February 2, 2012   From Memory Lane            All men wore hats, usually gray felt fedoras.  Grampa, walking along the street and meeting a lady acquaintance,  would put his hand on the crown of his hat, with his index finger in the indentation on top, lift it partly off his head and say politely  “How do.”  And of course when on the sidewalk with a woman, the gentleman always walked on the street side -- to protect the little lady from crazy, uncontrolled drivers or from mud splashers, or so she wouldn’t accidentally fall off the curb or WHATEVER!   January 27, 2012 Popping the Question   Here’s the question.  Can a third wife be a first lady? Oh...let me.  Let me... NO January 20, 2012 EVEN SLOWER Cartoon from the New Yorker.  A Romney campaign sign in a yard.  ROMNEY, and in little letters above the name; “Oh, alright. Fine.” January 13, 2012 SLOW NEWS WEEK      Big news of the day...the raccoon ate a sparrow and left behind a pitiful pile of feathers. January 6, 2012 COUCH POTATO...YES! While my contemporaries are frantically doing power walks to walk off those unwanted pounds or sweating away old age in daily yoga class or pumping their way toward youth on the stationary bike, I am restructuring my life so it is centered on my couch.  I can read my e mail (Ipad), watch a DVD (laptop), receive and make phone calls (Blackberry), play Scrabble (Ipad), and of course the old favorites, read a book and/or bird watch. New Year’s Resolution; find a way to bake a cake from my couch. December 30, 2011 TWTW...NOT      This was the week that wasn’t.  The Channel 12 news anchor has been replaced by the traffic guy, the jolly weatherman by a strange woman who looks like she should be in high school.  My favorite sitcoms are doing the reruns...a Halloween show?  The political news is dominated by the Iowa caucus which really doesn’t have much importance and the tsunami of catalogues in the mail has dwindled down to a trickle.      It’s been so warm the grass is threatening to grow and all the new Christmas hats and gloves are still under the tree.  The good news; the electric bill is down and the snow shovel is gathering dust.  Yeah! Happy New Year! December 23, 2011 A Christmas Morsel A quote from John Stewart; Mail...texting with a pencil. Merry Christmas! December 16, 2011 Whatevermas      With apologies to Evangelical Christians, I’m afraid that Christ has already been taken out of Christmas and replaced with reality; Cookiemas Musicmas Santamas Treemas Lightmas Friendmas Onceayearrelativesmas Shopmas Annualvisittochurchmas December 9, 2011 Astounded        I can’t get over Newt Gingrich wanting to put poor kids to work, in their OWN SCHOOLS!  Just to show them what working really is, since their welfare parents don’t work. How awful is that? Replace those expensive unionized janitors with kids who will work for a pittance. Make Newt president and he’ll get rid of those outdated child labor laws.    Poor kids won’t mind cleaning up after their rich classmates who know all about working.  They do?  The rich work? And then Donald Trump, standing beside him, offering to take ten poor kids and make them apprenti.  What?  The plural of apprentice is apprentices.  It’s not apprentus, like alumnus, and therefore plural apprenti, like alumni.  Man!  Where’s his spell checker? December 2, 2011 Obama for President...Oh, he IS President        When I was growing up, no one attacked the president. That would be treason.  Maybe there was some dissention and criticism, but not out and out lies, distortion and vows from the opposite party to wreck his legislative dreams.      Yet here we have, still a year away from the presidential election, political ads on TV that show President Obama in an unflattering light and taking words out of context.  He didn’t say”the American people are lazy.”  He said “the government and corporate community had been somewhat lazy over recent decades about attracting foreign investment.”       And don’t forget who’s paying for this stuff. Rick Perry, for one, and Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and other self serving millionaires.                  If you want to get rid of Obama, attack with your vote. But also don’t forget the millions of Americans who are better off with the Health Care law, his even handed, peaceful foreign policy, his bringing home our troops from a dumb war,  his pardoning of the turkeys and those cute daughters. November 18, 2011 Coincidentally...        Last week I watched David Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks.  It had been a while and I had forgotten how crazy they can be; a kid juggles apples and eats them at the same time, another guy blows a glowing dart from his nose and pops a balloon and a third plays “Stars and Stripes Forever” on a bicycle pump. HILARIOUS!  But wait!  They were on the same show as Governor Foot-in-the-mouth Rick Perry! Talk about....... November 11, 2011 ER        This week’s election results have restored my faith in the American people, a faith that was sorely tried by the rise of the Tea Party, the birthers, the “life begins at conception and therefore contraception is murder” people and the illegal immigrant right wingers.  So reason prevailed and let’s hope it continues right through 2012.   November 4, 2011 Boo        I’ve never been a fan of county fair rides that terrify.  Life is frightening enough as it is; lightening, thunder, burglars, being run over by a train or truck, hideous mistakes, disfiguring birth defects.  PULEEZE!  We don’t need a holiday whereby we’re all horribly scared out of our wits. Put away the ghouls, ghosts, vampires, weirwolves, bloody teeth and scary masks.  Let’s just move right on to Thanksgiving with its quiet, thankful, good thoughts and food. Thanks. October 28, 2011 Has It Come To This?        As reported by a downtown Cincinnati Occupier who was actually there; in the ladies room, a twenty-something is fixing her hair, doing the makeup, the whole nine yards.  “I want to look good for my mug shot” she explains. October 21, 2011   One More Evidence of a Changing World   News flash!  At the World Champion Scrabble match, one player was demanding that his opponent be strip searched for a missing “G”.  I had no idea that there even WAS a world competition, but I can fully sympathize with the fervor of the contestants.  I am currently playing in seven games simultaneously, mostly with people in Massachusetts, and enjoying it immensely.      What I had forgotten, however, was that real Scrabble players sit in front of a board and handle little boxy tiles.  I’ve been playing on a keyboard and monitor for so long, I had to “beep beep beep“ back up in my vision of Scrabble world. My original board game went out in the yard sale along with the answering machine, the rotary phone and the Brownie box camera. Tempus fugit! October 14, 2011 I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN        The death of Steve Jobs and the praise for his vision and Apple products brings into focus the impact that WiFi, computers, cell phones and Ipad has had on my life.      Full length books arrive from the library at a touch on my Ipad. Help! Another touch and I’m on the internet. Email...55 in your box. Read them!  Ding dong. Five games of Scrabble await your response! Play them!  Beep. Voice mail.  Listen to it. Text message. Answer it. Fuggedaboudit. I'm going out to rake leaves. October 7, 2011 Indian Summer.  Keep it.        Before I started wallowing in a big mea culpa, spurred on by my guilt at being an insensitive white person, calling this beautiful fall weather “Indian Summer”, I googled it and as usual found more than I want to know.  Let’s just say there are Indian wars, a lot of metereological talk and people have been saying “Indian Summer” for 200 years, casting no aspersions on Native Americans.  Growing up in New England many years ago, however, we always called it “Indian Summer” because it would be short lived and Mother Nature would be taking it back, like the gift from the “Indian Giver”. WHAT WERE WE THINKING?  Squanto didn’t demand his gift of corn back from the Pilgrims that first winter when they all would have died but for his generosity. So we can keep “Indian Summer” but forget “Indian Giver.”  Some political correctness is a good thing. September 30, 2011   WHAT’S APP, DOC?        I remember when my wallet was full of pictures in little plastic sleeves and part of the social scene was sharing these with friends.      Enter the 21st century.  Now we share Ipads and smart phones and ooh and aah over the latest app. Do you have “Words with Friends?” “Angry Birds?” And I just got the latest ABC app, whereby I can watch a full episode of Modern Family or any other ABC network show I happened to have missed. Anytime. Anywhere.  Good bye TIVO!  Hello app.       September 23, 2011 Allergy Season    Sniff, sniffle, wheeze Huff, puff, whiffle Sneeze, cough, snuffle Ka...choo!                   September 16, 2011 Oh Deer!        One of the positive assets of living in the Square Mile is the presence of the doe and her twin fawns. Probably displaced from her natural habitat by subdivisions and ball fields, she walks sedately and peacefully from yard to yard, trimming the shoots and leaves, munching on an occasional bird feeder and drinking from the bird bath.   Cars actually stop speeding and drivers stop and stare. Joggers smile and cross the street and students do a double take and jaws drop.      Over the years, Oxford has changed. Where once were private homes, clean sidewalks and kids playing in the street, now the Square Mile is dominated by absentee landlords who replace bushes and shrubs with cement parking places. Many shops that sold clothes, dry goods, and hardware have given way to more lucrative fast food places and bars. There have been positive changes, of course; the Community Art Center, the improvement of the uptown parks and the litter and noise ordinances to name a few. But the presence of peaceful, wandering wild animals brings back a real sense of natural order to the town and makes living in the Square Mile a pleasant and unique experience.                                                            September  9, 2011 Dinging Through Life   Ding!  It could be the front door bell.  Ding! What my grandaughter did (the day she got her license) to her mother’s car in their own driveway.  Ding! What my brother did to the side of my head with a baseball bat as I was playing catcher (and this may explain a lot of things). Ding! Hello! Someone has just played Scrabble with me on my Ipad.  Ding!  Text message.  Ding! New e-mail. Ding!  Half past the hour from my cuckoo clock. Ding-ee!  A little boat following behind a big boat. Ding! Microwave.  Ding! Oven is preheated. Ding-a-ling.  Ding bat. Ding Dong. Ding Be Gone! September 2, 2011 Fall Not   Fall.  Where is it?  Am I anticipating?  The trees are still completely green, the temperature in the 90’s, flip flops still reign supreme and the hummingbird is humming.  Homecoming is 3 weeks away.  Are we to have a parade under an arbor of GREEN? Global warming? Can we blame the Republicans?                                                                         August 26, 2011 My brain is fried by 1) my new Ipad and 2) my AC totally quitting on a very hot day.  More next week.  August 19, 2011 Fallout From the 2008 Election   Democrats say “Look . . .”   Republicans say “My friend . . .”   August 12, 2011 OLDING – a new word very akin to BALDING – as in becoming bald/old but not quite there yet.   Top Ten Signs of Olding   10. Sent the same e mail twice.   9. Forgot a name/word/place I’ve known all my life.    Medicare sends me a big bill.   7. Obituaries have a new relevance   6.          Sat on my glasses.   5.          Answer a text message as if it were a phone call.   4.          Cannot get my numbers to stay in a column.   3. Squinting   2.          Running is OUT, sitting is IN.   And Number One Sign of Olding;   Forgot what I was going to write -- about getting old.    August 5, 2011 The Beginning of the End   It’s been so hot for so long the tomato plant has stopped flowering, the strawberries are shrinking, all the ivy is wilting, the grass is brown and I’ve been napping every afternoon.  Or is it just the beginning of the end of summer? July 29, 2011 MUSIC MAN MAGIC        The Music Man...what a great, all time, classic movie.  This period piece is set in a time when there were no wars, no cars, maybe a telephone or two, long skirts, big hats and a  Mayor’s wife with the name of Eulalalie Mackenki Shinn who shudders at the morals of Marian, the librarian, because she allows French authors like Rousseau, Voltaire and BALLzac.      But I love it because throughout the movie, music moves mountains.  The contentious school board members who can never agree, begin singing four part harmony and never disagree again.  Music brings the lispy shy kid out of his shell and delivers the local juvenile delinquent from a life of crime.      Let’s have more movies like this!  and Sound of Music! and Mary Poppins! July 22, 2011 Tempus Fugit        Grandaughters get drivers’ licences. Skunks now have little skunks following in the back yard.  Doe who has been eating everything green growing around my house --  has TWINS!! Raccoon baby has grown big and is following Mom’s footsteps into my chimney.      So time goes on. Everyone keeps time in a different way.  The Chinese New Year differs from the Muslim.  Waltz time differs from the two step. The Romans kept time from the moment the sun rose.  But all would agree.  Time flies when you’re having fun. July 15, 2011 Listen Up!   Chirp, beep, ring, ding, peep, ping, honkah honkah honkah, click, whirr, whizz...Listen!  Your phone/ipad/computer/laptop/Kindle/car/clock/oven/microwave/printer needs your attention. July 8, 2011   And Then to the Second Floor        Why am I always cleaning out my garage?  It appears to be a lifetime commitment.  Maybe it’s because the structure is almost one hundred years old and exudes dirt and dust from its walls and roof like some people sweat. It’s always dirty because I haven’t washed the windows EVER, and the cobwebs and grime have formed a permanent patina.   I have to clean out the garage every year or so because I’m always buying new tools...the perfect edger, the three- in-one hoe, Grampa’s Weeder, the ergonomic shovel...and then find out that a cordless power tool does everything better. Why do I have an electric snow blower gathering dust and dirt? It’s pretty useless when I can wield a shovel more efficiently.      So here I go again. Bring tools to the local charity yard sale, get out the clippers and cut down the vines that are growing through the broken window pane, sweep up the floor that is never free of leaves and animal detritus, pile the wood neatly, throw out paper boxes, grass seed,and at least one of the three garden claws.      And then make room for the new rotary lawn mower. I need one.  Really.  It’ll be great.      And THEN start on the second floor.      July 1 , 2011 A picture . . . a thousand words.  Summer vacation! June 17, 2011 Techno Myth   Ancient Greek mythology tells the story of Narcissus, a handsome man, who became enamoured with the sight of his body, the abs, the pecs, whatever, and spent his time staring at his reflection in a fountain. One thing led to another, and eventually he was turned into a flower.      Fast forward, two thousand years, and we have another man, Congressman Weiner, so enamoured with the sight of his body that he spends WAY too much time staring at his reflection in his cell phone and one thing leads to another and he is turned into a mindless tweet.      Some things never change.  June 10, 2011 Who Cut Down the Cherry Tree? George Washington. He could not tell a lie. We need you. Dishonesty has become rampant among our public servants. It all began with Nixon...”I am not a crook” (yes, you were)  Clinton...”I did not have sex with that woman” (well, what WERE you doing?) John Edwards...that child is not mine (Wrong!) and now Congressman Weiner confessing that he lied...”that is my underwear and I took the picture”.  Good Heavens!  How many times are we going to forgive and forget just because they say, “I’m SO SORRY”?      June 2, 2011 FLASHING      No, not the kind that involves a trenchcoat (and not much else).  I’m talking about my laptop that flashes at night, after I’ve turned it off.  Or my phone, that tells me I have a message. Or my car that flashes and beeps often for some false alarm or another. Or maybe the flashing that has something to do with the roof of my house.      Or the attachment my mother had for her phone, so if she didn’t hear it ring (which was often) she could tell it was ringing by the light flashing.  The trick there was she had to be looking at it.    Gosh!  Life gets more complicated every day. I could even say it’s flashing by. MAY 27, 2011 Oxford Highlights This week’s big stories from the Oxford Press; Man dies in the same room where he was born. Car runs over a man’s foot at the corner of Spring and Patterson. No bones broken. May 20, 2011 BLACK BIRD MOMENT           For one thirty second moment, I saw a starling (small black bird), then a grackle (larger black bird) and then a crow (huge black bird) all foraging in my breakfast bird buffet. This is a once in a lifetime, probably never again, confluence of me, my couch and black birds. wow. Okay, kids. All together now... Sing a song of sixpence A pocket full of rye Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened The birds began to sing Now wasn’t that a dainty dish To set before a king? The king was in the counting house Counting all his money The Queen was in the parlor Eating bread and honey The maid was in the back yard Hanging out the clothes When along came a black bird And bit off her nose!!!   ha ha ha May 13, 2011 DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE Desperate Housewives!  Can’t stand it!  I’m wrung out! Nightmares! Anger! Yelling! Divorce! Weeping! Poisoning! Revenge! Lopped limbs! Abject fear!      Two more episodes to clear it all up for the summer.  How will it end?  Previous years featured a tornado, a plane crash, a huge fire.  And this year?  a tsunami?  On Wisteria Lane?  Can’t wait. May 6, 2011 Support Your Local Teacher From the latest New York Times article on teachers; the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender the average teacher’s salary begins with $39,000 and after 25 years, ends with $67,000 a McKinsey poll of 900 top-tier college students revealed they would be willing to go into teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000 the countries that do best on standardized tests, Finland, South Korea and Singapore, support teachers with paid training, high pay and respect. And now Republican governors want to take away teachers’ bargaining rights and that would inevitably lead to lower salaries.  What’s the matter with us?? April 29, 2011 Spring Feverish Ohmigosh!!  Here I am, dallying away the week with egg dye, egg hunt, eggs benedict, tornadoes, grass growing faster than I can mow, royal wedding news ad nauseam, Donald Trump ad more nauseam, and I forget to write my blog!  And now pardon me while I run into the yard to stamp out dandelions. April 22, 2011 Y?      Menu?  Sleeping?  Emoticon?  Log?  Blog? Browse? Stream?  Click?  Wee, Why, Wi, Fi,  Wi, Mi,  My!! What’s happening to the English language? April 15, 2011 Enough Already! So all this posturing and bloviating about a government shutdown was just a day in the life of Washington politicians signifying nothing?  How about you all just take a 180 degree turn and instead of a shut down, just shut up? April 8, 2011 Cyber Space Shenanigans Ding dong!  8:30 at night, translate midnight. It’s Mandy!  Mom, you’re phone’s not working.  I check. Radio connection is off. Do I want to reconnect?  Of course, you idiot. Why would I disconnect and what is a radio connection?? Uh oh.  The Cyber Imp is at it again. This is the same little guy that puts four THOUSAND pictures in My Picture file when I transfer to my new laptop. delete delete delete. He will copy a picture to the end of the list when I distinctly told him to SEND. delete delete delete When I manage to compose a text message, he’ll CALL instead of SEND. delete delete delete Good God.  My life is passing before my eyes. delete delete delete Only 3,988 to go. And listen you youngsters who are snickering up your sleeve.  Remember I grew up – right through college – with a manual typewriter and a rotary phone. April 1, 2011 LOOK! After recently attending a mind-numbing three hour seminar on photography – “Get off the green square and learn about all those buttons” – imagine my relief when I discovered --in part thanks to Ellis Weiner in THE NEW YORKER -- a new, virtually real camera substitute program called LOOK.     Exciting in its simplicity, LOOK requires no heavy equipment to carry around, no extra batteries, no clumsy lenses, no canvas bag, and best of all, no familiarity with apertures, shutters or ISO. LOOK simply requires that you go outside, open your eyes and take in what it sees.  If you want to zoom, take three steps forward.  For a better perspective, three steps back. Light not quite right?  Wait till the sun shines, Nellie. Need less light? go stand under a tree. This inexpensive (what’s cheaper than free?) program features built in Surround Sound.  You can hear the actual bird song or fire truck! It has a turn off feature that involves ear muffs.  Same for Virtual Smell. Enjoy the real aroma of fire burning or cow manure...or enact the clothespin-on-the-nose option to avoid smells altogether. TasteTime is optional. While you’re on LOOK, you can enjoy a Bud Lite or cup of tea...or not. LOOK is not endangered by rain, snow or extreme temperatures. It provides instant 3D vision without those clumsy plastic glasses.  Prescription glasses, however, are encouraged. LOOK allows 180 degree panoramas. Just turn your head as far to the left as your neck muscles allow and slowly move to the right. An even more exciting feature is the 360 degree shot. Keeping your feet in the same spot,  move slowly for a complete circle....let’s see your SonySureShot do that! LOOK provides all orientations.  For the landscape mode, just look ahead. Portrait mode, turn your head 90 degress to the left or right.  For a more intimate portrait mode,  ask your subject to stand still, put the tips of your fingers together for a frame. LOOK is dependable...won’t freeze up, suddenly go black or announce it will no longer be available      If you miss the familiar noise of a working camera, feel free to say “click” once in a while.  And don’t worry about losing the picture.  Your head has a memory just as reliable as your computer/camera, which is subject to melt downs, power surges or memory space limits.  Your personal memory is vulnerable only to “senior moments” (reserved to those over 76) and lightning strikes. The LOOK battery charges as it “sleeps” and with good care will last a lifetime! So step outside and take a LOOK! March 25, 2011 My Basketball-Watching Life      Start with Mandy at McGuffey, dribbling down the court, stiff arming her sixth grade terrified opponents all the way to the basket.  Then Gareth, sixth man Varsity and the time he staggered, rubber legged and I wanted to yell, “Coach! Take him out!”  And my biggest concern was his underwear showing.  And now Jack, where the team’s season high was 25 (they went 0 for 7) and if he made more than two baskets he was MVP.      So I guess I’ve been watching basketball games for fifty years and I still enjoy the NCAA Tournament with its wild, accurate, excellent standard of play (perhaps unlike the aforementioned) and my money is on Ohio. March 18, 2011 Whoops! Missed a week! Old Age No one ever survives it. It’s the only stage of life you can’t outgrow or look back on. Years do not make sages; they only make old people. March 4, 2011 Oxford’s Believe It or Not!      Can you believe there hasn’t been an armed robbery in Oxford for 21 years?  And then last week a gunman robbed a bank just two blocks from my house? The police responded within four minutes (police headquarters is, of course, just down the street) with bomb sniffing dogs and the high school was summarily locked down for two hours. And still the man with the gun and fists full of money GETS AWAY!  And he’s ON FOOT!      Believe it or not, but George Clooney will be filming a large part of his next movie right here in Oxford, in Hall Hall (yes, that’s the name) and, get this, on Green Beer Day!!  Burp. He needs 750 college age extras, presumably sober and prepared to spend the whole day.  Is he from another planet?  Where is he going to find 750 sober Miami students on Green Beer Day??? February 25, 2011 Untitled Rain. You don't have to shovel it. February 18, 2011 My Senior Moment in WalMart Ring Ring      I’m in the paint department in WalMart. Suddenly a phone rings.  I’m standing near a desk and presume it’s for a  sales person.  Ring.  Ring.  Should I answer it? Ring. Ring.  Oh! Wait! It’s coming from my coat pocket.  It’s MY phone ringing.       “Hello?”      “Hello.  This is the WalMart Photo department.” It is? I look around. I thought I was in the paint department. It certainly looks like it: paint cans, brushes... so I resort to Senior Confusion Talk and repeat      “Hello?” Poor woman on the line “Hello?  Natalie?” Well, now we’re getting somewhere.  I know I’m Natalie.      “We have your prints ready.” Suddenly it all clears up. “I’m two aisles away and will be right there.” Help. Febrrrrrrary 11, 2011 2 degrees The Game of Life The Steelers lost!  Big deal!  In spite of the media hype and two weeks of Wisconsin frenzy, it’s only a game.      Life’s a game! Even President Obama told the Chamber of Commerce convention, “Get in the game!” So your basketball team lost, 36 to 6.  Too bad!  Live with it!  You made two of the points!      Whether you’re on the field, enforcing the rules, sitting the bench or up in the stands, life is a game. Enjoy!  While it’s still on. February 4, 2011 THOSE WERE THE DAYS It was my privilege to visit elementary school, after a hiatus of 35 years, thanks to Jack in third grade. My, how things have changed!  There are five secretaries in the office. They serve breakfast in the cafeteria. The teachers for the most part look like they are right out of high school. The bleachers are only two steps high. On the other hand, some things never change. If you need to go anywhere, you LINE UP. Elementary teachers work very hard, getting up and down off the floor. The boy with the loudest voice (Jack!) gets to be the narrator in the class assembly. And tops in the never-change-department...Grandma is proud. January 28, 2011 Totally and Completely Tired of Snow Snow! Snow Wnat? Snow More! Stop. January 21, 2011 Educating Parents Sunday’s New York Times reports “. . .an international study published last month looked at how students in 65 countries performed in math, science and reading.  At the very top of the charts, in all three fields and by a wide margin was Shanghai.  Three of the next  top four performers were also societies with a Confuscian legacy of reverence for education; Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.  The only non Asian country in the mix was Finland.  The United States came in 15th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math.”      Also in the news this week is a new book by Amy Chau   entitled “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”,a memoir of a Chinese mother who pushed her daughters to excel in school.  While not endorsing the Chinese way (her one daughter rebelled resulting in big time STRESS) the book reveals the method by which Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore mothers probably achieved those enviable scores. Education came first. Piano practice coopted play date, sub par art work for Mommy’s birthday card was rejected, not praised.      Look around you.  American kids watch TV, play video games, spend hours at sports practices, shop, not to mention text, til they drop.  Look at our schools.  At our local high school, the Athletic Office is directly in front of the main office, taking over the former Guidance Office.  The Guidance Office, now down the hall, took over two Foreign Language class rooms, which were moved out into trailers. Priorities.      Solution? Probably somewhere in between, but every parent needs to continually evaluate and take results of such surveys seriously. Parenting is not a science. It’s an experiment in progress. January 14, 2011 What?  Why? I recently (well, maybe ten years ago, but that’s the way time is traveling nowadays) saw a family picture in which I, as a teenager, was wearing a black and white taffeta checked skirt with matching neck tie and my little sister, age 5, was wearing an identical skirt and tie. Heavens! What was my mother thinking?  Obviously the same thing when she dressed us in identical Easter bonnets and dresses, also immortalized in a family movie.      What possesses Mothers to dress their kids alike? In my mother’s case, I think it was the jaw dropping admiration of the Boston Irish family that made the Boston Globe every spring when the twelve children all marched in the Easter Parade with matching outfits, made by the indomitable Irish matriarch who was sweating over a hot sewing machine all winter..      But what excuse do I have? I am guilty of making those terrible purple plaid ponchos with matching berets. Awwww, how cute.    January 7, 2011 New Year’s Resolution The olives grow blue hair. The sour cream turns sour. The cheese has green and blue warts. The Cool Whip sprouts zits. The eggs and milk are past their due date. EMPTY YOUR FRIDGE! December 31, 2010 A Winter Treat The Morning Breakfast Buffet; ever since the snow arrived and stayed, about a month ago, the birds have been plentiful and faithful.  Every morning I see the cardinals, usually a pair, the blue jay the sparrows and starlings in flocks, the red bellied woodpecker without the red belly but red nape, who swoops down for a peanut, the downy woodpecker who has never touched ground but instead works away, solo, on the suet filled woodpecker feeder (He does occasionally come with a partner). Add to those stalwarts the junco, the wren, the nuthatch, the pair of titmice, the chickadee and the mourning dove and I have quite a treat. I only miss hearing the starlings talk to each other. In the summer, with the door open, I hear them grunt, snuffle, whistle and tweet. Now it’s pretty quiet except for the blue jay who almost always announces his arrival with a loud “HEY” and the rumble of the furnace. December 24, 2010 The Night Before Crhistmas T’is the night before Christmas And all through the house Not a creature is stirring Not even a mouse (if it stirs, it’s DEAD) There are no more stockings But the excitement’s still there Cause tomorrow is Christmas Big day of the year. I’ve knitted and planned I’ve mailed and I’ve cooked. I’ll get up when I want to and open my book. I’ll remember the days When we toiled through the night And be grateful for now. Merry Christmas! December 17, 2010 A Very Short Christmas Poem      Omigosh!  Almost forgot my blog and here’s why; Christmas shopping Christmas cards Four inch snow storm (that’s A LOT). Christmas wrapping Christmas cookies Fascinating biography of  Louisa May AlCOTT. December 10, 2010 THE PERFECT (SNOW) STORM About three inches of beautiful white stuff.  Not enough to stick to the roads or even the sidewalk.  Frosts the hemlocks and shrubs, covers the grass completely, puts a cap on the bird feeder and a layer of icing on the bird bath. If it wasn’t quite so cold..... December 3, 2010 Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information Greyhound customers actually rode dogs. When someone gives directions ending with “you can’t miss it”, 65 percent of the time you miss it. Lewis promised Clark they’d switch to Clark and Lewis on their next expedition. A man named Alexander Graham Telephone invented the bell. November 26, 2010 Happy Thanksgiving! In case anyone is feeling guilty about not going to church, remember that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. November 19, 2010 GRANDPETS II or The Cat Who Wouldn’t Get Out of My Car      I usually get along pretty well with my Grandpets; the 100 pound dog that climbed into my lap, the Bernease Mountain Monster that tolerates me, the Lab that wags her tail so vigorously she is close to falling over, just to name a few.      But Stumpy, the cat with no tail, is a tale (ha ha) unto herself.  Yesterday she followed me out to the car, jumped on the roof so I had to NOTICE HER.  Then as I was struggling to get a load of dishes into the back seat she jumped in and made herself small in the back corner. Obviously she wanted to come home with me. I had to throw her out twice and was contemplating something more drastic when another cat, the Alpha Male of the family, came along and Stumpy withdrew in a hurry.      There’s no moral here, no heart rending story.  Just a Grandma who lives a very quiet life. And Here’s A Picture Of . . . A friend went to the Jon Stewart rally in Washington last week and came home with 200 pictures which are now on his Facebook page.  Two hundred!  Is this a result of the new technological age; digital cameras, instant publication, communication at your fingertip?      Well, actually, only partly. Those of us who remember the slide projector will also remember those excruciatingly boring evenings when the old friend comes over with his slide projector, trays of slides from his latest trip to Maine, and he sets up the screen and we sit, captives in our own living rooms, while he shows slide after slide after slide. “And here we are looking at . . .” and “This is Louise standing on the sidewalk” . . .  etc. etc. The technology is different, but people remain the same. November 5, 2010 No End to Progress Technological Breakthrough!  I replaced my old TV which was the size of a Holiday Inn Mini Bar, and just as heavy, with a slim, light as a feather, HD.      WOW!  This is equal to the revelation of the very first TV, a Christmas present from Dad.  The whole family stood in awe as he turned it on, adjusted the rabbit ears, and suddenly there was a choir singing “Silent Night” (albeit black and white) ... right there in our living room! Mum and I cried. October 29, 2010 Betting on Sanity   Harry Reid, senior senator from Nevada, Senate Majority Leader, is probably the most influential person in Washington. For Nevadans alone, he has helped extend unemployment benefits, gave aid to schools so they wouldn’t have to lay off teachers, secured money for job-rich alternative energy projects in the desert and funded foreclosure prevention counselling. He persuaded banks to continue funding for a Las Vegas construction project.      His opponent, Sharron Angle, has had no experience in Washington.  She ran for the state assembly to fight for home schooling and since then has seen to it that Nevada has no high school equivalency exam and no 180 days of school. She wants to be a senator so she can phase out Social Security, elminate the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.  She thinks the BP compensation is a slush fund.  She maintains she has been chosen by God for this job (a desert Dalai Lama?).      If she wins next Tuesday, then the voters of Nevada are certifiably insane and I am going to jump off a cliff. October 22, 2010 INSANITY; A SIGN OF THE TIMES        I’m completely in agreement with those who will be marcning on Washington on October 30, “To Restore Sanity.” Case in point; millions of dollars, probably billions, being spent on negative campaign ads by anonymous donors. Not only are these ads not helping the electorate make intelligent decisions based on fact, not fear, but it’s the amount of money that really dismays me.  How many four year college scholarships does that represent?  How many water wells could be drilled for third world countries? How much research could be funded for debilitating diseases?  What kind of insane system do we have, where all that money is being spent just to get people to go to Washington and waste more money? Not to mention time. What happened to the McCain Feingold Campaign Reform Law? How about if we make insanity illegal? October 15, 2010 The Rescue        I spent the day, off and on, watching the Chilean miners being rescued.  What an extraordinary effort! It was modern communication technology, medical teams, psychological and social experts, 24/7 effort, support from other mining companies and other countries that pulled off that miracle.   And the look on the face of the welcoming family member was so joyful.  What a feel good experience.      I just hope that the terrorists, the Jihadists, the blow-up-all-Americans people were watching also.  I want them to see how much the rest of the world values human life and what extremes we will go to to save 33 men.        October 8, 2010 Shine on, Harvest Moon        The Oxford Press reports that nine deer were “harvested” last year. Harvested?  These beautiful, wild animals, whose natural habitats have been sabotaged, giving way to parking spaces for cars, are now compared to stalks of corn?  Harvested?  Tell that to the little faun who suddenly has NO MOTHER!  Stop killing these beautiful animals. Doesn’t BAMBI mean anything to you?? October 1, 2010 Weather or not, here comes Fall!   I do love a change of season. It’s not a full fledged Fall yet, but the leaves are coming down, the shorts give way to long pants, the sweater comes out, the hummingbirds are long on their way to Mexico, the pool gets covered and I had my first fire of the season last night. Nice. September 24, 2010 Dilemma;   Do I write about my eight year old grandson who is TOTALLY GROSSED OUT by his sister and her boy friend, and their, of all things..KISSING!   or about the doe who brings her faun to my yard, gazes into my eyes, and proceeds to the back yard for a meal of shoots and salt lick   or about Bill Clinton who is using his Global Initiatives Conference to spend billions of dollars to better the world...donors aren’t invited back if they can’t show progress during the year.   You’re forgiven, Bill, about the Monica thing.   or what?   I choose what. September 17, 2010 Real News from the Oxford Press Police Blotter   A man reports someone stole his teeth.   An unfortunate, probably drunk, Miami student receives a citation for “entering the street in front of a police cruiser.”   Two men, having just stolen items from a parked car, flag down a passing police cruiser to ask for directions.   Talk about DUH! September 10, 2010 MOST FAMOUS EPITAPH     I   TOLD YOU   I WAS SICK                                                                  September 3, 2010 Phenomenon        This probably only happens in Oxford.  It certainly doesn’t occur in Boston or New York.  I’m talking about sitting on the curb.  College students, waiting for the bus, sit on the curb.  A woman who always wears a hat and carries a grocery bag, walking from Kroger’s to High Street, sits on the curb on the corner of Elm and Collins and takes a brief rest.  Yesterday I saw her having a smoke. (You know, honey, if you didn’t smoke you’d probably be able to make the trek without a rest).  And finallly, this morning, as I opened my front door to step out on the porch, there was a girl sitting on the curb, right in front of my house.  I quietly stepped back and she didn’t turn around.  Now this is 9 a.m.  No one on the street is awake.  Students don’t get up until noon. A few minutes later and she’s gone. Ah the mysteries of life. October 30, 2009 Tale of Two Tails "Flower" the skunk, magnificent. "Posse" the oppossum, pitiful. October 23, 2009 Signs That a Certain Second Grader is Not Happy about Going to School. Monday morning he’s “sick.” Long face. Symptoms?  Fake cough.  He’s “off balance.” He has written on his dry erase board above his bed, “Eight months.”  As in, eight months until summer vacation. No fever?  Not bleeding?  Sorry, Charlie (not his real name.)  Off you go! October 16, 2009 END NOTES      I’m getting mighty tired of seeing on the nightly news people getting shots up their noses and others saying incessantly “At the end of the day.”      Let’s face it.  There are many different ends of the day. For mothers with new babies, there is no end of the day.  Every day is just a series of four hour intervals.  For high school teachers, the end of the day is early afternoon.  For elementary teachers, an hour later. For workers, the end of the day is five o’clock, except for bankers who end at three.      But my favorite end of the day comment was made almost three thousand years ago by Sappho, the poetess, who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos and whose poetry has by some miracle survived. She talks about the evening star, Hesperus. Espere panta ferwn osa fainolis eskedas Aiws fereis oin, fereis aiga, fereis apu mater, paida. “Espere panta pheron osa phainolis eskedas Auos, phereis oin, phereis aiga, phereis apu mater, paida.” These two lines have such lovely assonance and rhythm, and are reminiscent of the repetitive motion of gathering in, a rounding up of the flocks or the children in the evening. “Evening Star, you bring back all that was scattered in the shimmering Dawn, You bring the sheep, you bring the goat, and you bring her child to the mother.” Now THAT’s the end of the day. October 9, 2009 SUET SAGA      I have a woodpecker feeder – a length of tree limb that has four hollowed out holes – which I regularly fill with tubes of suet, some mixed with seeds and place it in the fork of the tree.  There are at least three or four downy woodpeckers that will come and perch on the feeder and peck away at the suet. They feed and then fly away and I have to restuff the holes every week or so.      Until this week, when not only have the woodpeckers thinned out, but the suet holders have been cleaned out every morning. So I go to Walmart, get a different kind of suet holder, hang it securely on another branch and the next morning there is nothing there but a string. THIS IS WAR!  I buy a plastic mesh suet holder with a metal chain and nail it to the tree. I stuff the woodpecker feeder with apple cores. This morning, cleaned out again!      And last night, while watching the nightly possum and skunk buffet, along comes the biggest raccoon I have ever seen. He is HUGE! This guy is stuffed!  Hmmmmmmmmm. October 2, 2009 END OF THE ROAD or Projects That Went Nowhere      ·        painting nature with watercolors or colored pencils or anything. ·        buying a ranch and being a cowboy. ·        rereading all of Latin literature beginning with Livius Andronicus. ·        the Great American Afghan. ·        having six kids (close!). ·        becoming a nurse. Incivility Our modern way of life is making us rude.  Here are things I would never have done twenty years ago. ·         hang up on people.  When I answer the phone and there’s a slight delay and a person comes on and announces his/her name and there is noise in the background of a room full of people talking, I hang up. It’s rude but so are they. ·        throw away pictures without a thought thanks to digital cameras. ·        destroy words with impunity.  I used to be really careful.  I cherished every word.  Once I typed in a word, it was there, pretty much forever. Not now. ·        throw things out.  Recycling assuages my conscience.  No more rinsing out jars to keep for . . . ·        people don’t RSVP anymore. ·        cell phones!  Don’t get me started.   September 18, 2009 NOW This seems to have been National Outrage Week. A half  million people march on the White House, mad about lots of things, ranging from the national debt to socialized medicine, or as one woman put it, “There’s just too much change too fast”. Serena Williams makes a spectacle of herself on the tennis court, outraged at a line judge call and Joe Wilson yells at the President and calls him a liar.      Oh no, Joe, President Obama was not lying when he said he would not sign a bill that gave health insurance to illegal aliens.  How could that be a lie when the bill hasn’t even been written yet?  Oh no, Joe, YOU lie.  And how about your Governor Sandford?  Didn’t he tell his wife he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail when he was cavorting with his mistress in Brazil?  Did you yell at him?      Time to settle down, people. Let’s think before we yell. And THEN march on the White House.  It’s the American Way. September 11, 2009 FIRST WIVES CLUB      I watched the ceremonies and the specials on TV after Senator Kennedy died and I didn’t see anything about Joan, the first wife. I know she belonged to the uglier first half of his life, but she stuck with him during many campaigns and, at the end of the day and it WAS the end of the day for Uncle Teddy, she was the mother of his three children.  I kinda guessed maybe she had died until, lo and behold, I read in the New York Times that she was at the funeral.      First Wives!  Stand up and be counted!  She deserves some credit for those years she raised those kids while he was God knows where. I hope she’s okay.      September 4, 2009 Fun Facts from Late Night Invention of the right shoe came 14 years before the invention of the left shoe. In 1984 Weight Watchers unsuccessfully attempted to launch a program called Height Watchers On the same day he left his heart in San Francisco, Tony Bennet left his umbrella in Oakland. In a pack of standard playing cards, the King of Hearts is the only king with a mustache. Saturn’s rings were installed by NASA in 1987. August 28, 2009 BEWARE THE KEG!      First weekend of the fall semester.  All students have moved in, some have come and introduced themselves, others, like the ones next door, just started partying immediately.  So I had to put on my neighborhood watchdog/b**** hat, take up my broom, sweep slowly toward the beer pong event and finally wave enough so somebody noticed.  I then went into the noise ordinance routine and they promised to turn down the music which they did.   So tonight, cool, clear and clearly a party night. I look for the kegs.  Behind me they’re up and running on the porch.  The boys have been forewarned that the loud noise ordinance pertains to them.  Across the street, no kegs. Whew.  In fact they are setting up what appears to be church tables and folding chairs. The large American flag that the Dad put up is waving.  Could I be so lucky?  A Christian group?  The loudest they can come up with is a choral Alleluia or a fervent Amen? Yes! August 21, 2009 Letterman on Cheney      Cheney doesn’t say anything for 8 years and then writes a book with one thousand pages. It’s so big you can use it to step on to reach a better book.      So get to Barnes and Noble early for the book shooting. August 14, 2009 TENSE, TENTS, SEN-TENCE, TEXT      At a small gathering recently, I found myself in a tense situation. We were discussing the present progressive, especially in relation to pidgin English; “I am leaving” in place of “I leave” and the past progressive, “I was leaving” and the future, “I will be leaving” if this conversation continues.      Who among us knows the full ramifications of using the contrary to fact conditional subjunctive . . . “I would leave if you continue to discuss grammatical mood” and all its semantic implications?      Hello?  Anyone left out there who cares about grammar? PROBLY NT August 7, 2009 Vacation! NYC! Statue of Liberty! Empire State Building! Family! New Cousin Jasper!Back home to Yard Sale, August 15! Yard and House! Come Early and Take the Garage too! July 31, 2009 Diet, Southern Fried Style      From Dave’s monologue and very apropos to my ongoing battle with potato chips and fried everything; The fattest state in America is Mississippi.  They’re so fat they get winded just spelling Mississippi. The Mississippi state motto; Are You Going to Finish That? July 24, 2009 Maybe, Baby      If we talk about media, being the plural of medium, then why can’t we talk about the little possum babies as possa?      Is this a possability? July 17, 2009 All Star Strangers      I watched only the opening ceremonies of this year’s All Star game because it seemed to go on forever. Really.  Who are these people?  I’ve never heard of Pujoles.  Maybe Tony Russo. Where’s Pete Rose?  Johnny Bench? Jimmy Piersall? Ted Williams?  And what kind of team is the Rays?  Sun Rays? Ex Rays?  What kind of name is that? Next thing you know, there’ll be a team called the Beams.      But really, how cool is our President?  VERY. July 10, 2009 Coming Out of the Closet Not me!  Stuff!  Here’s the process; Open door.  Stare.  Move things around.  Take out several items, discard one, put the rest in another closet. Close door. Weeks later.  Open door.  Stare. Suddenly the clothes rod falls down at one end, effectively throwing all your dresses on the floor.  Hurrah!  Good excuse to put 90% of them in the Goodwill bag.  Transfer remaining five dresses to another closet.  Promise to repair rod.  Close door. Months later.  Open door.  Take out radio that has frozen on one station, one volume, all static. Open trash bag. Insert.  Take out the blankets, bedspreads, pillows, mattress covers that haven’t been used in ten years, give to Goodwill.  You are now getting close to the back of the closet. Close door. Yesterday.  Sense of urgency because you are selling your house.  Empty closet of everything.  Now the room is wall to wall  dusty stuff but the closet is empty. Carefully distribute the prize possessions that you simply cannot live without to other parts of the house; the little silver bell, the big wooden platter, the favorite coverlet, the English bone china demitasse set (when was the last time you served demitasse? What is demitasse anyway?) Throw out everything that is left.  Repair rod.  Hang the five dresses back, spreading them out so it looks like you have an extensive wardrobe. Close door. Open it again on moving day.  Congratulations! July 3, 2009 MICHAEL, ROW YOUR BOAT ASHORE      The saga continues and I don’t mean the deer.  It’s Michael Jackson, day and night.  I know it’s a slow news time, but do I have to see the same pictures of this weirdo, 24/7?  Hour long specials everywhere I turn? STOP! June 26, 2009 More Deer      The saga continues.  It’s not Bambi.  It’s Faline and she has a faun.  She’s been coming about twice a week, daintily picking her way across the lawn, heading for the yes, I confess, bigger salt lick judiciously placed under the bird feeder. Yesterday evening I was reading on the couch with the light on and the door open and I looked up and there she was, not 6 feet from me.  We had a “don’t move, just stare” contest and after a minute or so, she put her head down and started munching AND LICKING!  She leaves her faun in a secluded spot at the mill, a mysterious maze of sheds and walkways across the street that has something to do with corn.  The sleeping faun was discovered by Steve, the mill guy, who tried to protect it by constructing a cardboard roof over its head, but a few hours later, they were both gone. Lickety split. June 19, 2009 Goodbye, Old Friend      I’m reading the only book that I haven’t read of George Simenon’s series on Inspector Maigret.  It’s a collection of short stories and I’m devouring them slowly, tasting the descriptions of Paris in the spring, shivering with him in the rainy cold winter and drinking aperitifs in smokey, savory, sidewalk cafes. His works were mostly written in the 50’s and are charmingly old fashioned, where the inspector manages his police work without the use of the internet, cell phones or even two way radios.     I always feel a little sad when I finish reading such wonderful writing and realize that, because he died in 1989, it’s the end. Simenon is gone, like Agatha Christie, but his works remain a standard, a beacon for some new mystery writer.  I’m waiting. June 12, 2009 Overlooking the Lick      I’m on my couch, finishing up the book on Thoreau, a man totally in love with the natural world, and I have the door open and the birds are singing and the warm air wafting in and I close my eyes briefly and when I open them, there’s a woodchuck, coming up the path towards me. A woodchuck!!      Ten minutes later I’m sitting at my desk, which is right up against a window, when a deer’s head appears, not five feet from me.  We freeze and stare at each other for a minute.  Then he picks his way along the path I have laboriously carved out along the side of the house and heads for the bird feeder out back. “Aha” I think.  Finally someone is going to appreciate the little salt lick I have placed in the ground and which I have been dusting off like the umpire with his brush at home plate for the past month. So imagine my chagrin when Bambi neatly steps over the salt lick and proceeds to munch on bird seed.      I’m not giving up.  I’ll get a bigger salt lick. June 5, 2009 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE REVISITED      Contrary to what you learned in high school, Henry David Thoreau did not HAVE to spend a night in jail for not paying taxes.      According to THE THOREAU YOU DON’T KNOW  by Robert Sullivan, it happened that the county sheriff/tax collector/hunting partner met Thoreau one evening and suggested that he probably should arrest Thoreau sometime, and the laconic philosopher said well why not now and off he went.  The horrified Mother Thoreau and friends posted bail immediately, but by then it was evening and GET THIS the sheriff had taken off his boots and didn’t want to put them back on, so Thoreau spent the night.      I can relate to that. When the slippers are on and the earrings out, the day is over.  Isn’t everyone a slave to certain rituals of life? The morning cup of coffee?  Have I been reading too much Thoreau? May 29, 2009 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Just finished reading KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL by Deborah Rodriquez. Why anyone would want to live in Afgahnistan, or even spell it correctly, where girls are beaten with impunity, where women can’t go anywhere without their head covered, where electricity and running water are intermittent, where guns and crazy militant religious nuts are everywhere, when you could be living in Holland, Michigan? Maybe because she wants to help these women. Well, good for her. May 22, 2009 Stumpy, the Unfortunate Starling      A bird with a broken wing, or a baby bird that hasn’t figured out what to do with that appendage, or a bird born with a wing that just doesn’t fit, or a bird afflicted with some rare ornithological disease that makes the wings fall off one at a time...at any rate it’s only a matter of time before Fluffy the Cat...oh, I can’t look. May 15, 2009 Forever Never Never Land They’re Gone Again!  What I love about Oxford; over half the population moves out for four months, and once the trash men have cleaned the curbs of piles of mattresses, fans, lamps, torn and worn couches, boxes of papers, books, junk and more junk, the town is once more mine.      Even the wild life can sense the demographic upheaval. The huge crow, as big as the bird feeder and last seen in a distant tree top munching some unfortunate rodent, came down to my Bird Breakfast Buffet this morning, dwarfing the chickadee and scaring the grackles.      I’ll probably see the deer return as well, as they pick their way through the empty parking lots, munching on the grass in the abandoned back yards and feasting on the bird feeders.      And the best part of living in Oxford, when the students do return in the fall, they’re still 20 years old! Peter Pan Land!  I love it! May 8, 2009 Gardening. Not for me.      Gardening.  Ugh.  It’s right up there with painting on the list of things I really hate to do.  While some people just glory in digging around in the dirt, I find it boring, distasteful and frustrating.      God didn’t want me to be a gardener.  My legs are too long and I can’t reach the ground easily.  So I have to sit on a stool with my knees under my chin and my big, fat feet always in the wrong place. If I stand up and use a hoe, my spindly arms are pretty useless and all I can do is scratch the surface.      Everytime I manage to get into the ground, even with gloves, dirt is everywhere; on my elbows, into my socks, on my clothes, under my shoes and thence to the kitchen floor. Awful.      Sure, the flowers and strawberries look nice, but I’m much more inclined to spend my time on the porch swing, long legs stretched out, big feet happily ensconced in down slippers and spindly arms holding a book. Now that’s living. May 1, 2009 OOPS!    or, Out On Porch Swing!  Finally, a beautiful day, temperature in upper 70’s, porch newly painted, curtains freshly washed and replaced, neighbors have taken their cartons of beer and migrated up the street where the REAL party is, and I get my bottle of water, my book and settle in. I’m distracted immediately, of course, by the birds, starlings flying in and out of the tree across the street, crows soaring above them, sparrows buzzing my front yard, playing some sort of bird game around the feeders and singing their little hearts out. The wasp and bumble bee keep trying to get in through the screen, not noticing the one inch gap under the screen door.  HELLO!      And always the people. Students in their shorts and flip flops, kids on skateboards on the way to the park, Bob Johnson, dutifully walking his three miles a day, my masseuse neighbor, yoga mat tucked under her arm, walking up to Ox College for her whatever they do.      Spring and summer! I’ve really missed you. April 24, 2009 Golden With a Slight Tarnish      I recently kind of uncelebrated my birthday #72. It’s a bit like being 17; no momentous changes, nobody seems to care, including me, and you only have being 18, or 21 to look forward to.      Being 72 is such a nowheresville.  It doesn’t cause gasps like, “GASP, 85?” or disbelief, “your’re WHAT?” or even respect and honor, “90! You’re an inspiration to us all!”  On the contrary, being 72 just inspires the Walmart clerk to call you “sweetie”...I’m NOT your sweetie and NEVER WILL BE!  I’m old enough to be aware of dimming faculties and thinning hair, but not old enough to be helped across the street.  On the contrary, I’m more likely to be run over. “Get a move on, Grandma!”      So this is the Golden Age. Golden teeth, joints that creak with a metallic edge and the gleaming wonder that I’ve made it this far. So on to next year! April 17, 2009 Roll Out the Barrel! (We’ll have a barrel of fun) The egg roll at the White House.  How refreshing to see the President as First Daddy.  How wonderful that special guests were kids of gay and lesbian parents as well as military service children. It’s time we let go of our prejudices.  It’s why I voted for him. April 10, 2009 Uh oh Writer’s block.  Spring fever.  Mental malaise.  See you next week. April 3, 2009 HUMANITAS The Sunday Times ran an article about a Minneapolis hospital and how it is overwhelmed with immigrants, many from war-torn Somalia, and the problems that ensue; language barriers, unfamiliar health problems, psychological illnesses and cultural clashes.  I was delighted to read that the hospital turns no one away, never asks if they are in this country legally and spends millions of tax payer dollars on this problem.      I can hear certain people, probably Rush Limbaugh devotees, lamenting that their money is being spent on illegal, non-American, intruders.  I for one am heartened that we have generous people in this country that rise above prejudice and pettiness and give support to people, many of whom have suffered grievously from man’s inhumanity to man. I am grateful when my tax dollars go to any human in need.  Man’s humanity to man.  Yes.           March 27, 2009 A Philosopher King      I know  sometimes we see what we want to see, but I think I see in Barak Obama Plato’s ideal ruler, the philosopher king.      I only saw the last half of his press conference last Tuesday, but what I saw was a man with vision.  He didn’t talk about victory and defeat, about bringing freedom and democracy to our enemies, but instead he talked about a global economy, a two state Middle East settlement and world peace. Finally!      I saw a man with ideas and the confidence and persistence to hang in there. Gooooo, Bama!  Beat prejudice, hatred, pettiness and violence! March 20, 2009 Springing Into Action Not only are the naked ladies a foot tall, but all the Miami students are out with their shorts and flip flops, albeit with their jackets and ear muffs. And finally, how refreshing!  To see the President of the United States on national television filling out his March Madness bracket!  And he seemed to know what he was doing.  Go UNC! March 13, 2009 GREAT MOMENTS IN CINEMA      In WITNESS, when Harrison Ford, a cop on the run striving to be incognito, dressed in ill fitting Amish clothes, confronts a town bully, gets out of the buggy, walks up to him and breaks his nose.  And the Amish guy with him says, as in explanation and apology, “He’s from Ohio.”      In GONE WITH THE WIND,  Clark Gable says, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”      In WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, in a restaurant, as a plain looking woman watches in wonderment at Sally’s “performance” and then says to the waitress, “I’ll have what she’s having.”      In GRAN TORINO, Clint Eastwood stares down his double barrelled shot gun with his steely blue eyes at the juvenile thug and says “Get the F-- off my lawn.”  YEAH!! March (FINALLY) 6 A New Take on Hostages Julius Caesar, during his conquest of Gaul, often exchanged hostages (you take my nephew, I’ll take your cousin) with the idea that the treaty would be upheld or that peace would prevail. It worked pretty well, no hostages were killed, and they were returned after a while.      It turns out that Samuel Champlain, while trying to colonize New France or what is now Canada, also utilized the exchange-of-hostage thingy with the Hurons or Iroquois or whoever was around (after all,they were hunters and gatherers). His exchange involved young men on either side with the promise of educating them and having them live with a family for cultural assimilation.  It worked like a charm. The young men would learn a new language, further their formal education and become interpreters, diplomats and were very instrumental in keeping the peace between the two peoples.  Kind of a proto-Junior Year Abroad program.      So why can’t we exchange a couple of young men from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan with a couple of ours, say from the streets of Los Angeles?  Let them live with a family and learn the language and customs. We’d even throw in a couple of computers and HD tv’s.  We’ll stop bombing them and they’ll have to stop the terror threats.      Doesn’t it say something sad about the development of civilization that the sanctity of life has lost its meaning, and hostages nowadays are beheaded and murdered and we can’t sit down and make some sensible agreement with our enemies?      February 27, 2009 Not So Simple You would think that replacing the 12” dowel in the bird feeder so sparrows will have something to perch on would be a fairly simple task. It began easily enough with purchase of a very long ˝” wooden dowel. Tools used (every object with a cutting edge in the kitchen, basement and garage and the ensuing multiple trips to each); large saw (teeth too big) hack saw  (successfully used to cut 12” length. unsuccessfully used to cut out little protuberances on either end) chisel (too thick) exacto knife (too thin) pencil sharpener (I’m getting desperate) key hole saw (not good since it is bent at almost a 45 degree angle as a result of the Christmas Tree Incident) all whittled down (pun intended) to one very sharp knife. band aid for sliced pinkie. February 20, 2009 THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX WITH 800 BILLION DOLLARS 1.     teach Chinese and Arabic in our public high schools. 2.     put all electric wires underground.  Think of the ultimate savings in repairs after storms, the repairs to the everyday damage by squirrels, accidents and daily attrition from the elements 3.     nationwide availability of alternative fuels and cars that run on it.  No more dependence on foreign and domestic oil. 4.     pay people to turn in their guns.  Give them some alternative like bows and arrows. 5.     increase the number of passenger trains and have one run from Oxford to Chicago, stopping where the old station was a block from my house. February 13, 2009 DOWN WITH SCROLL!        Just as I am slowing down, the world seems to be, not only speeding up, but getting much more complicated.  I speak of multi-tasking, phones that are computers, cameras that speak and the worst, those annoying scrolls across the bottom of my tv screen -- sometimes two or in the case of school closings, three at once!  STOP!      Then Wolf Blitzer has the nerve to suggest that newspapers may be a dying breed. This may be so, but the printed word, the stationary printed word on shiny paper, has it all over that glitzy, short, shallow information CNN brashly calls “news.”      Case in point.  John Updike died last week and the evening news anchors gave their usual one minute sound bite. On the other hand, THE NEW YORKER magazine, Updike’s publisher for almost sixty years, ran two eulogies, one by Adam Gopnik, which included this sentence; “It was part of the great good luck of this magazine that he needed, or indulged, us, and that his appetites and ambitions matched the dreams of the editors – which is only to say that several generations of editors tossed a bit less fitfully at 3 A.M., knowing that, if a book on some knotty modern subject had been sent out to Massachusetts, two weeks later there was sure to be, rebounding back, nine or ten pages of perfectly tuned prose – typo-free, full of cunning synopsis, serene judgment, big news, bite without tooth marks, and always at the end a permanent turn of phrase or a metaphor, not a witticism merely but a benediction, a blessing, an insight that lifted it far above mere reviewiing and into a form of witty personal poetry.” SCROLL THAT, CNN! February 6, 2009 Winter! Beautiful Because It’s Almost Over! or The Misplaced Harbingers Do I say this every year?  How beautiful winter can be; the hemlocks all outlined in white, the yellow glow of a neighhbor’s window light against the snow, the white smoke curling up from chimneys against a dark orange sky, and yesterday, a dozen robins, the perennial sign of spring, all huddled in the honeysuckle bush. I see robins in one’s and two’s, maybe three’s, but never a dozen.  But there they were, their orange breasts standing out so clearly against the white snow atop black branches. Quite a sight. But surprise, surprise, robins!  It’s not quite spring yet! There’s ice, a foot of snow and 15 degree weather.  Come back next week! January 30, 2009 Ay yuh!       I seem to be going through an American History phase.  I’m reading the history of the Bigelow, Biglo, Bugaloo family in America.  At the same time, I’m reading PAUL REVERE’S RIDE by David Hackett Fischer and it’s very good, especially for a daughter of Menotomy.  I discovered that Paul Revere, Rivoire, Riverie, was not such a hot speller, using “chattaer” for “charter”, “mash” for “marsh” and “foller” for “follow.”  But guess what? That’s how he pronounced it! So it turns out that this odd Boston accent I’ve been cursed with since birth was invented by the Old Colonials!    Fast forward to my first day of teaching Latin in upstate New York.  “Agricola est” I say in front of the class.  “He is a fah mah” and the whole class dissolves into giggles.  And it was all downhill from they-uh. January 23, 2009 Winter! Bah! Humbug!      I’m tired because of winter; lugging in wood for the fireplace, sprinkling salt, sweeping out salt, shoveling snow, putting on hat, gloves, scarf and boots just to get to the car, breathing faster to overcome below zero cold.      Not to mention the mental strain of worrying; pipes might burst, electric heater may burn the house down, the furnace may stop, the fireplace fire may cause conflagration, fingers get frostbitten.      And the final insult; a dead baby BAT in my furnace filter. Ugh!      Where are the birds? Probably all hunkered down in their winter stupor. That’s for me. A winter stupor. Bring it on. January 16, 2009 History Lesson Talk about one step away from greatness! The Harwoods have always maintained they’re in line to the British throne, being that the Earl of Harewood (oh, forget the extra “e”, the British have always been bad spellers, remember Shakespear? peer? pare? ) is the Queen’s cousin.     And of course my Bigelow relatives (Biggalough, Bugaloo, whatever) were a shipload away from arriving with John Winthrop to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, nine years after the famous Plymouth Rock Episode. John Biglo arrived soon after, settled in Watertown and in 1642 was the first to be married in the new town.      And the rest is history, so to speak. January 9, 2009 Oh, Deer, What Can the Matter Be? Imagine my surprise as I round the corner into my study with a handful of squirrel and bird food, only to come face to face, no, eyeball to eyeball with three very big deer, all milling around my back yard which is about the size of a large row boat.      Rather than back off and get my camera, I just keep going.  I open the door and throw out the crumbs.  Two of the deer look surprised, then a little panicky, and quickly take off down the side yard.  The third, goes for the farthest corner, only to meet a small wire fence and the abandoned Christmas tree.  He starts, backs, and then neatly jumps over all.      They regroup across the street, conference in a thicket of honeysuckle, and then continue their ambling through yards.      Where do they come from?  I live smack in the middle of the square mile, so they have to be at least a half a mile from anything resembling a forest glen or woods. And where will they go?  Uptown for a beer?      So in spite of the protestations of most sensible people, I’m going to put out a salt lick.  I think deer are beautiful and they are certainly welcome here. In fact, in my mind they could become comparable to the sacred cows of Calcutta, who wander the streets, causing traffic snarls and consternation, but are revered and unharmed. Ah!  I’m starting a new institution; the Sacred Deer of Oxford. January 2, 2009 Happy New Year! RETIREMENT OPTIONS Yesterday I looked at a cottage in our local retirement community....euphemism for old people’s town.  The units were lovely, spacious, amenity filled, but unfortunately, all the same.  They were all tasteful gray with white trim, small lawns in front (like who cares you never have to mow it) and yards in back.  But.... BORING!      I think of my house, one of many different offerings on West Collins St.  In the retirement community, would I see a neighbor, baring his bald head so his friend can break a pumpkin over it?  Will I watch my retiree neighbor dress up in a cow suit and run into the street carrying a sign that says, “Eat More Chicken”?  Is my Golden Age neighbor going to come out onto his front porch and throw up? I can’t move anywhere where all the people are the same age, where they depend on the Corporation to provide them with entertainment (tonight, we feature Dorothy, the accomplished whistler), or opportunities to socialize... come to our Friday night mixer!  Good Lord!  I suffered through those in college! I think I’ll probably end up hiring a maintenance man and continue to enjoy the diversions and diversity of city living. The students will be returning soon. Bring ‘em on!     December 26, 2008 Merry Christmas to All!   Here's a couple of David Letterman jokes; In 1907 Orville Wright flew 852 feet in the air and somehow his luggage landed in Dallas. Re the shoe throwing incident; Iran is now developing a long range loafer. Sara Palin has been named Person of the Year by Lenscrafter.   December 19, 2008 The -illion Factor Have you noticed that we no longer have much respect for the one dollar bill? or the five?  They are about to go the way of the penny or nickel.  Worthless.  Such a bother to have in your wallet.      Instead we use ten’s and twenties with abandon. I think we can blame the news media and the economy.  We read and hear about millions and billions, not hundreds and thousands any more.  What will come after trillions?  Quadrillions?  Ho hum.  Quintillion dollars in debt? That’s the new economy.       Where is it heading? Nanonillion?  Beyond oblivillion? How about infinitillion? Just give us a few years. December 12, 2008 WHAT AM I DOING? My translation of Ovid’s Amores is gathering cobwebs on my desk; my resolution to read the canon of Latin literature from Ennius to Vitruvius has been completely abandoned.  Any ideas for another book have been swept under the rug and my gratuitous grading of papers for the High School has slowed to a trickle. What’s left is assiduous morning bird watching, constant checking of calendar for grandchildren’s birthdays, lunch dates, much click shopping on the internet, real life shopping for exotic recipes I never had the time or requests for, like avocado salad, lobster roll, Brie en croute, or French toast with berry sauce and creme fraiche, knitting and designing, watching live press conferences and reading until my eyes pop. Retirement.  I love it. December 5, 2008 Fun Facts XXXIX Most fake blood used in movies is provided by the fake Red Cross. The only invention attributed to Thomas Edison’s son, Thomas Junior, was the toothpick with colored cellophane. Leonardo DaVinci invented the first electric blanket using some wool and an eel. Dwight Eisenhower is the only United States President to be buried at Graceland. November 28, 2008 WHEW! THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE by David Wroblewski is probably the best book I have ever read (thus I write here and not in Book Reviews), and that’s from someone who reads almost 100 books a year.      The descriptions of nature are detailed without being boring (Norman Mailer once wrote a very long paragraph about the color gray). His characters are memorable and moving. Even his dogs and dog behavior are so vivid that you feel like you’re scratching and petting right along with Edgar.      Everything about this book is deep and emotional.  The plot, which I won’t give away, is artful, suspenseful, compact and draining.      The best thing about the book is its optimism.  Somehow the author manages to always come up with a good side to even his most baneful characters, the darkest storm or the evilest twist of fate. EDGAR SAWTELLE is a must read and, I predict, a must movie. It’s a book that takes your breath away. November 21, 2008 Shameless Grandma Endless games of Checkers?  Okay! Go Fish for the zillionth time? Yes! Diet coke? Of course! You’re hungry?  How about some carrot sticks?  No? Well, then, have some cookies! Trash my living room?  Why not?  Let me help you! Ice cream, right before supper?  Sure! Help yourself!  and be sure to add the chocolate sauce! November 14, 2008 Sparrow’s Return Remember the sparrow that knocked himself unconscious on my glass door? and I had to revive him with my broom handle?  Well, he’s BAACK!      This morning a sparrow swooped down for a bread crumb and actually fell over.  Valiantly he attempted to right himself, and I was on my way with the broom handle when he got himself up on two feet and flew a little way, fell over again and then up into the tree. Whew!     He sat on the branch for an inordinately long time, much like a mourning dove who settles on a favorite spot for so long that moss could grow between his toes, or like some sea gulls, who love to pass the time staring at their feet; not like sparrows who always flit and swoop and flutter.      So because this one is still sitting in his tree, I suspect he’s the same, unfortunate sparrow from the glass door incident, and he’s either suffering a splitting headache or trying to sort things out in his concussed little bird brain.  Good luck, buddy! November 7, 2008 Thanks, People of America! A big win this week!  A giant step, no, really, the last step in a series of baby steps, taken by  a parade of brave men and women; Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Ralph Ellison, the list goes on.      When I was growing up, there were no black people on TV. Oh, okay, there was no TV.   But when we finally did get a black and white TV, there were certainly no Afro- Americans.  In fact, there were no black people in Massachusetts that I was ever aware of.       Then finally came Bill Cosby, a few news commentators, politicians, some broad minded judges and legislators and all of a sudden, WHOOSH! Barack Obama. President.  My heart soars, my faith in mankind is renewed.      And not to belittle the other great election result; a new High School! Hurray! October 31, 2008 HOMECOING DEJA VU It’s a raw, cold, damp, late October evening.  First the police come by and at the intersection of Elm and my street they set up a “Street Closed” sign and several red cones. Then the cars come anyway, manuevring around the blockade and parking in every available space.  Then they double park.  Then the Bookstore truck appears.  I guess  the chosen “employee of the month” is not going to walk the route this year playing his accordion while his wife pulls a little red wagon and they throw out old books.      The fire engines have left the fire house to line up.  Trucks decorated with balloons and inebriated college students rush by.  There goes a float on a flat bed with a big RedHawk paper maiche head!  Remember the year one float was a big toilet (FLUSH THE COUGARS) and our favorite Republican education guru had to walk behind it? She was running for State Board of Education.      They’re off!  Homecoming Parade all over again! October 24, 2008 FACTS, SOME TRUE Until 1938, the statue of Abraham Lincoln held a tip jar in his hand. It makes no sense to buy the extended service warranty on a coffin. The government has no idea how many people work for the census bureau. The last and only time the Phillies won a World Series was the same year the Republicans won the White House. Hmmmmmm. October 17, 2008 Somewhere Over the Rainbow Somewhere there’s a pile of “Obama for President” signs stolen from people’s front yards (including mine). Somewhere there’s a stash of purloined campaign posters piled up in the back of a garage.      You can steal my yard sign, but you can’t steal my commitment.  You can take  away the campaign poster, but you can’t take away the promise... or the hope. Obama for president!  Yes! October 10, 2008 Democracy...Let’s Do It! It’s not just that the leaves are changing color or the warm air has become cool. In this very conservative, Republican stronghold in southwest Ohio, change is happening.  For the first time in 30 years, there’s a Democratic Headquarters up the street!  Obama tee shirts, stickers and buttons are popping up everywhere.  There was a sizeable contingent (at least 12) of Obama devotees in the Dog Days Parade.  Today I stopped in the headquarters (the former Planned Parenthood office which was forced to leave town) and there was a steady stream of volunteers ready to spend their Saturday afternoon knocking on doors; retirees, professors, white, black, Asian and many, many students.      I’ve never seen so much interest in an election. It’s almost a desperation, as if we’ll do anything to prevent another four years of Bushdom. October 3, 2008 A Sparrow’s Life      Usually when the birds hit my glass door, they flap, dip, and then fly off. This one hit with an unusually loud smack, and then dropped to the ground like a stone.      I jumped from my couch and saw that he was out cold, on his back with his little feet sticking straight up in the “I’m dead” position.  But when I stepped out to give him a few words of encouragement, I could see his beady little eyes flickering and his chest moving.  Since he appeared to be in a serious coma, I got my broom and with the handle gently turned him over onto his tummy. When he still didn’t move much, I turned the broom around and swept him carefully off the cement into the ivy. I thought he’d be less vulnerable there if he indeed did survive.      When I came back a few minutes later, he was still there, but moving.  An hour later he was gone, heavens knows in what dazed, possibly  permanent state of confusion. Such are the hazards of being a sparrow. September 26, 2008 SIGNS OF THE TIMES      Real life signs at an anti-Palin rally in Achorage, Alaska; The Alaska Disasta Polar Bear Moms Say No to Palin Bush in a skirt Bush with lipstick McSame I’m a Proud Community Organizer God’s Will is not foreign policy America should not sleep if Palin is Veep. September 17, 2008 POWERLESS When the power goes out, people; Go outside to see if they’re the only ones. Start eating – ice cream first before it melts, then fire up the gas grill and commence having hamburg for breakfast, hamburg for lunch, hamburg for supper, hamburg in between. Sit on the front porch because there’s NOTHING TO DO! September 12, 2008 The Porcine Backlash This week both presidential candidates have been heard using the line “you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.”      Whoa, Nellie!  How insulting to pigs!  Are they insinuating that pigs are irreversibly ugly?  They’re no worse than some people I know.  Does Porky Pig need lipstick?  And how adorable is Charlotte’s pig, Wilbur?  What about the little piggies that go to market?      Politicians! Let’s have an apology to pig afficionados or you can kiss the swineherd vote goodbye. September 5, 2008 WAR; WHAT IS IT? My older brother and I have been digging up memories of WWII, of life for an eight and twelve year old living in a suburb south of Boston.  He, on his back on the roof of the shed behind the garage, armed with his cardboard guide to German war planes, watched for the enemy to appear in the sky. The plan was to find the silhouette of the plane, turn the inside concentric wheel and get all the details; name of the plane, size, number of guns.  We also had a beanbag game called “Slap the Jap” with Tojo the slant eyed buck toothed villain. And we both remember the blimps going right over our house on their way to the Naval Air Station in Weymouth and the airmen waved.      That was then and this is now.  No derogatory stereotypes of Al Quaeda.  The enemy is not taking over territory or steadily advancing through Europe. Indeed, we are at war with .....what?  an idea?  terrorism?  anyone who doesn’t love democracy and freedom?  anyone who isn’t with us but against us? religious extremists?  Muslims?  Christians? who?  where?      Furthermore, after 9/11, our president asked us to go on with life as usual, which, of course, did not happen. Witness the security lines at airports or the federally sponsored bugging of private telephones.  We haven’t been asked to sacrifice, buy war bonds, ration our gasoline or plant victory gardens. So... What?  August 29, 2008 The Graying of the Garden Tools As I watched the UPS man lumber up the front walk bearing on his shoulder my latest purchase, I realized I probably have reached the saturation point of garden tools for the elderly.      In an effort to prolong my independence and my ability to do my own lawn care, I have spent a fortune this summer on tools that were made for the old and infirm.  “Grandpa’s Weeder” was the first, a long handled pitchfork on a hinge by which the older person can pick up a weed without bending over. Ditto for the dandelion popper that with a deft punch of the foot, pops up the dandelion and allows Grandma (if she still has her wits about her) to catch it in midair.      And of course I have my self-propelling electric lawn mower with its push button starter, my easy grip pliers, and now my battery powered lawn trimmer that thanks to the wheels and optional long handle, can be pushed easily around the edge of the lawn, clipping and trimming without back strain.  My garage looks like a hardware store, of course, but I must say proudly, my lawn is the plushest on West Collins Street. August 22, 2008 Bub Eye Over the years, I have watched people say good bye; at airports, bus terminals, hotels, taxi stands, graduations, weddings, funerals, on porch steps, curbsides, doorways, ends of driveways and most often, in front of my house, at the car door.  This happens more frequently at the end of the school year or ,as now, at the end of the summer term.      The manner and vocabulary of the good bye reveals the level of intimacy, of course.  The hand shake, “see ya!” and casual wave is generally for siblings, distant cousins and once in a year visitor.  The “love ya!” accompanied by hugs and back rubs suggests blood relationship other than siblings or some semi-permanent connection that required a licence or certification (marriage, adoption, foster parenting). This is the favored opportunity for the drive-off horn toot.   Prolonged discussion involving multiple hugs and tearful smooching, is usually for the young of opposite sexes; unmarrieds or the seriously involved students from different universities.  Finally, my least favorite good bye is by telephone only and usually from a well meaning sales associate who is a total stranger and oozing with slightly solicitous phony familiarity.  Bub eye.      August 15, 2008 Why I Read The New York Times Because it reaffirms what I’ve been saying all along.  Nicholas D. Kristof in a column entitled “Make Diplomacy, Not War” gives us some information that I sure wish Congress and President Bush would take to heart. The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats. This year, the United States Army will add 7,000 soldiers to its total; that’s more people than in the entire American Foreign Service. More than 1,000 diplomatic positions are vacant because of lack of funds.  Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane. Terror groups are not eliminated on the battlefield. The most common way for them to disppear is to be absorbed by the political process. And so I reiterate;  teach Chinese and Arabic in schools across America.  Send teachers, not soldiers, to Iraq and Iran. Have a world wide exchange of grandchildren pictures so world leaders will think about THEM next time they want to drop a bomb.  August 8, 2008 SMALL CHANGE      I’m a little dismayed when Obama makes small changes to his stated positions; his decision to forego the campaign finance limit thing, for example, and now his acceptance of limited off shore drilling. I’m against more off shore drilling for oil for two reasons.  One, the threat to the environment from oil spills and who wants to sit on the beach and look at THAT! Two, and more importantly, because it is feeding our addiction. In the State of the Union address, Pres. Bush admitted that this country is addicted to oil. I think we all know that the way to resolve an addiction is not to empower it. If someone is addicted to heroin, do we give him more?  Addicted to cigarettes?  Go buy him more? Please! We need less oil, not more. Keep the price of gas and oil high and maybe we’ll get serious about alternative sources of energy. And that would be a welcome change. August 1, 2008 Suits I watched for the first time network television's new season’s opener of “Mad Men” and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.  It’s an accurate portrayal of the 60’s, although slightly exaggerated...did they really smoke that much? But it’s painful to relive those bad old days, when male chauvinism and racial and ethnic bias ran rampant.      For the same reason I can’t watch “I Love Lucy” reruns.  How could we let our husbands be so dominant? Why is she always coming out of the kitchen wearing an apron and Ricky Ricardo always yelling and telling her what to do?      I guess the good news is that we have all come to our senses and I can look forward to the end of the season when the Mad Men in their Armani suits will be up against sexual harassment suits. July 25, 2008 The Fake “Hi” Chance encounter; “Well, Hi!” “Hell LOW!” (no hug, no shake, an arm squeeze at most) “Long time no see!” “I’ll say!  How ARE you?” “Just great!  How are YOU?” “Oh, the usual. How’s the family?”  “Oh, you know them! (some eye rolling here) No change!  And how are . . . you all?” “Well, better than LAST year!” (knowing, sympathetic looks, and the realization you have crossed the line of no return) “Yeah,I guess SO!” “We’ve missed you at the old place!” “I’ll have to get there soon! And I’m not just saying that!” “Well,say hi to everybody!” “Sure will... and hi to all you...guys too!” Silent companion: “Who was THAT?” Guilt-ridden fake “hi” speaker; “I have NO idea.” July 18, 2008 A Murder of Crows      My street is being CAWlonized by a family of large crows, who spend a good time of the day flying around the treetops, CAWling to each other. What a CAWncert!  Sipping my second cup of CAWfee on the front porch, I listen to the CAWments of these corvine birds as they fly from block to block.  CAWmon sense tells me it’s the young ones making all the noise, but at any rate, the CAWntinuous CAWmotion is beCAWming a nuisance.      As for the title of this little unCAWmon diatribe against birds, I’m not about to shoot them down, but, like a gaggle of geese or a smack of jelly fish, a group of crows has a special name; a murder. July 11, 2008 Patriotism! Bah! Humbug! As for the latest media-induced brouhaha over patriotism and the political candidates for president, how timely that it happened close to our national birthday party, the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July! Apple Pie! Mom!  Is this the sign of one’s patriotism? Waving the flag (or even wearing a flag lapel pin, for that matter)? Marching in a parade? Wearing the stars and stripes? Do you think those people lighting fire crackers, setting off fizz bombs, sending rockets into the night sky, do you think those people are thinking about the Founding Fathers? the Birth of our Nation?  Are those people more patriotic than others?      I don’t think so.  They’re people who simply like NOISE. July 4, 2008 Ah, The Lazy Days of Summer HALCYON; calm peaceful, prosperous, tranquil. An adjective used to describe days, weather, years or all of the above.      The original Alcyon in Greek mythology was a daughter of Aeolus, King of the Winds.  She married Ceyx who was so happy with his life that he called himself Zeus and Alcyon renamed herself Hera, which was not smart (thunder crash, lightening flash) and they were changed into birds, the kingfisher and gannet.  It was said that during the winter solstice nesting period of the kingfishers, the sea remained calm, so from this we get the term “halcyon days” which I am thoroughly enjoying at this moment. June 27, 2008 from Letterman once again; During commercial breaks on the Larry King Live Show, Larry King has to be reminded where he is. Ninety percent of e mailers who write LOL are not laughing out loud. The Leaning Tower of Pisa began leaning one day after the warranty expired. In 1993 when the ratings for People’s Court started to slip, the judge reinstated the death penalty. In Utah, it’s illegal to advertise bottomless cups of coffee. In 1979, Cinqo de Maio fell on May 9th. The first draft of Gone With the Wind had an entire chapter devoted to things that had blown away. June 20, 2008 News from the Heartland      It’s been a busy week for the Oxford Police Department, according to the Oxford Press.  A naked, drunk student was found leaning on an air conditioner compresser.  Resourceful officers borrowed green scrubs from the local hospital (a block away) and then led the student, modestly covered, to jail,.      Then they were called to the trailer court, where a woman was yelling obscenities. When she refused to stop, she was hauled off to jail.      They rescued a dog abandoned in an overheated car and calmed a man who was threatening another with a machete.      The good news; a woman went to her 77th consecutive Reily High School reunion.  And for that she received a certificate. A certificate??  That’s it??? After 77 years????? June 13, 2008 Hillary, Thank You      An image that brought a lump to my throat; Hillary Clinton addressing the crowd for her suspension of the campaign speech, and the picture of two fathers with their young daughters on their shoulders, avidly listening and participating in history.      Being a first lady does not qualify one to be president, just as being a prisoner of war does not make one a commander in chief. Hillary simply was not the right woman at the right time.  She blew in on her husband’s coat tails, she belonged to the old generation and she was not always truthful. Nevertheless, for those little girls on their fathers’ shoulders, she is an unforgettable model. She broke the glass ceiling of sexism in politics, paved the way for those little girls to become president, and for that, I and the country will be forever grateful. June 6, 2008 WHAT WE EAT AND WHERE IT COMES FROM      Barbara Kingsolver in her latest book, ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE, argues for the inclusion of agriculture in our educational system.      “Knowledge of where our food comes from has vanished from our culture.      We have largely convinced ourselves it is not too important.  Consider how Americans might respond to a proposal that agriculture was to become a mandatory subject in all schools, alongside reading and math.  A fair number of parents would get hot under the collar to see their kids’ attention being pulled away from the essentials of grammar, the all-important trigonometry, to make room for down-on-the-farm stuff.  The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor, and dirt – two undeniable ingredients of farming.  It’s good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.      If that is true, why isn’t it good enough for someone else to know multiplication and the contents of the Bill of Rights?  Is the story of bread, from tilled ground to our table, less relevant to our lives that the history of the thirteen colonies?  Couldn’t one make a case for the relevance of a subject that informs choices we make daily –as in, What’s for dinner?  Isn’t ignorance of our food sources causing problems as diverse as overdependence on petroleum, and an epidemic of diet-related diseases?” Yes, Barbara!  So now we add agriculture to the required subjects of Chinese, swimming and Arabic. And you can just drop French, calculus and physics.  May 30, 2008 Screens      Grandkids come over and spend a long time in front of screens, little ones like the five year old’s Nintendo – “I’m at Level 13” he says proudly -- or computer sized, playing a video game, spending pretend money, setting up a house, buying furniture – WHAT!  This can’t be good. They are transfixed.      Yet, I seem to remember, years ago, my sister-in-law coming home from high school and spending hours in front of the TV watching soaps.  And what about all those hours my brother spent reading (shudder) comics? The violence!  The graphics!  The lack of prose!  My mother was sure he would become a juvenile delinquent from all that bad influence (he didn’t).      So even though I hear people saying kids nowadays are spending too much time in front of screens, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t matter in the long run.    May 23, 2008 Small Change The Bush administration has just announced they will be sending cell phones to Cuba.  Gee!  Communication!  What a novel idea!  Yet they and Hillary and John McCain criticize Obama for wanting to sit down with our “enemies” and talk. I support Barack Obama for that very reason, that he will sit down and communicate one on one with other world leaders.  I have often said that we should eliminate the words “enemy” and “terrorist” from our national vocabulary and replace them with “people with different perspectives” or “people of other faiths.”  An exchange of ideas has got to be more productive than an exchange of threats, labels, bullets or misinformed bullying.      Look how successful the Foreign Exchange Student program is.  Kids spend a school year in another country and come back informed and enlightened about a foreign culture.  We should do the same with adults. Many businesses and universities have been doing so successfully for years. We should expand on this idea and send many more people to Iran, to North Korea, to anywhere where they don’t seem to like us much. And we’ll take in exchange some of their people.  Let’s take a few hundred coal miners from West Virginia and send them in exchange to Siberia (lucky them!)  Our government could offer some hearty incentives like more free cell phones or a box lunch.  And imagine how much better this world would be.     It is possible.  We can change. Oops! Missed a week! It's that end of the school year rush...Grandkids' musicals, softball, tee ball, machine pitch ball, yard work, yahdah yahdah!    May 9, 2008 If You Believe in Fairies, ...      Here it is again, the last week of school for Miami students.  By next weekend the town will have cleared of 20-year-olds, only to be replaced next fall by more 20-year-olds. Talk about Time in a Bottle!      It’s been a glorious spring.  Somehow Mother Nature came up with just the right mix of showers, sun and warm air to create luxurious lilacs, lush green grass, brilliant forsythia and an abundance of birds. The Farmers’ Market has started up again, so I drifted uptown last Saturday morning to see what our local farmers have to offer.  And I see Cindy (not her real name), who used to live in the house behind us, and who, 35 years ago, stood at the fence with her little brother, staring at the new neighbors as we moved in. Her parents were real hippies – he picked wild flowers for her sister’s wedding and they had goat cheese wedding cake. He even built a tree house where the kids went to smoke pot (it was the seventies). And after high school she worked as a butcher, then kitchen help in a local resaurant, and now, there she is, looking exactly like her father (recently passed on) with wild, graying, grizzly hair, always smiling and cheerful, standing behind her array of organic herbs, lettuce, fruit preserves and spices.       Has it been more than 35 years since she stood at the fence? She and my children are fast approaching 50. Is this fair?  That my neighbors are always 20? Is this Never Never Land or WHAT!   May 1, 2008   Fictional Favorites from Childhood      Uncle Wiggly – the kindly old Rabbit Gentleman who always found a solution to life’s problems.  Santa brought you a sled but there’s no snow? Attach wheels!      Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy – always there when you need her, dressed in white apron and cap and holding a plate of warm cookies.      Pollyanna – seeing the bright side of poverty, loneliness, disaster, depression, and on and on. She had to be a creation of the Fifties, when Ike was president and war was a very distant thought.      Poor Little Rich Girl – she manages to be happy in spite of all that filthy lucre.      Heidi –with her Shirly Temple smile and bouncy curls, she makes everyone happy, even the Alpine goats.  April 25, 2008 Beware the Tide! The morning after the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary was exuberant with her “double digit” win.  First of all, “double digit”  is so misleading and in fact, inaccurate.  I heard later on NPR that when all the votes were counted, she won by an 8.52 percent lead. “Double digit” could be anything up to one hundred, while 8 percent is pretty measly. But who can trust Hillary to tell the truth?      Second, she claimed to have raised 3.5 million dollars in the 24 hours following her ha ha double digit win. If she can do that, why not another 3 million tomorrow and donate it to the poor and starving people in this world?      I hope both she and Barack are not going to spend millions on attack ads in the next few weeks. We’re all REALLY TIRED of this seemingly endless primary.  I hope they both would take a break and give us one as well. Take a week off and a deep breath. If they keep up this insanity, the tide, which Hillary claims is turning her way, will become a tsunami of national backlash, and will end up sweeping the Democrats right into the arms of the Republicans in November.      April 18, 2008 Time in a Bottle I’m being engulfed by a frenzy of Fiftieth Reunion Fever: calls from faintly remembered women, urging me to give $500 for our college class reunion gift, a badly printed Class Memory Book (postage $7 each) with our senior pictures (we all wore a classic drape and a string of pearls).  I even plead guilty to writing a Remember This? piece. But I’m not making a trip back to wallow in some less than fond memories. My years in college, like the following fifty, were years of learning, shaping thoughts and principles, creating a family, sharing talents and writing.      “If I Could Save Time in a Bottle”, I wouldn’t. The passage of fifty years has been good, but not to be repeated, thank you. My values have developed, I don’t waste time reading fiction and I cherish the hours watching grandchildren play T ball, perform in plays, visit, or play a spirited game of Crazy Eights.      Time is slipping away. So I’m going to take time and enjoy life! Spring is here!      April 11 The Olympic Question Question: Do athletics transcend politics? Answer: yes I’m reading the biography of Leni Riefenstahl, who among other things, filmed the 1936 Berlin Olympics, an event which was the subject of much protestation because of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Now we have this year’s summer Olympics in Bejing, also hotly protested because of China’s persecution of Tibet. And much as I sympathize with the Tibetans, a gentle, lovely people whose culture is being systematically destroyed by China, I have to think that the Oympics should go on. I believe this partly because of my 25 year participation in our local summer sports program. I live in a town that has a very widely diverse population, from  professors with Ph.D’s, world travelers, well educated men and women, to the denizens of the trailer court, usually uneducated and prone to show up on the police roster. But in the summer we have T ball, slow pitch, fast pitch, machine pitch, kid pitch, soccer, swimming, you name it.  And all the professors, the red neck right wingers, the farmers, the NRA gun toting Harley Nascar devotees, the socialists and the hippies all sit next to each other and support the 5 and 6 year olds trying to hit the ball off the end of a stick and  get to first base.  No one discusses politics in the beachers. Mt. Olympus, in ancient times the home of gods, not politicians, continues to rise above the petty politics of Eastern Europe. The first Olympics brought warring factions of the ancient world together for peaceful contests. Sports DO transcend politics.  Perhaps that’s why President Bush should not go to China for the opening ceremonies.  The Olympics are sponsored by cities, not countries. Let the athletes of all persuasions compete. Politicians Stay Home! Let the Games Begin! April 4, 2008 Signs of Spring in Oxford, OH      The “For Rent” signs are thinning out.      Joggers are increasing.      Daffodils are in full bloom, Naked Lady Lilies are a foot high.      Finches, grackles, robins are back.      Hats, mittens, gloves and scarves – back to the closet.      Flip flops, flip flops, flip flops.      March 28, 2008 Poppy’s Florida Quiz 1.     True or False; “Everglades” means “always sunny.” 2.     True or False; It never rains for two days straight in Sunny Florida. 3.     True or False; Massachusetts is named for the Great Indian Chief Massa, who always wanted to be the one to decide what gift to receive, and so he said “Massa choose it.” 4.     True or False; The Great Chief Massa loved to chew tobacco, and when taking tobacco in trade for raccoon tails, he said, “Massa chews it.” 5.     True or False; Second cousins are just as good as first cousins. 6.     True or False; Second cousins-once-removed are cousins who live out of state. 7.     Multiple Choice;  Who owns the Hard Rock Cafe, casino and hotel in Hollywood, Florida? a)     Donald Trump b)     Barbara Bush c)     Chief Massa of the Seminole Indians? 8.     How do you catch a lizard? a)     with a net b)     with a spear from the Seminole Indian Museum Gift Shop c)     with a kitchen towel ANSWERS 1.     true 2.     FALSE! 3.     false 4.     false (did anyone buy these? If so, I have a genuine Seminole spear I could sell you) 5.     Oh yes. 6.     Right 7.     Chief Massa! 8.     c March 21, 2008 MOVIN’ ALONG WITH THE TIMES      Until I got my new cell phone and fax/copier, I thought that a menu was something you held in your hand at a restaurant.      ...that a chip was something on your shoulder      ...that a symbol was a literary device found in MOBY DICK.      And it turns out that a tool bar is a long way from a sushi bar.      And pod casting and  streaming have nothing to do with fishing. Oh well.  Now I know why text messages R so cryptic. March 14, 2008  Happy Birthday, Gareth! Daylight LOSER Time      Never mind how she voted on the Iraq war.  Never mind that she voted to call the Iranian special forces “terrorists.”  What I want to know is, how did Hillary vote on Daylight Saving Time?  The first week of March?  What was she thinking?      Not only do we lose an hour of sleep one month earlier, but now each morning the children go to school in the dark.  Do the farmers get to work in the field an extra hour each day?  IN ONE FOOT OF SNOW??? Furthermore, President Bush can veto health care for children or veto a bill that forbids the use of torture. But where’s the presidential veto when we need one? It’s an imperfect world.      March 7, 2008 and snow predicted for tomorrow. WORDS I HAVE MADE UP AND I’M PROUD OF IT “Crackivore”, an animal that eats crackers, like parrots, raccoons and oppossums, but not cats. “Googable”, able to be found on the internet. A WORD WOLF BLITZER MADE UP ON CNN “Preject”, something that he does on election night. If you persist on saying “preject”, Wolf,  I’m going to get really mad and yell at the TV.  It’s either “predict the winner” or “project the winner”, but you can’t PREJECT!  STOP!(The wrong people are winning, anyhow). February 29, 2008 Two Things I Have Learned This Week           1. When you’re on the phone listening to an automated system and you really want to talk to someone you can; a.         Wait.  Don’t press 1 or 2 or 3.  Just grit your teeth and don’t say anything and eventually someone will notice you. b.         Press O.  (and why isn’t that tip in the manual???) 2. Squirrels can rotate their feet 180 degrees which explains how they can run DOWN a tree. How handy would that be for slipping into your slippers no matter what crazy position they were last left? February 22, 2008 A Sentence Worthy of William Faulkner Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter by his first wife who, tragically died two days after Alice was born  and on the same day his mother died, actually all on St. Valentine’s Day, anyhow, she, who was famous for wearing pants in public and smoking cigarettes, had her only child also on Valentine’s Day when she was 41 and the baby was not fathered by her husband, Nick Longworth from Cincinnati, but by her lover, Senator Borah from Idaho, giving rise to “Aurora Borah Alice” who wrote to her daily, and instead of saying “I love You” wrote the code word “hello” just in case her husband was reading over her shoulder – he probably wasn’t since he spent a lot of time with other women and drinking – and thus the voluminous correspondence, all saved by her, was saturated with “hello” “hello” especially right around the time she gave birth to their daughter named Paulina, a name historically used in connection with adulterers and who herself died at the age of 31 by an accidental overdose of pain killers, leaving a daughter of 13 years who was then taken over by her grandmother, the same Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and beautifully shepherded through her teens and college years until she, Alice, died at the age of 96.  February 15, 2008 RECENT OXFORD PRESS HEADLINES Dangerous Intersection will be Upgraded in 2011. Student Scales Hospital Wall to Obtain Drugs. City Council Passes Ordinance that Mandates Residents to take in their Garbage Cans. Drive-by Purse Snatching in Kroger’s Parking Lot. Intrigued? These are nothing compared to the Northfield Minnesota newspaper story about a pair of shoes found at the back door of a local business. February 8, 2008 A Garden of Victories      In this week of victories and defeats, in this administration’s world of victory, missions accomplished, and God forbid, defeat, I’ve achieved a few victories myself.  Okay, they’re small in the grand scheme of things, but mighty for me. I repaired the dishwasher by pouring a half gallon of vinegar into the central dohicky. With my hammer, hatchet and chain saw I have successfully recycled the old wooden sink (sorry, kids) into kindling. I bought a new copier for $79 and installed it myself.  Yes, the fax noise goes off at unpredicatable times,but other than that, it works just fine. I can understand more than half of the functions of my new copier. I finished my tax forms in under an hour and had them mailed off by afternoon... all except the new City Tax form which seemed to be a jumble of schedules all the way to K, pages of instructions for taxable and non-taxable income, go to page whatever if you whatever... until I called the help number to find out that retired people don’t have to pay city tax. HUGE VICTORY! February 1, 2008 Grandmas for Obama      I’m commenting on Caroline Kennedy’s op-ed article in the Sunday New York Times, just in case someone missed it.  The recent victory in the South Carolina primary of Senator Barak Obama along with this article has prompted me to become an Obama fan.      She mentioned how many people have said to her how her father, President JFK, had inspired them to become involved in public affairs. She feels that Obama has that same charisma, that same ability to inspire, especially young people.  The Clintons, on the other hand, are not inspirational by any stretch of the imagination. She has bent with the wind of popular opinion, voting for the war, then against, voting to name the Iranian military group as terrorists (is that any way to make friends?) and his life is an open book, so to speak. Barak Obama has been steadily against the war from day one and is, in his own words, “squeaky clean.”  I’m hoping his record withstands the inevitable harsh scrutiny in the coming months, and we can have a president who inspires the country, both young and old, by his honesty, sound judgement, creative ideas for solving problems, and a big point with me, has cute little kids.  Grandmas Unite! January 25, 2008 Totally Empty Threats that WORK! The White House is fond of making threats.  “If Iran doesn’t stop harassing our ships, we will take ACTION!”  Ho hum.  I don’t think anyone is quaking in his/her boots.  What Georg W. needs are some real threats, ones that work. “Don’t make me come up there...” “I’ll stop the car!” “I’m counting...one, two, ...” Iran would be running like a scared wabbit. January 18, 2008 More from David Letterman’s Miscellaneous Facts Bureau North Dakota has never had an earthquake. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. Pat Sejak has been trying for years to invent a vowel/consonant hybrid. After a domestic quarrel, Wayne Gretsky’s wife makes him sit in a closet for two minutes. Nancy Sinatra’s latest hit came from reading the instructions on a pair of boots. Female parrots, known for their uncanny ability to imitate human speech, often complain that the males are not listening. Abraham Lincoln’s last words; “Two more hours of this play? Somebody shoot me.” January 11, 2008 Happy Birthday, Josh! Political Notes Huckabee...wasn’t he the Principal at Archie’s comic strip High School?  Mr. Huckabee?      Unfortunately, this Mr. Huckabee doesn’t seem to have the right principle...he crossed the writers’ picket line.      and then there’s Hillary.  But first there was Senator Muskie, standing in the snows of New Hampshire and shedding a tear for his wife, virtually ending his bid for the presidency. Yesterday Hillary wells up and gets all teary, probably from fatigue and frustration, while saying how she loves her country.  This, womanly, emotional behavior catapults her right to the top. Go figure.      This morning, there she is on CNN, no longer emotional, but AHA! she mentions “love for her country.”  Are we going to hear that phrase from her mouth as often as we hear “9/11” from Rudi Giuliani? Stay tuned.      January 4, 2008 Be It Resolved... When I was teaching, we used to go through this professional pantomime of writing goals and then at the end-of-the-year conference with the principal, seeing if we accomplished them.  I always had this game won by creating goals I had already reached. For example, my goal is to create a syllabus for Latin IV – in the drawer, etc. etc.       In this same vein, I propose my 2008 New Year’s Resolutions that are sure-fire keepable, some for obvious reasons.   I resolve to never turn the heater indicator in the tropical fish aquarium in the wrong direction (hot, not cold) and thus overnight causing them all to belly up. (no aquarium) I resolve to take good care of my pets. (squirrels? raccoons?) I promise myself to sit on the porch swing more. I WILL gain two pounds. Finally, I resolve to read til my eyes fall out, play the recorder, both alto and soprano, and bake cookies. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! December 28, 2007 Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information from DL (pre-writers’ strike) A cockroach can live up to 9 days without its head. Knock knock jokes were relatively rare before the invention of the door. By 2010 mathematicians hope to substitute long division with wide division. Restaurants offering Peking Duck are required to be given 24 hour notice so the duck can spend its last moments with its family. Whenever Jesus ate raw fish, he turned water into saki. December 21, 2007 What the Dickens?      When you live in the same town where you taught at the high school for 26 years, the inevitable happens.        “Hi!  Remember me?  I was in your English class!”      “Ummmm”      “I was in your Latin class and I don’t remember a thing!”      “Ummmm” And today, checking out at the grocery store,        “Hi!  I heard on the radio this morning about Emily Dickens and I thought about you and our American Lit class.”      “Ummm” And my all time favorite, from the kid at McDonald’s,      “You was my English teacher!” And I’m so proud. December 14, 2007 Perks Some companies give out big Christmas bonuses, some finance free trips to the Bahamas, others offer discounts on merchandise, reserve luxury boxes at football stadiums, sponsor golf outings in Scotland or lunches with celebrities.  Unfortunately, we are not talking about teachers. But there is one perk for teachers that is special. Snow days, the best invention since the Gutenberg press. That one day that is given to you early in the morning, the one day that you don’t have to plan for and usually, make up for. So kids, have fun!  Go sledding! Teachers, go back to bed! Sleep in!  It’s the best we can do December 7, 2007 Give Us A Break! I for one am sick and tired of all the debates, the rhetoric, the accusations, the prying into the private lives, i.e., political campaigning.  So for the Christmas Break, I do hope all the candidates will LAY OFF!  Those with young children, GO HOME!  Give your family some precious time. And give the rest of us a break. November 30, 2007 Brushes With Celebrities by Harwood Family Members Seeing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis LIVE, on stage in Boston Photo op with Magic Johnson Lunch with Joyce Carol Oates PE with Ben Roethlisberger Sailing with Ted Kennedy An hour at an airport bar with Jesse Jackson Glimpse of Billy Crystal in Rome Cocktails with Philip Roth Gerald Ford in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington Lunch with Wolfgang Puck November 22, 2007  Happy Thanksgiving! Dog Food on Toast      After reading a description of some of the most famous chefs’ choices for a last meal -- crunch baguettes and Beylon oysters, caviar, foie gras, truffles wrapped in thin slices of pork, black bass tartare, chocolate pot de creme, to name a few -- I recalled some of my mother’s choices for our meals, none of which are candidates for my last meal, BTW. dog food on toast; browned ground beef in canned gravy on toast welsh rarebit; cheese soup-from-a-can on Saltines Saturday night staple; beans, dogs and brown bread after school snack; molasses on white bread oh yum. November 16, 2007 The Brick Wall When I first thought about having a brick wall  along the front of the yard near the sidewalk and up the driveway, it was mentioned that the top could be rounded or flat. I opted for flat because I wanted people to be able to sit on it or, if really young, to walk along it.  So in the ten years since, here are some things that have graced my wall, many appearing overnight. a blanket accompanied by one sneaker one tomato plant grandchildren of all ages, some of whom have fallen off or scraped their knees but no broken bones red paper cup half filled with beer soft drink can Talawanda Band members while waiting for the  Band Day Parade empty beer bottle half a milk shake my own casserole dish November 9, 2007 David Letterman’s Washington Bureau of Miscellaneous Information The average American will eat 35 thousand cookies in his lifetime. A snail can sleep for three years. Rhode Island is the only state that does not have an active volcano. The Federal Government has permitted schools to regard Candy Corn as a vegetable. After years of research, baseball historians have confirmed that there never was a first baseman named “Who’s.” November 2, 2007 Metamorphosis They arrived early in the morning with three huge trucks, each with a motorized thingy on the back that acted like an elevator. They dug, they tugged, they tamped, they stamped, they plugged, they fertilized, they chain-sawed, they did some mystery thing with a blue machine. They used gravel, sod, rocks, axes, clippers, rakes, levels, measurers, several kinds of shovels, sticks, stones and a fleet of wheelbarrows. And when they went away at the end of the day, my mess of a yard had become Garden Beautiful. October 26, 2007 It Must Be . . . Crickets are silent Leaves twirl, swirl, spiral, dash down like a sparrow, lazily float, fall in flocks, fall one at a time, all amass on the yard as a yellow and orange carpet Humming birds are off to Mexico, feeders cleaned and stored away Football Homecoming parades Pumpkins and overripe tomatoes Red Sox in the World Series and the best baseball ever It must be October. October 19, 2007 The Wave      Not what bored spectators do at ball games, not the Regal Wave – a half turn of an upraised distant hand, not the frantic “pick me, pick me” wave of the third grader, but the friendly “hello” or “good-bye” like the wave from the Greek concierge as the busload of students left his beautiful hotel on the Ionian Sea (how many Holiday Inn managers come out to wave you good-bye?) or the most recent, from the gardeners after two days of weeding, pruning, building, sodding and seeding – as I yell “Thanks for the good work!”  they wave good-bye from their trucks!      We need a universal return to waving. Condi!  W! Include waving in your diplomatic behavior! If you’re waving, you’re not bombing. October 12, 2007 Retirement!  Yeah!      It’s kinda sad when you see someone like Roger Clemmons refusing to admit he’s getting old (45?).  Give it up, Roger!  Admit and enjoy!  Top ten good things about being old and retired; 10. Get a check every month for NOT working! 9. Be home during the day for the plumber, computer man, cable guy, etc. etc. 8. Sleep in. 7.  Lunch with the ladies. 6. Knit til you drop. 5. Do stuff you never had time for like clean the back of the closet. 4. Watch birds. 3. Read. 2. Write. 1. Be Wise. October 4, 2007 BLOG OR COMMENTARY? Let There Be Light      I really don’t care for this relatively new word, “blog.”  It invokes “blah”, “log” (as in “bump on a log”) and “block” none of which reflect favorably on one’s ideas and subsequent writing.      On the other hand, “commentary” recalls Caesar’s attempts to describe the Gallic War as he saw it and elicits memories of high school Latin; clear, logical, elegant and descriptive writing that has withstood the test of time.      And “comment,” BTW, is more of a light hearted thought which most blogs are anyway, and indeed, comes from the Latin ”commentum,” meaning “a fiction or invention.” Fiat lux. September 28, 2007 Break Downs Things That Will Not Break Down and Fail You In Times of Need -- Unlike Computers, Cable Connections, Air Conditioners, or Contractors; towel racks rocking chairs coffee mugs God number 2 yellow pencils wooden ruler sparrows floors September 21, 2007                “W”! Listen Up! Your first mission – kill Saddam Hussein. Check. Your second mission – democracy in Iraq.  Check. Your third mission – oh, do you have one? How about “Success, not defeat”? How about thinking outside the bun? How about eliminating the words “success” and “defeat” from your vocabulary?  How about adding “world peace”, “global warming”, “alternative fuels” or “elimination of hunger”? How about sitting down with Iran, North Korea, Syria and anyone else, pop open a beer and start talking? September 14, 2007 Nay or Yeah Bors?      Because I live in a college town, every fall I get new neighbors who, BTW, miraculously never age.  And every fall, with some trepidation, I wait to see what fate has dealt me. Top Ten Reasons for Optimisim Regarding Student Neighbors 10. One is up at 6:30 every weekday morning. Must be a student teacher. 9. Curtains, not sheets, in the windows. 8. New couch is delivered and brought INSIDE! 7. First warm weekend party was quiet. 6. Beer pong table doubles as a plant holder/garden center. 5. No kegs. 4. Boy friend lives out of town. 3. Reading and studying on the front porch. 2. She’s “happy to meet you”. and Number One Reason for Optimism; They’re GIRLS!! September 7, 2007 SCALES?  SCALES?  WHAT SCALES?      And the scales fell from my eyes.      It all began as I was flipping through the television channels and came up with SOUND OF MUSIC!  Oh, my favorite!  So I watch the part where Christopher Plummer sings “Edelweiss” and then where he and Julie Andrews dance the traditional Austrian dance with lots of hand touching and head bowing and intricate stepping and twirling and they’re beginning to fall in love, much because of their common heritage and yadah, yadah. I’m charmed.      Then one thought leads to another and I’m trying to picture the American traditional folk dance...the Native American Rain Dance or War Whoop?  The Puritains didn’t dance. The Virginia Reel is probably a European wannabee and that brings us to the Doh-see-doh and Al-a-man Left square dance and, okay, the traditional dance of the ghetto whereby young people twirl on their necks in the middle of the sidewalk. But the scales fell from my eyes when I googled  “Landler Austrian Folk Dance” only to find that, in the movie, it was a Hollywood choreographed derivative and even worse, “Edelweiss” is NOT an Austrian folk song.      My dreams are shattered – equalling the moment I learned that Jackie Kennedy’s bouffant hairdo was ENHANCED! August 31, 2007 Shedding Light on Light      I’m being overwhelmed with interesting news, from the woman who was killed by her pet camel to the information gleaned from the New Yorker piece on light pollution.      A person standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building would be unable to discern much more than the moon, the brighter planets and a handful of very bright stars, less than one per cent of what Galileo in 1610 would have been able to see without a telescope. All because of artificial light pollution. From the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away. Bright lights do not deter criminals. Lighting is effective when it enables people to notice criminal activity and if it doesn’t help criminals to see what they’re doing.  A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor is more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide wall pack. Last year  San Antonio schools decided not to light their buildings at night. They found that energy costs were reduced as well as vandalism. August 24, 2007 Forward, March, er...August! Last year if you wore your baseball cap with the brim forward, you might as well have had imprinted on your forehead “DORK.”   So this fall, after I watch the Miami students move in across the street, and then, this morning, take a ride through campus, imagine my surprise to see  almost all the caps have taken an about face and are now riding forward.       How did this happen?  Did some alpha male somewhere make the turn and everyone else followed?  Did the youth of America come to their collective senses and see the wisdom of shading their eyes, not their necks (after all, what’s the collar for?) Did the university issue some new dress code?      I wait with bated breath for the next seismic shift. August 17, 2007 Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information from DL Walt Disney was afraid of mice. When William the Conqueror was in High School, he was voted “most likely to conquer something”. Fifteen percent of Americans don’t care for the other 85%. When shadow boxing, Mike Tyson once bit off his own shadow’s ear. Drew Carey got the Price is Right job by correctly guessing what his salary would be without going over. In King Tut’s tomb a jar labelled “NUTS” was found to contain a spring loaded snake. Boing! Instead of too much junk in the trunk, the British say “too much fruit in the boot.” The lowest rated Cable TV show ever; ESPN2’s coverage of the World Series of Solitaire. August 10, 2007 Arms and the Man      Good Heavens!  Why is “W” selling ARMS to Saudi Arabia?  Do we want the Saudis to attack someone? Weren’t many of the 9/11 people Saudis?  Isn’t Osama Bin Laden originally a Saudi?  Why are we selling arms to ANYONE??  What happened to World PEACE?      August 2, 2007 More From DL’s Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information Frozen lobster can come back to life when thawed. Three percent of homes in America are equipped with a telegraph. The Dalai Lama’s real name is Dick Reynolds Junior. In California, veterinarians offer udder enhancement surgery. Four percent of people say they cry when slicing an onion because they feel sorry for the onion. July 27, 2007 Pigeons, Doves, Whatever Everything you wanted to know about pigeons; Pigeons are doves and vice versa. They don’t carry any more diseases than we do. They mate for life. The female produces 2 eggs and the happy couple share domestic duties. While other birds collect water in their beaks and tip their heads back to drink, pigeons suck their water like a horse at a trough. They don’t migrate. They do have an uncanny ability to find their way home. Racing pigeons can be driven 300 miles away from home to a totally strange location and be back within hours. One poor little fella didn’t come back for days.  The breeder presumed it had fallen prey to a hawk.  Imagine his surprise when a week later, the pigeon showed up at his front door, battered and with a broken wing.  It had walked. For more pigeon stuff, read PIGEONS by Andrew D. Blechman. July 20, 2007 More from David Letterman’s FBMI In some parts of Wyoming it’s legal to hunt the elderly. The Post Office recommends -- to facilitate your e-mail, affix a 32 cent stamp to your computer. In 2008, Pizza Hut will focus less on Pizza and more on Hut. Every year 48 customers are electrocuted at Circuit City. In 1893 the Major League All Star Game was played without a ball. According to the Gospel, Jesus turned water into Fresca. The Manhatten Project was followed by the New England Project which was similar but had a thicker, cream-based chowder. July 13, 2007 On Watching the All Star Game Religion according to Webster; “a set of fundamental beliefs and practices agreed upon by a number of persons usually involving devotional and ritual observances and often containing a moral code for the conduct of human affairs.” Baseball; our national pastime/religion, proven to be entertaining to watch and challenging to play/fundamental beliefs and practices. Fans/baseballites are devoted to their teams, some going to games/church all their lives. Rituals and observances are strictly followed; the seventh inning stretch/kneeling to pray, singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”/”Come Ye Thankful People, Come”, yelling “He’s Safe!”/ “Save Me!”, the Bible/the Rule Book, tithes/ticket sales, multi million cathedrals/ball parks and forgiveness of sins/Barry Bonds.  Amen. July 5, 2007 Is This Corny?      Anyone who remembers I’m the one who read a book following the evolution of a hamburger (FROM CALF TO BUN) will not be surprised that now I am reading a book about corn. “Corn” was originally a generic English word for any kind of grain, even a grain of salt – hence “corned beef”;  it probably originated in Mexico but by 1000 the Indians were cultivating this most adaptable plant. Columbus described corn to Isabella’s court as “a towering grass with an ear as thick as a man’s arm to which grains were affixed by nature in a wondrous manner and in form and size like garden peas.”  Thanks to Squanto, it was corn that helped the Pilgrims survive that first winter, and when the settlers had fully grasped the secrets and potential of corn, they no longer needed the Native Ammericans and thus began their inevitable demise. Corn was used an an edible vegetable, a storable grain, a source of fiber and animal feed, heating fuel and, mashed and fermented, an intoxicant. The husks could be woven into rugs and twine; the leaves and stalks made good silage for livestock; the shelled cobs were burned for heat or made into corn cob dolls and when he had finished doing all that to his corn crop, the tired farmer could sit next to the fire and smoke his, yes, corn cob pipe. We can thank corn for the demise of the small farms. As the tractor replaced the horse,it was more profitable to plant acres and acres of one crop, corn, and then soybean, rather than the diverse crops requiring man power. In Iowa, only 2 percent of the state’s land remains what it used to be (tall grass prairie); every square foot of the rest has been remade by man, mostly into corn fields. And it’s not just Iowa. Drive from Oxford to Reily and all you see is corn and soy beans. A-maizing!   June 29, 2007 “Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy” No stars, no visible planes, only a green canopy over my back yard. A few stalwart June bugs and a rare sound of a helicopter coming from the hospital. The student neighbors gone and only three stops for the mailman on the block. It’s quiet. Really quiet. June 22, 2007 MORE FROM LETTERMAN’S FEDERAL BUREAU OF MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION The average American eats 35000 cookies in his lifetime. Early rocking chairs only rocked forward. Earthworms have five hearts. In the year 2025, kangeroos will have an additional pouch for an ipod. Rosie O’Donnell once got in a feud with herself. During July and August, Texas holds its lethal injections outdoors. If you make a cow laugh hard enough, milk will come out of its nose.               June 15, 2007 “Keep the Headlights Burning, and Both Hands Upon the Wheel; Let Me Call You Sweetheart, I’m In Love With Your Automobile” In the latest No. 1 Ladies’Detective Agency Series by Alexander McCall Smith Mma Ramotswe describes Botswana; “somewhere there, in that land of red earth, of green acacia, of cattle bells, was the soul of her country.”      So I’m wondering, what is the soul of OUR country? Apple pie? Mom? Freedom and Democracy? No, I’m inclined to think it’s the automobile. We destroy the landscape to accomodate it, we spend billions to create highways so we can drive it somewhere, five story parking garages take up whole city blocks, we build a three car garage and then, oh yeah, a house behind it.  In my case, my car payment is larger than the mortgage payment, I spend as much time keeping it clean and spiffy as I do myself (check ups, special diet) and my city has an ordinance that you must pave over your lawn so the students have a place to park.      People!  Come to your senses! Go take a hike!  Take the kids on a picnic!  Visit a national park!  Of course, you’ll have to drive to get there. June 8, 2007 MYOB/Mind Your Own Business Why are we so uptight about Iran having nuclear capability?  We ourselves have plenty of nuclear energy.  Who are we to say they cannot? Iran: We’re only producing nuclear energy. World: Okay, we believe you.  Proceed. Iran: Oh!  Guess what? Now we have a nuclear bomb and . . . World: And what? You’re a liar? Iran: We’re going to bomb Israel. World: Hello!  Twenty-first century here!  We all know what the fallout, both physical and economic, would be if you actually dropped the bomb.  Radiation drifting over all the Middle East, including yourselves, and what’s more WORLD CLASS SHAME!  We think NOT. Iran: Oh. OK. June 1, 2007 Remembering Memorial Day The first Memorial Day honored the soldiers who died in the Civil War and this year, ironically, we’re honoring those who have died fighting in someone else’s civil war.  But what matters is that we remember those who have died.  And this is not an original idea. I happen to be reading the Odes of Horace, from the first century B.C. who writes about honoring those who have died on the battlefield or from forces of Nature. And what is even more mind boggling is that Horace, way before electricity, telephones, cars or computers and had thoughts so universal. “aequa lege Necessitas sortitur insignis et imos, omne capax movet urna nomen.” “Fate with an even hand chooses the high and the low. The all encompassing urn touches every name.” Or, in modern lingo, “None of us will get out of this alive.” And so I celebrated Memorial Day, like all good Americans,...and went shopping. May 25, 2007 David Letterman’s Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information The human brain is 80% water. Harry Truman would often go on vacation and have his twin Larry take his place. Global warming is due to a batch of faulty thermometers. Zorro can slash the numeral “2”.  Or an “N” lying down. The Book of Leviticus contains a recipe for broccoli polenta. Thomas Mann wrote DEATH IN VENICE after being murdered in Italy. Phil Donahue thinks his show is in hiatus, waiting for new carpeting. J. Edgar Hoover’s last words were “I’m not dead, don’t close the co—“ May 18, 2007 With apologies to whoever started this; YOU KNOW YOU’RE FROM OXFORD WHEN The population is 75% under the age of 25 and they never get any older. You have homecoming in a gym, prom in a dining hall, high school plays are in a cafeteria and graduation on a basketball court. People ask you where you live and you reply, “I live in a drinking town with a college problem.” Everyone knows what “Kill em and hide em “ is. You, your parents and your grandparents had Mr. Kober in class. Diversity means bringing in an exchange student from Reily. Your high school reunion is called “townie night.” May 11, 2007 Life – the Greatest Show on Earth A haunting picture from a couple of years ago –a young woman, walking down South College Avenue, tears streaming down her face. And now again, last week, another young woman walking past my house, crying and talking on her cell phone. Does this happen in other towns? Or is it just in a college town, where relationships are fragile or where life is just a little unreal?      Yesterday, a young man, baseball cap on backwards, plugged into his IPod was seen running rhymthically along the sidewalk on Walnut Street and juggling three balls in the air at the same time. And then today, last day of the school year and traditionally Moving Out Day, the dogs next door begin to bark and a girl comes sailing down the street in a rolling desk chair, laughing wildly as she twirls around, careening from car to car. I’m almost disappointed that she’s not crying, talking on her cell or juggling. What a circus life is! May 4, 2007 No Hits, No Runs, All Errors I want to make it clear, right up front, that I’m not laughing AT them. I’m not laughing WITH them, either, because they, for the most part, are not laughing. Maybe laughing FOR them, oh, all right, laughing AT them, but they’re so cute.  I’m talking Tee ball.      We started out with an exhibition game of two innings on the city’s finest ball park with the bases about halfway to the real base. This was fine.  But then came the REAL game on the definitely second rate tee ball diamond -- no bleachers, no bat holders, no shade, actually, no umpire. But let the game begin. The whole team takes the field.  And since the ball rarely makes it out of the infield, the fielders are placed in a  semi circle behind the bases.  First inning, they’re all ready, squatting in position with “alligator mouth” gloves at the ready.  Every team member bats.  Since it’s four to six year olds, some are decidedly better than others.  No strikes.  They just keep swinging until it’s a hit.  So the four year old, Jack, is fine for one inning.  But then attention starts to wander.  By the second inning, some fielders are sitting down, picking at the grass, or playing with the dirt.  Jack enjoys standing on the bag, jumping up and down, watching the little white puffs.  Our catcher, all suited up and hardly able to bend over, likes to watch the ball come to her.  So as the runners are progressing, she’s standing, glove ready, waiting for the ball to slowly, really slowly, dribble towards her.  All eyes, parents, grandparents, siblings, are fixated on the slow moving ball.  Will it make it to the glove or will it stop?  Or will she take a step forward and pick it up?  Oh, the drama. They’re all primed to throw to first base. Our first baseman, who by now is more interested in something in right field, is shocked into action by the ball heading his way and as he raises his hand in self defense, the ball takes a bounce and lands plunk in the middle of his glove.  It’s one of the only real catches of the game, and we’re all astonished, especially the first baseman. There are no outs.  We just keep going through the lineup. Finally in the third inning, a couple of base runners get put out. No one really cares, of course, because no one is counting, either outs or runs. There are no outs by catching fly balls because no one can catch. It’s mostly watching it land in front of you and then falling on it.  There are several tussles when two fielders want the same ball. And of course by the third inning, everyone is tired.  Jack keeps coming to the fence, asking Mandy if it’s time to go home yet.  But, mercifully,  the three innings are over, the ritual lining up and high fiving the other team and then the SNACK!  Jack’s comment on the way home, “It’s too long.”  Will he make it through the summer?  Two games a week. Stay tuned.      April 27, 2007 The Blog Doth Break Up We all know that language is a living entity.  Words are born (blog) and words die (doth).  They also take on new meanings. In my generation,  “party” involved invitations, special food, decorations, balloons, streamers and a time frame, like Friday afternoon from 5 to 7.  That party still exists, of course, but somewhere, just about when our firstborn entered high school, “party” went from a noun to a verb.  He was out “partying”, home by 2 a.m. and sleep til noon.  Now anyone can “party” in the presence of a keg and loud music.      So it is with “breaking up.”  It used to be that breaking up involved the dissolution of a personal relationship.  That still happens, of course, but now my cell phone can “break up” and last week, my DVR was recording pictures that were out of focus and transmitting composites of unrelated blocks and squares and the helpful Cable Man (on the phone, probably from India) told me it was “breaking up” and proceeded to fix it.      BTW, my first “break up” happened the night of my Senior Prom.  Are you still alive, Bruce Dalrymple? April 20, 2007 From David Letterman’s Washington Bureau of Miscellaneous Facts Two of the Three Dog Night died after eating tainted pet food. The Hawaian alphabet has only 12 letters. Seven out of 10 people believe positive thinking extends life.  The other 3 are dead. April 13, 2007 Bill Who?      I saw Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, on CNN last week.  He was in North Korea, trying to get the remains of American soldiers from the Korean War to be returned home.  I was in awe, that here was an American actually talking to the “enemy.”  He was successful and he was asked about the negotiations and he said that he didn’t negotiate with the Koreans because the North Koreans don’t negotiate or even think that way.  FINALLY!  Someone who goes to the trouble to find out how the enemy thinks and is willing to sit down and talk.  Say, isn’t he running for President? April 6, 2007 From David Letterman’s Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information In addition to X-ray vision, Superman can guess your weight within 5 pounds. Nine out of ten visitors to Delaware are there as a result of a wrong turn. One third of the explorers who reached both the North and South Poles developed bipolar disorder. March 30, 2007 March Madness A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King. Emily Dickinson!  You Go Girl!! March 23, 2007 What a Trip! New improvement for long distance driving!  A car that has the middle seat in the back on some kind of device that allows it to move forward so the driver can reach the (presumably) child and give it his bottle, tie his shoelace, slap him on the head for not drinking his V8, adjust his portable CD player, etc. etc.  If only Gareth had had that on his epic nine hour drive from Wisconsin, alone with two little girls who were strapped into their car seats and surrounded by boxes of toys. Picture this indomitable father, stuck in Chicago traffic, driving with one hand and holding a picture book with the other, reading to the kids in the back seat! and this was before the CD player!      Beep beep beep!  Back up 35 years and picture a family of seven, jammed into a station wagon, on a twelve hour drive to Grandma’s, no air conditioning, no entertainment except the car radio, and that same little boy in the “way back”, carefully tossing what few toys we had and various shoes out the rear window which was open a crack in spite of the carbon monoxide poisoning because we had to have AIR.      How did we survive? March 16, 2007       Useless But True Things I’ve Learned This Week You can grow lettuce in nothing but water and a few pills. When Paul Revere rode through the countryside, he did not yell “The British are coming!” but instead he cried “The Regulars are Out!” The North Star is not always the same. A widgeon is not related to a pigeon but is actually a DUCK! March 9, 2007               Daylight Saving...Say it isn’t so! My first hint was when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw on  the High School sign the words “Daylight Saving” and I thought it was some joke or dreadfully bad timing. But that night Katie Couric included it in the news and sure enough, it is this weekend. What nincompoop in Congress decided to change Daylight Saving Time to March?       What, pray tell, is the point? So we can shovel snow in the daylight? Turning off all the lightbulbs in the country an hour earlier is not going to solve the energy problem. It’s heating that takes energy. If moving the date earlier meant it gets warmer sooner, that would be great.    And why wasn’t I told about it? So I run to my calendars, and there it is.  Someone obviously told THEM. The big question now...has anyone told my computer? my DVR? my cell phone? March 1, 2007 Top Ten Signs of Spring, Finally 10. Racoon has returned 9. Neighbor who goes to Florida for the winter has also returned 8. Ice cap on my patio is receding. 7. Tanning beds are filled to capacity with Miami students getting ready for Spring Break (what happened to the idea that you go to Florida to GET tanned?) 6. Flip flops and shorts are back on the street. 5. Grackles have returned (robins, the traditional harbinger of Spring have been here all winter). 4. Easter Bunny pictures in catalogues. 3. Wood pile is diminishing. 2. Rain, not snow. And the number one sign of Spring; GREEN BEER DAY!! February 23 Ouch! Did I say winter was beautiful? Hellooo! Well, yes, it is beautiful, but after a week of single digit cold and 8 inches of snow compounded by 2 inches of solid ice, all I can say is, winter hurts.        My joints hurt when it’s cold, my shoulder hurts from all that shoveling, my back hurts from the snow blower which, by the way, does NOT work on ice. I’m tired of the ten minute ritual of getting ready to go out and the twenty minute ritual of taking everything off, cleaning up the salt, drying the mittens and boots, and on and on.      Up further north, Molly was home from school for a whole week and in her pajamas for three days. While further south, I can hear the Floridians chortling.      The good news. Southern Ohio winters don’t last more than a few weeks and 40 degrees are predicted by Monday. The birds are busier and more prolific than ever. I saw a beautiful mockingbird yesterday, and a huge black crow. In winter I can see the birds more easily, and there’s nothing like a bright red cardinal on a snowy branch. So I guess the good news outweighs the bad. And . . . it is beginning to melt.      February 16, 2007 Incident at the Pearly Gates St. Peter is standing at the Pearly Gates.  Along comes a man with a shock of unruly white hair who says he’s Albert Einstein. St. Peter says, “Do you have any identification?”  Einstein says, “No, but here . . .” and he pulls out paper and pencil and begins to scribble equations. St. Peter takes one look and says, “I’m convinced. Go on in.”      Along comes a man who says he’s Picasso. St. Peter says, “Do you have any identification?” Picasso says, “No, but . . .” and he pulls out a drawing pad and proceeds to make sketches of his work.  “I’m convinced”, says St. Peter. “Go on in.”      Along comes George W. Bush. “I’m George W. Bush” he says. “Do you have any identification?” asks St. Peter. “I had to ask Einstein and Picasso for theirs.”      “Who’s Einstein? Who’s Picasso?”      “I’m convinced,” says St. Peter. “Go on in.” February 9, 2007 Eureka!      Aha!  Now I get it!  It’s the age old problem – real men don’t ask for directions.  George W!  Hello!  You be lost!  Ask for directions!  and then follow them! February 2, 2007 HUGE MISTAKES Starting an afghan consisting of 25 squares and completing nine, seven of which are different sizes, colors and just FORGET IT! Ordering from a catalogue a $400 lamp that looks nice but because of a design flaw, after being on for more than five minutes, reaches a temperature close to the boiling point and has to be turned off using an oven mitt. Spending $3 on a leather fly swatter, hand tooled by a Native American with original design, a lovely piece of leather attached to a natural tree twig and utterly useless; by the time the leather hits the wall, the fly is halfway to Mexico. “W” January 26, 2007   Pick a title; Remotely disconnected Not even remotely competent Remotely impaired Panic button disease Picture this; I’m sitting on the floor in front of my TV, VCR and Cable DVD Box, surrounded by three  multi-paged manuals written in at least three languages, none of which are in an English I comprehend, and holding three remote controls, all powered by two AAA batteries (I can do that) and somehow causing my TV to go completely snowcovered with the accompanying BLAAHHHHHH. After an hour of button pushing, remote control shaking, heart stopping frustration, i.e. nothing, I call my friendly Cable Guy, who very patiently has me running around the house (thank goodness for my cordless phone) checking other TV’s, going to my TV and actually pushing buttons on the console (I’ve never done that before), now do this, now do that, wait a minute, what does this display say, do I have the time? press this, press that, then VOILA! It’s all fixed.      So I gather up the manuals, retire two of the remotes to the electronics closet and vow never to push another button in desperation again.  Or at least until tomorrow. January 19, 2007 Global Warming?      Where is the snow?  Nothing but snow showers this year?  This is pathetic. Teachers and students are disappointed, waiting for their snow day, and my new snow blower is gathering dust. Can we blame “W” for this? January 12, 2007 TOP TEN CATEGORIES 10. Books I’m sorry I bought. 9. Stupid things I’ve done. (Oh, much too large.) 8. Things I have thrown through a window I thought was open but was actually closed. (Probably too small.) 7. Meals I’ll never make again. 6. Meals I’ll make at least once a week. 5. People crossed off my Christmas list. (Ooh, that’s an ugly one.) 4. Seinfeld episodes that are classic. 3. Lists I wish I wasn’t on. 2. Places I’ll never go on vacation again. (Las Vegas?) And the number one category; 1. Ways to waste time. And in that category, Top Ten Categories! Happy New Year, January 4, 2007! Grandogs and Grandcats Even though I really don’t care for dogs (the slobber, the smell, the pleading, servile expression) my grandogs are inexplicably attracted to me and attempt to climb into my lap even though some are 100 plus pounds.  I actually like my grandogs, probably because I don’t have to feed them or attend to their business. And they go home.      My grandcats are less friendly, of course, being cats, and my memory of a grandcat is Charlie (or Chester, or Arthur), who resented my presence in his house and kept leaving little protest deposits all around the house while I was occupying the guest room.  Sorry, Charlie! December 29, 2006                Christmas Tree Thoughts My Dad’s job was to go get the tree, and he never mastered the art of picking out a good one; it was too skinny, too fat, it was crooked, lopsided, too small, too big. But we’d put it up anyway and proceed to decorate it; too much angel hair, too many orange lights, tinsel not arranged artfully, too much ARGUING!      When I finally got married and got my own tree, it was a lot easier. Brit was good at picking out trees.  But every year he would proudly announce the purchase of one more really ugly ornament. Big, glitzy, silver shiny blobs...oh well. When he left, I promptly gave all the ornaments to the kids.    So now my perfectly shaped tree arrives from North Carolina by UPS in a box the size of an elongated umbrella stand.  I set it up in its own stand, decorate it with oldfashioned lights and homemade cookies and wooden ornaments perfected by a local craftsman.      I really thought I had finally reached Christmas Tree Nirvana until I read the accompaning letter which stated the tree was 15 years old.  Uh oh. I’ve caused the death of a teen ager?  So I have constructed a rational that I hope will ease my conscience. This tree, which would have spent it’s natural life on a boring tree farm, brings joy and happiness and beauty to everyone in my living room and beyond for a month. Then it provides cover for the birds in my back yard until it completely dies in the summer. And as a final service, it is chopped up and used for kindling all the next winter. Thanks, Fraser!   December 21, 2006   Ode to My Leather Jacket Laytex and banlon, nylon and vertex Polyester, acrylic, down and spandex Fleece, pile and vortex, duck down and more Acetate, plush lining, and velvet velour; Warmest coat I’ve ever been in? Animal skin. Litter, All Over Again Our esteemed Oxford City Council is considering legislation that would ban outdoor Beer Pong, a current college craze that involves cups of beer on a table on the  outside porch, and the inevitable litter, not to mention drunken kids. Of course it’s ridiculous.  Students will drink somehow and soon there’ll be some other game, just as, if not more, obnoxious.  We have ordinances against public intoxication and littering, so what else is new? In fact, nothing.  When I arrived here in 1965, Mr. M___ (I have learned not to name names) had a house on Sycamore St. that was completely filled with broken TV’s and radios.  A WWII vet, he spent his time with electronic repairs.  We had a small, black and white TV and at one point it stopped, so we brought it over. By that time the old covers, shells of their former life, electrical inner workings, tubes, cords, were spilling out onto his porch. He had an unusual method of doing business. He couldn’t bring himself to say he couldn’t repair it.  Instead he would lend you a working TV and you never saw your own again.  Whose we were really watching was always a mystery.  Possbily someone was watching ours. Then we did without a TV for a while, until the Watergate Hearings, and we called Mr. M____ to rent one.  No problem.  The problem came when we were done and wanted to return it.  He came but wouldn’t take money. “PLEASE!  We’ve had it for two months.  Take $5!   PLEASE!” Actually he lived in another house a few blocks away, but that one, too, became filled with dysfunctional TV’s which spilled out onto his lawn and the neighbors complained about the litter and there you are.     December 8, 2006 TO GET READY FOR WINTER   Top Ten Things To Do To Get Ready For Winter;   10. Have wood delivered and stacked in the garage. 9. Have furnace checked and filter changed. 8. Clean gutters. 7. See that all storm windows are closed tightly. 6. Stock up on bird seed. 5. Unscrew hose and store in in garage. 4. Hang up lawn mower (yeah!) 3. Take in porch swing cushion. 2. Wonder at the shades of gray at night and the billions of black twigs now forming a lacy sky where the green cover used to be.   And the number one thing to do to get ready for winter;   Check out the fat wrens, the bushy tailed squirrels and wait for the first snowflake. December 1, 2006 COUGHING, SNEEZING ATTACK        At lunch yesterday in a nice restaurant, my friend was taken with a coughing, sneezing fit, common in Southwestern Ohio because of allergies.  At first we politely ignored her, but as it continued we couldn’t pretend she was all right.  So there followed gestures of sympathy, offers of water, Heimlich manuver? several bad jokes that just prolonged the agony, then embarrassed silence as we endured this unseemly display of dysfunctional bodily functions.      It sometimes happened to me at school in front of my class, where the choking, gasping, wheezing and sneezing forced me to leave the room. Bewildered students looked at each other. Where is she going? Is she okay? And then they silently sat through the noise, amplified by the emptiness of the hall, really loud, ferocious coughing, spitting, harrumphing, water fountain slurping, bringing teachers out of their rooms, until finally I was cleared and ready to resume. SORRY!          November 24, 2006 IMBY (In My Back Yard)   Things seen in my back yard – my back yard is the size of a large pool table – and not all at the same time.   a pair of men’s briefs beer can frisbee sign that says “1/100th of an acre wood” (my contribution) dead cat (six inches under) 3 feral cats two squirrel’s tails robins, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, wrens, juncos, red bellied woodpeckers, flickers, crows, tufted titmice,nuthatches, catbirds, thrashers, American redstarts, hooded warblers, cowbirds, finches, grackles, starlings, doves and hawks (ha ha). oppossum mother and baby raccoons and babies meter man totally strange man running      November 17, 2006 NOMLRF (not on my living room floor)        After reading THE PLACES IN BETWEEN by Rory Stewart, a young man who walks across Afghanistan and survives in spite of abuse from villagers, threats from the Taliban and other tribal elders, I was amazed that in this day and age there are people who are still isolated, ignorant, unwashed and patheticaly poor.  I am also amazed that this man had no reservations (no hotels) and still found a place to stay every night for a month thanks to the Muslim law that you have to take in a traveler and feed him as well.  While some of the villagers were less than gracious -- he was pelted with stones by little boys and his dog was attacked by other dogs -- he was ultimately never turned away.      But if you think about it, you don’t have to be a Muslim to not turn away a stranger.  Once, when we had first moved to our house on Spring Street, Brit was taking out the rubbish, and came back inside to announce that an itinerant couple was outside and he had invited them to spend the night on our living room floor because they had no place to stay.  Oxford, in those days, was frequently host to homeless stragglers who were wandering from Indianapolis or some place West, to Cincinnati or some place East.  The Methodist Church often had itinerants sleeping under the stairs.  I, of course, neither Muslim nor charitable, had a fit (they could rob us! kill us! give us germs!) and so Brit drove them to the closest motel and paid for their stay.      The question is -- whether you live on Park Ave, New York, or in Bath, Indiana, if someone came to your door and said “I need a place to spend the night”, would you let him in? Auguat 18, 2006                             Swan Song        I could rant and rave about the heightened homeland security, the humiliating airport routines or man's inhumanity to man.  I could get really mad about how inefficient government is.  Why don't we have a national ID that would get us through airport security like a fast pass at Disney?       Or I could seek serenity in the ancient art of towel origami and create a swan for the bathroom...       The Swan Wins!!!   A couple of the ladies are clearly out of step. August 11, 2006 The Naked Lady Revue        Jack comes running through the house, all excited. "Grammy! Grammy! Your flowers are awake!"      Ah yes, my favorite August phenomenon, the Naked Ladies!  Amaryllis belladonna are the first to poke their large, flat green leaves through the snows in the spring, who grow so profusely that Black Kitty can hide under the foliage, waiting for a sparrow to fall from the feeder above. Throughout the summer the leaves miraculously disappear, and one day, like yesterday, up come the naked ladies, with tall,green stems and then pink, lily-like flowers, opening every day with more and more flourish.  Today they are all leaning to the right, probably gasping for sunlight, but as if they have their own song and they're dancing with delight. And if for a moment the jays would stop screeching and the humming birds humming, we might hear the Naked Ladies Chorus Line. "On the count of three," sings out the Naked Lady in Charge. "Lean to the left, Ladies!"       August 4, 2006       Backhoes and tractors and trucks! Oh My!            After eight granddaughters and years of quietly playing house, dressing dolls, coloring and crafts, suddenly I have three grandsons and we're into cars, trucks and how things work.  In a playroom full of dolls, games and American Girl outfits, the boy is more interested in the fan.  How does it turn on?  Off? What an interesting sound it makes! And nobody taught the boys how to run and make noise. They just do it.  I guess that's why "boys" rhymes with "noise" and "girls" rhymes with "pearls" and "curls".         July 28, 2006 I'm a genius. I've just made up a new word and its time has come.  GOOGABLE.  Meaning, "able to be googled." Is that not perfect or what?  Pencil it into your dictionary!   Furthermore, I'm tired of watching people all over the world kill each other with explosives, artillery, pistols, rifles: whoever invented guns ought to be shot.   July 21, 2006 STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES       Remember Ferdinand, the Bull?  A Munro Leaf creation for children with those wonderful illustrations by Robert Lawson of a bull in Spain who prefers to sit under a tree, smelling the flowers, while his contemporaries run and jump and butt heads, preparing for their day in the arena? So they grow up and one day the men with funny hats from Madrid come to choose their bulls.  All the other bulls run and jump and butt heads, trying to look fierce, while Ferdinand wanders off to his favorite tree. Uh oh!  He accidentally sits on a bee and suddenly he is jumping, running, snorting, cavorting and butting his head in a most ferocious manner.  And to make a short story even shorter, he is brought to the arena in Madrid, where all the Senoritas are wearing flowers in their hair, and Ferdinand can do nothing but sit and smell the flowers and in the end he is brought back to his field and favorite tree. Beatissimus est! In light of all the killing, saber rattling, posturing and threatening in the current news, I'm thinking that Ferdinand is a perfect model for world leaders.  Stop the snorting and cavorting, bloviating and butting heads. Everyone put down their arms, spend some time under a tree and smell the flowers. And bring along a peace treaty while you're at it.       July 14, 2006                              Patriotism! Yes! Fourth of July Parades.  Are they the same all over the USA?  Certainly the ones I have seen in Mass. or New York many years ago didn't really differ much from the one we had here in Ohio last week.  Ours began with the police cruiser inching its way down High Street, lights flashing and driver waving.  Then came the mayor and town council in a spiffy white horse drawn carriage. Next, several fire trucks, horns blasting, lights whirling.  Then the whole Fire Department from Reily, some trucks carrying cheerleaders. Then more cheerleaders...first and second graders, then third and fourth grade cheerleaders.  Good heavens!  If they all become cheerleaders there won't be any teams. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Congressional candidates, Kiwanis float throwing candy to the crowd, the Veterans, Kyger's Motors, Doug Ross and his dog, the decorated bikes, the decorated pets and Fiesta Hair Salon float (really, just someone's pick up with a sign). And right at the heart of the parade come a dozen or so members of the Oxford Citizens for Peace and Justice, a radical group that protests just about anything Republican, that has stood uptown every Saturday since the Iraq debacle began, quietly holding signs and banners urging our troops to come home.  So here they are, sandwiched between the fire departments and the boy scouts, and really, that's what the Fourth of July is all about, the freedom to speak up, to disagree, and still be respected citizens. Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!           July 6, 2006 BRRRRRR             Top ten hints that your AC is too cold;       10. You wake up huddled under the down comforter. 9. Temperature is 58. 8. Knitting needles are cold to the touch. 7. Steam rises from your tuna salad. 6. You avoid the toilet seat. 5. Wet sneakers, placed on the vent to dry, stay wet and develop an icy coating. 4-1. You haven't turned it up yet???                 June 30, 2006 THE TWICE BURIED DOG             The dog with the biggest male organ in the world has just been even more buried under 6 feet of dirt.  My neighbor, who prostituted the lovely Victorian home which shares a back yard with mine by adding a 4 bedroom addition for student rental, recently hired a huge truck load (not a Whistle Stop dainty dump truck but a Dingledine Excavating monster truck) of dirt which was then spread out over his back yard (practically my back yard ) by the agile backhoe operator who's not a day under 75 and hence over the burial spot of  the orange colored mongrel mutt with the biggest MO in the canine and possible mammalian world.  It was so big he could hardly walk and when he died Bill buried him in the back yard and he and his (second) wife were walking back from the doggie funeral, shovel in hand, and both crying. A precious moment from my life, now buried and probably best forgotten.           June 23, 2006 The Rule of the Closet       For several years now, I have abided by the Rule of the Closet; if I add something, like a new tee shirt, I then throw out an old one that hasn't been worn for at least a year. If this isn't done, I would have a closet stuffed, overcrowded and filled with useless, outdated and over time, downright ugly clothes. This is the principle of zero population growth, of course, and also can be applied to books.  If I buy a book and decide to keep it, then out goes one of equal size.  What's the point of having shelves after shelves of books that I've already read and when I can get the same information on the internet? Most importantly, I would like to see this same principle applied to the landscaping of the world.  If we build one more building, take up one more acre of green space with a big box, a convenience store or a gas station, then we should tear down a useless garage, an empty shed, and plant grass and trees. Stop putting up big, ugly structures without equal time and space for Mother Nature. Let's follow the Rule of the Closet.  Let's make it the law. Even better, amend the Constitution!           June 16, 2006 CARS (the movie)              I know almost nothing about NASCAR racing (although I did attend the 24 hour race at Le Mans a hundred years ago) and my idea of a pit stop is "Who has to go?" or "Last chance to go for the next 200 miles!".  Nevertheless, I got some of the jokes (Bob Cutlass?  Carburetor Ally?) and enjoyed thoroughly the antics of Tow Mater, Sally Porsche and numerous others in Disney's latest movie, CARS.      Not only is it chock-a-block full of old cars like Tin Lizzies, Buicks and Hudsons, but old fashoned ideas as well (it is Disney after all); love, goodness, generosity, white walled tires, Rte. 66, and natural beauty versus Hollywood glitz.      Finally, it confirms what I have suspected all along.  Cars are People! We name them, talk to them, (C'mon Baby!),feed them, put them to bed at night and nowadays they even talk back (Beep beep, you've forgotten your keys!)      So even though it was a little long, especially for a four year old, CARS gets a three thumbs up from Grandma Tally! I'd go see it again if it wasn't so LOUD.     June 9, 2006   Iraqi Solution II     The situation in Iraq is simply untenable.  And since no one is taking up my previous suggestion that we all take a week off, pick up our tv's and AC's and go live with an Iraqi family for a while, I have another idea.  Really, a better one.      Divide Iraq into three states, as they are practically now...Kurds in the north, Sunni in the middle, Shia in the south.  Keep the democratically elected Federal government and keep the oil business run by the Federal government. Divide the revenues from oil equally among the states according to population.      Take the Coalition Forces and put them along the two borders between the states.  Check all entrances and exits. No bombs allowed. Also use Iraqi police for the borders.  Have the state governments (elected or chosen) deal with the federal.  Take the money saved and start building hospitals, schools, banks, MacDonalds's, whatever.  The young men will have something to do and violence will greatly decrease.      As things quiet down, commerce and transportation between the states can be allowed, all with the proper documentation and inspection for explosives.      Finally, impeach George W., get rid of Rummy and elect Maya Angelou President. Gosh. How easy was that?   June 2, 2006 MORE INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT BIRDS         Birds have a higher body temperature than mammals of similar size. If you could take a robin’s temperature, for example, the thermometer would read 104 degrees to 111 degrees.     In comparison to animals of similar size, birds have hearts that are larger than all other vertebrates and can be double the size of mammalian hearts.     High performance hearts: birds can more fully drain their ventricles, thus increasing blood flow.  A drawback of such high performance  is very high blood pressure and makes birds susceptible to heart failure at times of high stress.  Another good reason not to scare birds...they might have a heart attack.     Birds can get hot, just like you and I do. They lack sweat glands, and perspire through the skin.  They also pant. They become less active during the day, they bathe, or seek shady resting spots.     Birds’ eyes: fantastic!  They are so large relative to their skulls that there is no room left to rotate them as we can; birds just turn their heads frequently to align their field of view.  On average, birds can see two to three times more sharply than humans and some raptors can sight small prey more than a mile away.  They also have color vision, probably superior to humans.     Birds have ears, just not the outside floppy things we have, and generally hear better than we do. Woodpeckers, for example, can hear grubs moving under the bark of a tree.     Bird sounds; again, fantastically more efficient than our pitiful larynx.  Birds have two separate tracheal tubes, and can thus produce two sounds at once, creating its own duet.  BTW, song birds have to LEARN their songs.         May 26, 2006                     It's Poetry Month       Leaves, floating down from the roof Not green or red or yellow from the maple tree But leaves of paper from a notebook.     Girls, sunbathing, studying and writing At the same time Perched on the sloping, shingled roof Of the Gray's house back porch     Suddenly peering cautiously over the gutter Dismay In a minute, running out the door Frantically gathering up each leaf Hoping to preserve the thoughts, words, sentences Carefully compiled to complete an Essay on blah, blah, blah     They pluck the precious leaves from Bushes, driveways, the gutter     And I go out to help them retrieve Their Take Home Exam for English 312.   May 19, 2006                      The Shoe       There's a shoe on the roof of the house next door A boot, really, a workman's shoe With laces and scuffs and tongue askew Where's the other one? Don't you need your boots for work? How did it get there? Will it ever get down? I guess it will.  Three plastic lawn chairs found a way last year.       May 12, 2006 Spring Again?           Good news at last!  Spring has arrived!  All the leaves that are going to be, are. The tree across the street probably will not make it, as will not the twig over my dryer vent.   I woke this morning to hear a cardinal singing his little heart out. "Woody, woody, woody, choo choo choo", NOT "What? cheer cheer cheer" as Peterson's field guide suggests. He was perched on the peak of the porch, possibly singing to the single shoe left on the roof of the house across the street. The students moved out yesterday and are gone for the summer.      The bad news; it's still cold and this week looks to highs in the low 60's.  What kind of spring is that? The Farmer's Almanac has the answer. "A cold May is kindly and fills the barn finely." Yeah!  Bring on the spinach and strawberries!     May 5, 2006                                      MANY SPORTS, MANY GODS          There are many religions with multiple gods; Shinto, Wicca, Classical Greek for starters. But it turns out, so it is with American Christianity.          We have a God of Football, God of High School Tennis, (there is no God of Golf, as yet), and especially a God of Baseball.  Jimmy Piersall, of the Boston Red Sox, used to make the sign of the cross over home plate every time he came up to bat. Was God watching?  Modern day baseball players love to signal their thanks to God as they round third heading for home after a home run. (Or is it thanks to the God of Steroids?)          So how do we explain the Red Sox letting the Son of God, Johnny (Jesus) Damon go to the Damn Yankees? WHAT? The Bosox might as well quit now.  Their season is doomed.    April 28, 2006 IN HARM'S WAY            What a quaint expression!  Lately it has been used by George W. Bush to describe his actions as Commander in Chief as he sends our troops to Iraq. Actually, IN HARM'S WAY was a 1965 John Wayne movie about WWII and of course it all turns out hunky dory and the Commander gets the girl and foils the enemy.  So George W. says he's putting our young men and women "In Harm's Way", as if it's like being bitten by a mosquito or stubbing your toe instead of being MAIMED and KILLED and LOSING LIMBS! Grrrrr.     April 21, 2006         Cartoon from the New Yorker by P. Byrnes          High up in a tree, Mom and Dad Bird are peering over the edge of their nest. Mother Bird says, "I'm all for pushing them out of the nest, but maybe next time we could wait till they hatch." No moral.  No lesson.  Just a little Spring Break Ha Ha.     April 14, 2006 "It's All Right to Cry"          Spent a good part of last weekend watching grandaughter Emily in a production of "Free to be You and Me". Remember that 70's show by Marlo Thomas et al.? With those groundbreaking ideas that Mommies could be plumbers and William could play with a doll?      Thirty years and have we made any progress?  The good news is there are more women in Congress and business, and several forward looking countries have women heads of state. The bad news is we have a long way to go. The most prosperous nation in the world (us) still has only white males in blue suits for presidents.  Laura and Lynn, our national models, are content to still walk behind their men (so to speak) and enjoy "Desperate Housewives".  Think how much technology has progressed in the past 30 years compared to how far women have made it out of the kitchen.      You go girls!      April 7, 2006 Immigrant jobs            There's something wrong with George W. (Oh, my heavens, where do I begin?) It's when he says we need to have the illegal immigrants in this country to do the jobs Americans are unwilling to do themselves.      Wait a sec!  I think that is so insulting.  Yeah, come on into our country and clean out our stables and pick up our trash.  That's all you're good for.  If we can send men to the moon, why don't we invent machines to do the jobs we don't like and let's invite immigrants in to better themselves.  We'll learn Spanish and Arabic, they can learn English and we'll all communicate our way to a peaceful world.      Let every retired teacher take on 10 immigrants and help them through our educational system.  We'll end up with employed, educated people who can then return to their own country and help their own.      And until some better machine comes along, lets's make the stable jobs and garbage collecting high paying jobs so our own citizens will want to do them.      There! Problem solved.     March 31, 2006 Which?            Now that my brackets are under control, I can concentrate on the really important things like "that" versus "which."      Just to set the record straight, use "which" to introduce a non-essential, or non restrictive clause. For example; "Add anchovies to the salad, which you call Caesar." The "which" clause is not needed to have a sensible sentence and is usually set off with a comma. Use "that" for the essential, or restrictive clause. "Add anchovies to the salad that you call Caesar." The clause is essential, or needed to make sense of the sentence.      Thoroughly confused?  So was I, when the editor of my third edition went through and changed many of the "that's" to "which's", which/that were okay for the first and second edition.  Which leads me to remark that nobody really knows or cares about that which I speak.   March 24, 2006 March Mad Mess            Oh yeah, I've got March madness. I'm fired up with bracket mania. Like . . . today. Got to fill in those brackets.  Who won yesterday?  Who plays tomorrow?  It's a full time job.  How about all those famous names like George Mason, Murray State, Belmont and Winthrop? Where did they come from? Furthermore, how many teams are from North Carolina?  UNC? UNC-Wilm, NC State, Help!      Seriously, the games are usually fun to watch. But who decides how to shorten the name so it fits on the scoreboard?  For example, who decided to forego Villa and call it Nova? (Both lovely Latin words, of course).  And so it happened that I watched a game featuring Brad Pitt. Does Bucknell ever play UNC?  Will we have Unc Buck?   March 17, 2006  Happy Saint Patty's Day! Signs of Spring II       The Top Ten;     10. birds singing in the morning 9. finches are back 8. Letterman takes a week off and is replaced with reruns 7. March madness 6. spring Breaks 5. daffodils 4. tulips 3. thunderstorms 2. one more snowstorm     And the Number One Sign of Spring;     1. Signs of Spring List II         March 10, 2006 A Real Democracy or What a Great Idea!            From this week's New Yorker; and if this idea comes to pass, my faith in humanity will be restored.      All states pass laws that stipulate they will allocate all their electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Result; the electoral college becomes obsolete and a mere formality, much like the Queen of England. Result; every vote counts, whether you live in Utah or New York.   Result; a real democracy.         March 3, 2006              Crime in the Big City     Honest to God report from the Oxford Police Department; "Two Miami students reported a college-age male entered their residence and slipped into two females' beds.  He said he was looking for a man named 'Chad' and after realizing he was in the wrong house, before he left, he insisted the residents give him a hug." Now that's CRIME!         February 27, 2006       Signs of Spring          What a show this morning!  For the price of two slices of stale bread and a handful of peanuts, I get to watch two cardinals swoop, attack and zip through the branches, sparrows, grackles, a tufted titmouse,chickadees, robins and then, to top it off,a beaufiful red bellied woodpecker (who do not have red bellies, by the way.) I can't really say it's a sign of spring because they have been here all winter, but surely the two inches of green lily leaves poking up through the rubble of winter means something!       February 17, 2006              Get Along Little Dogie            The latest cinematic sensation, Brokeback Mountain, shatters my childhood myth of the tall, strong, handsome symbol of masculinity,the John Wayne-like Western Cowboy.      A national ideal has been forever altered, and now what are we to think of the cowboys of the past?  What about Roy Rogers and Gene Autry?  They did SING,after all, and wore wimpy little doo rags around their necks. Hopalong Cassidy?  What kind of name is that?  Kit Carson? Isn't that a girl's name? The Lone Ranger and his faithful friend Tonto?  Just how faithful was he?  Zorro?  Was that slashing Z some kind of signal?  And what about that national icon, the Marlboro Man?  Just whom is he looking for, with that penetrating, masculine squint?      Oh well, there goes the nation,along with Mom and Apple Pie. Is nothing sacred?   February 10, 2006                 Poetry, not Bombs            Arab Men of the Middle East!  Have you ever heard of the written word? of rational protest? discussion? Don't you have anything better to do than cruise the streets, throw rocks and burn flags?  Hello! 21st century here!  Let's sit down and TALK!      Aha!  I have it! Maya Angelou for President! As she did at Coretta Scott King's funeral, let her speak, sing, and wow us with words.  Let's put her in front of the Muslim protestors.  Let's have her break into song and sooth them with words. All of Baghdad will be silent and we'll have world peace simply through astonishment.       February 3, 2006 Giddyup!       The State of the Union Address...I listened for about 10 minutes.  I got as far as "America is addicted to oil". DUH!  We've been saying that for years.  "We need alternative fuels".  Man!  Where has he been?  And Iraq...he bombs Baghdad...gets rid of Saddam Hussein...and then what?  He has to think of some reason for being there...so he latches on to FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY!      Dubya's leadership style.  He's on the horse.  He's got hold of the reins.  The horse stops.  He says, "Whoa."   January 27, 2006 Really Nothing            Talk about Dullsville!  The best Mother Nature can muster up is a few tiny snow flakes, a brisk wind and 45 degree weather.  In January! The blaring headline in last week's Oxford Press reported an amazing three (Yes, Three!) crimes in one week. No one seriously injured, of course. We are all warned to lock our doors, and if I remember to take the keys out of the lock, I lock myself in. The fire trucks have been quiet, the man next door hasn't come outside in three days, even the students seem to be studying!!!  The raccoon roused up from hibernation to come to the back door and that's about it. And, as Uncle Wiggly used to say, if the dish doesn't run away with the spoon, next week I'll tell you a story about how the hawk killed a mourning dove.     January 20, 2006 Wildcat         After 60 years of pets, ranging from my "Beauty" when I was 8 to "Butler" (see "Pets I Have Killed"), I finally learned to have only wild animals as pets.  So my little house is often surrounded by birds of all kinds, squirrels, an occasional racoon and possum, and always, the cats. The population shifts; the original one mother cat and five adorable kittens is now one mother and the two least adorable adolescents, accompanied infrequently by other cats who have heard by mew of mouth that there are meat scraps at 224 West Collins.      There are advantages and disadvantages to being a feral cat.   Wild                              Domestic   eat when and what you want        Kibbles and Bits daily go wherever                       mew to get out                                   mew to get in no one pets you                   kids dress you up and                                   put you in baby carriage out in the cold                   in in the cold no name                           saddled with "Bootsie" compete with raccoon              compete with dogs and babies no operations                     lengthy stay with vet bathe yourself                    bathed with SOAP! no shots                          expensive trip to vet no vacation stay in kennel        expensive stay in kennel disease                           more trips to vet death                             one way trip to vet                                        January 13 Who's Going to Heaven?       After reading WHERE GOD WAS BORN,by Bruce Feiler, and getting a refresher course in the religions of Islam, Judaeism and Christianity, I ask myself, "Who exactly IS going to Heaven?"  The 9/11 hijackers are sure they are,since they yelled "Allah is Great" before killing thousands of infidels.  All the suicide bombers are shoe-ins, since they too are doing it for Allah.  All the do-gooders who make the Oxford Press Citizens of the Year list, they'll be welcomed with open arms. My mother and father, really good people, they're there. And hopefully me, even though I ran over a cat with my car and lied to my children..."Yes, Santa Claus brought the tree!  Yeah! He really did!"      Three thousand years of religion and we're still trying to make some sense out of life. I know one thing; the answer lies in words, not bombs. Talk, don't punch -- and never RAISE YOUR VOICE!   January 5, 2006 Billion Airs     Too many times, lately, I'm hearing about billions; -billions to fix a levee -billions to bring democracy to Iraq -billions in sales -billions in profits -billions in national debt, in trade deficit with China and on and on. I have no idea how much a billion is.   I don't even know how many zeros there are in a billion. A billion is so big no one can say it without emphasizing the first syllable, a BILL-ion. Does George W. in his bubble understand what a billion is? I have my doubts. He doesn't seem to be losing any sleep over the fact that our national debt is many, many BILL-ions. And keeping with the fuzzy math topic, why doesn't he tackle the really pressing problem . . . what do we call the first ten years of a century?  I heard this discussion first on NPR. We're content to talk about the "Twenties" or "Thirties",but what about the first and second decade?  The "Zeroes"? the "Teens"? the "Aughts" "Naughts", the "Oh oh's" the "Naughties"? Come on you people in Washington. Forget about illegal spying, immoral lobbyists and unlawful spending.   Let's have a Congressional Hearing or a Presidential Pronouncement on what to call ourselves. Let's solve a real problem!   December 28, 2005 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  December 23, 2005 Bush's Speech to the Nation from the Oval Office              Last Sunday President Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office, as if there was something important to say. Unfortunately, and thanks to the news all week,it was more of the same about our progress in Iraq.  Does President Bush think we're dim? That we still don't get it that the Iraqi War was a fight for democracy? That Iraq is now a free and independent state? That they are voting?  YES! We GET it.       But what I want to know, Mr. President, is who is in those pictures behind your desk? Where is your desk blotter? What does it say about someone who sits behind a totally clean and obscenely shiny desk? No "in" and "out" boxes? No desk calendar? Where is your telephone? No wonder you are said to be living in a bubble. Mission accomplished? Again?         December 16, 2005 Christmas Displays     Mother Nature/God/Intelligent Designer has created a beautiful snowfall two weeks before Christmas.  The once green canopy over my back yard has been replaced with thousands, if not millions of black twigs and branches outlined against the grey, sometimes orange-tinted night sky.  The hemlocks, dark green, are now highlighted with patches of white snow and the bird feeder and bird bath feature 6 inch white caps.      So why are some people compelled to decorate their houses with thousands, if not millions of flashing light bulbs? Someone in Mason, OH, made the national news with his computer driven display that flashed along with music with such ferocity there were traffic jams in front of his house.      How dare we presume we can create a thing more beautiful than a tree covered with snow?  Oh well, bring on the season!         December 9, 2005 Exercise   my exercises; lifting the phone to order an electric snow shovel. exercising discretion as to what I'll say to my editor. exercising caution with my one click Amazon.com shopping option. exercising good judgement.   lifting the exercise bike so I can reach the back of the closet. okay --  I'll actually ride my exercise bike, as soon as I finish exercising my right as a retiree to take a nap whenever I want.     December 2, 2005                     More bird stuff! Every morning I toss my toast crumbs under the bird feeder and I am rewarded with a visit of innumerable sparrows, two beautiful blue jays, two cardinals, two juncos, two nuthatches, two tufted titmice (this sounds like an Ark story), mourning doves, robins, chickadees... and then, this morning, nobody.  I was puzzled.  Was this a sign of an impending tsunami? in Ohio? earthquake? tornado? avian flu? But this afternoon it all came clear.  Perched on my back fence was the inscrutable, ever watchful, ominous, red tailed hawk. The birds hardly notice the cats, but they take no chances with the hawk.      They'll be back tomorrow.        November 25, 2005 Happy Thanksgiving! Top Ten Things I am Thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, 2005; 10. financial security 9. decent health 8. my children 7. my children's children 6. neat-oh house 5. neat-oh car 4. David Letterman 3. friends 2. fireplace And the number one thing I am thankful for; 1. I'm not a sparrow.       November 18, 2005                        Stop! I'm reading a biography of Isabella, Queen of England, whose husband, Edward II,in 1325, went on a rampage of killing, torturing, beheading. . . wait a minute! Isn't that happening in Iraq today? Beheadings of prisoners? The CIA "interrogations" end in crushed ribs and death by asphyxiation as the poor soul is hung by his thumbs?  Haven't we made any progress  in over a thousand years of civilization? Stop torture of any kind! It doesn't produce any reliable information and it's simply medieval!  Stop!  People!   November 11, 2005                                                       Fall   Fall. And that's exactly what is happening. That full, green canopy over my back yard has now become a thick, brown, red, orange carpet. The witch hazel is a brilliant yellow and the maple trees are irridescent. I love Fall because it means an end to the persistent weeding and mowing of spring and summer. I can stop worrying about my trees and bushes because they're all temporarily dead. So goodbye lawn mower and hello snow shovel!        It was warm enough yesterday to sit by the open door, and I realized with a mixture of shock and relief that the crickets were no more.  I look forward to the season of silence; the utter silence of snowfall, the silence of students as they keep their parties indoors and spend some time studying. Snow shovels are much quieter than lawn mowers and how much noise does it take to make a snowman? It's time to gather in the wood and the DVD's.  Days end decisively with darkness at 6 p.m. and I look forward to evenings by the fire with a good biography. Sssh!  Here comes winter.   November 4, 2005       Appearances are Deceiving It's so much about appearances with "W" and his henchmen.  When no WMD's were found and it turns out we're going to war without being threatened ourselves by Saddam Hussein, they manipulate the truth to give the appearance that we are.  Have Colin Powell show phony pictures, relate Iraq to 9/11, even though there was no direct connection, let's just ACT as if we're being threatened and then send two thousand young men and women to their death for the sake of freedom and democracy.      Appearances.  Their Supreme Court nominee just didn't have the credentials, so pick another one, much like the first successful one...male, experienced, picture book family. And don't use the same room as the first disaster!  Have a completely different setting for the announcement, a hall, by the way, so this guy will appear different.      Remember the appearance on the aircraft carrier...Mission Accomplished?  I don't think so! Or the surprise visit to the troops in Iraq for last Thanksgiving? W? They're still there!      Back in 1899, our country invaded the Philippines to "liberate" them.  Mark Twain wrote, "We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own...but now we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater."  How eerily familiar!      Of course, like many other Americans, I'm torn. The Philippines did end up with a democracy, the Iraqi's are voting. Women have been freed from the Taliban's stranglehold. I just finished (along with the Mark Twain biography) ONE BULLET AWAY, where a classics major at Dartmouth joins the Marines and spends four years in the ranks.  But in the end he leaves, because he just doesn't enjoy killing.  But he does make the point that really bad tyrants can only be toppled by force.  I can understand that. I'm just hoping there might be some other way...kindness? drop bread, not bombs? smother the country with goods and services? show the tyrants up? I am just so against killing and bombing and another quagmire. Don't we ever learn?     October 28, 2005                The Perfect World In light of the recent hurricanes and their aftermath, I'm wondering why we still have power lines above ground.  We can put roads underground, we put cables under the ocean, we put a man on the moon, why not put these unsightly electric lines six feet under? In our town, a nationally recognized "Tree City" beautiful trees with bright fall foliage have been mutilated to make room for electric lines.  People contract cancerous diseases because they live under power lines. Think how much money we'd save after each hurricane if there were no downed lines. No more days and weeks of no electricity,  no more people dying from the heat or lack of electrical health appliances. Expense?  How about the millions, yea, billions of dollars spent for bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqis? Couldn't we find a fraction of that money to relocate those lines? Wouldn't we be saving tons of money after each hurricane?      My second complaint in this less than perfect world; isn't it ironic that the City Council spends time and energy debating and then passing ordinances to restrict student rental houses signs....not too big, children!  and watch your language! when the city has erected giant, unsightly, massive bunker type signs uptown to let you know you are crossing HIGH STREET, signs attached to poles fortified enough to withstand an Iraqi invasion.  And finally, why do we have, all over the Mile Square, red, white and blue signs that prohibit parking during a snow emergency... over 3 inches of snow.  People!  How often do we have three inches of snow?  Once a year?  Twice a year?  Yet these signs have been up since this summer!  Can't we put them up in November and then take them down in February?      I know, it's an imperfect world.        October 21, 2005 Shine On, Harvest Moon! Middle of October and up above shines the Hunters' Moon,  a beautiful sight on a clear night.  There's something about the soft, slightly gray light that has inspired songwriters and poets for years. "Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky," "Coupl' a jiggers of moonlight, and add a star," "We were sailin' along, on Moonlight Bay," "Moonlight Sonata," "Moonlight in Vermont," "Moonlight Becomes You" "Moon River." Remember "The Highwayman?" "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding -- riding -- riding The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door" And come winter ... "The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow Gave the lustre of midday to objects below." Moonlight! Oh yeah!       October 14, 2005            Commander in Chief at last.      I know why the new show "Commander-in-Chief" is so popular.  We finally see a president who makes decisions for the good of the country, not for political capital. I know it's fiction, but what a joy to watch an executive making wise choices...and a woman to boot!      Not much to report this week.  Too tired from my trip to New England.  BTW, highly recommended...Bub's BBQ and I don't even like BBQ.     October 7, 2005 BUG SEASON      This seems to be the season of the bugs, not the flu bug, as the pharmaceutical companies are touting, but the buzzing, biting, flying, beep-beeping variety.  The crickets are especially noisy this year, even during the day as I sit on my new screened in porch.      Unfortunately, I had an incident with a cricket. He appeared in my bedroom on the white rug, just standing there, perhaps a little dazed.  Well, I'm sorry, but my house does not tolerate bugs, so I got a Kleenex and tried to kill him humanely with a smothering kind of action.  I really find it hard to squash bugs to the point of feeling their little bones squish and heads crack.  So I gently squeezed him to death and threw it in the wastebasket.      Imagine my surprise when, an hour later, I see him making his way out of the wastebasket!  Enough kindness!  I do another Kleenex procedure, this time ending with a toss in the toilet.  But he's not giving up!  At the last minute, he once again escapes the Kleenex and attempts a salmon-like leap against the onrushing tide! Sorry to report, he failed.      Anyhow, I subsequently read that it's GOOD LUCK to have a cricket in your house, and for $35 I can buy a brass replica for my mantelpiece. Well, so far my luck is holding in spite of my crass disposal of nature's good luck piece and I don't think I'll part with $35 just for good luck insurance. Bugs are bugs.       September 30, 2005 Things That Don't Change      I had an electrician put in a new timer for my lantern post light and was expecting a digitalized, LED display, modernized doo-hickey timer. Much to my surprise, he simply replaced the old one with an identical timer, complete with little screwy things to set the "on" and "off" and basically exactly the same as the 50 year old timer from WWII. The only change was the directions are now in Spanish and French.      What else hasn't changed?  We still wash our clothes in water and soap in a machine that goes ga-bubble, ga-bubble and then spins dry.      Has small-town America changed? I used to live in Lyndonville, New York, where the downtown was one street and in two blocks you had Smith's Dry Goods Store, a grocery store, the doctor, dentist, insurance man, library, bank, and restaurant. You knew almost everyone and everyone said hello. I wonder if it's still the same.       I'm reading a book about North Platte, Nebraska, and how it has changed since World War II. Much like Lyndonville, the downtown was the center of social and economic life.  The author laments the demise of the main street Mom and Pop stores but takes heart in the new Super Walmart, which indeed has dry goods, groceries, eye doctor, insurance, books, ATM machines, Subway shop and friendly people who say hello.      Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. The difference is that the poor schmucks working at Walmart are being paid a pittance, and Mom and Pop Walmart were just listed with the top ten richest people in America.            September 23, 2005 The Screened-in Porch Growing up, I always lived in a house with a screened-in porch.  If the place didn't come with one, my father would screen it in himself. Then I married and left home and for thirty years I went without a screened-in porch. This week I finally called the carpenter and now I have a front porch that is screened-in and I find that it's about much more than keeping out the bugs.  For one, it's keeping out the birds who loved the mailbox for nesting and the rolled up curtain for a bathroom.  For two, it's bringing back memories of Aunt Maude's porch, where we sat on her swing or played on the around-the-room railing that inevitably comes with the screening process. The railing is a particular boon, a place for coffee mug, book mark, pencil, drinking glass, cell phone, run your toy cars, set up your dolls, position your green army men.  For three, it lets me sit outside and enjoy the sounds of early fall; the scrunch, scrunch of chain link on hook, the birds, the crickets, the mosquito buzz on the other side of the screen.  Ah! a screened-in porch . . . at last!     September 16, 2005 The ole' "Who's on First" Routine, starring Jack and Grammy. Jack (sitting on the floor, putting on his own shoes): Is this right? Grammy (watching from above and sees that yes, indeed, he is putting the left shoe on the left foot) with enthusiasm: That's right! Jack: (picking up the other shoe) So this is left? Grammy (struggling to mentally turn around and make sure that that really is the right shoe): No, actually that's the right. Jack: (clearly confused but determined to get it RIGHT) This one is right? Grammy; Okay!  Let's go feed the ducks.   September 9, 2005 Running on Empty      Yesterday I pulled into my usual one and only full service gas station in town, and had them fill my gas tank which was slightly under half filled. I'm a regular customer because I hate to get my hands all smelly with gas and I never let the needle on the gas gauge get much below half. I know, I know.  This is very conservative, nervous-nellie kind of behavior, but really, what's the point of letting it get to Empty?   What if there's an emergency and I have to drive to the hospital in Cincinnati? What if it gets to Empty and suddenly all the gas stations are closed? Anyhow, avoiding stress and anxiety, I fill it up.  $31.00. Talk about stress! Ouch!     September 2, 2005               Good Ole O-H-I-O The big news from here is I painted the basement floor . . . again, adding yet another shade of green to the hapless cement floor. One shade under the beds, another in spots around the post most traveled by tricycles and now a third, spread pretty evenly thanks to the EXTENDER!  Where have I been?  The last painting I was on my hands and knees over the whole floor.  OUCH!  This time, thanks to this handy handle, it was just like mopping, with minimal paint landing on my hands and sneakers. How long has THAT been around?      The other big news, that devastating hurricane Katrina and the stampede in Baghdad, makes me really glad I live in Ohio.  I know, Ohio is boring.  The only stampede we have is the march of cicadas every 17 years, a flood consists of a trickle of water in the basement, and an unruly crowd is a group of 25 college students polishing off a keg of beer. I just finished a biography of two Russian emigres who lived such an exciting life; escaping from the Germans in WWII, living in New York, summering here, wintering there, eating exotic Russian food imported from Paris.  Okay, Ohio is boring.  But I think it's SAFE!         August 25, 2005                                                 BAR NONE     I'm reading this odd book about animals (ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION by Temple Grandin) in which I discover that yes, indeed, fish can suffer. This was a result of an experiment where the researchers injected either bee venom or vinegar into the fishes' lips.  Ouch! The conclusion that they felt pain came from observing that they didn't eat for an hour and a half and also that they rocked their bodies and kept rubbing their lips against the side of the tank.  Is that gross or what?      To counter this awful image I give you a couple of "a man goes into a bar" jokes. I get vicarious pleasure from these as you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have actually walked into a bar.      A grasshopper hops into a bar.  The bartender says, "You're quite a celebrity around here.  We've even got a drink named after you."  The grasshopper says, "You've got a drink named Steve?"      A man walks into a bar and there's a horse serving drinks. The horse asks, "What are you staring at?  Haven't you ever seen a horse tending bar before?"      The man says, "It's not that.  I just never thought the parrot would sell the place."      A penguin walks into a bar, goes to the counter, and asks the bartender, "Have you seen my brother?"  The bartender says, "I don't know.  What does he look like?"      And finally, STOP ME!  A pair of cows were talking in the field. One says, "Have you heard about the mad cow disease that's going around?"      "Yeah," the other cow says.  "Makes me glad I'm a penguin."     August 19, 2005                                                          School Days           The middle of August and we're not far from the opening of school.  Kids need new clothes, teachers poke around the building, looking at the damage done to their classroom over the summer.  Administrators start tweaking their opening day routines, bus drivers count the days,           Our college town is beginning to liven up.  There are a few more jeeps careening around corners, student houses slowly add a car or two in their parking spaces.  And although we're still free from the student bus service clogging the 19th century-wide mile square roads and  have yet to see the total traffic gridlock that opening weekend will bring, the middle of August  sounds the alarm that summer is almost over and another academic year is about to commence.           What's always amazing to me is that some people don't experience this yearly renaissance, the every-year-begins-in-September feeling, the excitement of a new grade, a new school, the feeling of growth, challenges of the academic year, whether it be learning cursive writing or facing senior exams.  Corporate CEO's, for example, have been working all summer, along with ditch diggers, doctors, day traders, or store keepers (albeit with a two week vacation thrown in). For them it's just August and then September.           But even they have kids, and all Moms and Dads are beginning to feel that excitement of the first day of school.  It's right up there in the inevitable column along with death and taxes. It's a blessing, almost a birthright, that we have public education, good teachers and schools .  So be grateful, people!  Get your school supplies, put on your new shoes and get ready for Fall.  School is about to begin . . .again.     August 12, 2005    Vacation!   August 5, 2005                        The Innovation of the Century -- a public family bathroom.             Yes! Finally someone got the idea that there is need for a family restroom.  God Bless the people at Whitewater Water Park.  Sure, there's a men's room and a ladies' room, but then, across the way, there's a family room where Mom can go with little brother and sisters, i.e., the family! We need more of  these in airports!  in restaurants!  in bus and  train stations! hotel lobbies!  Come on, world!  Give Mom a break!             And speaking of giving Mom a break, I think that all mothers with pre-toddler children, or even just one, should be given a handicapped sticker.  After all, they really are handicapped.  One arm is permanently occupied with the baby, the other, perhaps, busy with a sibling, not to mention the mental strain of watching the babies, planning the shopping list, getting the groceries out of the cart before or after the baby is . . . you get the picture.     July 29, 2005                                                             Las Vegas             In a word, unique.  I'm probably the last person in our family to go to Las Vegas and I can't imagine why I'd ever go again, but the trip was fun and very different from my usual week on the beach in Florida.  The hotel Flamingo Hilton was perfect for the kids who loved the three water slides.  They also loved all the free shows and especially enjoyed Adventureland, the largest indoor amusement park in the world.  I thought it was pretty awful, a huge dome filled with yelling, screaming, thrill seeking rides, but Jack loved the helicopter ride and the girls loved the games and collecting the stuffed animal prizes.             The best part of Las Vegas was 15 miles away.  We endured 30 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic to get out of the city but then --  the desert!  Red Rock Canyon was breathtaking , a refreshing change from the glitz, and a high point of the trip for me.             The low point was coming back in the Las Vegas Airport where we stood in a line longer than Disney World at Christmas at which point Jack says loudly "I gotta go potty" and all the people in line blanched, several pointed to the men's room, so near and yet so far.  But we just kept going, big boy underwear and all.  Emily had already thrown up on the carpet in Cincinnati, so we figured...., well, you get it.  But then I blithely said I didn't want to take off my shoes (it had worked every time before) and was promptly put in the special lane and was accosted by a wand waver who then started putting on her patting gloves at which time I said, "Don't touch me" and  put on my best teacher look (touch me and it's off to the principal's office for you, young lady).  At that the wand waver yelled "Supervisor" in a desperate tone and I ended up in a privacy room with wand waver and supervisor and she didn't do anything but look at my waistband.   And the best news is that Jack held on throughout the whole ordeal!     July 22, 2005    On vacation in Las Vegas....a first.  Later!   July 15, 2005                                                             Jack             Monday:  Mandy is at a workshop, the girls at day camp, John has a meeting, so I  get Jack for a few hours.  This is what Jack likes: turn  light switches on and off, take keys out of the door, go in the "bayment" and ride the trike FAST, play with the old  metal steam shovel,  the Fisher Price town with the jail door, the fire alarm and the door bell, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head; hiding plastic letters and then finding them, watching a slide show of Jack and his birthday party, drawing pictures and getting scotch tape and decorating the fridge, riding in the PT Cruiser and fastening his own seat belt, going to the Lane Public Library by way of running down the handicapped ramp and exploring their pirate ship, picking out a Scooby Doo video,  getting a drink from the fountain, riding back to Grammy's house, toast and juice, and then looking for things outside with the magnifying glass pressed to his temple (it's a minimizing glass but details, details).  Not particularly interested in dolls, books or the Scooby Doo video.  BTW, Jack's a boy.     July 8, 2005                                                               NEWS I had a cutsey little paragraph ready to go about how summer news is boring.  But after the attack in London, I realize that there has been a lot of news this summer, most of it bad.  Men molesting little girls, men dying in Iraq and now men blowing up unsuspecting commuters.  Wait a minute!  I think I see a pattern here.  Where are the women?  There must be a woman for every man in the world.  Why don't the mothers and wives start a peace revolution?  When you see your husband heading for work with a suicide bomb strapped to his chest, speak up!  Forbid him to go!  If you find your teen age son storing bomb materials under his bed, ground him!  Pull the plug on his computer!  Ban the "How to make a bomb" websites!  Women of the world! Get out there and stop men from this senseless killing of innocent people!   July 1, 2005                                          SHOT IN KROGER'S Last night, after a ten minute shower had watered the lawn and cooled the air, I decided to drive out to Hueston Woods to watch the deer come to the side of the road in the early evening dusk  as they like to do in the summer.  On the way, I saw, walking on the side of the road, a woman who is familiar to me.  She walks with a pronounced limp, and her left arm dangles uselessly.  And then I remembered, almost 20 years ago, Mandy and I were in Kroger's, shopping in the detergent aisle, when suddenly a shot rang out, then another and there was a scream, right in the next aisle.  We instinctively ducked down, behind a pyramid of Tide boxes, and waited. After a minute, someone started yelling, "Get Out!" and a girl near us, kicked off her shoes and ran like a bat from hell towards the front door.  Finally another man appeared and said, "It's okay now, he ran out the back door."   So  I grabbed my purse and Mandy and I also ran to the front door.             Anyhow, we've never forgotten it.  The woman had been shot in the head and was badly injured but lived, and I would see her once in a while and remember that day.  The assailant was her estranged, angry boy friend.  He was caught and served time and when he got out she married him. Hmmmm.         June 24, 2005  Having just finished  FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS by  H. G. Bissinger, a book written in 1988 when oil was going for $20 a barrel, I am struck by how little people change over almost twenty years -- how Americans are nuts about sports, especially high school football -- how our educational institutions aid and abet this nuttiness by allowing school time to be spent on pep rallies -- how school administrators encourage the wearing of sport uniforms in the classroom, thus elevating the football players and cheerleaders to a special level -- how football players get extra help in their academic subjects --  how much money is spent on sports facilities -- how we hire a person to oversee all the high school sports and give him an office, a secretary  and a salary. When the world is crying out for greater technology, medical research and compassionate politicians, why are we devoting so much of our youths' educational resources to a game that encourages brute force, the adulation of masculinity and the philosophy that winning is everything? June 17, 2005                                              Not Saving Daylight Time      Daylight Saving Time. Do we really need it?  If you live near Indiana, it severely complicates matters.  Our local radio station has to announce the time, and then, Indiana time, just so you won't miss an appointment or arrive an hour early.  What are we doing with the extra hour of daylight?  Everybody stops work after 8 hours, no matter how light it is.  Do we think the farmers are going to put in 14 hour work days, just to take advantage of the light?  And you know it plays havoc with the Fourth of July fireworks, which can't begin until dark, somewhere around 10 p.m.             These last days of June are long and lovely but could easily be an hour shorter.  What is an hour, anyway?  You can get from Cincinnati to Chicago in an hour. You can spend or, conversely, earn a thousand dollars in a MINUTE on the internet. Think of how much you could make or lose in an hour.  On the other hand working at Walmart for an hour barely buys you lunch.   In a minute you can span the globe and talk to someone in South Korea.  You can even SEE her with the new telephone/computer thingy.             "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." said Thoreau.  Are we fishing from a speedboat?  Is it time to step out of the stream,  relax, enjoy the summer, talk to your neighbor and smell the roses?                                                         June 3, 2005   Drama at the Feed Store               As I sit in my living room and knit, the Feed Store is in my direct line of vision.  Every spring I watch them wheel out the wagons of seedlings, geraniums, hanging baskets and tomato plants. They do a brisk business which dwindles off through the summer.             Their busiest worker is a tall, middle aged gentleman, mostly bald, portly in the middle with shortened extremities, forcing him to slightly flap his hands as he huffs and puffs around the yard, lifting bags of  mulch, putting the purchased flats of seedlings into trunks and driving the forklift from the warehouse across the street to the stock piles behind the building.. I've been watching him for years and except for the time he came to my door, wondering who owned the red Volvo station wagon which had accidentally rolled down the street into their parking lot (but that's a WHOLE other story),  have never spoken or interacted with him.  So my impression of him was pretty much one dimensional until yesterday, when, to my complete surprise, while walking around the wagons of ferns, plants and other green things, he starts to do a little dance. He's doing a unexpectedly adept two step, maybe singing a tune, and he playfully bobs from side to side like an android whooping crane in a mating dance.  There are two women on the other side of the wagon, the owner of the Feed Store and another woman.  They are talking earnestly and appear to ignore the dancing fat man, who is now working his way around the end of the wagon.  Hopping, dancing, dipping and bowing, he coyly approaches the woman who is still talking.  He makes a flirtatious pass on either side of her head and then swoops in for a peck on the cheek.  I hope it's his wife. May 27, 2005                                                              Question II                           Why do our high schools teach French, Spanish, German and sometimes Italian and not Chinese or Arabic?  I can understand the need for Spanish, but why not just teach Latin and let them learn the Romance languages as needed?  Chinese and Arabic language courses would by necessity also include a lot of basic information about the culture and customs of the people.  Knowledge is the first step toward world peace and tolerance.  Come on, High Schools of America!  Bring on those Arabic textbooks.     May 20, 2005                                                The Big Question   How DARE the Bush administration chastise Newsweek so self-righteously for their mistake in the story about desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo?  Here we have a magazine that uses a misinformed source to publish an article which results in protest and incidental deaths in Afghanistan.  What about the government that uses misinformation about weapons of mass destruction to go to war in Iraq which results in world wide protest and thousands of deaths?  Wait a second!  Who should be apologizing?        May 13, 2005                                                          The Party's Over...               Sunday was graduation day and in this town that means a major moving day. Parents arrive with the family van or  U-Haul truck and after graduation there's massive hauling and packing.  Across from my house the boys' parents load their family van with furniture, boxes of stuff and appliances.  The boys carry their precious sound systems to their own cars and the rest of the household goods are put out on the curb.             The line of furniture goes from their driveway to the corner of the street: three sofas, chairs, lamps, two fans, lines of junk.  Let the scavengers begin! The next time I look, the line is reduced to a few boxes and a straggle of broken furniture. So for fun, I watch.  From 7:15 to 7:45 that evening, there's a steady stream of old, beat up cars, similar pick up trucks,  cars of all kinds. One truck goes by with several empty kegs. They go past the keg on the porch across the street, but it's gone by the next morning.  Each scavenger is so selective.  Usually the driver remains in the car and the scavenger partner hops out.  Croquet mallet? Reject.  Plastic chair? Okay!.  Off they go and the next one shows up.  Yeah! a croquet mallet! No one seems interested in the deflated beach ball or the bent golf club.             I'm just about losing interest when I see  a very small, Oriental Lady with a red plastic purse poking around.  No car or truck.  She starts to make a little pile of treasures, starting with the broken white plastic chair. Aha! a sponge mop!  a shower caddy!  Her pile gets bigger.  Suddenly a late model pick up truck pulls up, evidently forgetting the Oxford Scavengers' Law  --  only one Scavenger at a time per pile. A woman gets out and starts poking at Oriental Lady's pile.  Oriental Lady becomes incensed, yells and waves her hand heatedly.  Late model truck lady backs off and drives away.             The pile is getting bigger.  Plastic wastebasket, plastic hangars, wire hangars, old tee shirt.  Finally Oriental Lady arranges all the stuff in the chair, and with the mop under one arm picks up the chair and starts walking up the street.             Which leads me to wondering why there seems to be much more scavenging this year.  There's always been a parade of trucks, but no as many as this year.  Is the poverty level lower or  the  population of poor, larger? In spite of  all the construction of large, ostentatious houses and affluent developments, is there a segment of society that  is increasing and we're ignoring?                               May 6, 2005                                                 MOVIE REVIEWS                 One of the advantages of watching a DVD movie is I can satisfy my desire to read all the names at the end of the credits; best boy grip, best girl, whatever.  Sometimes there are little surprises, like at the end of  SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, someone starts singing LA VIE EN ROSE, and it sounds exactly like Jack Nicholson.  Yes, it  IS Jack Nicholson, and singing pretty well, too!  Predictable movie, however.             Now I just finished watching MYSTIC RIVER, which started out so awful  with  murder, molestation and poverty  that I almost didn't continue.  My original thought would be it's about the Mystic River where I lived for many years, but forget that.  I should have known it wouldn't show the tree lined banks of the Mystic River I knew. Such are life's little disappointments. And what kind of movie is it when punching people in the face is an accepted part of life, not to mention getting away with murder?  What kind of morality is it when the innocent, troubled guy gets killed (who in turn had killed a child molester, but I guess that's okay) and the killer gets away with a little make-a-gun-with-your-thumb-and-pointer gesture because he has a big heart?  ExCUSE ME! Murder is never okay, people.  But it also had a surprise at the end of the credits.  Clint Eastwood actually wrote the music!  And most surprising, it was filmed, in part, in Canton!  Where all my maternal relatives lived! Where I would spend weekends with Nana and Gramp and some of those Kelley Aunts! Where Grandma R. got married!  Small world.             As for the movie, Sean Penn was excellent. What saves the movie is the plot, which is intricate, connected  and clever. In the end the writing saves the movie from wallowing in violence and sad, sick people and those on and off again FAKE Boston accents.   April 29, 2005                                                     TWEEP        I'm not alone in this world in not being able to put bird song into English. Take the robin, for example, one of the most common, recognizable birds in North America.  And what does the robin say? According to Sibley's Guide, the song of the robin is a "repetitive, tuneful warble, plurri, kliwi, plurri, kliwi." Peterson describes the robin's song as a "clear caroling, short phrases, rising and falling, often prolonged. tyeep, tut, tut, tut."  Hello?  plurri  and tyeep ? Finally, Kroodsma  thinks he hears the robin singing "cheer up, cherrio, cheerup, cheerio" as well as an occasional "weep, hisselly, piik  and quiquiquiqui".             I'm hearing birds every morning, and MY bird sings video, video, video. Yesterday I actually watched a grackle as he vocalized with a chorus of awk, awk, awk. But then, he puffed up, shook himself importantly and, honest to God, looked right at me and said clear as a bell,  it's you!  or Hitshoe.   I swear.     April 22, 2005 April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain/pain/sprain.   The Waste Land  T.S. Eliot               This April has been cruel, first because it's my mother's birthday, and  even though I know she's at peace, special occasions  remind me of her passing. And then, on her birthday, (was she in on this?)I mistook the next to last stair step for the last step and in trying to not fall on my face, I wrenched my shoulder.  Then I wrapped myself in hot water bottles and blankets rather than, as I later read on the Wrenched Shoulder Website, pack it in ice,  probably prolonging the agony  which continues as I write.             Then my computer goes down and requires a week of messing with this and that and I STILL don't have my printer going or my Scrabble game up and running.  There's a huge tree in my backyard that is dead as a doornail and will require mucho bucks to get it removed.             But, to end this cruel month and head into May and blessedly, June ("She's coming, by gum, you can FEEL her come") my own birthday was celebrated with due honor (several good books and brunch with the kids) and I'm getting a new, cordless electric lawn mower. More on that soon. And life could be much worse, so I'll stop complaining and go out and pick dandelions which are RAMPANT this year.       April 15, 2005               Intimations of Mortality        I’m feeling very mortal, with my mother gone, and then the Pope and Prince Rainier, just to name a few.  But in another way, I’m feeling immortal. My student neighbors, after all, are always 19 or 20 -- every year for 30 years! Talk about Peter Pan’s Never-never land!      And then we had a tragedy three nights ago.  I live near the fire station, and I knew it was something big when first one truck pulled out at 4:30 a.m. with sirens going (they never hit the siren before 7 a.m.) followed by the second truck and then the third and finally the Life Squad. The newspaper had it the next day.  An older house just three blocks from me burned to the ground, and three of the 13 students in it died. Why couldn’t they have gotten out? The two girls died in their beds, the boy was at the front door.      The number of people who die in this town can be counted on one hand. A student died of food poisoning from Chinese restaurant last year. A woman was murdered on the other side of town about 25 years ago. My back yard neighbor died two years ago of some disease and my side neighbor, now that I think of it, died at the age of 13 of leukemia. So we are mortal and it’s sad.      But our mortality makes this Spring even more beautiful. Everyday the leaves are bigger, the grass greener, the lilacs closer to blooming. If we don’t do anything really stupid, Spring will keep coming,ad infinitum, and with it our intimations of immortality (sorry, Wordsworth).     April 8, 2005   R.I.P.        Putting aside all the evil that formal religion has wrought in this world – wars, Inquisitions, torture, hatred, Jihads – I think we have to admit that religion has given birth to two unique and beautiful phenomena; spiritual buildings and uplifting music.       From the soaring beauty of St. Peter’s (I know it’s a mish mash architecturally) to the equally stunning simplicity of a Shaker Meeting House, churches stand as monuments to man’s awe of God. When the thousand voices of the choir in St. Peter’s sings the Requiem Mass or when a single man stands in the middle of the Shaker Meeting room and sings, unaccompanied, “Simple Gifts”, music, to me at least, is as close to God as nature.      The Pope has passed away, and in the ritual of the Church, there is comfort. How moving it was to see thousands of people standing in St. Peter’s Square with candles and coats, just acknowledging the frailty of man and the power of God. Pope John Paul was not perfect but he was the embodiment of what’s good about religion; a man who devoted his life in search of world peace.  Pax tecum, Papa, et requiescat in pace.        April 1, 2005 and it's not a joke!     FLORIDA FAMILY FUN VACATION   Top Ten Reasons to Go to Florida for Spring break   10. sunshine 9.  70 degree temperature 8.  swimming in the pool in March 7.  eating fresh fish, fresh vegetables and melt-in-your-mouth melon 6.  meeting cousins 5.  bright, colorful flowers in bloom 4.  free tanning 3.  maid service 2.  IHOP Breakfast   And the number 1 reason to go to Florida for Spring Break --swimming with the sharks in a beautiful ocean (the raw sewage was gone, REALLY!)     Abuse of Power        Tom Delay and Bill Frist....you sanctimonious hypocrites!  You reconvened Congress, making a public display of power to keep the feeding tube in a woman in a persistive vegetative state. You take a pro-life, “life is holy” stand.  Give me a break!  What about all those countless (we can’t count when it comes to Iraqis) Iraqis who have died over the past two years?  What about the over 1500 brave young men and women who have died when you sent them to war over Saddam Hussein and the oil supply? What about all the wildlife you are now threatening in Alaska?      Let’s talk about the quality of life. This poor young woman has been without meaningful life for 15 years. Would you want to be kept alive all that time, being a burden to your family?  Count me out! March 18, 2005                                                                 PLAY BALL! Loser Congressmen!  What kind of grandstanding are you doing?  Don't you have enough to do -- with gas prices soaring, homeless people wandering our streets, social security in danger of collapse, Alaska about to be ravaged by Bush Oil Men, Halliburton stealing our money, people getting murdered in our court houses and you are spending your time and our money in a Congressional Hearing, asking baseball players if they have used steroids?????           Look at them! Of COURSE they have used steroids.  You don't think that God intended men to have arms like that, now do you?  Forget last season.  Forget all past baseball seasons and all the now faulty statistics.  Wipe the slate clean!  It's spring at last.  Opening day looms.  Cancel those really stupid hearings, grab your mitt and go play catch with your granddaughters.  Let's Play Ball!         March 11, 2005 Wrecks, Camilla and I               Two thoughts this week;  Camilla Parker Bowles was called a “wreck” by the New York Times writer Daphne Merlin in a contrary-to-what-you-might-think positive article about the upcoming marriage between her and Charles (who is very close to “wreck” status himself).  I, of course, am a full fledged “wreck” – over 30, over weight, uncapped teeth and happy as a clam.  Merlin gives the couple a thumbs up and congratulations on their courage to marry in spite of Mummy’s disapproval and all the tongue clucking and head shaking. More power to them.             The other thought  concerns some truths about fat and thin envelopes arriving in the mail. Fat envelope: usually a good thing, especially if you’re waiting for a reply to a college application. Thin envelope: sorry, you’re a nice person but you’ve been rejected. Fat envelope: good thing from your kid at college with awards, pictures, sample A+ papers. Thin envelope: he/she needs money. Fat envelope: good thing from your editor which includes a lucrative contract. Thin envelope or even more humiliating, the dreaded post card: rejection. Fat envelope: a bad thing from the IRS with forms to fill out and a return envelope for your check because you’ve been naughty and didn’t pay enough last year. Thin envelope: a good thing from the IRS. It’s your refund check.       March 4, 2005                                                   OSCAR LICIOUS!    Finally! a great Oscar Night show!  So the MC was forgettable – I got tired of his saying “Hey” and frenetically walking back and forth as he spoke/yelled. But what else? Stars! Eye popping dresses! YoYoMa! I love him! The producers managed to keep it varied with a fast pace, a change of venues and  mikes showing up in the aisles. A mysterious female voice moved it right along and there were good clips of movies I want to see sometime. After years of sitting through “And the nominees for best cinematography in a black and white short boring film are...” and endless “Thanks to . . .”, this years show was a treat.  Thanks to . . . .       February 25, 2005                                            EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY The Westminster Kennel Dog Show is one of my all time favorite television experiences. Coming in February, when the world is pretty gray and dreary, the sight of all those beautiful dogs and those dog fanatics is refreshing.    I’m not a dog lover. We had a disastrous experience with a fox hound from the pound. He bit and chased and ran like the wind and was sweet but awful. The dogs from my childhood bring back only bad memories -- of Stubby on the table woofing down a  baked from scratch cake and my mother crying in despair, “I’ll never have another dog again!”      But the dog show brings out the best and what a thing of beauty is that Afghan Hound, trotting along so proudly, with that long silky hair waving like a flag of honor, or all the big, loping, working dogs, so ready to help mankind, or the terriers, so bright and cheerful, or the dogs with all that extra skin, falling in great rolls and flabs.      Speaking of which, I learned that the bloodhound has nothing to do with the ability to sniff out blood, but it’s so named because they were aristocratic dogs, belonging to people of the blood, blue, naturally.  I think of the pictures on ancient Egyptian tombs, and there will be a dog, proudly sitting next to the throne of the Pharaoh.  So, long live the dog! Now, on to the Oscars!             February 18, 2005                 NO FABRICATION!        I have just spent $93 for three pencils, yes, pencils -- the best ever! and no longer made by the yellow pencil kings of the world, Eberhard Faber. (the German word for “worker”, from the Latin “faber” meaning “craftsman”, and recalling Faber in F.451.)      Eugene O’Neill used the Blackwing 602,to write his plays and there’s a whole box of them among his effects.  The pencil, dark green  inscribed with the motto “HALF THE PRESSURE, TWICE THE SPEED” is topped with a gold metal ferrule into which a silver clip inserts with the eraser.      According to Doug Martin, pencil afficionado,(www.pencilpages.com) it’s that silver clip that led to the Blackwing’s demise in 1998 when the company ran out of clip stock and the machine that made the ferrule was continually breaking down. Furthermore the company, Sanford Corp., made only 1100 dozen Blackwings annually,in a facility that produces more pencils than that in one hour.      I had been looking for this pencil for years ever since I accidentally came home from Newport Beach with Kelley’s Blackwing, which is now ground down to  F THE PRESSURE, TWICE THE SPEED”.  It has a certain softness and agility that defies description and is coveted and appreciated by “professional artists, designers and writers.”      I finally found them on EBay this week, at $31 each and they are growing scarcer, obviously, every day. The mystery of why I never could find them in a catalogue, then, has been solved, and I will write my first letter with it to the pencil company, urging them to retool their machines and start production. The world awaits and needs the Blackwing 602.     February 11, 2005   I’ve been exploring the songs of my childhood and enjoying the lyrics and tunes. What has happened to popular music? Where have the carefree songs of yesteryear gone? Or were we just silly or WHAT?   Come on! Sing along!   Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats and liddle lamzy divey A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you? oo? Yes! Mairzy Doats and Dozey Doats and liddle lamzy divey, A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you? If the words sound queer, and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey, Sing “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy” Oh! etc.(1943)   or join Bing Crosby with this favorite!   Would you like to swing on a star Carry moonbeams home in a jar And be better off than you are Or would you rather be a mule?   A mule is an animal with long funny ears Kicks up at anything he hear His back is brawny but his brain is week He’s just plain stupid with a stubborn streak And by the way, if you hate to go to school You may grow up to be a mule   Or would you like to swing on a star Carry moonbeams home in a jar And be better off than you are Or would you rather be a pig?   A pig is an animal with dirt on his face His shoes are a terrible disgrace He has no manners when he eats his food He’s fat and lazy and extremely rude But if you don’t care a feather or a fig You may grow up to be a pig.   And all the monkeys aren’t in the zoo Everyday you see quite a few So you see it’s all up to you You can be better than you are You could be swinging on a star.(1944)   More to come!           February 4, 2005     WRITING HER HOME        I am writing the story of my mother’s life for myself, of course, to partly erase, or at least overshadow the nursing home year and the miserable last weeks of her life which were so uncharacteristic.  All her life she was cheerful, not in a manic, compulsive way, but just nice and quiet and comfortably optimistic.  So I am working my way through her childhood, the Depression, two World Wars, work as secretary and bookkeeper for Dad and then almost half her life without him.  My purpose is also to preserve her. There aren’t many photos. There aren’t any lasting monuments or great accomplishments. Florence Roghaar is not going to appear in anybody’s WHO’S WHO OF AMERICAN HOUSEWIVES. But with the help of George and Linda, I hope to chronicle her long and satisfying life to keep her with us one way or another.       January 28, 2005   My Mother’s Dire Predictions   How did I ever survive my first 20 years?    because I’d catch my death of cold by going out without my sweater   or I’d be crippled with cramps and drown by not waiting an hour after eating to go swimming   or I’d be imprisoned in a Turkish harem by white slavers because I talked to a stranger   or robbed blind because I counted my money in public   or dead with embarrassment because I was in an accident and had to go to the hospital wearing yesterday’s underwear   or moths will eat holes in your winter clothes if you don’t douse them with moth balls.   On the other hand, how did we survive those toys with parts small enough to choke on? with no car seats?  no seat belts? no protective head gear?  and fortified with daily doses of heavy cream, butter, red meat and caffeine?     January 21, 2005   LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND; TOP TEN THINGS A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE SHOULD KNOW     10. how to swim   9. how to get on the internet and basic keyboard skills   8. how to turn off the electricity and change a fuse   7. how a toilet works and what to do when it doesn’t   6. how to turn off the water in the basement   5. balance a checkbook   4. split logs   3. change a diaper   2. make basic white sauce   1. boil an egg     SECONDARY LIST OF NON-LIFE THREATENING BUT LIFE ENHANCING THINGS A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE SHOULD KNOW;   10. how to be a good listener   9. how to care for small engines   8. how to run a chain saw   7. how to ride a bike   6. how to drive a stick shift   5. the difference between baking soda and baking powder   4. when you’re drunk   3. when to lie   2. how to fold a fitted sheet   1. when to stop making top ten lists         January 14, 2005 “Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa, Or is this your way to hide a broken heart?”          Having seen Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts as the art professor who doesn’t fit in at the conservative Wellesley College in the Fifties, I realize that I have become a period piece.  The movie captured collegiate life at that time, with all its prejudices and faults, and I saw my four years at Wheaton reproduced fairly accurately. We wore hats and gloves and slips.  Slips, because what if you stand in a light and someone sees your LEGS!  Horrors!  Heavens!  We all have legs, usually two.  What was the big deal?  And garter belts and girdles?  Good Grief!  We rolled hoops, did the Maypole thing, wore freshman Beanies and in our senior year, the dean, a spinster named Leona Colpitts, presented us with a RECIPE BOOK and said she was proud that we would be wonderful mothers and wives. There’s nothing like an education to improve your making beds with hospital corners!      Both my mother and Aunt Dot wrote in my autograph book in 1948 that their life ambition was to be a good wife and mother. All my friends, then 11 years old, put as their life ambition to be a housewife, with an occasional nurse, airline stewardess or secretary. So it’s no wonder that the majority of girls at Wheaton, class of ’58, had a life’s ambition to be married and have a family.           Of course well educated mothers are a tremendous asset, but it wasn’t until  Betty Friedan came along in 1963 with her Feminine Mystique that some of us realized there could be more!       The movie ends with Barbara Streisand singing “Smile, though your heart is breaking” and “Light up your face with gladness, hide every trace of sadness” and so on.  What’s that all about?  Is this implying that, like Mona Lisa, we were smiling while our hearts were breaking?  No we weren’t!  We liked the idea of our husbands going off to work while we stayed home, enjoying the kids and letting modern machinery do our work.  What’s wrong with that?  So keep on smilin’!      January 7, 2005                                           The Ding Dongs      So Isabelle wants to join a bell choir? It’s such a memorable experience.      My Junior Bell Choir had only one requirement.  They had to read music;  the bottom line is E, first space, F, etc.  But in times of need, when only one or two kids showed up, I waived the requirements and painstakingly wrote the letters into the music. Or, “you play your bell on the underlined word” like “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells”  Consequently we had kids from ages 5 to 15. I think Willie was about 10 when he absentmindedly stuck his F5 down the front of his elastic waist pants.  Mark was 12 when, during a Church performance, he lost his grip on the big bass C3 and it went sailing out over the communion rail into the first row.      The Senior Bell Choir was an assortment of professors, doctors, mothers, nurses, teachers. What a feeling of togetherness!  In one of our rare outside performances for Christmas, the top table was approached by the Neighborhood Nutcase, who kept picking the bells up for inspection. It’s a challenge to play four bells at once and also keep an eye on the woman who’s apparently about to walk off with the remains of the fifth octave.  And how can we forget our well-meant trip to the local nursing home, where the members of the audience were holding their ears and screaming from their wheelchairs, “Turn them down!” as the overtones were playing havoc with their hearing aids.      Join a bell choir, Isabelle?  Definitely a resounding Ding Dong Ding!     December 30, 2004                                         Winter? Disaster?   I had a cutsey little piece ready for this week’s commentary – winter, the life-threatening icicle, the annoyances of winter travel, the inconvenience of three feet of snow – when the tsunami hit Southern Asia.  Suddenly what I wrote was trivial.  Three feet of snow versus thirty feet of water?  Horrible, heartbreaking and where was our President for three days?  Get out there, George W.!  Help these people!  What a disaster! December 24, 2004 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!   December 17, 2004 NO NEWS IS NO NEWS     I am a news junkie; breakfast with CNN, lunch with Local 12 and always, religiously, after dinner with Dan or Tom.  This year saw quite a glut of newsworthy stories thanks to the elections and the war and the Red Sox.  But now there’s a lull, no, not just a lull, but a dearth of news. The networks are really struggling...just how much more of Scott Peterson do we need?      So rather than spend 30 minutes with commercials and news fluff, let’s just begin the broadcast with “5 Americans killed, unkown number of Iraquis dead, there is no more news, good night” and spend the half hour reading a good book.   December 10, 2004           THE ULTIMATE PEACE PLAN        Someone, George Saunders by name, has finally come up with the perfect solution to the world’s problems, and I hereby sum up his delightful article from the Dec. 6 NEW YORKER.  He figured out that if all three hundred million Americans packed up a thirty-day supply of food and stuff and went to live with the twenty-five million Iraqis, we could rebuild the place in short order. With sixty Americans living with an Iraqi family of five, although a little crowded, we could attend to their every need.  Dinner? We’ll fix it.  Clean up? Don’t move. And here’s some dessert.      And what insurgent is going be effective when he’s tailed by his twelve designated Americans who talk loudly and ask superficial questions?      Meanwhile, the Palestinians can be relocated to the now deserted American West, and all Israelis can migrate to the American East, and the Mississippi River will be patrolled by the National Guard, keeping them apart. All Canadians will move into Palestine and Israel, build mansions alternating Palestinian and Israeli and form a new country Plisraelistine.  Everyone in Kosovo will temporarily inhabit Canada and rejoice in the mountainous space, rarely seeing each other and slowly releasing all the tension that has built up.      In the end, we’ll return home, the Iraqis, sated and plump and gone soft after months of peace, will stay on their couches watching their new TV and one of the 200 channels now available by satellite. The Palestinians and Israelis will love their new homes and all enmities will disappear. The Canadians can go home as the Kosovars return, thankful to be free of the threat of bears and wolves and resolved anew to give peace a chance.      I love it. And as Saunders ends his article, “On to the Sudan!” December 3, 2004 A CHICAGO MOMENT         In the spirit of Christmas, let’s put aside all negative thoughts about commerce, profit and exploitation of children.  Instead, let’s think about all the happy little girls (and their parents, grandparents and siblings) who joined me in Chicago the day after Thanksgiving to jostle, shove, push, huff and puff our way through the crowded streets to enter the American Girl Place.      I and three granddaughters, along with their dolls Kit, Kaylie and Kristen enjoyed an hour long musical with messages of sweetness and kindness. We shopped, we made decisions,we watched little brother meltdown in the sleepwear room, we oohed and aahed and stood reverently in front of the case that held EVERY AMERICAN GIRL DOLL MADE!!      But the highlight for me, and what forgives the crass commerciality of it all, was the dinner in the American Girl Cafe. Where the hostess doesn’t ask how many? but how many dolls? and provides booster seats for Kit, Kaylie and Kristen. Where the hors d’oeuvres are carrot and celery sticks along with crackers and hummus, where the napkin ring is a scrunchie you can take home, and where a box of conversation starters provides topics like, “What’s your favorite song? What do you like to eat after school?”and so on.      I have faith in the future, not because the Republicans are in control of Congress, and not because we are forcing freedom and democracy on the hapless Iraqis, but because on a Friday after Thanksgiving in Chicago there’s a dining room full of people eating a good meal, and one third of the clientele are dolls.       November 26, 2004                        MOTHER'S DAY   With sad heart, yet rejoicing that she left us in a timely and peaceful way, I give the world my mother's life; Florence Irene Bigelow Roghaar of Delray Beach, FL, died in her sleep November 19, 2004 at the age of 98.  She was born April 14, 1906 in Dorchester, MA, the only daughter of Marion Kelley and Nathaniel Foote Bigelow, who traced his ancestors to the Puritains who arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1630.      Florence grew up on a farm in Colchester, CT, went to Morse Business College in Hartford, CT, learned to type and take shorthand and then got a job. She met her future husband, George Roghaar, taking saxophone lessons, and sang and danced her way through the Depression in a Gypsy routine with her friend Florence Parker.      As a resident of Winchester and Arlington, MA. she was a member of Zonta International, the Arlington Philharmonic Society, Friends of the Drama and the Order of the Eastern Star. She sang in the choir of the Arlington Pleasant Street Congregational Church for many years. She traveled around the world and delighted in bringing home gifts to her grandchildren.      Throughout her long life Florence was loved by her friends and family for her generous heart, cheerful disposition and sense of humor. She will be missed.      She leaves a son and daughter-in-law, George and Florence Roghaar of Boca Raton, FL, a daughter, Linda Roghaar of Amherst, MA, and a daughter, Natalie Harwood of Oxford, OH; grandchildren Beth and Louis Selesnik of Pompano Beach, FL, David and Corinna Roghaar of Mercer Island, WA, Peter and Lisa Roghaar of Lake Worth, FL, Hamilton and Heather Harwood of Syracuse, IN, Kelley Harwood and Chris Grace of Weston, MA, Josh Harwood and Michelene Todd of Woodbury, CT, Gareth and Heidi Harwood of Oconomowoc, WI, Miranda and John Brosier of Reily, OH, Sarah Treworgy and John deLaChapelle of Seattle, WA, Hannah Treworgy of Incheon, Korea and Jamaica Plain, MA; great-grandchildren Sean Callahan, Blake Selesnik, Zane Roghaar, Ryan Roghaar, Samantha Roghaar, Patrick Roghaar, Molly Harwood, Hannah Grace, Julia Grace, Austin Grace, Isabelle Harwood, Harrison Harwood, Alexandria Harwood, Olivia Harwood, Kerri Brosier, Emily Brosier and Jack Brosier.      Burial will be in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery,Arlington, MA next to her loving husband and business partner of 35 years. Celebrations of her life will be held in the Pleasant Street Congregational Church in Arlington, MA on November 26 at 10:00 a.m. and on Easter Sunday, 2005, on the beach in Delray, FL   November 19, 2004   MID-FALL VACATION Highlights 1.Seeing a pair of pileated Woodpeckers in George’s front yard. 2.Wetland walking and seeing an alligator as big as your front porch (okay, my front porch is kinda small). 3.Walking on the beach in the morning with the wind whistling and the sandpipers hopping around on one leg. 4.Grandma on a good day, reminiscing about churning butter in the farm kitchen and driving the horse and buggy to town. 5.Mall shopping; got my Tiffany’s watch battery replaced. 6.Birthday party 7.Flying to Florida in two hours beats driving for two days   Lowlights 1.Ocean too rough for swimming. 2.Twisting my ankle climbing a dune. 3.Jamming my heel in the door...blood everywhere (well, it did require a band aid). 4.Mall shopping; $27 bubble bath. 5.Mall shopping: twisted ankle swells alarmingly. 6.Getting off I-95 at the wrong exit(squeezed off by a monster car carrier going 90 MPH)and trying to get to the car rental place; execute several U turns trying to get back on I-95...riding high over Belvedere Rd. on a newly opened skyway being hurdled through space toward God-knows-where  until I finally see a sign “Hertz” and manage to get there. 7.Delta planes are too crowded. Seat mate on return was very nervous and therefore made ME nervous. We were sitting at an exit row and got special instructions in case of emergency and the jittery young man made some snide comment like “IF we get there!”  “Heh heh” I politely laugh and inwardly quake. He was continually coughing and sniffing and twisting and turning and at the end of the flight, he was fiddling for a LONG and SUSPICIOUS time with his SHOES so finally I had to lean over and pretend to tie my shoes just to make sure he wasn’t a BOMBER!  He wasn’t.   November 12, 2004   Good-by to Summer        I enjoyed an Indian Summer evening this week, probably the last this year that I can sit by the open door and listen to the sounds of night. Living in the original Square Mile with students, faculty and retirees, I hear the smats of bean bags on the corn hole board, triumphant male shouts of YEAH! punctuating a victory, my neighbor, drilling away on his life long fence building project by porch light, and the scream of the siren of the volunteer Life Squad as they laboriously pull away to an emergency.      And when darkness falls, I hear a familiar beep beep, answered by another beep beep beep and then a steady hum, becoming fainter and fainter as late summer turns to fall, until finally, tonight, the beep beep is not answered, the hum has vanished and I’m left with the crunching of the racoon on my Doritos and the words of Carl Sandburg in “Splinter”   The voice of the last cricket across the first frost is one kind of good-by. It is so thin a splinter of singing.   November 5, 2004   Election Results          I’m disappointed of course.  But let’s face it, this is not the first time I voted for a LOSER!  Who else would have voted for John Gilligan, funeral director, for Governor of Ohio? or Adlai Stephenson, the philosopher, for President? or George McGovern, the peacenik?      Okay! I’m the person who inevitably gets in the slowest line at the grocery store.  So, remember, don’t get behind me and expect to win!   October 22, 2004   ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BASEBALL?   Top Ten Reasons to Watch October Baseball and not Monday Night Football   10. Football fans are animals.   9. Baseball . . . girlie fans.   8. You can easily distinguish the teams by their hats (NY, B) and colors (White, Gray).  Football helmets are too abstract and furthermore, who’s who when the Wings play the Wings?   7. Facial hair offers a diversion if there’s a pitcher’s duel (synonym for boring)   6. Sock styles offer a diversion . . .  No socks? Pants down over the shoes?  Dorky pull ups to the knee?   5.  Every inning has the potential of being the BIG ONE!   4. Freudian theory:  long hair requires energy from the brain to sustain growth.  Thus the long hair guy tries to run to third on an obvious single. Dumb. Out.   3. The Samson equation; long hair equals strength. Grand slam.     2. Who’s the Red Sox boy manager? Never mind, ESRUC EHT ESERVER!   And the number one reason for watching October baseball instead of Monday Night Football   1. No cheerleaders! No annoying John Madden.  Thousands of happy people!   September 9, 2004   TO CANDIDATES OF ALL PARTIES!   No more; speeches slogans ancedotes promises predictions e-mails phone calls nasty, misleading ads ancient history comments debates daughters   I’ve made up my mind. From now to election day, nothing will change Bush’s impact on the environment, his misconceived war in Iraq and its terrible, ongoing consequences, his errors in judgement, his simplification of complex issues or his arrogance toward our allies.   So Candidates! Stop! Give your remaining campaign money to the poor, to a well deserving educational institution, to the starving souls in Africa and give the rest of us a BREAK!   September 3, 2004   The Olympics          Just a word about the Olympics. What a happy event!  The opening parade was a stream of smiling, excited happy faces.  Like a Disney World parade!  Unbridled joy! And throughout the week, even the second and third place finishers were happy!      What a setting for the oldest sporting event in the world! What a thrill to see the shot put in the ancient stadium at Olympia!  And the marathon runners on  the same route of thousands of years ago! The only thing missing was the poetry, and Bob Costas did his best.      You’ve got to love the Greeks. The men wear skirts and dance and do they ever have HEART!  I’ll never forget my trip to Greece and our stay on the Ionian Sea Resort where the men came and danced with us and the next morning, as we left, the concierge and his family came out to wave goodbye.       So thanks to Athens and Greece for the Olympics, for Plato, for Aristotle, for tragedies, comedies, ad infinitum.      As Edith Hamilton put it, “To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit” And so it is today. poli  eucaristo!     August 27, 2004   BRAVING THE STUDENTS        In BRAVING HOME, author Jake Halpern describes a man who stays in his home on the side of an erupting volcano even while he is surrounded by molten lava. Another refuses to leave his carport although a hurricane has destroyed the town. A stalwart woman keeps her home in the mountains over Malibu and fights ferocious fires by beating hot spots with soaked sacks. How far would you go, how much would you take before you abandoned your home?      I bring this up because the students are back in town, making makeshift homes for themselves.  In rented vans, family delivery trucks, u-hauls, SUV’s loaded to the rooftop, Miami students return to their alma mater (literally, “nourishing mother”) For a  good part of the year, Miami will be in loco parentis and Oxford will be their home. Those of us who are braving the Square Mile and living with student neighbors are bracing for outdoor parties, fast cars and beer cans lodged in our hedges.       Fortunately, I live on the quieter side of town, away from the fraternities and sports facilities. I enjoy having neighbors who appreciate my cookies,  who are actually quite considerate with their noise level and are always in their twenties.  After all, if they never grow old, why should I?   August 13, 2004                     August or Au-GUST        Either one comes from the Latin word augeo, to increase.  So if you, like the Emperor Augustus, have increased in power, prestige and possibly girth, you could be called au-GUST.       Usually AU-gust hosts the dog days of summer, lazy humid days that invite hours of reading in the hammock or basking in the sun on the beach. August 2004, however, is not hot.  In fact, today is downright cold (56 degrees this morning. So rather than feeling lazy, I feel fall-like and want to get out and play tennis.       August is usually pretty boring.  The softball season has long ended, Little Leaguers all go home, the ball fields grow weeds, the swim teams are done and out of the pool for this year and everyone and his uncle goes on vacation. The students have not come back yet and there are parking spaces everywhere. The only people working feverishly are the cement layers, carpenters and construction workers, all trying to finish up before the students return, all 15,000 of them, each with a car filled with their stuff and a need to drive FAST.      So we have a few more days of summer. Enjoy!   August 6, 2004                DON’T BE MY PET! I’m going to Hell.  I’ll try to get past those Pearly Gates of Heaven but I can see them all now, lined up, waiting for me --all the pets I’ve killed in my life, pointing their little paws at me, leering vengefully and yelling, “There SHE is!”      The turtle who disappeared from his bowl and reappeared days later to die on top of the upright piano, his neck falling out of his shell and pointing toward middle C.      The fish, all floating belly up at the top of the fish tank because I inadvertently turned the heater up to “scalding.” Sorry!      Butler, the untrainable hound dog, chained with a horse chain, running through the neighborhood followed by at least three Harwoods yelling, “BUUTTLER.”      The stray cat Spooky, whom I fed every night and then ran over on South College Ave with my new PT Cruiser. He probably recognized my car and was coming across the street to say hello and my front wheels missed him but the back wheels – thud – and I could see him in the rearview mirror rolling around like a squirrel (okay, I’ve killed them too).      My only excuse, Mr. Saint Peter, is that I’m REALLY SORRY!   July 16, 2004   Incident at the Mall or A Little Dirt Won’t Hurt You   Northgate Mall, in between Claire’s (every cheap hair ornament and earring known to man) and L and B’s Toy Store (every cheaply made toy in a package known to man and child) Participants: Grammy, Mandy, Kerri, Emily and Jack in his cheaply made umbrella stroller I keep permanently in the back of the car.   Jack suddenly jumps out of the stroller and runs back where we came from.   Kerri: He dropped his gum! Mandy, Grammy, Emily: Don’t worry about it, Jack!  We’ll get you another piece, Jack! Come on back, Jack! Jack: Gum Kerri: He’s standing on it!  It’s under his shoe! Mandy, Grammy, Emily: Get in your stroller, Jack!  Time to go home! Here’s another piece! Jack: Gum   He starts walking back to the stroller,   Kerri: There it is!  On the ground! Jack: Gum.   He turns around, runs quickly to the gum, now flattened and imprinted with the waffle pattern of his sandal, picks it up and pops it in his mouth. Girls:  EUUUUUW! Moral: TOO LATE NOW!!   July 2, 2004   NEKKID AS A JAY BIRD        I have noticed a couple of beautiful blue jays hanging around my back yard. They have been aggressive, chasing mourning doves, and yesterday I caught one actively pecking at a baby sparrow who was either dead or dying.  The jay didn’t devour his prey like the hawk did to the mourning dove last winter, plucking off the feathers, holding it down on the branch and gnawing.  Yuck. The jay certainly didn’t eat the baby sparrow as its corpse lies under the yew bush at this very minute.  More yuck.      So I looked up Blue Jay in my SIBLEY’S GUIDE TO BIRD BEHAVIOR (actually it’s under Jay, blue) and found that yes, they are aggressive and omnivorous. Blue jays eat insects and mast (nuts and seeds on the ground) and hop.  They may pair for life or not, much like people. Some maintain permanent territories, others not, much like people.  Females do most of the nest building, much like people.  Unlike other birds, jays are born naked, therefore, “nekkid as a jay bird”, much like people. They are social birds,(not in the sense of a party animal, like some people) gathering together to ward off predators.  Although most well known for their loud, raucous screech, they are capable of softer, more musical notes used in close quarters for communication with a mate or family member.   Jays feed their young many times a day and keep feeding them days and even months after leaving the nest.  Just like people.   June 11, 2004   REAGAN’S FUNERAL     For a few days this week, we were transported from the usual world of fast food, fast access to the internet, fast videos and fast film clips, to the state funeral for President Ronald Reagan. Thanks to national television, we were slowed to 20 miles per hour in a procession interspersed with truly funereal-paced events.  The ceremony in the presidential library in California was moving. Nancy Reagan, freed from her caregiving duties, yet now without her lifetime companion, walked up to the casket with her daughter, put her cheek on the flag and then spent a few moments embracing her daughter. A private moment caught on TV. As she walked up the steps to the plane that would take her to the public ceremonies in Washington, she turned and waved and the crowd below applauded, at first hesitantly, a little uncertain as to the proper response. After all, she is a widow, going to her husband’s funeral. But her wave and slight smile seemed to encourage them, and they continued to applaud, not raucous like a campaign crowd, or loudly enthusiastic like a patriotic gathering, but it seemed just for  her, politely, with affection, like a comforting pat on the back.  And then Washington, D.C. How beautiful all that classical architecture is before a blue sky. CNN used the word gravitas, so fitting for the solemnity and weight of the state funeral.  The military is so good at this.  Hup hup, all together in perfect step. The catafalque, invoking the Etruscan tombs and classical temples sits in the center of our American Pantheon. Ronald Reagan was a good man. Whether he was a good president I will leave to the historians. Nancy was a good, devoted partner, and I hope I can walk as well as she does at 82. I wish I was that thin.   SICK OF CICADAS   Cicada pie, cicada cookies, cicada stew, cicada soup, Cicada candy, cicada cake, cicada rhubarb dessert, Cicada fever, cicada neuroses, cicada chills, cicada phobia, Cicada mania, cicada philia, cicada misocicadany, You swat ‘em, bat ‘em, you swing, you sweep, You yell, you curse, you shake your fist, They’re killing your trees, messing your sidewalks and bursting your eardrums. Remind me, in 2021, to LEAVE THE COUNTRY.   May 21. 2004   BIRD BYTES   Interesting facts about birds, from THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO BIRD LIFE AND BEHAVIOR;   Birds are the only vertebrate group in which all species reproduce using external eggs.  This is because carrying young makes you heavy (tell me about it!) and birds need to be light because of all the time they spend in the air.   I always thought that birds were like people without arms, and that explains why  they have a greater number of neck vertebrae than mammals, allowing them to reach objects, including their own bodies, with their bills.    Birds have 13 to 25 neck vertebrae, whereas you and I have only seven. Owls can turn their heads 180 degrees.   Birds actually walk on their toes.  What looks like their knees are their ankles.  Their knees are usually hidden up close to their body.   Of all the organisms living on Earth, only birds have feathers.  Which explains why they flock together.     the carpenters Weekly Commentaries -  New Ideas Every  Friday! April 30, 2004 BIRD WATCHING COUCH POTATO STYLE        We  have in town some avid bird watchers, who form Societies, have expensive binoculars and whose idea of fun is to bundle up in down jackets and go stand in the middle of a field in the dead of winter. My idea of bird watching is to lie on my couch, craftily positioned so I can see the bird feeder without lifting my head, and having within arm’s reach my own expensive binoculars,even though I’m not ten feet away. “Blinded” by the glass doors, the binoculars allow some close up viewing.  I can watch robins sing - lots of throat and neck action – and mourning doves as they huff and puff.      I keep track of the birds who have come into my back yard in my bird book, handily stored under the couch, also withing arm’s reach.    This morning (a lovely Sunday in spring, warm enough to have the door open and to hear the birds) I’m reading the New York Sunday Times, when suddenly a flash of yellow appears at the fence.  I grab my binoculars. Yes! It’s a small bird in bright yellow with a complete black hood. It flits and flops and doesn’t stay put long enough for a photo op, barely long enough for a binocular op, but I get several good glimpses and out comes the bird book.  A black hooded warbler! Wow! Under similar circumstances I have also seen an American redstart, a bright black and orange bird that flies like a butterfly.  Really!      I love watching birds.  They’re free, truly wild, and make pleasant noises, unlike carpenters, garbage trucks and loud stereos.  I hate the idea that we are slowly destroying habitats, losing species and generally making the world less beautiful for future  generations.  I contribute to Conservancies and am pinning my hopes for the future on like minded naturalists around the world. Vive Les Oiseaux!     April 23, 2004     TOP TEN REASONS FLORIDIANS RUN RED LIGHTS   10. They’re trying to beat the boat to the drawbridge. 9. It’s 3:30 and they want to get to the early bird special. 8. It’s 4:30 and if they hurry they can get to another early bird special which they won’t eat but will take  home on a styrofoam plate for a snack before bedtime at 8:00. 7. They’ve voted, and if they hurry, they can get to the next county and vote again. 6. They’re late for the monthly meeting of Delray Beach Retired Terrorists.   THEY RUN RED LIGHTS BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE PEOPLE STOPPED AT THE OTHER LIGHT   5. Have a reaction time of a minute and a half. 4. Are waiting for the drawbridge to go down 3. Are in the left turn lane and they really want to go straight but if they do they’ll be killed 2. Have played their round of golf, have had breakfast of supersized Belgian Waffles with whipped cream, strawberries, sausage and bacon, so now, what’s the point? 1. Are napping.     April 16, 2004 The Question of the Day        I know why my mailbox is stuffed with catalogues.  It’s because I order from them once in a while.  But for the life of me, I can’t remember ever ordering from VIVRE, a catalogue that has almost nothing wearable, useable or suitable for Grandma Tally.  That doesn’t stop me from reading it, however, and wondering who would wear 4" stilletto heel sandals? Ouch! How can anyone walk on 4" heels?  Or pay $150 for a sterling silver breath strip case? What is a breath strip?  Are we talking TikTaks? What to do with a $200 gilded pectin shell? $200 would buy a few books that would be much more entertaining than looking at a gilded shell.  Who buys this stuff? A wooden egg in a stand...$500??  Is this the reason the Iraqis hate us? Is this a commentary or simply a series of questions?  Isn’t that what life is, anyhow? April 9, 2004 Central Asia Here We Come!     My education, a 50’s Bachelor of Arts with a Classics major, was so provincial that I graduated convinced that there were two kinds of literature; British, the better, and American, Johnny-come-lately and therefore inferior. God forbid we should ever read Australian or South American or anything written on any continent other than North America and Europe.      But the world and my world view is changing and it turns out there is a section of Earth called Central Asia, and although I have not read any literature from there, I have at least read a book ABOUT Central Asia which is a start.  Coincidentally the Sunday Times had an article about China beginning to expand into its portion of Central Asia, with trains, towns and other accoutrements of civilization.       From the book I just read, THE LAST SECRETS OF THE SILK ROAD,it appears there is plenty of room for expansion.  The author, plodding by horse and camel the 5,000 miles from Turkey to China and following the route taken by the early traders including Marco Polo and Alexander, finds few people and lots of sand, snow and mountains. The western part of Central Asia, which does not belong to China, instead belongs to those mysterious Stans we’ve been laughing about on the New Yorker cover; but Stan is a real guy (oh, okay, a country) and beyond the familiar Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have Uzbekistan (just recently in the news, unfortunately, as a site of more terrorist bombing), Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and the unpronounceable Kyrgyzstan.     So who are these people?  Why wasn’t I told about them in college? Probably because oil hasn’t been discovered there yet. The point being that the world is getting smaller and you can learn just so much in school and it takes the rest of your life to fill in the gaps. So start reading! April 2, 2004 Thomas L. Friedman for President’s Advisor!     Thomas L. Friedman, writer for the New York Times, had a wholly wonderful column last Sunday.  In it he dreams for good news, and I agree completely.  He writes in part; “I so hunger to wake up and be surprised with some really good news. . .that President Bush has decided to offer a real alternative to the stalled Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warning. . . that 10,000 Palestinian mothers marched on Hamas headquarters to demand that their sons and daughters never again be recruited for suicide bombings. . . that Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia invited Ariel Sharon to his home in Riyadh to personally hand him the Abdullah peace plan and Mr. Sharon responded by freezing Israeli settlements as a good will gesture. . . that President Bush has replaced his limo with an armor-plated Toyota Prius, a hybrid car that gets over 40 miles to the gallon. . . that Dick Cheney has apologized to the U.N. and all our allies for being wrong about WMD in Iraq, but then appealed to our allies to join with the U.S. to help Iraqis build some kind of democratic framework. . .that Tom DeLay called for a tax hike on the rich in order to save Social Security and Medicare for the next generation and to finance all our underfunded education programs. . .that Mr. Bush has announced a Manhattan Project to develop renewable energies that will end America’s addiction to crude oil by 2010. . . .that Mel Gibson just annnounced that his next film will be called “Moses”  and all profits will be donated to the Holocaust Museum, and most of all,that John Kerry just asked John McCain to be his vice president, because if Mr. Kerry wins, he intends not to waste his four years avoiding America’s hardest problems – health care, deficits, energy, education – but to tackle them, and that can only be done with a bipartisan spirit and bipartisan team.” Yeah Buddy!  and I want to wake up and find Thomas Friedman ensconced in the Kerry White House as First Advisor!   March 26, 2004 Top Ten Reasons NOT to Clean Out the Garage   10. What will you find at the bottom of the wood pile? 9. You discover you have three identical leaf rakes. 8. You now have FOUR mayonnaise jars filled with screws, bent nails, useless hooks and other metal thingies you’ll never use. 7. Paint cans with rock solid paint can not be legally disposed of. 6. Unless you wrap them in Christmas wrapping paper and they “accidentally” fall into the rubbish. 5. You have been faithfully keeping mystery objects; long plastic tubes, very long metal pipe, tool with bent prong, paint covered tool, door weight attached to nothing and electric wires also attached to nothing. 4. Bags of garden aids (seeds, fillers, fertilizer) all have holes in the bottom chewed by critters 3. who also leave little surprises in corners, under tables, at the bottom of the wood pile. 2. you’d have to wash 20 years of dirt from the windows   and number 1 reason NOT to clean out the garage   It's too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry and and then you have to start cleaning the SECOND FLOOR! March 19, 2004 DON’T LOOK!   Oh, you’re looking! My first encounter with the dreaded “Don’t look!” scream was in Winchester, MA.  I was about 8 years old and we were out looking for our dumb dog who kept wandering off.  We were at the intersection of Wildwood Ave. and State Rte. 3, a very busy road.  We see Dumb Dog on the other side, who at the same time sees us, and happily starts making a bee line for us, totally ignoring the speeding traffic.  “Don’t Look!” shouts my mother, grabbing my head. The dog did not get hit, but I was scarred for life.      Mark used to show French films in his high school French class and sometimes they would show more than American public high schools would approve.  His version of “Don’t look!” consisted of going to the front of the movie projector and deftly closing the lens cover.      One day I was standing outside my house with my daughter and her family, just shooting the breeze.  My neighbor was unloading some furniture from his rental truck. We weren’t paying much attention to him until suddenly there was a slight commotion.  “Don’t look!” shouts my son-in-law. “He fell off the truck with a lamp!”  So  we all averted our eyes, peeking discreetly to make sure he wasn’t lying in pain in the gutter, and hoping we saved him some embarrassment.      Of course there have been times when I wish someone had yelled, “Don’t look!”  I’m thinking of seeing a child on a city street in Buffalo, hit by a truck, and people yelling, “Go get Martha! It’s her Willy!”      I guess the moral is, when someone says, “Don’t look”, it’s probably best not to.  Remember, I didn’t say, “Don’t Read!”      March 12, 2004 NEWS FROM OUR TOWN   Here are some real items from the Police Reports section of our weekly newspaper;        Joseph Clockman, 19, was cited for theft after allegedly attempting to shoplift a package of chicken from  Kroger’s on Jan. 31. The chicken was safely returned to the store. And returned to the meat department where I picked it up????        An Old Oxford Road resident reported on Jan. 14 that someone squirted lotion on her vehicle while she was at Talawanda High School. Maybe it had chapped fenders.        A 1209 College Corner Pike resident reported on Jan. 23 someone stole her dishwasher. Stop, Thief! He’s running away with my dishwasher!        Carlos Hernandez, 21, of Chicago, was cited for breaking and entering on Jan. 30 after being found at Anatriptic Arts Massage, 211 S. Elm Street (right across the street from me in the Old Hotel).  He was found hiding in a closet and said he knew people who lived there. Oh, yeah? Like who?               March 5, 2004 THE RIGHT THING TO DO II        Not only is it important to do the right thing (see Commentary of last week) but now, thanks to the Jackson costume malfunction and the Howard Stern Mouth, we have a Congressional hearing on what’s DECENT.      Being the moral prude that I am, I love the word “decent.”  It comes from the Latin “decet” meaning, “to add grace to, to adorn, to become.”  The Romans served their country by holding public office and serving in the Senate without pay.  They did this, for one reason, because it was “becoming’, i.e., it made them look good.      I’m not suggesting that all decent U.S. Senators give up their pay, but I do think that we might start judging behavior, both public and private, as to whether it is becoming, not whether it adheres to the Christian faith, or whether your grandmother would approve. So now, perhaps, we can see the difference between Jesse Jackson (putting aside your political views, a decent man) and Janet Jackson (not so decent, okay, INDECENT, even though, ironically, she would love to see herself as well adorned and becoming). February 27, 2004              THE RIGHT THING TO DO         What really annoys me is that white haired guy with the mustache, Wilford Brimley, with his Quaker Oats in one hand, and pointing authoritatively at me with the other, saying “It’s the Right Thing to Do.”   Wait a sec. Is this the same as George W. bombing Baghdad and insisting time and time again, “It was the right thing to do”? How does one person KNOW when it’s the right thing to do?  I’ll tell you what’s the right thing to do.      I had a student, a sweet, overweight, young ninth grade girl, who could hammer out a five paragraph essay, but couldn’t get from one class to another without a monumental effort to pull herself together. Papers jammed in notebooks, homework all wrinkled and sticky, she just was unorganized. One day, after class was over, she was struggling to get all her belongings into her backpack and pick up her purse and walk and she got to the middle of the room when everything fell out of her purse onto the floor.  Lipstick, pens, money, cheap jewelry, kleenex, bouncing all around like Mexican jumping beans.  Just leaving in front of her was the class hero, football idol, cool, sophisticated. He turned, saw the unfortunate one, stopped, knelt down and started to help her pick stuff up.  Now, THAT was the right thing to do. How did he know that? Who taught him? I’m guessing, but perhaps we teach our children by example. And that means you have to spend time with your kids . Quality time. The Good Samaritan. Hang in there, parents.    February 20, 2004                   My Garage        My garage was built around 1912 to go with my neighbor’s house. When you look at the two structures head on, you have to think “barn” with that second floor, the  barn like roof and two windows in the front, ostensibly for throwing out bales of hay or pulling them in. I’m sure it was not built to be a working barn.  There’s no room for stalls and there never has been any evidence that it was used as a stable except for the lone horseshoe found in the back yard.  Nowadays it would be called a faux barn, but for the 32 years I have lived here, it has always been “the garage.”      What stories this garage has to tell. For a brief time it was used as an artist’s studio. There’s no running water and we found out later that he used to pee out the back window. Then the teenagers took it over for sleep overs, parties and God knows what. A monkey in diapers died in it and a disturbed person tried to commit suicide by driving in and closing the door. And I’m just pulling this stuff off the top of the memory pile.      I bring this up because now that I’m retired I’m resolved to “tackle the garage.”  Thirty two years of accumulated stuff; painting tools I will never use again, clay pots and bags of garden fertilizer at least 20 years old, broken lawn chairs, unfinished cabinets, window shades, parts of trellises, lumber of all shapes and sizes, part of a heating duct, and I’m just scratching the surface of the first floor. Heavy weights once used to open the door, since replaced by an electric door opener, now lie in each corner, unattached to anything and just gathering dirt.  I would say “dust” but the garage is definitely covered with layers of dirt. I will tackle the garage. It has top priority on my spring cleaning list. I will. Just as soon as it gets just a little warmer.   February 12, 2004                  FEBRUARY        Does anyone ever say Feb-ROO-ary?  Don’t we all say Feb-YOU-ary?  And why don’t we have a constitutional amendment about this?      February is the month of illness, coming from the Latin, febris, meaning fever, and giving credence to such words as febrific, producing fever, febrility, feverishness and febrifuge, getting rid of fever. Reports from my grandchildren confirm this unhappy tendency.  Colds, stomach flus – they’re all here in February.      Going right along with this is the original Latin God Februus, who was in charge of purifications.  What better time to purify than after the fever and for Spring Cleaning? In Roman times the Februa were the instruments of cleansing; a broom made from pine boughs, salt and grain sprinkled on the floor and then swept away.       So as soon as you’re out of the sick bed, get out that purifying dust cloth and get to work.  Then when spring really gets here, you can head outside and start cleaning and purifying your garden.      February 6, 2004                Super Bowl 38   Super Bowl 38, Oh, sorry, XXXVIII (another example how Roman numerals give prestige to an unclassical sport) was a great football game.  Big sweaty guys showing their ability to think (pass or run?  right or left?) as well as push and shove each other.  Actually I’m aware of the intellectual challenges of football.  The quarterback doesn’t have that cheat sheet on his wrist for nothing.  It was a close, suspenseful game and was humanized by failings - the kicker misses a easy 30 yard field goal attempt, somebody is sidelined with a mundane bloody nose.         What strikes me is how large people are becoming.  The professional football players are HUGE. Three hundred pounds, six foot four.  Whether chemically enhanced or not (and certainly all those tall basketball players weren’t born that way) each generation gets bigger.  Which reminds me of my favorite theory of how the dinosaurs became extinct.  No flying meteor from out of space. Oh no.  They became extinct because they got so big that they finally just fell over and coudn’t get up. I think we’re heading for a similar fate.      Footnote; I spent the time between Super Bowl Halves reading PONTIUS PILOT by Ann Wroe so I missed the Janet Jackson Show.  Oh darn.  At the rate our society is morally degenerating, we’ll all probably die in another Wrathful Flood from God before we can grow big enough to topple over. January 30, 2004                                   BIRD MURDER        It happened last year just about this time.  Snow had been on the ground for at least a week.  I heard a huge THUD on the sliding glass door and a minute later I saw a smudge about three quarters of the way up. Following the trail of feathers and blood, to my horror I saw a large, red-tailed hawk up in the tree, holding on to the still squirming body of a mourning dove and methodically plucking the feathers.  Then he proceeded to EAT it!  Yuck. This behavior was confirmed by my ornithologist friend who recounted his seeing a hawk chasing a DUCK!  Anyhow, that was last year and it only happened once. I took pictures.      So this year, as the snow piled up, I thought about the murderous behavior of last year. Yesterday, as I was returning from the garage, I startled a large bird perched at the foot of the sliding glass door. He quickly picked up his prey and flew off, leaving behind a LOT of feathers, blood and the now familiar dove-sized smudge on the glass door.  Could it be the same hawk?  Did he use the same modus operandi, that is, to chase the terrified mourning dove (they’re so dumb,”coo,coo”) into smashing into the door and picking up his victim, etc. etc.?  Only time will tell.  Stick around for next year.  Meanwhile, the mourning doves just keep coming around the feeder, blissfully unaware that the hawk has their number. January 23, 2004          Walking With Gulls   Went walking with the gulls last weekend.  While the world was watching Iowa, I was standing on the brink of the United States with nothing between me and the Canary Islands.  I discovered that if you walk very slowly and quietly, and if there is no one on the beach except you and some lady who is standing on the top of the dune, slowly moving her arms and legs and water bottle to some mysterious pattern, then the gulls and the sandpipers just walk along with you. So I walked the beach with the gulls, gray and white with black tipped wings, and the sandpipers; brown, red legged, brown legged, spotted, partly white, but ALL running fast in every direction and occasionally being aggressive toward each other. I, on the other hand, was not running anywhere, and certainly not being aggressive, but enjoying the solitude of a Florida beach at 8 o’clock in the morning and thinking, not about the cold winds of Iowa or New Hampshire, but how warm the sunrise felt, how soft the breeze, and how lucky I am to be me and not a gull or a sandpiper.      January 19, 2004                Winter Torpor             It’s time for Winter Torpor, a wonderful word that comes from the Latin verb torpeo meaning to be stiff. (Our word torpedo is also related to torpeo and was used by the Romans to describe a fish whose sting produced numbness and stiffness). In birds and animals torpor is a state of inactivity sometimes achieved by a lowered body temperature during hibernation. In teenagers, during aestivation, a summer time version of hibernation, torpor is achieved by a lack of ambition that comes with summer vacation and unemployment. I’ve seen two year olds who are outgrowing their naps slip into torpor for a few minutes, gathering their strength to finish the day. The old power nap with your eyes open. Probably Juliet was in a state of torpidity as she lay on her bier in the Capulet’s tomb. And I myself am guilty of being in torpor as the the winter sky remains gray all day, the fire crackles, my down coverlet makes a nest of my couch and the chicken soup simmers on the stove filling the house with a warming, comfortable aroma of garlic and lemon. Ummmmmm. Zzzzzzzzz.   January 9, 2004 Warning Lights of Life   Every new car I get has added gadgets. Some are just reminders; fasten your seat belt! or you’ve left the keys in the car! or, time to get some gas!  Others are more alarming in the form of pulsating beeps; someone is stealing your car!  Your lights are on! So when are we going to invent little warning lights of the mind?  Heaven only knows we’ve invented  everything else; thinking typewriters, talking phones that take pictures, cars with seats that remember and steering wheels that warm your hands. So where is the little flashing light (maybe in the form of a yapping mouth) that goes on when you talk too much? How about a miniature smiley face that goes on when you’re having a bad day? How about a pulsating heart when you haven’t said “I love you”? Or a beeping sad face :( when you forget to say “I’m sorry?” Surely the world would benefit if your mind could produce back up signals (beep...beep) that tell you to “back down”, “step back” or “give the guy some space.”  I know I could use a flashing sign, maybe in the shape of a hot fudge sundae with a big red X on it when the scales point to a certain terminus ad quem. How about a pulsating alarm bell when your fly is open? Your slip is showing? And for every generation, a new set of signals; hair in disarray?  a flashing brush and comb; snot on your nose? a nose shining brightly; late for an appointment? a little clock.  Finally, for those people who need a warning that you’re getting into a tizzy, and you know who you are, a little blood pressure signal going up! Or perhaps a picture of a molehill that miraculously turns into a mountain! I’ve got to stop.  That yapping mouth signal just came on.           January 2, 2004                                        New Year's Resolution Make none. Happy New Year! December 25, 2003 Winter   Is it because I was recently in Florida where reds, yellows, oranges and all shades of green stimulate my color senses, that the black, white, grays and browns of winter seem so stark this year? Or is it the early snow that creates white outlines on every black branch overhead where my green canopy used to be? Is it the cold weather which makes permanent the two inch white armrest on the Adirondack chair outside my window and hardens the merinque topping on my bird bath lemon pie? Or is it the full moon  that turns the sky into an orange-gray softness at night and creates those intricate black silhouettes on the unbroken snow?       No matter.  When a pair of cardinals break the gloomy colorscape with their bright red and dusky brown presence, and when at night a single window shines with an orange light and  blue-white smoke billows up from a chimney, then I know that winter with all its gray and brown and black and white can be beautiful. And BTW, Merry Christmas! December 18, 2003 MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY   Woodrow Wilson brought our country into World War I saying “The world must be made safe for democracy.”  Then came World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and on and on. So the question: Is Saddam Hussein the last evil man on earth?  Will all evil men, seeing this man’s pathetic capture, now say to themselves, “I’ll stop the torture, the killing, the making of Weapons of Mass Destruction because George W. will get me?  Is Mehn-tal-Lee Ihl in North Korea shaking in his boots and rewriting his torture policies and re-tooling his Weapons of Mass Destruction machines?  Are we done with the Hitlers and the Caligulas for all time?       I hope so. And I’ll vote for George W. for the rest of his and my life if his army in Iraq and his catching Saddam Hussein means no more evil despots and suffering of innocents.  I really would.      I hope I’m wrong when I say that it’s hard to believe that democracy will reign all over the world (although history shows that it appears to be heading in that direction) and, even more importantly, with democracy will come World Peace.  I can only hope that man has become civilized enough to realize that physical brutality and enslavement of people gets you nowhere.      Finally, I dare say that throughout history, the male despots and tyrants have far outnumbered the female.  Let’s free the women of the world and put them in the driver’s seat (literally, in Saudi Arabia).  Let’s have more Grandma Rulers and see if the violence and cruelty diminishes. Go Girl! December 11, 2003  Presidential Election Round One   Where is Abraham Lincoln when we need him? Tall, resourceful, principled.  John Kerry LOOKS like him, but I’m afraid, John, Abraham Lincoln you are NOT. The candidates are either too wimpy (Lieberman), too young (Edwards), too blonde (Gephardt), too shoot from the hip (Bush, Clark) too inexperienced (Braun, Sharpton), too dye-your-hair (Kucinich). Maybe Howard Dean but he always looks a little surprised that he’s on the list.  I’d vote for Hillary Clinton any day. She’s smart, careful, thoughtful and experienced.   Questions for the candidates at the next debate; What do you read to be informed? Whom would you choose to help you? What do you have for breakfast? (Start the day wisely and the rest will follow) Have you raised a child? Do you own a gun? Have you shopped for groceries lately? When you get up in the morning do you make your own bed?  Put on slippers? (Okay, I’m just nosey) and DEFINITELY not Al Gore until he FIXES HIS HAIR!    December 4, 2003                 Here Come’s Winter!        The Fall holidays are done; orange and brown are out, red, white and green are in. The wood is stacked, the streets have been cleaned, the garden hose detached,the lawn mower oiled and moved to the back of the garage, making way for the snow shovel. The leaves are all down except for a few stubborn clingers, the finches and robins have flown south and Christmas is approaching.      A raccoon appears near my back door. He has a beautiful winter coat, all fuzzy and clean and multicolored. In the morning the cars on the street are covered with frost or a light dusting of snow and as they move out they leave a cloud of steam. People walk faster to work, wear jackets and coats and mittens and gloves.  Winter is coming and I love it. Friday, November 28, 2003 No Horizons with Verizon!  Awful.   Of course we have horizons. And no telephone company can take them away. When Verizon first came on the market, I thought that it was pronounced VERY-zon, and it was quite a stretch to figure out what they were trying to invoke. All companies try to have you conjure up an image as you say the name, as in Cinergy, you think Cincinnati Energy, Microsoft, a soft microphone, and so I had VERY-zon, pulling up a picture of a very sound? a very tone? a very tall son?  But, it turns out, it should be pronounced ver-EYE-zon, and thence hor-EYE-zon which can not be abolished, no matter how many cell phones are beeping. My dictionary says that a horizon is “a circle that bounds the part of the earth’s surface visible from a given point.” You will always have a horizon, whether it be your neighbor’s rooftop or a distant mountain peak. No horizons?  And say what you will about Floriduh, it has spectacular horizons. Nothing can compare to standing on the beach, having the wind blowing the waves into white topped breakers, the sandpipers skittering on the shore, the flock of majestic pelicans floating above and looking out over the horizon where the sky and the curve of the earth meet and there’s nothing between you and Portugal. No horizons? Turn off your cell phone. Turn off the TV.  Take an evening walk and watch the sun set on the real horizon. It’s free.          Friday, November 21, 2003 Thanksgiving   Are we the only animal that takes such delight in communal, social eating? Sparrows eat together, but they don’t seem to be enjoying it much. Lions gather round the carcass, but only out of necessity.   Certainly we are the only ones that send out invitations, plan for days ahead, put a leaf in the table and dredge up extra chairs. There are no records of big family dinners among the cave dwellers, but we do know that Julius Caesar outdid himself once by setting up 22,000 tables and serving dinner to everyone. Now, that’s a lot of salad, Caesar! The early Celts were famous for their raucous banquets.  They literally fought for the best portion of the pig (I have no idea what that would be) and so much wine was consumed that dinner could easily turn into a brawl.  Nowadays, even though some family dinners come precariously close to  brawl, there’s rarely violence, and most often dinners, especially holiday dinners, are times of reunions, pleasant conversation and good food. It’s a time to remember to be grateful for the basic necessities that most of us enjoy.  It’s a time to be grateful to the early settlers who survived that first year and to the Native Americans who helped them.  It’s time to be grateful for all those Founding Fathers who persisted in maintaining their independence and who forged together a democratic republic which protects our freedoms. I’m grateful.  Happy Thanksgiving.    Friday, November 14, 2003                 The Wild Life   Some of my contemporaries (those with spouses and resources) have retired to their dream homes on the waterfront and spend their hours playing golf and watching wildlife. I, having neither spouse nor resources, remain in town, not playing golf but, indeed, watching wildlife. Besides the urban squirrels, the lost opposum and the flock of sparrows, I am privileged to watch the two-legged untrappable, unflappable twenty year old wildlife. Just this morning I look up from my knitting and out the door of the house across the street flies a girl in shorts, tee shirt and bare feet (It’s a cold morning in early November) and grasping a notebook she runs across the alley, through the neighbor’s back yard and disappears.  That’s wild. One breezy day last spring, from the back roof of that same house there flew a flock of papers, white 8 and a half by eleven flutterers  sailing into the trees and landing in the street, in my driveway, on the lawn. Anguished faces peered from the roof. Soon the ersatz sun bathers were out on the lawn, gathering up what I suppose was a priceless term paper.   Last year was really wild in the house directly across the street.  Male creatures enjoyed many a keg party, one culminating with the alpha male smashing a huge pumpkin on his closely shaven head and then donning a full bodied cow suit and running up and down the sidewalk yelling at passing cars and waving a sign that said “Eat More Chicken!” Of course, I thought it was a Dalmatian Dog suit (those black and white spots) and that made it all Really Wild.  May it never end!   Friday, November 7, 2003 I live in a University town, a once lovely square mile of private homes, many built in the 19th century.  Once lovely but now bordering on ugly, since some time in the past 20 years, the lunkheads who run the town decided to allow students to live off campus and bring their cars to school.  This, of course, led to an over abundance of cars and an under abundance of parking spaces.  So the knuckleheads who run the town decided that every time a greedy landlord cut up a beautiful home into student apartments, he had to provide parking spaces on his property.  So now we’re looking at