At last! Life explained!!

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

'Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.'

The dog said: 'That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?'

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said:

'Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span.'

The monkey said: 'Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?'

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said:

'You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.'

The cow said: 'That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?'

And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said:

'Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years.'

But man said: 'Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?'

'Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.'

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I'm doing it as a public service. *

* Thanx anyway to Yinka!!

Welcome, Major Reader!!

Well, check out this one! A very shy member of my family, who is one of my favorite peeps on the planet, has started her own blog!!

She has a thing about privacy, doubtless because her totally embarrassing relative, moi, just blabs everything to anybody. I predict she'll get over this. She's one hell of a fine writer, and y'know...you just can't stuff that down forever.

i haven't read that book she's flogging yet, but i just might. right now, i'm working my way through georges simenon's mysteries for the nth time. just LOVE that guy's books. i think there's a fantastic biography about him, too, that tells wotta piece of work his wife was.

see...no privacy anywhere, any more. we beat DUMBYA to it a long time ago.

Welcome, Major Reader.

Six of My Nonimportant Quirks

Here we go again....another meme that seems kinda fun. RSG put a tag out anyone who reads her blog, so here goes: six of my nonimportant quirks. (Only SIX? I'd say that ALL of my quirks are not especially important.)

1. I don't like kitchen cabinets. Thus, I have only a few in my kitchen...enough to hold up the sink and hang the microwave from, but that's it.

2. I much prefer boys' khakis and jeans. Having no butt to speak of, I find they fit better and are so much more comfortable, and they have POCKETS so I don't have to carry my money & cards in a purse, which I tend to lose.

3. I like gelato better than ice cream. What's the difference? I don't know, zackly, but (note to unnamed visitor) if I serve you homemade gelato, I really did make it myself, and I'm not using a pretentious word for ice cream. It's freakin' GELATO!! I discovered it at the foot of the hill by City College. The mama's association sold it to the school kids and passersby after school. I especially like cherry, but I don't know how to make it. Only lemon.

4. I replace my toothbrush every two months or so.

5. And I only like Colgate toothbrushes.

6. Related to #2, my favorite winter coat used to belong to one of my sons-in-law. Again, it's very comfy and warm and has very sturdy, deep pockets.

Nor'Dakota Ole....

Ole, a furniture dealer from up at Jamestown, ND, decided to expand the line of furniture in his store, so he decided to go to Paris to see what he could find.

After arriving in Paris, he visited with some dealers and selected a line that he thought would sell well back home.

To celebrate the new acquisition, he decided to stop in a bistro to have a glass of wine. As he sat enjoying his wine, he noticed that the small place was quite crowded, and that the only vacant seat in the house was the other chair at his table.

Before long, a very beautiful young girl came to his table and asked him something in French, which Ole recognized but couldn't understand. Nevertheless, he motioned to the vacant chair and invited her to sit down.

After a couple of fruitless minutes of trying to talk with her, he took a napkin and drew a picture of a wine glass and showed it to her.

She nodded, so he ordered her a glass of wine.

After sipping wine together at the table for a while, he took another napkin and drew a picture of a plate with food on it, and she nodded.

They left the bar and found a quiet restaurant where a trio were playing romantic music. They ordered dinner, after which he took another napkin and drew a picture of a couple dancing. She nodded, and they got up to dance. They danced until the restaurant closed and the musicians were packing up.

Back at their table, the young lady smiled, took a napkin, and drew a picture of a four-poster bed.

To this day, Ole has no idea how she figured out he was in the furniture business.

Catchin' Up....

Once in a while I post an e-mail exchange here. It's fun to catch up with my bloggy friends, but at some point, it occurs to me that others might find it interesting, too. Here's the latest sampling:

hi, ____....i discovered your wonderful email on yahoo last night. many thanks for the update. your place in ____ sounds charming...and you have housemates, too! i stayed in a place like that in st. cloud, minnesota, right after i graduated from college. all the bedrooms on the second floor were rented to various students, and the more-or-less kitchen was in the attic. (my ex-husband used to say he married me to save me from a diet of boiled hot dogs and macaroni & cheese from a box.) (ha. didnt work!!) it's nice to have others around even as you have your privacy. your housemates sound like a great mix--teenagers, too, once in a while!

i am taking a class in statistics this semester. to complete the requirements for a class in creative writing she's pursuing in her spare time, the chair of the social work dept has been doing an internship in magazine editing with me. last week we got to talking about my former job working for a survey research firm in iowa. i told her that i had enjoyed working with statistics, even SPSS, although i had never studied it, and she said she was going to be teaching a class in statistics this semester. i thought it would be a great opportunity to brush up on SPSS for future freelance work after (oh, god, WHEN, not after) i retire.

there are some fantastic kids in that class. one delightful young fellow next to me is from northern japan, and he is full of light. (how else to explain that quality? it's the way i'd like to be, but i'm lots darker.) i also had a good laugh when the teacher, in the last hour of class, had us do a little exercise in statistics. we went around the room giving our ages...and it soon became clear to me that i was going to skew the class' average age all to hell and gone. my 21 classmates are mostly aged 19, 22, 18, 23, etc., and then there's me at age 71! i raised my hand and asked if we could calculate the mean and the mode, also, and she said "we'll do that next week."

funny how things come back to you when you use your mind for more than just deciphering the week's cable schedule.

Pivetta Muir Trail Boots

Right after we moved from Bismarck to Minneapolis in the early 1970s, Don and I went shopping in an outdoor shop in Edina after Christmas. They were having a sale on hiking boots. I tried on a pair of grey suede boots from Italy that were not the most glamorously outdoorsy looking boots in the shop, but they fit like a dream and were by far the most comfortable boots I'd ever had on my feet. I forget precisely how much they cost, but they also were the most expensive things I'd ever had on my feet--to the point that, if they were still being manufactured today, I couldn't afford them.

I wore them all the time except probably on Sundays, if and when I went to Church, and later, after I went to work full time and segued into high heels, Peggy, a teenager at the time, asked if she could wear them. So she did...for a number of years until she left for the Navy, in fact. (On that day, when we dropped her off at the Naval recruiting center in Des Moines, we felt privately that the other recruits looked as if they were barely one step ahead of the law, and that Peggy was destined, if she stuck around long enough, to become an Admiral.) (She didn't, and she isn't, but she's got plenty of command all the same.)

Anyway, the boots have gone with me from hither to yon for about 35 years. If I want to wear them hiking again, they'll need re-soling--all those years on cement have worn the edges down a bit, and they'd lose their grip on the rocks--and the leather insides probably should be rebuilt, too. But one thing about a well made pair of shoes is just that: you can repair them so that they last a long time. There's a shop in Dupont Circle that specializes in repairing hiking boots. I may take them there when it warms up later.

I was surprised when I put them on again a couple of weeks ago when it got cold here. They are fabulous to walk in. They are lightweight yet sturdy, and they cradle my feet so well I actually feel a bit nimble trotting over the lumpy cobbled sidewalks here. Who knew?

Pivetta seems to be out of existence these days, but you can still find rave reviews for these boots on Google. There's even a couple of pairs on sale on eBay (none of which would be big enough for me, alas).

Most women have lots of shoes. Not me. I have fewer than a dozen pairs, about half of which are sneakers, but I have maybe the best boots around. God bless my boots!!

Oh, shoot! We hafta go back to work tmw.....

Got that end of a 3-day weekend blues? Here are four goodies to take your mind off tomorrow. The first two are from Old Horsetail Snake --go check out the whole bl*g if you want to bust a gut!


1. Two tourists were driving through Louisiana. As they approached Natchitoches, they started arguing about the pronounciation of the town. They argued back and forth until they finally stopped for lunch.

As they stood at the counter, one tourist asked the blonde employee, "Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are...very...slowly?"

The blonde leaned over the counter and said, "Burrrrrrr,gerrrrrrr,Kiiiiing."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2. Jambalaya....(a warbling 4 year old with accordion)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

3. And...on NPR's StoryCorps, Red Nose's absolutely delightful interview with Anna Wise, her 96-year-old mother!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

4. AND, last but not least, "Hattie", created by A Little Red Hen with her own two knitting needles.

BONUS: Lest we get too happy, take a squint at this!

Coooold!

Yesterday was the coldest day of our winter here. Cathy called to tell me it was "bitter cold." In DC, that means it was about 25 degrees ABOVE ZERO and windy. That sounds like the merrie month of May where I grew up.

But even I admit it did feel very cold. My glasses fogged up whenever I entered a building, too! So after hanging out at the National Gallery, I went home and put an extra blanket on my bed and thick L.L.Bean socks on my feet.

I also mended the cricket holes in my favorite sweater. My mother taught me to darn socks when I was a kid. And as a postulant and novice in the nunnery, I mended "our" socks during the one o'clock lecture--the after-lunch period during which our novice mistress read aloud to us while we stitched. She picked her readings from some spiritual tome, often by Romano Guardini, who was very popular in the 1950s, or even C.S. Lewis. She, the novice mistress, was quite literary, and so we escaped the readings the following class had to endure. They were read to by a different and more than slightly pietitious superior from books like Jesus of Nazareth, which had statements like "Jesus is called 'the Lamb of God', because who doesn't love a woolly little lamb?" (Right. Not so much with the wool, though. I much prefer garlic.)




I still love to mend socks, but I've gotten over the need to use the same color or type of yarn. Too matchy! I mend everything now with embroidery floss. It's colorful and sturdy, and it always feels very good to put on something I've mended with my own hands rather than thrown away. I'm very fond of my turtle socks, and one hole in the toe isn't enough to wreck them. [A nice photo of a mended turtle sock is on its way, but it's taking EVER SO LONG to arrive, zut alors!!] [added later: And here it is. I had emailed it to....mad, hysterical laughter....earthlink!]

Brown Recluse Spider

Her photos of a little tan spider posted on the Old Old Lady of the Hills's blog today have drawn many comments.

A couple of them talked about whether the wee spider was actually--there's your grandson's favorite word again, other Naomi--a brown recluse, that shy little spider from central and northern Illinois and central and southern Iowa whose bite can be very nasty--like, it rots your flesh. Ergh!

I was concerned when I first saw the color and rather elongated profile of the spider, but then I wasn't too concerned about it until someone else mentioned having the same thoughts. So, having acquired, among other things, an undergraduate degree in biology in my eclectic existence, I was curious and looked it up.

HERE is a fabulous website with lots of information about the brown recluse spider.

After studying this website for a while, it seems fairly clear that OOLOTH's photogenic little arachnid is probably NOT a recluse, although I can't tell for sure.

The one photo that shows the spider's back clearly doesn't really show whether it carries the recluse's trademark dark brown violin shape on the cephalothorax (fancy scientic term, which most of us biologists will recognize right off).

It MAY be a Cheiracanthium, which the website shows and describes as a very pale greenish or yellowish spider with...tada...black feet! It may be scratches on my glasses, but it seems as if OOLOTH's little spider does have dark feet.

Who knew? One learns something new every day.

How to avoid the bites of these spiders? The website says don't put your hands or feet into anything dark that has been sitting around undisturbed for a long time. Like gloves or boots or shoes that have been lying around in the back of the closet (see "Hats, Gloves, and Scarves" on Red Nose. Not that she has spiders in her closet, but it's a good idea to get in there and straighten things out now and then.)

Brown recluse spiders don't build webs, they're very shy, they don't JUMP, they're not hairy...they just kind of wimp around in dark places hoping something to eat will pass by REALLY CLOSE.

God Bless the USPS!!

Last week I ordered something VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. And the merchant just sent me an e-mail telling me it's been shipped and giving me the TRACKING NUMBER.

It doesn't matter whose tracking number it is--UPS's or FEDEX's--it means I'll spend the next week or so playing DOOR NOTICE TAG with the shipper.

They will not leave it at my condo without my signature (or somebody else's). And since most of us are gainfully employed at other locations during the hours when the good folks from Brown or Purple&Black are out delivering, this means we don't get our packages!

I am kicking myself here for not making a point of requesting that the merchant send this VERY IMPORTANT item via the USPS. That's right....good old Mr/Ms ZIP, courier for the US Snail.

The USPS ALWAYS leaves stuff eiher right in my mailbox or inside my outer door. ALWAYS. They have KEYS to get in our building! And they have COMMON SENSE.

It's not that the delivery folks from Brown or Purple&Black don't have common sense. What they especially DON'T have is keys to my condo, so THEIR HANDS ARE TIED.

If they want to keep their jobs, they jolly well have to get a signature on their little signature doohickey before they leave anything at my place. And since they can't get in, they can't get a signature. So what they do leave is one of those dreaded little door notices.

The door notices tell you that the delivery company TRIED to deliver your package, but you were not at home! (Gee....)

They say they will come back tomorrow sometime in one of two six-hour periods--when you will not be at home, either.

Unless the merchant has checked the little box that says no signature is required, you'll get ANOTHER door notice tomorrow. And so on.

Your choice is to stay home to wait for the delivery or find someone who will take it for you. And you will have to call your doctor to ask for a stronger pill for your high blood pressure.

So...If you are a merchant that sells VERY IMPORTANT THINGS, maybe you should try USPS. The postage charges are way less than those of UPS or FEDEX.

Best of all, the people to whom you are sending the package can count on having it delivered, even if they live in an apartment house or a condo building.

Try it sometime. I hear they'll even come pick up your package now, just like you-know-who!!

Bloody 'bout time!

Meme

Since Uncle Mad suggested deep-sixing the TV, I've been finding other things to do with my leisure time this past week....like reading all the blogs on my own list and following up interesting-looking ones on other bloggers' lists.

The lively Old Old Lady of the Hills has an interesting meme. You're supposed to name five things in your life now that you never dreamed would be in your future when you were 25 years old. Then you tag five other people who, hopefully, will do the same and report back to you, etc. OOLOTH (that would a cool name all by itself, non?...kinda Celtic) also said "And anyone else who feels like doing this....please do, and let me know when it is posted....." OK. Here goes, and gee whiz, where to begin???

1. First has to be my children. On my 25th birthday, I was 3 months married and two and a half months pregnant with my first child. So I knew I'd have at least one, but then I had three more. If I couldn't imagine life with a bunch of kids then, I can't imagine not having them now. And I could never have predicted at age 25 that 45 years later, #1 would be scuba diving off Egypt over Christmas vacation while #2 would be attending the New York Film Critics Award dinner, #3 would be painting murals for a living, and #4 would be the goodest of the good old boys and, after a tour in the Navy, still working for the supermarket that gave him his first job after school when he was 14.

2. Second, as one day follows the next, is my beautiful grandchildren--seven of 'em. #1 got married to a beautiful woman summer before last, and they are two of my best friends. #2 is finishing school in Edinburgh and managing a bar on the side and hoping to marry another beautiful woman. #3 started writing little books (his "Spaceman Scott" novels) when he was about 8, and #4 wrote one in Spanish when he was in elementary school. #5 went scuba diving in Egypt with his parents and can order his breakfast in Arabic. #6 is a fashionista, cooler than cool, who also reads something like 5 or 6 books a week and plays soccer and lacrosse (#4 also LOVES lacrosse--a game I had never heard of at age 25). #7 is two and a half with lovely brown hair and eyes--thanks to her Lebanese dad. The two oldest ones are half African American. If anyone had told the bucolic white chick from North Dakota (State Motto: "Cleaner and Greener, Whiter and Brighter") who had never seen a black person until she was 13 years old, that not all of her grandchildren would be blonds or redheads, she would have been astonished.

3. Number three, I could never in a million years imagine having a cochlear implant--or the need for one--when I was twenty-five. I lost my hearing the next year, when I was 26 (thanks to a prescription for tetracycline when I came down with pneumonia), and at that time, one doctor finally told me that the only thing that could possibly restore my hearing would be an artificial inner ear that had not yet been invented. He said I probably would know about it before he did because I would read about it in the Readers Digest, which he had no time to read. Well, now they've been invented and I have one. Bliss!

4. If you had asked me when I was 25 where I would live when I reached retirement age, Washington, D.C., would have been at or near the very bottom of the list. I had zero desire to visit Washington or see the monuments and the public buildings, and I had no desire to live anywhere that was so flaming hot. But here I am, and I love it. I love its beauty and the wonderful people--AND the heat. Hot and sweaty is better than frostbitten and chapped. Also, when I knew I was moving to where they actually HAVE public transportation, I sold my car. And it was one of the happiest events of my life, far better than buying my first car, which was a piece of crap. Goodbye to car insurance, repairs, gas & oil, and hitchhiking by the side of the road in high heels, nylons, and one of those weenie bidness suits when the damn thing broke down. Hello Smartrip cards and bike racks on the buses! And blessed taxis!! Everywhere you look!

5. The corollary to #4 is you could have knocked me over with a feather when I was 25 if you told me I would live not just in Washington in my twilight years, but in Georgetown, and in a modest little condo that nevertheless was worth more than my father earned in his entire lifetime. In fact, I sometimes amuse myself by thinking what my dad's reaction would be if he learned my annual salary. It's very small potatoes, but he never came close to it.

Well, there it is. Only one of my kids is a blogger, so I can't stick all of them with a tag.

Therefore, I hereby tag

1. Mad Cabbie
2. Lazy Gardener
3. A Little Red Hen
4. Kay's Thinking Cap
5. Ex-Shammie over at Rook's Nest

And anyone else who would like to try this, please do...and please send it to me. I'm sending this back to OOLOTH, per her request. Thanks!

New Links!

After reading the dustup over this a.m.'s post on Time Goes By, I've added links to some great new blogs:

Echidne of the Snakes, Hullabaloo, and Shakesville. One of the posts on this last one made me laugh out loud: Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews (and so can you!). Turns out that's a blog all by itself!

Thanks, girls! Nothing like some good, strong women's voices to drown out the b.s. coming from the MSM these days.

Counseling--Minnesota Style

Ole and Sven are quietly sitting in a boat fishing,
chewing, and drinking beer when suddenly Sven says,
"I think I'm gonna divorce my wife - she ain't spoke to
me in over 2 months."

Ole spits, sips his beer, and says, "Better think it over.
Women like that are hard to find."

Thankx and a tip of the fishing hat to M'reen

New Year's Resolution

Everyone else has posted their New Year's resolutions. I'm late, but I had to wait for the proper inspiration. Opened this today from my guru in the wild west....thanx, M'reen

I just read an article on the dangers of heavy drinking....Scared the shit out of me!

So that's it! After today, no more reading!.

Actually, I'm doing pretty good following the advice of Mad Cabbie on weight loss and general fitness. Today was day two without TV. I also participated in the Georgetown Death March....walking up Rock Creek to the zoo (a distance of two miles) but then comes the HARD PART: Getting yourself out of the zoo and over to the Woodley Park metro stop...it had to be another two miles UPHILL and on hard pavement! The two miles along Rock Creek were on nice, soft mud.

For your edification, I've included my next progress picture: two TV-less days and four miles later, four OUNCES lighter, and a haircut. (I lost the four ounces BEFORE the haircut, thank you.)

p.s. please check out Tartx. wotta BLOG!!!!

Win a cartoon from Organized Doodles! - dated material

This is an intriguing blog. Check it out, make a comment on one of his posts before the end of the day today, Jan. 4, 2008, and be entered in a drawing to win one of two prizes: a print of one of his cartoons or a custom caricature. I'm adding him to my bloggy fave list down the side of this thing.

Thanks, Rick! Welcome to XtremeEnglish!!

Bye, Fridge!

Mad Cabbie has one of his best posts ever today. From now on (well, at least until I march out), he's my online fitness coach.

Here are my "before" pictures...showing the fridge on the way to the landfill--it's somebody else's fridge...you don't think I'd throw MINE out, do you??--and the fat girl in January. Hmm...should I have combed my hair? Nah. This way we'll better savor the startling contrast with the "after" picture!




Actually, Mad doesn't say anything about throwing your fridge in the trash. He tells you to deep six your TV! I hope it counts if I just unplug it and hide the remote--THAT should be easy enough to do. Whenever I just put the remote out of sight somewhere, it takes me a couple of weeks to find it.

Anyway, here's Mad's advice:

Listen, If you have to wait until new year to start getting your lazy ass in shape, you are doomed to fail. It's like making an appointment to learn how to breath the freaken free air for God's sakes! and please don't go out and run and sign up gym membership cause being in a gym doesn't mean jack unless you have the mind set and the strong will to dedicate lots of time around the gym equipments. To be honest with you, you really don't need a gym membership at first, what you need is to train yourself to adapt to a simple work out plan and a day by day eating habit.

Try the following first and you will be amazed by the results:

1-Throw your TV in the garbage

2-Don't buy in to the diet bullshit, just slowly reduce your portion to the smallest possible but never starve yourself and keep fried food and your sugar intake to a minimum. NEVER DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF SOMETHING YOU LIKE TO EAT! but don't go crazy and make it a habit.

3-Start with a 15 minutes of walk three to four times a week and try to raise it to 60 minutes with in the next six months to five to six times a week.

4-Stairs are your best friends, use them when ever you can.

5-Since your TV is in the garbage, get in to some activity that can help you burn some calories at the same time, like helping out at a homeless kitchen, volunteer at a hospital or old age home or walk around L street at night picking up some hookers, anything that make you work.

6-Don't waste your money on beverages just buy a filter for your tap water and enjoy. Bottled waters are for suckers.

7-Loose all of your lazy friends and associate yourself with people who want to change for the better like yourself.

8-After six month try to read up on some stretching techniques and start stretching without injuring your fat ass.

9-The last six month of the year go online and learn on how to do light exercises that you can do around the house with out using any equipment three times a week for thirty minutes on top of your waking routine.

10-Don't be a dumb-ass and set unreachable and discouraging goals like "I will drop 400 lbs by the end of the year!". Remember, if you are a person who never worked out before, the first year should be always about tricking your brain to adapt, I don't care what every personal trainer try to bullshit you or the so called experts try tell you while pushing their products that never work at the same time.

If you are a 200lb woman who managed to execute the above and dropped 12 pounds by the end of the year, that would be a great success. It means that you taught yourself sticking to a plan without spending a dime and lost about a pound a month on the way. That also means you will be ready to join a gym next year and start doing the hard stuff and I guarantee you will have a 99% chance that you will reach your goal without giving up because you already trained yourself not to fail.

Did I say Happy New Year?

Please don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie

Happy New Year to you, too, Uncle Mad. I'm constantly amazed at the depths, young man, beneath your cool urban exterior.

New Year 2008 + John

When listing the things I'm grateful for in the "New Year 2008" post, I named only my living brothers. My oldest brother, John, died in the early 1990s. He was 14 when I was born, and courtesy of WWII, he was gone from home for good by the time I was 5.

John was a doctor, a warm, gentle man and, among other things, a skilled amateur photographer. Besides taking wonderful photos of his young children, he liked to photograph the TV screen for fun. I loved his moody blue and white picture of Michaelangelo's Pieta taken from a program in the 50s or 60s on the art treasures of the Vatican.

Occasionally, just for the fun of it (it's a moving target, and you never really know what you'll capture when you trip the shutter, and the results are always a bit blurry) I take photos of the TV screen, too. One night last week, there was this Barbra Streisand movie playing on cable, and while I didn't actually watch the movie--the toob was just on in the background--Streisand really has a nifty face, and her close-ups caught my eye. Here's one.

So, thanks, John, for showing me how to find beauty in the mundane. I'm very grateful for that.

Photographing the Light

Last weekend, Sally took me, Annie, and one of Annie's friends to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She wanted us to see the new exhibit in the Greek and Roman area. In the midst of all these ancient riches, what I especially loved is how both natural and artificial light falls on the pottery and sculpture and on the gallery visitors.

PG| Please Get Over It!

In support of our GLBT brothers and sisters and, um, cousins??? who have been smacked down by the political candidates as they vye for the so-called "Christian" vote going into the Iowa caucuses, here's a copy of my favorite postcard, which graces my refrigerator every day. It was published by Dan Kaufman Graphics of Washington, DC. Photostration by tomEPPS.





In case you can't read it (either), it says:

They worked at their jobs!
They shopped for groceries!
They even went to the movies!
They lived....
The Homosexual Lifestyle
SEE...them do their laundry!
HEAR...them order from the local take-out!
FEEL...your spine tingle as they watch TV!

PG|Please Get Over It


Yes, please do.

New Year 2008

This is one of Rodin's sculptures in the Met. I forgot to write down its name, but it appears to be a woman resting under a significant burden--an appropriate image of the world on this first day of 2008. Even as I share in this burden, I want to acknowledge all the love and life I enjoy right now. I'm very grateful for

• My older (heh heh) brothers Bob, Paul, and Gene, their children and their children's children and even a few children's children's children (!);
• My own children Peggy, Sally, Katie, and Tom; my grandchildren Ian (and his wife, Medea, and her mom, Penny), Sean (and his girlfriend, Laura), Joe, Sam, Annie, George, and Claire;
• My friends near and far, some of whom go back to our childhood on the permafrost;
• My lovely warm dwelling in a lovely warmish (compared with, say, Fargo) town, and my charming, generous, helpful, friendly neighbors;
• My job (I know I bad mouth it all the time for its capacity to eat up so many hours of daylight, but still....), my coworkers, and the feistiest little boss ever;
• The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority whose buses and trains take me where I have to go and back for hardly any money, plus all the marvelous taxis and their drivers, especially Uncle Mad, who is truly wild and wonderful;
• Whole Foods, Safeway, Giant, Kramerbooks, Sancerre, the Georgetown Wine Shop down the hill, 7Eleven, Sara's Market, Annie's Paramount Steak House and the swell waiters there, the Tombs, Marvelous Market, the deli on the corner of Q and Connecticut, Lebanese Taverna, and Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries...if they haven't got it, I probably don't need it;
• The medical people at GWU and Johns Hopkins and every single person from scientists to customer service reps at Cochlear, Inc.;
• My blogger friends, most of whom, except for LRH, I haven't yet had the pleasure to meet in person;
• Washing, DC (as Sally used to call it) for its beauty and the entertainment value of our national "government" figures; and
• Last but definitely not least, my Nucleus Freedom cochlear implant--the gift that keeps on giving me more and richer hearing....how can I describe the constant joy of being able to hear people talking again, the birds singing outside my windows, traffic sounds, music, phone calls, announcements on the bus and train, on and on?
• Jane, who helped me make sense of deafness long ago and has a great job in the future;
  
• Cathy and Squeak--Best Friends Forever; and
• My beloved folding bicycle.