today we’ll jump into the Spectrum of Mathematical Ratios.
The Prude dwells in one of the American States in an area vaguely designated as the Upper Midwest. It is not so northerly to suggest all Paul Bunyan all the time, nor is it so mid-westernly to bring to mind exclusively cornfields, wheat and the occasional soybean.
There is much to commend this state. Rolling hills. Picturesque farms. Colby Jack cheese. And many bodies of water.
The problem is that there are only 2 months of the year during which one can fully, with no accoutrements or encumbrances, enjoy and participate in the Outdoors.
Let’s begin with October.
Isn’t it pretty?
Many people spend the entire month of October outdoors.
Because they know that November through May often bring this:
We are either anticipating it, living through it, or cleaning up after it in those 7 months.
But we endure. Because after May, when the final threat of snow is over, comes June.
And once again many folks remain outdoors for the 30 days June hath.
With good reason.
Remember those bodies of water that make this Upper Midwest state so appealing?
One of their primary functions is as mosquito hatcheries.
They perform this function admirably, and from July through September The Prude and
her fellow statesmen don their Deet, erect their screen houses, engage in the state dance (The Mosquito Swat, Slap and Sidestep) and cower indoors after dusk like the residents of Transylvania evading notice of Count Dracula. Mosquitoes that don't depart till October.
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| Even these brave, Deet-wearing souls abandoned the outdoors after dusk |
You may be asking- I see the geography in this post. I see the analogies and the foreshadowing. Where is the promised mathematical ratio?
Read on.
2 months out of 12 (2:12) are months of bliss, aka 1/6th of a year.
Leaving 5/6ths (10:12) of battling the elements and the winged creatures.
Is it worth the struggle? Mathematically the odds are against us.
But aesthetically it can’t be beat.
3 comments:
My Calif relatives and friends probably sent you these math facts! They are their #1&2 excuses for not visiting me here in one of the next door neighbors of your great state :D .
Beth- they have 1/6th of the year to come and see you!
Are we crazy???? - Joanie
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