Weather: the drought-reducing type...

Click on the title above for the current 10-day forecast in Rock Hill, and note that the next day we are predicted to have less than a 50% chance of rain is Friday, May 29! We have already been having rain since at least Saturday and it may have started on Friday -- I can't remember now... Our default weather mode these days seems to be rain. NOT that I'm complaining!! It is so green and lush here now! I was going to post a photo of how green it is here, but didn't get one taken yet. Maybe tomorrow or whenever I get online next....

In the meantime, here is some photos of another lush place I have been to lately: Houston's bay area.

Guest blogging by willowlaughter

Hi all! I'm doing a small guest-blogging spot for my mom, lidarose. As I'm not much for writing, I'll be showing two photos from last Christmas in California with lidarose, my husband J, my sister samadhiseeker, my brother, my sister-in-law, my grandmother, and various other sundry relatives. In any case, here are the photos:

Our family tradition of tossing the gift bows/ribbon onto the Christmas tree continues...

On the road to Loma Linda - look! There's snow in Southern California!!!

spending time in the library

It has been pointed out to me that I have been absent from the blog-world for awhile. I'm here, just not getting online much, and when I do I have work to do, and am not taking time to play. Mostly I'm at the library, but sometimes at Earthfare or Panera Bread or some other free WiFi place. Work is still slow -- one or two students every day, sometimes more or fewer, and a couple of child-sitting jobs every week. No temp work yet, but I never give up hope. Work on the garden at Pilgrims Inn in Rock Hill is progressing very slowly.... Visits to Houston and CA (weekend before last) were both very good, and last weekend's Math Club picnic passed wetly (the third thunderstorm of the morning flooded the picnic shelter but it was time for the picnic to be over anyway at that point) but I think all-in-all, a success.

I'll have photos of all the above available online when I remember to connect my camera with the laptop!

spring!!

I just uploaded some photos of spring at the Oratory to my Google photos...


Here's a link!

Let me know if it doesn't work, please!

update

I'm back in Rock Hill (well, Charlotte at the moment) and will not have internet for awhile until I have more work. Just letting my readership know, in case you want to contact me...use snail mail or cellphone; my chances to get online will be sporadic.

More about the trip soon, when I have some time to write.

The journey continues...

We made it to Clarksville, AR tonight, but I'm worn out. Hopefully tonight I can get more sleep than last night.
We had a really interesting day. The highlight of the day was a visit to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I had never been there before, and neither had Carrie. It was a moving experience just to be there and walk around the grounds.

We also made it to Okemah to see the water towers.

Too tired to write more, or even post pictures (hence the links!)

Tomorrow: Tennessee!!

Writing from Amarillo

I'm in a hotel room in Amarillo... so far the trip is going well! I have about 150 photos that I want to post, but that isn't going to happen. But here's one that I liked today:



We saw some petroglyphs, but didn't have time to see many... there are hiking trails that take a long time and I imagine there is much more to see than the little bit we saw. Here's one example, with a couple of petroglyphs (on right and left):


We are already on Central time -- I will lose four hours this week: one extra on account of stupid Daylight Savings Time. But that means I ought to get to bed -- I'm going to turn over a new leaf tomorrow a.m. and get up early enough to leave when I said we would!

Day one of trip...

This will have to be a retroactive post, as I didn't get around to writing any yesterday. We had a great first day, and saw some things that were new to both of us. We decided to take a detour on a section of [the former] Route 66 between Topock and Kingman. We stopped at Needles, CA, before the detour, and I talked with a nice ranger who told us some about it and about Needles, too, for that matter. [Doesn't Needles ring a bell? It's the home of Spike, Snoopy's brother! The ranger said Schulz placed him in Needles because that's where he himself spent at least part of his youth. He said there are two theories about why Spike is often seen with a saguaro cactus, even though there aren't any in Needles: either Schulz traveled to the Whipple Mountains about 60 miles south of Needles and saw some there -- it is one of only three places they occur in CA ones in California! -- or he just used them because that's how people everywhere think of American deserts.]

The view from Needles -- I took this one to remember that I was in Needles and to show how green the desert was as we went through. It's the Mojave Desert and it was very green everywhere we went in it. I was so surprised! (The second photo was nearby, and it shows the green even better. Even the mountains were green!)



Anyhow, the detour was really interesting, and almost too exciting in places -- the road is narrow, and on the high pass over the mountains there are very sharp turns. As the Needles ranger told me, it's a safe road if you obey the posted speed limits! Before the pass, the road goes through Oatman, and old gold mining town. There are burros wandering all over town, lots of them, and people are allowed (even encouraged, it seemed to me) to feed them! The town was crawling with tourists. here are a couple of photos:




This place, in Oatman, had lots of wind chimes. Carie thought the number and size of the visitors' motorcycles was impressive, also!

Breastfeeding in public - Facebook discussion

This article was linked to by a friend on Facebook... it's an interesting analysis of an issue that's been around for awhile.

I can remember back when my children were small, one of the more popular movie theaters in Charlotte asked a nursing mom to leave the theater when she was nursing her baby during a movie there, on grounds that she was offending other patrons. (She was nursing discreetly.) Local nursing moms staged a peaceful protest and convinced the theater to change their policy.

Now the same issue sparks controversy on Facebook... It's a little disheartening that in 25 years or so, we are still fighting this battle, but I have every hope that this younger generation will be able to make progress on this issue.

Missing blog, missing blogging....

Hey, everybody! It's been so long I'm afraid my blog is going to disappear into the ether if I don't write something, quick!

I am in Denver, visiting for a couple days with an old friend from Charlotte. It's been a good visit, though too short.

Denver sure is a beautiful place. There is a large park near here with two lakes in it, so we've had some good walks. Also they have a great independent bookstore here: Tattered Cover. A beautifully laid-out store with congenial employees. Lots of places to sit and read with great views of the mountains.

I miss the olden days of being able to post a photo once in awhile, linking to interesting stuff that I found whiling away an hour or two exploring the web... Can't remember the last time I just websurfed for fun for awhile. It may be some time before I can do that again: I'm headed back home soon, but I won't have web access there (except at the library) until I can afford it again, and that could be awhile.

Hm, good movies I've seen lately, & good books:
Movies:
Martian Child (I do love a good John Cusack movie once in awhile)
Syrian Bride (very intriguing and thought provoking + excellent acting)
I've seen some other movies lately but I can't remember them all. Still working my way through Numbers, Lost, etc.

***I forgot Crazy People, which I watched with Joseph a few nights ago. As he pointed out, I slept through some of it, but I still enjoyed it very much! (the sleeping was not because of anything in the movie -- I was just exhausted!) It is vulgar in places, so be warned -- but it was so funny! A great spoof about the lack of truth in advertising, as well as an affirmation of the worth of people whom our society has deemed worthless due to mental difficulties, etc.***

Books:
The Opposite of Fate, by Amy Tan (memoir/essays, very very good!)
Griffin & Sabine (beautifully drawn)
the first book of Frazz comics :-) :-) :-) :-)
Unbowed, by Wangari Maathai (I'm in the middle of this, but it is wonderful, such a beautiful voice....)
Simplicity, by Richard Rohr (This is the first Richard Rohr book for me, but it won't be the last! It's great. I'm still in the middle of it.)

Oh, well. I'd better go to bed. More posts soon, I hope -- maybe on the upcoming road trip!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Just want to wish all my readers a Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a link to a Thanksgiving column I enjoyed reading.

day-after-election-itis; Yay for cousins!

Just tonight when I logged onto my e-mail, I found the latest installment of James Howell's eReligion & politics series: the morning after. I have been thinking a lot about those who are devastated by McCain/Palin losing out to Obama/Biden, and wishing I could give them some comfort and encouragement. I don't think they would accept it from me (and indeed, none have yet actively sought out my shoulder to cry on, figuratively speaking) but I think this short essay could be quite helpful.

The "Yay for cousins!" refers to my cousin Philip and his wife Silvia and their two young children who visited here from yesterday afternoon until early this afternoon. I hadn't seen Philip since he was a pre-schooler, so it was exciting to reconnect and to meet his family. The children were especially sweet and funny, and it lifted my spirits so much to spend some time with them on a couple of walks today. Meanwhile Mom shared her memories with P & S, through photo albums and stories, and they were so appreciative to learn more about their extended family. All-in-all a wonderful day for everybody!

Anonymous comment; Obama charitable donation issue

I have had to remove an anonymous comment because it contained what I consider to be fabrications about Obama's dealings with Rezko and with Kenyan politician Odinga, as well as more of the kind of unfounded character assassination and hyperbole that was rampant in the video I referred to in my post of October 31. I refuse to allow commenters to use my blog to further their own agendas.

Having said that, I will address one point that "anonymous" raised because it illustrates a common problem with so much of what has been going on with attacks against Obama. The anonymous commenter claims that, according to their tax returns, the Obamas made very small contributions to charity when figured as a percentage of their taxable income from 2000-2006. This is true. The a.c. also claims that John McCain was much more generous over the same period of time. I don't know whether this is true or not, and I don't really care. But I have two comments to make about this issue:

First, comparing the Obamas' charitable contribution figures to John McCain's for the same actual calendar years is comparing apples and oranges. I'm not even sure if there is a way to make justifiable comparisons, but it would seem that comparing McCain's figures for when he was the same number of years in the workforce as Obama, taking into account whether law school and college loans (did he have any?), housing costs, putting money aside for his children's future, supporting extended family and so on cost him the same as what they cost Barack and Michelle Obama over this period of time...is there any way to make a fair comparison? Do you see what I'm getting at here? These are candidates who are in completely different stages of their work lives; family circumstances for both of them have been very different; the benefits McCain receives due to his military service; Cindy McCain's personal financial status vs. Michelle Obama's -- all these things, and more, make McCain's financial picture very different from Obama's. I am not saying this to excuse the Obamas' possible lack of generosity, only to say that making reasonable comparisons of the two candidates' financial situation in any way is not really possible. How individuals, whether public figures or not, approach charitable giving is a complex matter, and usually changes a lot through the course of a person's life. Perhaps this is the reason that so little mention of this w.r.t. the current campaigns is to be found recently in the mainstream media.

Second, I would hope that everyone who has the financial means to do so -- including all the current candidates for public office -- would be willing to "put their money where their mouth is" and give as much financial support as possible to genuinely worthy causes. But whether this has been the case or not with the Obamas does not carry anywhere near enough weight to make me want to vote for McCain and the Republican party.

Much of what McCain and the Republicans stand for -- as well as their methods, their perspective, and what they have done over the past eight years -- is so opposed to what I believe, and much of what Obama and the Democratic party stand for is in line with my belief or at least somewhat close. I don't totally agree with the Democratic platform, of course, but it comes much closer to my own views in most cases. I also believe that while Obama is not perfect by any means, he is basically a decent human being, intelligent and creative, well-educated, capable of providing strong and thoughtful leadership for our country, and sincerely committed to finding and implementing the most reasonable and moral solutions to the huge problems that face our country at this moment in time.

One last thing: I will continue to delete comments which contain personal attacks on any candidate, and I have changed the way comments are handled (at least for the time being) so that I will be reviewing comments before they are posted. Please be patient with me if I am not able to review your comment immediately after it has been presented; I am currently only able to be online once or twice a day. But rest assured that I will attend to comments asap when I am online.

Barack Obama probably doesn't need my endorsement, but...

Far better writers than myself have been putting out millions of words lately in support of Obama's candidacy and in explanation of the issues, but I felt compelled to add my two cents worth after receiving a panicky message last night from an individual I know who shall remain anonymous here. The panicky message, entitled "Watch this about Barak Obama before you vote!" included a link to a YouTube video chock full of misinformation about Obama and misleading footage of the WTC collapses on 9/11 and other violence intended, I assume, to instill tremendous fear into the heart of the viewer and to convince the viewer that Obama was somehow responsible for 9/11. It didn't work on me -- well, at least I wasn't filled with fear... but I was moved to reply with my own views backed up by extensive references, should this individual be interested in knowing the truth of the matter. The subsequent reply I received back indicated that my efforts were futile and the references ignored. So I thought to myself just now, why not turn my reply into a blog post? At least my hard work wouldn't go completely to waste!

I watched the video you sent the link to. I watched the whole thing. It really got me thinking...

I am a supporter of Barack Obama because I believe his platform, especially on social justice issues, is what this country needs at this time. Furthermore, Obama has the intelligence, will, and political capital to get people to work together at all levels to solve the difficult problems facing our country right now and in the near future. You can find out more at these links:

Obama on the issues

A thoughtful, brief analysis of this year's candidates and party platforms

A thorough analysis of Obama's platform in the light of Christian values

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press

I've also compiled a list of sources for impartial, well-researched and documented information in response to the video:

On Obama being Muslim (link here or here), and about Muslim support for Obama and the American Muslim view on the election in general,

On William Ayers and Obama's connection to him, reliable info is here and here),

A general rebuttal of the views of Jerome Corsi, who appears to be the source of much of the video's misinformation.

Since I sent that reply, I have come across a couple more sites that I also like very much:

The Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama

and

"A Citizen's Guide to Voting"

hmmm...seems like there was something else, but I can't remember what. Oh well. It's time to try to get some sleep anyhow. Tomorrow Mom and I are going to drive up to the mountains in search of rain.

(If anyone wants the video URL and/or my longer, snarkier first draft of my reply, drop me an e-mail and I'll send them.)

Thinking people, part 2...

I didn't know there was a third site for the cause! It's http://www.catholicsforobama.org/ and it looks at least as good as the other two. (My source tells me that this one was linked to an article in the NCR.)

Wish I had more energy to write about all this, but I'm beat. Even too tired to watch my Netflix movies, which are gathering a thick layer of dust....

Calling all thinking Catholics...

Today these two links came to my attention, and I want to share them with my readers (on the off chance they haven't already found them...)

Roman Catholics for Obama/Biden

Catholics for Obama/Biden

My hope is that before folks succumb to the rhetoric of McCain and Palin on the abortion issue and on Obama in general, they will consider examining the analysis of the issues on these excellent sites.

Political post

Just wanted to post a link to the L.A. Times' lead editorial this a.m. It is one of the better editorials I have ever read.

Another day trip!

Saturday held another opportunity for Mom to have a break from me for the day! My Aunt Carrie and some of Mom's neighbors and a window washer and his wife kept things exciting here at Braemer* while I drove off into the mountains in search of St. Andrew's Abbey. It's a Benedictine community about 60 miles or so northwest of Redlands, on the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains in the high desert. The views on the drive over the mountains were spectacular.
This photo was taken on CA 2 right before the Grassy Hollow Visitor's Center, facing, I think, about SSE.

I didn't know if I would like being in the desert, but it was beautiful, the air was cool, and it was so very peaceful and quiet. Just what I needed. I arrived at about 11:30 and almost didn't make it past the bookstore/gift shop in the welcome center -- I could easily have stayed there all day, reading and browsing among my friends, the books -- but they close for a couple hours in the middle of the day for Mass and lunch, so I was forced to move on :) (Thank goodness!) It was a wonderful afternoon of rest, peace, and meditation.

On the drive back I took a few photos of the desert, which had these wonderful joshua trees everywhere.

Also, on the approach to I-15 on CA 138, there were these enormous white rocks that I just had to stop and take a few photos of. The photos don't really do them justice, however.

*Braemer is the name of the apartment complex my Mom lives in.

nothing like world travel to broaden the mind...

Here's an interesting suggestion for changing the requirements in the Constitution for the post of Pres. and VP....

current events

The Blessing of the Waves happened at Huntington Beach on Sunday a.m.... I wasn't there but Father Christian was! Father Chris went body-surfing after the ceremony... He also told us that for his part of the prayer service, he used a cleaned-up version of the prayer from this column by Dana Parsons.

I was in HB Sunday for the Sts. Simon and Jude Parish Festival. It was unlike any I have ever been to: they had an actual midway with about a dozen rides!





It was great to be there with Fr. Dan; he was really working the crowd!

Fr. Michael made a big "splash" by allowing the parishioners and other festival-goers to attempt to flush him... [check with me to see a photo of Fr. Michael - I removed it from here after seeing a story on the ever-present, ever-vigilant CNN about people stealing photos from blogs and photo sites for commercial use.]

A sane voice, a breath of fresh air!

This is the most cogent piece I have read yet on how/why a Catholic can, with good conscience, vote for Obama. My mind was already made up already, this just adds fuel to the fire.
I know we're all supposed to be obsessing about how to rescue Wall Street, but once in awhile perhaps it's good to take a break and get back to the business of living. I'm going to go work on the quilt top I'm putting together for Aunt C.'s quilting group...it feels good to be doing something totally unrelated to what my day-to-day is, and something that will benefit someone in need besides!

note: posting times on this blog are EDT -- I'm not up in the wee hours posting, I promise!

Anger, Peace...

Just a quick post to alert my readers to a column that I think is very important, with a message that resonates on several different levels. Let me know what you think.

a week of respite

During this week off from medical appointments and other medically-related time constraints, Mom and I are relaxing a bit and catching up on things that we've gotten behind on in the past month or so of Mom's intense cancer treatments. So, I've been catching up on looking stuff up on the web. This morning I came across this article which gives me a lot of hope, not so much for the immediate future but for the long term. A breath of fresh air amidst the mainstream media glut of campaign "news", dire predictions of financial disaster, people hanging upside-down, and so on....

Farewell, Beijing...

Well, I suspect my readers have been as caught up in the Olympics as I have, more or less. In addition to watching the various events (some of them over and over and over again) and getting my Mom's take on them (like her comment on the water polo: "If they are going to have Water Polo, they ought to have to use horses!"), it's been fun to hear the back stories of the athletes and the Games, and to read about them as well.

I'm going to miss the daily special "Beijing 2008" section in the LA Times devoted to the Games, with its chatty columns and terrific photographs, even though I didn't have time to read most of them...yet. (Almost all of them are in a stack in my room, with the exception of a couple that I donated to the box-packing effort when I forgot and took all the other newspapers out prematurely to the recycling center...)

Anyhow, there were a couple columns today that I thought would be of interest to other Olympics aficionados. There was one with a different take on the medals stats, and another with lots of questions (my readers mostly know how I love questions!)

A day or two ago there was also this one about how the Chinese handled the Games and their population's involvement in them.

Oh, and one more link from this morning's Calendar section, this one to a little known historical aspect of the Games: the artistic medals!
Well, I'm off to reconstruct my pre-Games life... but I'd love to hear my readers' take on the Games. It might help us all through the withdrawal...

New feet!

First pedicure ever!

once a mother, always a mother

It seems to me that the never-ending job of a mother is to help her children to find worthwhile activities, suited to their interests, for them to participate in. Hence my reason for posting the link above! (Be sure to read the "About" part of the page...)

Hey -- after all, it was listed under "Kids & Family" in the newspaper!!

today has been a good day...

...with a lot of help from a cousin and a friend, and I'm sure others' prayers and loving thoughts figured in there heavily, as usual! Thanks all! I feel very much peace this evening.

Click here (or on the title above) for a visual treat! I haven't had time to go to this great website for a few days, so I was glad to have a few minutes just now and find this photo.

just a couple of links for Star Wars fans, waiters, and foodies...

I found these two articles in the L.A. Times today really interesting, and I thought some of my readers might, too.

The first one brings back such memories of Joseph and Hank playing with Hank's Star Wars spaceships (I know I'm not saying that correctly, but cut me some slack, I am really beat...)

The other reminded me of conversations with Hank about waiting tables, and with certain family members and others about food...

Banana Peach Bread

Just wanted to post this link -- I had ripe bananas and some fresh peaches, nectarines, and a few leftover blueberries, and found the recipe linked above. So far it seems to be turning out great! I substituted yogurt for the sour cream and used the fruit listed above instead of using canned peaches. Will add an addendum about how it tastes later...I just pulled it out of the oven and have to leave in a bit for pilates class...

Update: Delicious and moist!

I can't remember what I was going to blog about...

So, I can't recall what were the earthshaking things (oops, not literally!) I was going to blog about...it was one of those falling-asleep moments when everything becomes crystal clear... So I'll just say that it's morning here and it looks deceptively cool and inviting out the front windows of my mom's apartment.

The pictures I take just don't convey what I'm really seeing. So just take my word for it -- bright blue sky, big trees, lots of shady lawn, flowers, quiet, quiet...

Here are some other views of Redlands and the surrounding mountains, in a different season...

The title of this post links to one of the prettiest buildings in Redlands, the Morey Mansion. But there are lots of other really great houses here, too -- I mean, the architecture is unusual and the house are really well preserved. Almost everybody has a garden, and the town is awash in roses, crepe myrtle, and other beautiful and exotic flowers that I don't know the name of. Outside mom's back door there is a lemon tree which is covered in lemons (mostly green at the moment) and several rose bushes, and further on there are some large bushes behind someone else's patio that are sometimes covered in morning glory vines with huge purple blossoms -- they were recently cut back but they still persist, as morning glories will! (I know they look blue, but they are really purple!)


My exciting outing of the weekend, since I managed to miss the dance performance Friday night at the Redlands Bowl (I am very sad about this!), was a little nostalgia trip to what is commonly known as "the Fifth Avenue Pool". I went there as a child with my aunt and her children, among them my cousin Mary. This time it was Mary and her 20-year-old son Luke and his girlfriend and me. I remember the pool, an old reservoir, as being huge, so big you can barely swim across it... well, like many places of my youth, it has shrunk down quite a bit! But the water is still cool, if not cold, and there are lovely old trees to shade the lounge chairs and patio tables. Even a slide, if i could only have worked up the nerve to go down it -- no fear of the sliding part, just embarrassment about being about 45 years older than the other kids using it!) Anyway, I came home refreshed from the good company and a dip in the pool.

My missing paternal grandfather -- found!

Today while my Mom was going through some photos, she came across one that had special significance for me. It was a photo of my paternal grandparents, and though I knew my paternal grandmother, I had never in all my 55 years seen (that I can remember) a photo of my father's father, who died in a car accident in 1926 when my Dad was two years old. For those of you who may be interested, here they are, Bill and Bess Lackie:

My Mom thinks this was probably taken at Bess' parents' house, though Mom never went there herself.
On the back of the photo, it reads:

Pet. if you will send this
picture back to me I will
send you some more
that you can keep
Ever your brother
W Lackie
this is Bess and Bill

(I'm not sure of the "W" -- it could be "H".)

Earthquake!

Yes, we felt it here in Redlands! It lasted from 5-7 seconds or so... It felt to me like some huge piece of furniture or maybe a grand piano was being moved upstairs, causing a lot of rumbling and the building to shake... actually, that's what I thought it was at first, until I realized what a dumb idea that was... We are all fine here. Mom didn't even notice the quake, though her sister, Carrie, did. Of course now it's all over the news.

If you click on the link above, and move your cursor to just below the "R" in San Bernardino, you will see where we are.

long time gone...

This post is just to say a brief hello before I fall into bed... The days are long and the nights very interrupted lately. But I am glad to be with my mom. Her condition at the moment is complicated, but her mobility is improving, that's one good thing. Also, she is not in much pain at all from the hip now.
Mostly I am doing well, just haven't had much sleep in recent days. But I do nap almost every afternoon and hope to get back to swimming & exercising tomorrow!
I miss all of you and hope to be back in more frequent contact at some point. Maybe just posting here will be all I can do for awhile, though.

Going Green!

Check out Sally and Sadie's new book, Going Green! I am excited that this is finally in print, and hope that it will sell very well!!

More photos...this time, my own!

Here are a few photos from my recent trip to Baltimore. Some are from the Longwood Gardens, and some need no explanation :)

Wow!

Hi, all!
Click on title for an amazing photo.
Will try to post again soon!

Constellations

Just sitting here among the random clutter that accumulates in a week or so (that's how long since I dumped the last pile on the dining room table to be sorted out) and wondering if I will ever get back to posting more often... Yes, I will, when this current storm of students abates, which won't be long now: all the schooled kids' exams start in three to four weeks. But in the meanwhile...

I had a conversation with a student about constellations recently, and we talked about the Ancients seeing their gods and heroes in the stars... then this poem came in the daily Poem-a-Day e-mail a few days ago. A happy confluence of events!

I hope all the folks in NC and Indiana will go out and vote today! Keep the momentum going!!

new links

I've added a few new links to the list in my sidebar: xkcd, which I ought to have had a long time ago; Anamorphic Sidewalk Painting, just because i think it's amazing; and a link to Timmy Abell's website, which I discovered the other night when I was looking for Jim Taylor's cd "Come Before Winter" (my favorite cd ever.) Timmy Abell is a fantastic folksinger for children and families, and Jim Taylor...well, you'll just have to listen to his music sometime -- I can't do it, or him, justice in words.

Maybe someday I'll have time to do a "real" post again...sigh....

National Poem in your Pocket Day

Just a quick note to let my readers know about this special day coming up Thursday!
I found out about it from this article in the Charlotte Observer.

I'll probably be carrying Milne, but not sure which poem... How about you?

quick funny! ...for all you advanced students out there...

Click on the title above to read something that will make you smile, I can almost guarantee it!
I'll try to get back to posting more often one of these days, now that my "far" travels are over for a little while.

Happy Pi Day!

No time to write much today, but I direct my readers to the article about Pi linked in the title of this post.

All my theme songs for today involve circles....

A newsy week...

...but most of it is other people's news, so I'll keep mum for the time being and let them share it, or in other cases, just let the story unfold.

So in the meantime, I have a movie recommendation: The Painted Veil. I just watched it, and it is wonderful. The acting (mostly panned by Lawrence Toppman, but I'm not so choosy as he is, I guess), the story, the score, the cinematography -- all so well done, so rich. Those of you who speak French -- you would love this song that is in it near the end, and if/when you do see it, I wish you would tell me what the song is about.... I am very sad that I never learned French. The music reviewer linked above doesn't agree with me about this, but I thought the song very appropriate, and quite beautiful.

Another item of interest -- completely different topic: Kay McSpadden's latest column will resonate with those of you who are regular readers of this blog (well, as regular a reader as you can be when I'm such a sporadic writer!) Actually, it will resonate with anyone who is a regular reader of anything -- books, magazines, cereal boxes, billboards, whatever. Please consider her plea seriously and do what you can to help. My reading this column this evening came on the heels of reading an article I had clipped awhile ago about the alarming number of, and rise in, dropouts from high school and middle school. I believe there is a very close connection between the two issues of early reading experiences and students failing to complete their education. As many of you know, I am a strong supporter of homeschooling, but the reality is that the vast majority of the young people in this country do not have that option. So I believe that it is only right and just that we do whatever we can to improve the schools and enhance opportunities for students who are attending school. There is a lot of bad going on in education today, but there is a lot of good, also. Kay McSpadden is an example of the best of the teachers out there, and I believe she can help us all find ways to participate in improving the futures of schooled students. (She recently published her first book, Notes from a Classroom. I have it and started reading it just the other day...a great read!)

Okay, I know these are really two different blog posts, but I'm too tired to try to figure that out now. I've been battling the flu since Wednesday night and hope to get past it soon.

Update: I realized this morning (3/9) that there really is a connection between my two topics above: there is scene near the end of the movie, not really essential to the plot or anything, that has a bunch of Chinese orphans lining up and receiving a book each, one by one... I don't know why the director put that in there, but it did serve as a reminder to me that I wanted to write about the article by Kay McSpadden.

instability

Help! My Firefox has become unstable -- for the past couple months it has been having this bad habit of locking up on me at random moments. I have tried defragging my hard drive and uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox, but I don't know what else to do. I have looked on their site for a FAQ addressing this but what I found hasn't helped so far, except that they recommend I run the program in Firefox Safe Mode. I'm doing that. So far so good...but is that a fix? Any suggestions???

More for the Foodies :-)

Just noticed this article in yesterday's Observer's previously untouched Food Section. The title of one of the recipes, "Lighter Than Mom's Tuna-Noodle Casserole", caught my eye. I think some of my regular readers have expressed interest in Tuna Noodle Casserole (a la Grandma) on occasion... maybe this will be a healthier version, if not tastier (because of course, there is nothing quite like the original!)
Also, some of you might be interested in another approach to cooking dinner -- the write-up was in Co-op America's newsletter, Real Money.

need calculator

Just a quick note before I drop into the bed, to see if anyone out there has a used TI-83 or 83+ they can part with... One of my students, who is in dire financial straits already, had hers stolen (along with a lot of other stuff, lots of it irreplaceable) from her mom's van on Saturday. She called tonight to ask if I knew of where to get another or if I had an extra I could loan her. So I'm putting the word out there, as I don't have an extra... Any help you can give will be much appreciated. Thanks!

Update: I have had at least one offer already (see comments) but if anyone else sends calculators (or if you are local I can pick them up) I will put them to good use. I always have or know students who are in need. Recently I have begun to do some volunteer GED tutoring and they need calculators, too.

For all you foodies out there...

Click on the title for an article that was in the Ch. Observer yesterday. I don't have time for a post right now -- I'm headed out the door to a long Thursday -- but thought I'd give everybody an opportunity to start the day with a chuckle, the same way I went to sleep last night after reading this article. (Apologies to Rachel Ray, wherever you are...)

collecting

Having seen Everything Is Illuminated* over the weekend, and having had discussions recently with various people about clutter (a perennial problem for me), this morning's StoryCorps segment immediately caught my attention... It is either a springboard for new ideas of things to "collect" or a cautionary tale -- I choose the latter :]

*The protagonist collects things... Everything Is Illuminated is a really good movie, and the soundtrack was especially wonderful. I think it would be even better on the big screen, as the scenery is beautiful as well. For you dog lovers out there: there's a dog in the movie that is absolutely fantastic. She was almost my favorite character, and she's in almost every scene.

Smiley Library

Last night while looking for links that discuss "book addiction" I discovered this humorous piece and through it found the blog Library Dust. My interest has been piqued, and this morning (when I ought to be getting ready to go to work) I started reading back posts from the beginning, and came across this one. It's all about Smiley Library! That's the public library in Redlands, CA, where my aunt and uncle and cousins have lived for the past 40+ years, and now my mother lives there, too. So I've been there lots of times. I even watched, with my dear cuz Mary, some of the filming of a movie there late one night a year or two ago. What a hoot that was! (I wish I knew what movie...)
Reading about Smiley brought back memories of visiting other libraries in small towns I have visited over the years. When my kids and I traveled (in their growing up years) we often visited towns and cities that were new to us. The two places we went to loved to explore in particular were the local grocery store and the library. In addition to Smiley Library, some libraries that stand out in my mind are the ones in Dublin, GA, Haddonfield, NJ, Burlingame, CA, Atlanta Ga (the old Carnegie library with its squishy floors and the Ida Williams branch, now the Buckhead branch) and the first library I ever went to, which was in Minneapolis, Minnesota -- it was a children's library and I loved it very much.
I'd put more links but I've gotta run!
Addendum: I left out two of the best libraries: The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County and the York County Library. Both are fabulous!

Update: Now that I have posted this, the "Library Dust" blog has been taken down. The author has started a new blog, On the Job, but it just isn't the same!

Books, reading, and good news....

The thing about reading slowly that frustrates me is that there are waaay more books that I want to read at any given moment than I have time to read even if I had years to read them all... For example, I have three books on tape out from the library (I listen to these in the car; I'm currently in the middle of two of them) and I am reading at least four books (mostly from the library) and have at least two others out from the library that I want to get into asap -- one is about one of the current presidential candidates and the other is Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston, the author I referred to in yesterday's post. (I couldn't get his latest book at the library so I decided to try this one in the meantime.) Anyway, "book greed" is how I like to think of it, but that's really too charitable a description. There was a period of about 6-8 years when I couldn't get through even the shortest novel (for reasons that are still somewhat unclear to me) but ever since I got back into reading a few years back it's become sort of an obsession. When I was a kid I read all the time (albeit very slowly) and now I feel as though I am getting like that again.

On another topic: I have my first real Rock Hill student next Friday! Finally the next phase of the transition has begun!

p.s. Don't hesitate to click on the link in the title. It cracked me up -- and I think I'll still be chortling about it when I wake up in the a.m., like when Lizzie posted her "That's an airplane?!" comment....

David Cay Johnston on Fresh Air

Just wanted to post the link above for anyone interested. I am not a die-hard Fresh Air fan, but this segment really struck a nerve -- very well done and a real eye opener. David Cay Johnston is the author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill) which sounds (from the interview) like something we all should read. What got my attention was they were talking about Cabela's, a huge store out in the middle of Nebraska... I've seen lots of signs for it when travelling in that area. For more, go listen to the interview.

I'll try to post again soon. I'm still writing Christmas cards and "treading water" in other respects.

Corollary to the "When Mama ain't happy" saying...

I just want to say, when Mama's kids are happy, Mama's happy! So I'm happy today! (See here and here to see why.) The third kid and the two spouses haven't weighed in online, but I'm reasonably sure they are happy, too. (Though I think one of them has a sore throat? I hope her hubby is taking good care of her...)
I'm also happy because we had .88" of rain in the past 24 hours. ("A lot" for us these days is anything more than a quarter of an inch!)

Long time no here...

I know it's been a long while since I posted... I've been busy with this and that...
One thing is, I brought 90 books into the house at one time (that's a record for me) and now I am trying to sell most of them... (Hopefully I'll get to post about that tomorrow or Saturday!)

Also I was away for awhile. And had some company, too. All good :-)

Anyhow, I am enjoying listening to The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon on tape as I ride back and forth to the emerald city almost daily... Also have discovered a new (to me) e-mail list to be on -- as if I had time to read another thing -- but it's by a favorite writer, James C. Howell, who is a Methodist minister at Myers Park Methodist Church in Charlotte. He is the author of Servants, Misfits and Martyrs: Saints and Their Stories, among other titles, and he has written a number of columns for the Charlotte Observer.

flying high

I know I shouldn't be awake at 5:30 after going to bed so late, but I woke up with a belly laugh, just like I went to sleep: one of the last things I did last night was look at Facebook, and there was a comment on this photo from Lizzie. The comment was, "That's an AIRPLANE?" It brought on one of those laughs that comes up from way down inside, a really satisfying outburst. I slept like a baby, until I woke up at 5:11 with everything coming together in my mind. The photo...the conversation with willowlaughter I had earlier in the day about the poor quality of airplane air ("as bad as a very smoggy day in L.A." -- learned from NPR's Science Friday)... the fact that I had just made my forty-hundredth airline reservation this year (yes, "forty-hundredth" is a number, I'm a mathematician and I know!)... and a blog post was born.
First of all, I didn't even notice the odd way the plane was decorated. That's partly due to the fact that I have very little decorating sense, but also because everybody expected airplanes to look like that back in the day. Flying on an airplane used to be FUN! Here were some of the attractions for me -- and some of them still exist: anybody could come see you off at the gate (sometimes it was a real party!), and once you got on there were no phones to answer (this could soon change), comfy seats with lots of pillows and real blankets, plenty of free food and drink (I remember at least once eating a steak meal - in coach! With a real knife to cut with. No, I wasn't always a vegetarian...), no TV and of course no movies (there wasn't even a way to do that at home), no potential terrorist threat (although the occasional plane was hijacked, you didn't have to worry unless you were flying near Cuba), a lovely assortment of magazines for your reading pleasure (no SkyMall or airline mags back then), steaming washcloths 2/3 of the way through the flight to freshen up a bit (that's what Joseph is doing in this other photo), free playing cards and wings for the kiddies (and probably other stuff, too -- they were all into entertaining children) and when you got off the plane, your friends and/or family were there to meet you at the gate! Ah, those were the days! We didn't have problems with people raging at the flight attendants. Of course, the downside was people were allowed to smoke on the airplane, if they sat in "the back" (meaning the last half of the plane!) I guess why I like flying (or did, until I OD'd on it with at least 14 flight-segments this past year - a personal "best") is I am still living in those days, back in my mind. Pure escapism, like going to the movies -- only better, because you get to create your own plot, with the backdrop being the scenery out the window and the lovely, colorful decor. I loved it. And here I go again!

Expanding my vocabulary

I've never seen a myrmidon
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one!

p.s. This exercise (but not the word!) reminds me of my father, whose birthday it is today. He would pick a vocabulary word (out of a 1000-word box we kept handy) and post it at work. He "required" his apprentices (? interns? I hesitate to call them myrmidons...) to use the word appropriately in a sentence sometime during the day. He also liked it when we did that... and it became our habit to ask him what the "word of the day" was and talk about it a bit, at dinner? breakfast? (My memory is so fuzzy -- maybe one of my brothers can help me out here... I wish we could recreate some of these long ago moments...) Anyway, Dad loved words (as does my mom) and it appears this love of words is shared by his grandson -- and Dad would have relished this new exercise instituted by Z!

The non-violent way of life: an example

I just read this excellent essay by John Dear, and couldn't restrain myself from sharing it with my readers. I have not been to the Abbey of Gethsemani before, but I have been to the Trappist abbeys at Moncks Corner, SC, and in Conyers, GA: Mepkin Abbey and the Monastery of the Holy Spirit respectively. I can attest to the strong spirit of peace in these places. Reading John Dear's article makes me want to go to Mepkin for another visit. Alas, my path does not head in that direction anytime in the near future... but in the meantime there is The Oratory, a sanctuary within the bustle of college and town life, with peace-filled prayer opportunities and a community dedicated in all sorts of ways to social justice and non-violence issues.

Speaking of Faith

Thanks to the time change, I just heard an interesting discussion* of what is behind the current events in Burma. One thing that struck me was when the guest was talking of "lovingkindness", which is also the subject of a book I'm currently reading, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice, by Rami Shapiro. Lovingkindness is a practice that I first read about in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's books, and it is sorely needed in our world today, especially in our culture.
Other interesting aspects of the discussion: how Buddhist spirituality affects the way the people of Myanmar respond to oppression, the reasons behind the monks' marches, and the whole concept of power in different cultures.
Well, that's what's on my mind today. Now I'm off to do my laundry.
*At this link you will find the program online as well as downloads for MP3 and iPod.

Too mushy... and too cute!

c. 9/15/2007

Dead Man Walking

Just a quick post about tonight... Sr. Helen Prejean, the author of the book Dead Man Walking, has come to Winthrop University in Rock Hill. She was at Mass tonight and gave the homily, then after Mass a lot of us went to a reception for her followed by a preview of the play, Dead Man Walking. That's a story in itself, because the play was supposed to be held in the black box theater in Johnson Hall, but there was a fire there Friday so they had to move to a lecture hall in Rutledge. (Maybe Em can enlighten us on how difficult this may have been.) I talked with the set designer and the stage manager afterwards and they told us that the play is technologically heavy (did I say that right?) and not having their sound system at all really hurt tonight. The performance was still great, imho... The actors did a terrific job! And the stage manager was really on her toes :-)
After the play I overheard Sr Helen talking with the cast. She told them that acting was a very important vocation, that through their participation in drama they were open to new ways of looking at things, and they opened up their hearts to new ways of feeling. She was so affirming of these young actors, it was really terrific to be there and witness this. It was also touching to see her greet the actress who played the lead (i.e., Sr. Helen)with a big hug... she was just such a loving affirming person.
I get to go hear Sr. Helen speak tomorrow night at Winthrop -- a couple of my students jumped ship because of a CMS break. Yay! (She is also speaking Tuesday night at Davidson College -- fyi, in case anyone in the area is reading this...) This is all very challenging, but I feel like I need to understand this issue better. And it really isn't just one issue...

Heads up, book lovers!

Anybody who knows me more than just a little knows I'm pretty much of a book nut... I frequent independent booksellers and used bookstores and library book sales when the opportunity arises. One of my goals in life is to have a lot of time to read...but I'm not there yet! Anyhow, I thought some of my fellow book lovers would be interested in knowing that Better World Books (BWB) now has an online store, BetterWorld.com, where you can buy books with free (in U.S.) environmentally-friendly shipping. (Shipping overseas is very cheap: $2.97) The website is pretty easy to use, and a portion of the profit supports non-profit organizations working to promote literacy. (I'm curious to find out what that portion is -- I've sent them an e-mail and should hear back in a couple of days.)

I became familiar with BWB last spring through my interest in Room to Read and just got around to sending them the first of (hopefully) several boxes of books in support of Room to Read. (see my March 22 '07 post for more info...)

More about Fr. Louis Vitale and Fr. Steve Kelly

Here's an update on my previous post. Too tired to write more now...

Distractions: Doctor Who, Foyle, sunrises, Kant, etc.

Just found this website (thanks to jonathan) and thought this particular article might be of interest to some of those who read my blog. I keep hearing about the new Doctor Who and wish I could see it sometime. Maybe that's something I should put on my Netflix list? Meanwhile I have started watching Foyle's War on another friend's recommendation and will probably continue to get the videos of these for awhile. They are very good plus this is a period of history and location in which I am very interested.

Also an interesting article I found in the Christian Science Monitor...

Okay now I've got to stop avoiding paying the bills!

(p.s. - click the title above for the sunrises article...

Franciscan news

A link to an article about Fr. Louis Vitale's peace-making efforts... I hope and pray he doesn't have to go to prison for this!! I become more disgusted every day with the people who are in power in this country...

CROP Walk

I'm planning to walk in the CROP Walk in Rock Hill on October 21 (next Sunday!) This will be the first time I have participated as a walker after years of being a sponsor, so I'm pretty excited about it. I sent out an e-mail just now to a bunch of folks, but I may very well have missed somebody who reads this blog... so just in case, I thought I'd post about it also. Here's what I said in the e-mail (in addition to what I said above):

Here's a link to information about the CROP Walk, which is a fundraiser for Church World Service. Also, 1/4 of the funds raised in the Rock Hill CROP Walk stay in Rock Hill to support local efforts to relieve hunger and poverty. One of these local efforts is Pilgrim's Inn, which I have been lending some practical support to since before my move last summer.

I ask several things of you:

First: your prayers for the success of this endeavor, as it is a very worthwhile project that has positive effects on the lives of so many of the poorest people in our nation and world.

Second: any financial support you can offer. I'm trying to work out a way for my sponsors to make online donations but until I get that worked out the thing to do is send me a check made out to CWS/CROP. Any amount you can send will be a help.
(If you want to make an online donation let me know and I'll e-mail you when that is set up. Also, let me know by posting here or by e-mail if you need my address.)

Third: see if there is a CROP WALK coming up in your area that you can support, either by walking or by sponsoring.

Thanks for any help you can give to this effort!

two interesting books...

Just a couple I found this week that look very interesting -- I've checked them out from the library so can hopefully report on them soon...
The Flexitarian Table/Peter Berley and The not so big life : making room for what really matters / Sarah Susanka.

More later...

more about the Free Cycle adventure

So, I'm still tired (or tired again, is more like it) but I wanted to elaborate on why I posted the "Free-cycle" post. When the person I bought this condo from moved in June, she left me a cupboard on the screen porch (which I was happy about) full of paint and gardening stuff and junk (which I was not happy about!) I finally got around to cleaning it out this past weekend -- it's been too hot out there when I have thought about doing it before -- and I found it was even more full of old paint and other junk than I remembered. So, I figured I would have to cart the paint over to the recycling center in Fort Mill. But when I was taking a break in the afternoon I was poking around on the web, and something I saw there reminded me of Freecycle, a site I had heard about in the past, where some people give away things they no longer need, and other people ask for things they need in case anyone has that to give away. So I joined the Rock Hill and the Charlotte Freecycle groups, and posted an ad offering the paint, etc., on the Rock Hill site. I didn't know what to expect, so I didn't get my hopes up, but I received five responses before the day was out, and have now given away most of the paint and all the extra painting paraphernalia and the excess flower pots that were in the cupboard! And the rest is promised. Now I am trying to think of other stuff to give away... Maybe somebody will want some of my surplus math books :-)

Free-Cycle

Check out the link above. I'll explain later, but now it's time to call it a day and turn off the computer!

Yom Kippur

A poem in the prayer-book I was using at Temple Beth El during Kol Nidre last evening:

Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
and youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
and ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to desecration
and then perhaps to wisdom.
From weakness to strength or
from strength to weakness
and often back again;
From health to sickness
and we pray to health again.
From offense to forgiveness
from loneliness to love
from joy to gratitude
from pain to compassion
from grief to understanding
from fear to faith.
From defeat to defeat to defeat
until looking backwards or ahead
We see that victory lies not
at some high point along the way
but in having made the journey
step by step
a sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
and death a destination
And life is a journey;
A sacred journey to life everlasting

By: Rabbi Alvin I. Fine

very bumpy re-entry...

Tutors, too, have been known to sleep on the job. This is particularly a problem after returning from a trip to a place three time zones away...

Will Friday never get here???

Sphere

First Math Club meeting for this school year went well yesterday, for the most part. My porch has new screens now. The office is emptier (the porch furniture is back where it belongs at last!) and I'm getting through some backlog of paperwork. Progress -- something to be happy about!
Oh, and about the title of this post: there is a lot more information here.

Rock Hill makes the funnies!

Thanks to Marsha for giving me a "heads-up" about this comic. I'm a little behind on my newspaper-reading due to crazy/full schedule, prep for upcoming Math Club meeting, and other responsibilities...

Tomorrow I get to stay home all day (I think) and I hope to clean up this place and do some hard thinking about and arranging for next week, when The Schedule will be thrown into chaos by my mom's birthday celebration. And maybe there will be time for a nap in there somewhere... and the screen-fixing guy will be coming to replace the torn screens on my screen porch, which is almost useable now that the weather has cooled down to the low 90's! :)

Can't think what else to write at the moment...it's past my bedtime!

A not very productive day...

It must be past my bedtime... I just got through typing an e-mail that I had to get out, and my cursor disappeared while I was writing it and refused to come back. Annoying! Anybody know why that happens?

Two more lightbulbs went out this weekend. It's been an epidemic of lightbulb demise around here lately. That make four in the past week. I'm going to replace everything with compact flourescent as they go....

Cooling off!

Mmmm...it's down to a nice, cool 86 degrees F (feels like 87) here in Rock Hill this evening. If I get up real early tomorrow, it will be down to 69 overnight. Now that's walking weather!

There was another story about Trader Joe's in today's paper. Here's the link, for you TJ shoppers out there...

I finally saw Ratatouille today. It was good, though I think I need to see it again to catch everything. Some of those scenes are jam-packed with interesting stuff. While at the theater I noticed that the Susan Cooper book The Dark Is Rising has been made into a movie. I remember enjoying those books years ago -- I think my kids and I read some of them out loud to each other...?

Oh, oops -- I forgot the other thing I did today (well I did lots of things, but this was a standout): I finished the 7th Harry Potter book this morning. It is the best of the series, I think. Really, really good; a satisfying read.

Random thoughts and links...

***Sylvia : may I please have one of these Cokes next time I take a red-eye???? :-)

***interesting segment on Charlotte Talks this morning about herbs and spices:
Friday August 17, 2007 -- Herbs and Wild Edible Plants
It's our monthly food show with Chef Peter Reinhart and others. We'll discuss wild plants of our region that can be used in raw and cooked meals. We'll also talk about the importance of herbs and spices in cooking.
Guests: Peter Reinhart - Chef-In-Residence, Johnson and Wales University
"Wildman" Steve Brill - Naturalist, Environmental Educator, Author and
Broadcaster [He was very interesting, and funny, too]
Deborah Moore Cook - Master Gardener, Herbalist and college instructor
[She had a great tip about how to save basil if you grow a lot of it: make a slurry in your blender with basil leaves and olive oil, then freeze it flattened out in a ziploc bag, and break off pieces when you need basil in a recipe.]
Find links to past Charlotte Talks episodes here.

***Mission Organization: a TV show that Susie D., who called me this evening, put me onto. I'm checking out the website, since I don't get HGTV, but those of you who can get this channel might enjoy the actual show...

***For all you jazz fans out there, this is a great segment of Talk of the Nation that was on yesterday. It isn't just talk, it's delicious music, so enjoy!

***last, but not least, two new stores opened in Charlotte this week: Earthfare, which already had a store in Ballantyne (south of Pineville) opened up a second store Wednesday very near Southpark Mall, and Trader Joe's opened up a store today off Rea Rd. between the Pink Monstrosity and Stonecrest/I-485. (I think Trader Joe's has another store near UNCC but I don't know if it's open yet or not.) Here's an enlightening story about Trader Joe's from Wednesday's Charlotte Observer. (and another...and some recipes -- this story's a little goofed up--look for the recipe titles at the end of the previous recipe...)

video game music in the news

For those of you who like music and/or video games (I think there is a lot of overlap in my readership on these two interests!) there was a segment on Weekend Edition this morning about the Video Games Live concert tour. It includes a full orchestra and choir combined with synchronized lighting, video, live action and audience interactivity. A quote from the NPR story about Video Games Live:
“If Beethoven were alive today, he would be a video-game composer. ... He was always ahead of the curve. His whole thing in music was to control the emotions of the person listening to it.” -- Video Games Live organizer Tommy Tallarico
I think this tour has been going on for awhile, so maybe you-all already know about it, but I thought it sounded very interesting!

btw, speaking of Beethoven, there was a Beethoven Extravaganza yesterday in New York that I am sorry I missed. Hearing the story made me want to head over to the library (oops, closed on Sunday) to check out a pile of Beethoven cd's....

humor and [unrelated] science news...

Talk of the Nation-Science Friday is one of my favorite radio programs, and today they have had several good segments. Here's one that caught my attention in particular today -- it was about the placebo effect. Really interesting research. btw, another story earlier in the program was about voting machines, a topic of interest to some of you.

Also, I have been wanting for some time to post a link to Jeff Elder's "Glad You Asked" column in the Charlotte Observer. Yesterday's column (8/2/07) really struck my funnybone, but there have been a couple of other recent ones that I think the music aficionados in my readership might enjoy. (These are "Straight up: Can You Name That Tune?" and "Oh Girl, You're Killing Me Softly.") One other recent funny column for the music buffs is here...

(I revised this later to include some missing links...)

styrofoam

I had choices: either I was going to have to do something like what is pictured in the link above, or I was going to have to get rid of the massive amounts of styrofoam that were piling up in an ecologically sound way: reduce (been doing that) re-use, or recycle. I had found a place to recycle the stuff in Cherryville, which is almost an hours' drive from here, so I was waiting until I had a big load. But then I figured if I was going to Cherryville, I might as well go the rest of the way to Asheville, so made arrangements to visit with Cindy and Marti, and planned to attend a family reunion/party in W. Asheville the next day. To make a long story short, during a conversation with Cindy just prior to my leaving home, I mentioned that I would be dropping off the styrofoam to be recycled, and she got all excited because she has been needing some styrofoam for a project she is working on. So I ended up with the "re-use" option instead of the "recycle" option. (Thanks, Cindy!) And none of it ended up in the landfill. Hopefully the next place it goes people will find ways to re-use it as well.

I had a good time in Asheville, and came back not quite so discouraged by the boxes that are still ubiquitous...

"Ivy Alert!"

I'm thinking about maybe planting some ivy (see above link) right inside my new abode, to cover up the boxes, which are everywhere. It would be a whole lot prettier...probably wouldn't get enough sunlight, though.

Lots has happened in the past month; the fun part is documented here and here and also here... I'm going to try to post some photos soon, too. I finally got mine back yesterday.

I don't have photos of my move (who would want to look at photos of sweaty 50-somethings toting a lifetime of stuff around, anyway?) but rest assured the move did happen, and I am daily dealing with the aftermath. I'm trying to spread the "joy" around as much as possible by loading up my car with stuff to recycle and dumping it various places, though I did the first part of that today but didn't get to the dumping part because I was working too much with students today and ran out of time. Maybe -- hopefully! -- tomorrow.

Oh, by the way, the title of this post was because I thought of our "kudzu alerts" of years ago when I saw the ivy photo. And then thinking of kudzu reminded me, with sadness, of the untimely death a couple days ago of Doug Marlette, who was a wonderful political cartoonist and worked for the Charlotte Observer for many years as well. He also had a comic strip named "Kudzu".