Yesterday Mrs. RWP and I went to the Cherokee County Health Department to get our annual flu shots. The shots are free if you’re covered by Medicare, which we are. Otherwise, each shot costs twenty dollars. That’s one of the perks of getting old, I guess.
Last year when we went for our shots, we were in and out in a matter of minutes. This year, however, we had to wait for over and hour, and while we waited we watched a television set that was showing a series of features on health. I try to learn something new every day, and I learned a number of new things sitting there watching that health channel for an hour. I thought I would put together a little test for you, dear reader, so that you might learn something worthwhile as you jump from blog to blog in search of entertainment. Here’s the test. Good luck, and no fair looking anything up:
1. Cauliflower is a good source of:
a. Vitamin A
b. Vitamin C
c. Vitamin D
2. Before the invention of the electric light, how many hours of sleep did an average American get each night?
a. 8 hours
b. 10 hours
c. 12 hours
3. How many pounds of potatoes does an average American eat in one year?
a. 10 pounds
b. 50 pounds
c. 127 pounds
4. True or false: In women who have had migraine headaches, the headaches tend to increase after menopause.
a. True
b. False
Put your answers in a comment at this post, and I’ll reveal the correct answers in my next post.
Our plan was to vote early yesterday after we received our flu shots. Four public libraries in our county have been designated as early voting places. But the lines were very long and the parking lots were full to overflowing at the two libraries we passed, and after already waiting for an hour at the Health Department we were not eager to wait some more. So we’ll attempt to vote later in the week. Oh, get this: The reason there was such a long wait at the Health Department yesterday was that only one nurse was on duty. When we mentioned to her that we were on our way to vote, she told us that most of the County Health Department nurses were at the polling places, providing flu shots to people waiting in line to vote! A “vote and vacs” (vaccinate) drive, she called it. A good idea, but too late to matter to us.
We did stop on the way home to buy dog food for Jethro, though. Just so you know we have kept our priorities straight.
Showing posts with label Tuesday ramblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tuesday ramblings. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Tuesday ramblings
A camera is a wonderful thing. It’s really too bad that I don’t own one, because our front yard is awash right now in the brilliant pinks of our multitudinous (okay, nine) encore azaleas and our wonderfully full camellia bush that has more blooms and buds than you could shake a stick at (to quote my father). Our yard looks more like spring than fall. I would love to be able to show it to you but, alas, I cannot. I searched Google for a possible substitute photo to include in this post, but nothing I saw even came close to the splendor in our grass. Actually, I think no photograph would begin to do our blossoms justice, unless Ruth Hull Chatlien happened to be the photographer.
My first camera, a Brownie Hawkeye, was given to me by my Aunt Marion, my mother’s older sister, who visited us in Texas along with my thirteen-year-old cousin Philip the summer I was seven. They had boarded a bus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and after riding for three days, my aunt’s first words upon arriving were, “Now I know why they call it Greyhound -- because you feel like a dog when you get off.” That Brownie Hawkeye served me well for many years, until I married someone who owned a real, live, Polaroid Land camera.
In the interest of full disclosure, Mrs. RWP didn't spend any hard-earned money on her camera. She had entered a drawing at a supermarket and when they drew her name she won either ten thousand or one hundred thousand S&H green stamps (she can’t remember) and chose the camera, a chord organ, and a complete set of Corning cookware as her prizes. The Polaroid stayed busy until the company stopped making film for it and the chord organ was eventually replaced by a real piano, but Mrs. RWP is still using the Corning cookware.
When I was ten, my aunt and cousin visited us a second time, riding the Greyhound bus again for three hot, dusty days. My gift that year appeared to be a maroon -- I suppose it would be called burgundy today -- faux alligator-skin, attaché case, but when I opened the lid, it turned out to be a portable record player! Before then, we had a huge, wind-up Victrola monster that we had brought with us all the way from Rhode Island (I am not even kidding. My earliest recollections of listening to music from the Victrola include John Charles Thomas’s rendition of Albert Hay Malotte’s “The Lord's Prayer” and Gene Autry’s rendition, I think it was, of “The Mockingbird’s A-Singin’ in the Lilac Bush.”) Thanks to my aunt, I was able to play 78, 45, and 33-1/3 rpm recordings on my portable player for years, all the way through college.
[Update: You will get extra credit if you listen, right now, to a few songs from the most romantic LP ever made. Then come back here and read the rest of this post. And you guys in the back row, “rpm” is short for revolutions per minute, kind of like on the tachometer in your car. I will assume your grunting indicates comprehension. There was a 16-2/3 rpm speed, too, but that type of record is really rare. By the way, on the test at the end of the course, you will be asked to give an example of alliteration. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.]
Those two gifts from my aunt are among my favorite childhood memories. To be fair, though, my grandfather -- who also lived in Pennsylvania and whom I didn’t meet until I was fourteen -- sent me an enormous chocolate-covered coconut egg every year for Easter. I sent him cans of Prince Albert pipe tobacco for Christmas. Our family was (were?) really into the giving of gifts. Also the writing of thank-you notes.
So I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to use your imagination to picture those azaleas and camellias because I have yet to buy a video camcorder or a digital camera or one of those expensive all-purpose cellphones that can upload photographs to the Internet while simultaneously cooking your supper and waxing your car. And the longer I wait, the more expensive today’s gadgets seem to become. Instead of lowering prices, the manufacturers just add a few more bells and whistles to their products and continue to charge an arm and a leg. That just doesn’t seem right, somehow. At our house, we are concentrating more these days on paying our mortgage and buying food and renewing prescriptions. Acquiring more “stuff” is not a priority. Just in case you’re wondering, I composed this post on a kerosene-fueled personal computer with a monitor powered by a hamster running on a treadmill.
One thing that has gotten cheaper, though, is telephone calls. When I was young, long-distance calls were a rarity unless there was a death in the family. But every year on New Year’s Eve, at exactly 11:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, my aunt called from Pennsylvania to wish us all a happy new year. She was an hour ahead of us. Even after I was grown, telephone calls were not cheap. In 1969, when my annual salary was around nine thousand dollars, my employer sent me to Stockholm, Sweden, for a month and I remember that a three-minute call home to my wife cost sixteen dollars. I wish the camera-makers (and big-screen-TV makers, too) would take a note from those nice telephone people.
Speaking of notes, the choir director at our church has decided to include a piece of my music in this year’s Christmas program. I composed a new tune to “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” an eighteenth-century hymn written by John Wesley’s brother Charles, and combined it with the more-familiar tune called Hyfrodol. So it is partly old and partly new. The choir ran through it for the first time last Wednesday night and seemed to like it. The musical-composition software that I use is called Finale; it was given to me by my son.
It was an even better gift than my old Brownie Hawkeye camera.
My first camera, a Brownie Hawkeye, was given to me by my Aunt Marion, my mother’s older sister, who visited us in Texas along with my thirteen-year-old cousin Philip the summer I was seven. They had boarded a bus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and after riding for three days, my aunt’s first words upon arriving were, “Now I know why they call it Greyhound -- because you feel like a dog when you get off.” That Brownie Hawkeye served me well for many years, until I married someone who owned a real, live, Polaroid Land camera. In the interest of full disclosure, Mrs. RWP didn't spend any hard-earned money on her camera. She had entered a drawing at a supermarket and when they drew her name she won either ten thousand or one hundred thousand S&H green stamps (she can’t remember) and chose the camera, a chord organ, and a complete set of Corning cookware as her prizes. The Polaroid stayed busy until the company stopped making film for it and the chord organ was eventually replaced by a real piano, but Mrs. RWP is still using the Corning cookware.
When I was ten, my aunt and cousin visited us a second time, riding the Greyhound bus again for three hot, dusty days. My gift that year appeared to be a maroon -- I suppose it would be called burgundy today -- faux alligator-skin, attaché case, but when I opened the lid, it turned out to be a portable record player! Before then, we had a huge, wind-up Victrola monster that we had brought with us all the way from Rhode Island (I am not even kidding. My earliest recollections of listening to music from the Victrola include John Charles Thomas’s rendition of Albert Hay Malotte’s “The Lord's Prayer” and Gene Autry’s rendition, I think it was, of “The Mockingbird’s A-Singin’ in the Lilac Bush.”) Thanks to my aunt, I was able to play 78, 45, and 33-1/3 rpm recordings on my portable player for years, all the way through college.
[Update: You will get extra credit if you listen, right now, to a few songs from the most romantic LP ever made. Then come back here and read the rest of this post. And you guys in the back row, “rpm” is short for revolutions per minute, kind of like on the tachometer in your car. I will assume your grunting indicates comprehension. There was a 16-2/3 rpm speed, too, but that type of record is really rare. By the way, on the test at the end of the course, you will be asked to give an example of alliteration. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.]
Those two gifts from my aunt are among my favorite childhood memories. To be fair, though, my grandfather -- who also lived in Pennsylvania and whom I didn’t meet until I was fourteen -- sent me an enormous chocolate-covered coconut egg every year for Easter. I sent him cans of Prince Albert pipe tobacco for Christmas. Our family was (were?) really into the giving of gifts. Also the writing of thank-you notes.
So I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to use your imagination to picture those azaleas and camellias because I have yet to buy a video camcorder or a digital camera or one of those expensive all-purpose cellphones that can upload photographs to the Internet while simultaneously cooking your supper and waxing your car. And the longer I wait, the more expensive today’s gadgets seem to become. Instead of lowering prices, the manufacturers just add a few more bells and whistles to their products and continue to charge an arm and a leg. That just doesn’t seem right, somehow. At our house, we are concentrating more these days on paying our mortgage and buying food and renewing prescriptions. Acquiring more “stuff” is not a priority. Just in case you’re wondering, I composed this post on a kerosene-fueled personal computer with a monitor powered by a hamster running on a treadmill.
One thing that has gotten cheaper, though, is telephone calls. When I was young, long-distance calls were a rarity unless there was a death in the family. But every year on New Year’s Eve, at exactly 11:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, my aunt called from Pennsylvania to wish us all a happy new year. She was an hour ahead of us. Even after I was grown, telephone calls were not cheap. In 1969, when my annual salary was around nine thousand dollars, my employer sent me to Stockholm, Sweden, for a month and I remember that a three-minute call home to my wife cost sixteen dollars. I wish the camera-makers (and big-screen-TV makers, too) would take a note from those nice telephone people.
Speaking of notes, the choir director at our church has decided to include a piece of my music in this year’s Christmas program. I composed a new tune to “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” an eighteenth-century hymn written by John Wesley’s brother Charles, and combined it with the more-familiar tune called Hyfrodol. So it is partly old and partly new. The choir ran through it for the first time last Wednesday night and seemed to like it. The musical-composition software that I use is called Finale; it was given to me by my son.
It was an even better gift than my old Brownie Hawkeye camera.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday ramblings number whatever
Sometimes I think I’m living in an alternate universe. If there are people who make things happen and people who watch things happen and people who wonder “What happened?” -- and today there are stockbrokers on Wall Street who fit all three categories -- what do you think I was doing earlier today? I’ll tell you what I was doing earlier today: I was watching a country singing star named Jewel teach Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb (now there’s a name you don't hear every day, unless you watch NBC, and then you actually do) how to yodel on the telly (I threw that in for the readers across the pond). There. I said it and I’m glad. Let us move on.
Besides the current mess in Washington about bailing out Wall Street or the big banks or the stupid holders of subprime mortgages (you can tell I’m really involved in this -- or maybe that’s called denial), the past few days have seen major changes for our family.
One member of our immediate family (MOIFA) began taking the bus to work yesterday. Atlanta is in the third week of a gas shortage that began around the time Hurricane Gustav decided to visit our fair shores, followed soon afterward by Hurricane Ike (remember when hurricanes all had girls’ names?). By “gas shortage” I mean that over 80% of the gasoline stations in our region have no fuel at all for days on end, and waiting lines of 45 minutes are common at the few stations that do manage to have gas to sell. Since moving back to the Atlanta area three years ago, MOIFA’s commute has been 40 miles into the city every morning and 40 miles back every afternoon. That is not unusual around here; it is called life in Atlanta. But what had been a 50-minute trip three years ago has been getting longer and longer; recently it has been taking our MOIFA at least an hour and a half each way, and sometimes longer. With the recent spike in gasoline prices to over $4.00 per gallon, MOIFA has been spending $400.00 per month just to get to work and back home again. So MOIFA decided that enough was enough and purchased yesterday a month’s worth of round-trip bus tickets for $94.00, which means that our MOIFA will be saving over $300.00 per month in transportation costs. Add to that the fact that Atlanta’s Clean Air Commission has a policy of refunding three dollars per day if you ride the bus 20 days each month for three months, and MOIFA will eventually collect a $180.00 refund from the CAC people and be able to buy almost two more months’ worth of bus tickets. On top of that, our MOIFA’s round-trip drive to and from the bus stop is 16 miles instead of 80. Less stress. Less cost. Less time. A win-win situation. Of course, there is the little matter of having to leave the house much earlier, which means having to go to bed much earlier, and also the part about the bus dumping into a train station, where MOIFA will get a transfer and take the train the rest of the way. A major life-style change, to say the least. But we’re hoping it still turns out to be a win-win situation all around.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you, but it was a story that needed telling.
Another member of our immediate family (MOIFB) recently accepted a job in another state, so this week was packing and moving time. We had a final goodbye breakfast yesterday at the International House of Pancakes followed by final hugs and kisses and stifled tears. Then we waved goodbye as MOIFB, MOIFB’s spouse, and MOIFB’s children got in their car and drove away, and we watched the car grow smaller and smaller in the distance until we couldn’t see it any more.
It’s been quite a week. We haven't heard news of any changes affecting MOIFC yet, but the week is still young.
All in all, it’s enough to make you want to yodel at the telly.
Besides the current mess in Washington about bailing out Wall Street or the big banks or the stupid holders of subprime mortgages (you can tell I’m really involved in this -- or maybe that’s called denial), the past few days have seen major changes for our family.
One member of our immediate family (MOIFA) began taking the bus to work yesterday. Atlanta is in the third week of a gas shortage that began around the time Hurricane Gustav decided to visit our fair shores, followed soon afterward by Hurricane Ike (remember when hurricanes all had girls’ names?). By “gas shortage” I mean that over 80% of the gasoline stations in our region have no fuel at all for days on end, and waiting lines of 45 minutes are common at the few stations that do manage to have gas to sell. Since moving back to the Atlanta area three years ago, MOIFA’s commute has been 40 miles into the city every morning and 40 miles back every afternoon. That is not unusual around here; it is called life in Atlanta. But what had been a 50-minute trip three years ago has been getting longer and longer; recently it has been taking our MOIFA at least an hour and a half each way, and sometimes longer. With the recent spike in gasoline prices to over $4.00 per gallon, MOIFA has been spending $400.00 per month just to get to work and back home again. So MOIFA decided that enough was enough and purchased yesterday a month’s worth of round-trip bus tickets for $94.00, which means that our MOIFA will be saving over $300.00 per month in transportation costs. Add to that the fact that Atlanta’s Clean Air Commission has a policy of refunding three dollars per day if you ride the bus 20 days each month for three months, and MOIFA will eventually collect a $180.00 refund from the CAC people and be able to buy almost two more months’ worth of bus tickets. On top of that, our MOIFA’s round-trip drive to and from the bus stop is 16 miles instead of 80. Less stress. Less cost. Less time. A win-win situation. Of course, there is the little matter of having to leave the house much earlier, which means having to go to bed much earlier, and also the part about the bus dumping into a train station, where MOIFA will get a transfer and take the train the rest of the way. A major life-style change, to say the least. But we’re hoping it still turns out to be a win-win situation all around.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you, but it was a story that needed telling.
Another member of our immediate family (MOIFB) recently accepted a job in another state, so this week was packing and moving time. We had a final goodbye breakfast yesterday at the International House of Pancakes followed by final hugs and kisses and stifled tears. Then we waved goodbye as MOIFB, MOIFB’s spouse, and MOIFB’s children got in their car and drove away, and we watched the car grow smaller and smaller in the distance until we couldn’t see it any more.
It’s been quite a week. We haven't heard news of any changes affecting MOIFC yet, but the week is still young.
All in all, it’s enough to make you want to yodel at the telly.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Wednesday Wambwings
Okay, all you tewwific weaders, I admit to being a bit of a cwazy wabbit at times, but I weawy can’t help sounding wike Elmer Fudd today because Tuesday, the day I usuawy wite my wambwings, has alweady wetweated wapidwy into histowy. Uh-oh, now I’m beginning to sound a wittle wike Gilda Radner doing Baba Wawa. I cannot keep that up for more than two sentences, sorry.
Sunday afternoon I went to a Stud Party. Not what you're thinking. Our church choir holds a Stud Party whenever someone in our church is having a new home built. We take our Bibles and felt-tip pens to the framed-in-but-not-yet-sheet-rocked house and write Scripture verses on the studs that will eventually be behind walls in the house. The trick is in making it relevant; what you put and where you put it is very important. For example, Deuteronomy 28:6 seems appropriate by the front door (You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out). Psalm 51:7 is better near the bathtub (Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow). Afterward we gather in a big circle and sing songs and pray. Great fun and very spiritual at the same time. I recommend it.
On Monday, Mrs. RWP and I made a 60-mile round trip in our gas guzzler so that our favorite dental hygienist could clean our teeth. I nearly canceled the appointments at the last minute because the price of gasoline skyrocketed by about $1.00 a gallon around here this weekend in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike’s effect on oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana. I don’t know why, but this makes me think of “the butterfly effect” -- you know, a butterfly stirs up the air while crossing my backyard and eventually there is a typhoon off the coast of China. We are all interconnected in ways we don’t realize. I scrape together some gas money and take a little car trip and my dentist gets to go skiing in Colorado this winter. My new white smile reflects more brightly into the atmosphere and the temperature goes up a couple of degrees in Zanzibar. Al Gore said so, and it’s all our fault. Mine and yours. Mostly yours.
My oldest son will be 44 this Saturday. I don’t see how this is possible since I am only 38 myself. Actually, I lied. I’m not 38. But in hexadecimal, I’m 43. I will not speak or write further about hexadecimal notation unless there is a huge clamor for it from my readers and public demonstrations in every city. Send your cards, letters, and petitions to Down With Decimal, c/o General Delivery, Not Grapevine, Texas. No phone calls, please.
This is short, but as I can’t think of anything else to write about at the moment, T.T.F.N.*
*Ta Ta For Now (Tigger in Winnie the Pooh)
Sunday afternoon I went to a Stud Party. Not what you're thinking. Our church choir holds a Stud Party whenever someone in our church is having a new home built. We take our Bibles and felt-tip pens to the framed-in-but-not-yet-sheet-rocked house and write Scripture verses on the studs that will eventually be behind walls in the house. The trick is in making it relevant; what you put and where you put it is very important. For example, Deuteronomy 28:6 seems appropriate by the front door (You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out). Psalm 51:7 is better near the bathtub (Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow). Afterward we gather in a big circle and sing songs and pray. Great fun and very spiritual at the same time. I recommend it.
On Monday, Mrs. RWP and I made a 60-mile round trip in our gas guzzler so that our favorite dental hygienist could clean our teeth. I nearly canceled the appointments at the last minute because the price of gasoline skyrocketed by about $1.00 a gallon around here this weekend in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike’s effect on oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana. I don’t know why, but this makes me think of “the butterfly effect” -- you know, a butterfly stirs up the air while crossing my backyard and eventually there is a typhoon off the coast of China. We are all interconnected in ways we don’t realize. I scrape together some gas money and take a little car trip and my dentist gets to go skiing in Colorado this winter. My new white smile reflects more brightly into the atmosphere and the temperature goes up a couple of degrees in Zanzibar. Al Gore said so, and it’s all our fault. Mine and yours. Mostly yours.
My oldest son will be 44 this Saturday. I don’t see how this is possible since I am only 38 myself. Actually, I lied. I’m not 38. But in hexadecimal, I’m 43. I will not speak or write further about hexadecimal notation unless there is a huge clamor for it from my readers and public demonstrations in every city. Send your cards, letters, and petitions to Down With Decimal, c/o General Delivery, Not Grapevine, Texas. No phone calls, please.
This is short, but as I can’t think of anything else to write about at the moment, T.T.F.N.*
*Ta Ta For Now (Tigger in Winnie the Pooh)
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Tuesday ramblings # 7 (or #8 if you count last week)
I was surfing the internet in my usual fashion the other day, reading a little bit here and a little bit there, jumping around all over the place, when I happened to read a comment on a blog in the United Kingdom that made me curious. So I clicked on the commenter’s profile and discovered a guy named Alden Smith in New Zealand -- he calls himself “tillerman” and is really into yachting (one of his blogs called Simply Sailing is worth a look) -- and I jumped to a blog of his called Stream of Consciousness and found a little something extra in the sidebar -- an excerpt from “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth, formatted thusly:
Our birth is but a sleep
and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us,
our life’s Star, Hath had
elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory
do we come, From God,
who is our home:
Odd, I thought. This was just enough Wordsworth to wet your whistle if Wordsworth is a wordsmith whose words you welish, er, relish, so I thought I would show you the entire stanza (lines 59 through 77 of the 208-line poem) from which the excerpt was, well, excerpted:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
I’m sorry that I don’t know enough about the minutiae of blogging to be able to show the stanza with the indentation Wordsworth intended -- somehow everything always gets pushed over to the left margin -- but it’ll have to do for now. I think you will agree, though, that the stanza says a mouthful and gives the reader quite a bit on which to chew.
That’s enough Wordsworth. Any more Wordsworth (for example, I thought about including “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” with its “And then my heart with pleasure thrills and dances with the daffodils”) would have been just a little too much Wordsworth.
Speaking of chewing, we drove over to the local pet shop this morning to replenish Jethro’s dog food supply. The whole place was shut down, closed, kaput -- lock, stock and barrel -- without so much as a “by your leave” or directions to their new location, if any. Three weeks ago all seemed well and normal, and now, today, nothing. As soon as we returned home, I surfed some more on the internet and found that the next nearest establishment that sells the kind of dog food we buy is about fifteen miles away. Oh, well, what’s a little gasoline (petrol for you U.K. readers) compared to the health and well-being of my doggie? We buy Eagle Pack Holistic Select Lamb, Rice, and Oatmeal formula (also a mouthful), which is fortified with chondroitin and glucosamine and all sorts of other stuff that’s supposed to be good for Jethro’s coat, bones, joints, eyesight, and, for all I know, his bark and his bite as well. It’s a bit more expensive than the stuff they sell at the local supermarket, but it’s what Jethro had been eating for two years when we acquired him from his previous owner, who recommended that we continue giving him the food he was used to.
Also, while we were out and about today discovering the downturn in the local pet shop economy, we bought an American flag, a pole, and a mounting bracket. Until now we haven’t owned one, although both of our families flew the flag on holidays when we were young. We decided we wanted to fly one this Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that resulted in nearly 3,000 lives lost in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.
Our birth is but a sleep
and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us,
our life’s Star, Hath had
elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory
do we come, From God,
who is our home:
Odd, I thought. This was just enough Wordsworth to wet your whistle if Wordsworth is a wordsmith whose words you welish, er, relish, so I thought I would show you the entire stanza (lines 59 through 77 of the 208-line poem) from which the excerpt was, well, excerpted:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
I’m sorry that I don’t know enough about the minutiae of blogging to be able to show the stanza with the indentation Wordsworth intended -- somehow everything always gets pushed over to the left margin -- but it’ll have to do for now. I think you will agree, though, that the stanza says a mouthful and gives the reader quite a bit on which to chew.
That’s enough Wordsworth. Any more Wordsworth (for example, I thought about including “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” with its “And then my heart with pleasure thrills and dances with the daffodils”) would have been just a little too much Wordsworth.
Speaking of chewing, we drove over to the local pet shop this morning to replenish Jethro’s dog food supply. The whole place was shut down, closed, kaput -- lock, stock and barrel -- without so much as a “by your leave” or directions to their new location, if any. Three weeks ago all seemed well and normal, and now, today, nothing. As soon as we returned home, I surfed some more on the internet and found that the next nearest establishment that sells the kind of dog food we buy is about fifteen miles away. Oh, well, what’s a little gasoline (petrol for you U.K. readers) compared to the health and well-being of my doggie? We buy Eagle Pack Holistic Select Lamb, Rice, and Oatmeal formula (also a mouthful), which is fortified with chondroitin and glucosamine and all sorts of other stuff that’s supposed to be good for Jethro’s coat, bones, joints, eyesight, and, for all I know, his bark and his bite as well. It’s a bit more expensive than the stuff they sell at the local supermarket, but it’s what Jethro had been eating for two years when we acquired him from his previous owner, who recommended that we continue giving him the food he was used to.
Also, while we were out and about today discovering the downturn in the local pet shop economy, we bought an American flag, a pole, and a mounting bracket. Until now we haven’t owned one, although both of our families flew the flag on holidays when we were young. We decided we wanted to fly one this Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that resulted in nearly 3,000 lives lost in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Tuesday ramblings #6
Yes, it’s Tuesday again, but the outrageous rains of Tropical Storm Fay are beating against my window as I write this, and my widdle head doesn’t function at top level in extremely high humidity. Therefore, for this one Tuesday only, I refer you to my three immediately previous posts, “Now that the Olympics are over,” “WWACD?,” and “It’s Sunday. Let’s do something religious.”
I think the subjects of these three posts are wide-ranging and disparate enough to qualify as “ramblings.”
Please peruse them at your leisure.
Here are your vocabulary words for the week: bourgeois, plebian, patrician, vulgar, Vulgate, sesquipedalian, arthropod.
Be prepared, when tested, to give a definition of each word.
We can only hope and pray that by next Tuesday, Fay will have moved on.
I think the subjects of these three posts are wide-ranging and disparate enough to qualify as “ramblings.”
Please peruse them at your leisure.
Here are your vocabulary words for the week: bourgeois, plebian, patrician, vulgar, Vulgate, sesquipedalian, arthropod.
Be prepared, when tested, to give a definition of each word.
We can only hope and pray that by next Tuesday, Fay will have moved on.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Tuesday ramblings #5
For some reason, I woke up today thinking of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. He wasn’t in my dreams that I know of, just there in my head as I sat on the side of the bed, trying to get my bearings. He was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Rochester, New York, and is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. For many years he had a television program on Tuesday nights, eventually drawing an audience of thirty million people. He even won an Emmy, and reruns of some of his programs still find their way onto EWTN and TBN. Since there is a Wikipedia article on just about everything, it turns out there is one about him, too. I’m much too lazy today to post a photo of him, so if you want to see one, you can check out the article here. It is really quite interesting.
Bishop Sheen said many memorable things in his lifetime. For instance, when a heckler asked him a question about someone who had died, Bishop Sheen said, “I will ask him when I get to heaven.” The heckler replied, “What if he isn't in Heaven?” and the Bishop said, “Well, then you ask him.”
Along the same line, another man told Bishop Sheen he did not believe in hell. The Bishop replied, “You will when you get there.”
But the one I like best was included in a newsreel clip in an old CBS-TV hour-long documentary called The Strange Case of the English Language. In the clip, Bishop Sheen had been asked to give the opening prayer at the New York State Assembly in Albany, and when he stepped up to the podium microphone he said, “Friends, I’m not going to pray for you today. There are three things every man must do for himself: Blow his own nose, make his own love, and say his own prayers.” Then, indicating he would pray with them instead, he launched into his prayer with the words, “Let us pray.” Think about that the next time you happen to be sitting in church and the person up front says, “Let us pray.” You’ll have a hard time just sitting there passively listening to what the other person is saying, I’ll wager.
The Strange Case of the English Language also demonstrated how questions about gender can sometimes trip a person up by showing President Lyndon Baines Johnson affirming that “Uncle Sam will keep her word.” And there was a funny segment where Harry Reasoner, the host, discussed how the placement of adjectives can change the meaning of a sentence. He pondered at length where the word “only” might best be inserted into the sentence “I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose,” as follows:
1. Only I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose.
2. I only punched Walter Cronkite in the nose.
3. I punched only Walter Cronkite in the nose.
4. I punched Walter Cronkite only in the nose.
5. I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose only.
The older I get the more amazed I am at the odd things that have managed to worm their way into my long-term memory storage banks. For example, here’s a little ditty, a jingle, that is either humorous or sacrilegious depending on which side of the bed you woke up on; it is sung to the tune of an old Pepsi-Cola commercial:
Christianity hits the spot,
Twelve apostles, that’s a lot;
The Holy Ghost and the Virgin too!
Christianity’s the thing for you.
What gives me pause is something a little more sobering that Bishop Sheen once said. I discovered it in my little computer search this morning: “Everything we do, whether good or evil, goes down into our unconscious mind... So at the end of every human life there will be pulled out of our subconscious or unconscious mind the record of every thought, word and deed. This will be the basis of our judgment.”
Now there’s a truly scary thought. He didn’t even need to add, “Let us pray.”
Bishop Sheen said many memorable things in his lifetime. For instance, when a heckler asked him a question about someone who had died, Bishop Sheen said, “I will ask him when I get to heaven.” The heckler replied, “What if he isn't in Heaven?” and the Bishop said, “Well, then you ask him.”
Along the same line, another man told Bishop Sheen he did not believe in hell. The Bishop replied, “You will when you get there.”
But the one I like best was included in a newsreel clip in an old CBS-TV hour-long documentary called The Strange Case of the English Language. In the clip, Bishop Sheen had been asked to give the opening prayer at the New York State Assembly in Albany, and when he stepped up to the podium microphone he said, “Friends, I’m not going to pray for you today. There are three things every man must do for himself: Blow his own nose, make his own love, and say his own prayers.” Then, indicating he would pray with them instead, he launched into his prayer with the words, “Let us pray.” Think about that the next time you happen to be sitting in church and the person up front says, “Let us pray.” You’ll have a hard time just sitting there passively listening to what the other person is saying, I’ll wager.
The Strange Case of the English Language also demonstrated how questions about gender can sometimes trip a person up by showing President Lyndon Baines Johnson affirming that “Uncle Sam will keep her word.” And there was a funny segment where Harry Reasoner, the host, discussed how the placement of adjectives can change the meaning of a sentence. He pondered at length where the word “only” might best be inserted into the sentence “I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose,” as follows:
1. Only I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose.
2. I only punched Walter Cronkite in the nose.
3. I punched only Walter Cronkite in the nose.
4. I punched Walter Cronkite only in the nose.
5. I punched Walter Cronkite in the nose only.
The older I get the more amazed I am at the odd things that have managed to worm their way into my long-term memory storage banks. For example, here’s a little ditty, a jingle, that is either humorous or sacrilegious depending on which side of the bed you woke up on; it is sung to the tune of an old Pepsi-Cola commercial:
Christianity hits the spot,
Twelve apostles, that’s a lot;
The Holy Ghost and the Virgin too!
Christianity’s the thing for you.
What gives me pause is something a little more sobering that Bishop Sheen once said. I discovered it in my little computer search this morning: “Everything we do, whether good or evil, goes down into our unconscious mind... So at the end of every human life there will be pulled out of our subconscious or unconscious mind the record of every thought, word and deed. This will be the basis of our judgment.”
Now there’s a truly scary thought. He didn’t even need to add, “Let us pray.”
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Thursday is the new Tuesday
Oops! A thousand pardons! I got so carried away with posting about Freckles the Cow that I forgot to post any Tuesday ramblings this week. And it’s Thursday already. So these “Thoughts on Thursday” will have to serve, belatedly, as my “Tuesday ramblings #4” in disguise.
Here are two series of numbers. Can you guess what they represent?
A. 3,3,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,0
B. 8,6,2,1,7,5,7,3,2,3,5,8,2,4,6,4,2,5,7,2,4,4,3,5
I thought not. Well, don’t burst a capillary; I’ll tell you. Series A is the number of readers’ comments received on this blog on each of its first 24 posts. Series B is the number of readers’ comments received on this blog on the most recent 24 posts. Since the blog has been in existence for almost 11 months, I have calculated that at this rate my readership will equal that of the The New York Times in the year 802,701 A.D., which just happens to be when the Time Traveller from H. G. Wells’s 1895 novella, The Time Machine, will be discovering those nice Eloi and those nasty Morlocks. It is also when there will be absolutely nothing left that’s fit for The New York Times to print. If you’re not familiar with The Time Machine, here’s a link to the appropriate Wikipedia article, which includes a fascinating summary of the plot. If you’ve never read the book and you never intend to and if you did you would want to read it without being told the plot in advance, please refrain from clicking on the link to the Wikipedia article!
And now we go from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Mrs. Rhymeswithplague’s favorite blog, The Pioneer Woman, is written by a woman in Oklahoma who regularly channels (her word) both Lucille Ball and Ethel Merman. It is divided into sections called “Confessions,” “Cooking,” “Photography,” and “Home/Garden,” and the author commonly receives such staggering readers’ comment figures as 287, 418, and the like. On each post. It’s enough to make me want to (pick one):
(a) cry,
(b) give up altogether,
(c) puke,
(d) try even harder,
(e) all of the above.
The correct answer, class, is (e), although I hasten to add that my choices don’t suggest themselves all at the same time. Usually. So if you just have to go see what The Pioneer Woman's blog is like, I have conveniently hidden, I mean included, a link to it somewhere earlier in this paragraph, and I will try to understand.
I would also like to tell you that I intend to keep plugging away, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after...well, you get the picture, until I’m old and gray. That’s what I would like to tell you, but unfortunately I’m already old and gray.
As they say, it’s the thought that counts.
Here are two series of numbers. Can you guess what they represent?
A. 3,3,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,4,0
B. 8,6,2,1,7,5,7,3,2,3,5,8,2,4,6,4,2,5,7,2,4,4,3,5
I thought not. Well, don’t burst a capillary; I’ll tell you. Series A is the number of readers’ comments received on this blog on each of its first 24 posts. Series B is the number of readers’ comments received on this blog on the most recent 24 posts. Since the blog has been in existence for almost 11 months, I have calculated that at this rate my readership will equal that of the The New York Times in the year 802,701 A.D., which just happens to be when the Time Traveller from H. G. Wells’s 1895 novella, The Time Machine, will be discovering those nice Eloi and those nasty Morlocks. It is also when there will be absolutely nothing left that’s fit for The New York Times to print. If you’re not familiar with The Time Machine, here’s a link to the appropriate Wikipedia article, which includes a fascinating summary of the plot. If you’ve never read the book and you never intend to and if you did you would want to read it without being told the plot in advance, please refrain from clicking on the link to the Wikipedia article!
And now we go from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Mrs. Rhymeswithplague’s favorite blog, The Pioneer Woman, is written by a woman in Oklahoma who regularly channels (her word) both Lucille Ball and Ethel Merman. It is divided into sections called “Confessions,” “Cooking,” “Photography,” and “Home/Garden,” and the author commonly receives such staggering readers’ comment figures as 287, 418, and the like. On each post. It’s enough to make me want to (pick one):
(a) cry,
(b) give up altogether,
(c) puke,
(d) try even harder,
(e) all of the above.
The correct answer, class, is (e), although I hasten to add that my choices don’t suggest themselves all at the same time. Usually. So if you just have to go see what The Pioneer Woman's blog is like, I have conveniently hidden, I mean included, a link to it somewhere earlier in this paragraph, and I will try to understand.
I would also like to tell you that I intend to keep plugging away, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after...well, you get the picture, until I’m old and gray. That’s what I would like to tell you, but unfortunately I’m already old and gray.
As they say, it’s the thought that counts.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tuesday ramblings #3
If Tuesdays continue to come around so frequently, I may have to change these Tuesday ramblings to Every-other-Tuesday ramblings, because today I have very little on my mind. So let’s talk about television.
I grew up so long ago that we had only three channels in Dallas-Fort Worth (an area now called the Metroplex) -- WBAP-TV (NBC), WFAA-TV (ABC), and KRLD-TV (CBS). I know that seems impossibly primitive to you younger whipper-snappers. And even more unbelievable, the three channels came on the air about two in the afternoon and signed off about ten or ten-thirty at night; the rest of the time there were only “test patterns” that eventually gave way to a snowy nothingness. This may not be entirely accurate, but it’s the way I remember it.
Not that anybody cares, but I remember watching The Milton Berle Show on Tuesday nights (You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the great big Texaco star!); and Mama starring Peggy Wood, Judson Laird, and a very young Dick Van Patten on Friday nights; and The Red Skelton Show; and, for some reason, Broadway Open House with Jerry Lester and a big, dumb, buxom blonde named Dagmar (maybe I was sitting up late with Dad). I remember Pinky Lee; and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie (Kukla and Ollie were puppets, but Fran was a real person); and Soupy Sales with his huge doggie friends, White Fang and Black Tooth; and Jimmy Nelson and Farfel singing (but only Farfel moved his mouth) “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestle’s makes the very best...chaw-klit.” I remember Ding-Dong School with Miss Frances from Chicago; and Beanie and Cecil, the Seasick Sea Serpent. On Saturday nights there was Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, and, yes, even Marguerite Piazza; on Sunday nights there was What’s My Line?with Dorothy Kilgallen and Bennett Cerf and Arlene Francis and a weekly guest panelist, moderated by “your host,” the very properly attired John Charles Daly. Dorothy liked to ask unusual questions; one of her favorites was, “Is it bigger than a bread box?” A few years went by and eventually there was Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons (with which I identified completely -- wrong decade, right poverty level); and Dick Van Patten again on Eight Is Enough.
Nowadays there are hundreds of channels and most of the programs are not fit for human consumption. Let’s call them what they are: Trash. I will not watch lewd and lascivious programs or listen to four-letter words in my house. So we watch other stuff. TLC, the home of what was once must-see TV, Trading Spaces, has other programs: Little People, Big World and What Not To Wear and the 21st-century version of Eight Is Enough, a show that ought to be called Eight Is Way Too Many. Its real moniker is Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and I must confess to you at this point in the proceedings that I get very upset at the way Kate sometimes treats Jon. The Bravo people have given us ice princess Heidi Klum on Project Runway (it can get a little raunchy, but it’s mesmerizing). HGTV (Home and Garden Television) has My House Is Worth What? and If Walls Could Talk and House Hunters and Curb Appeal and Property Virgins and Color Splash with David Bromstad. My blogger friend Ruth in Illinois has advised me not to make so many long lists, but I get started and I just can’t seem to stop. HGTV has even more home fix-it and home decorating and home flipping shows, often starring people who used to work on Trading Spaces -- can you say Vern Yip and Carter Oosterhouse? The Food Network has Emeril Lagasse and Rachel Ray (or it had her until Oprah started producing her program) and Bobby Flay and lots of other up-and-coming gourmet chefs, if you like to watch food. The Animal Planet lets us keep up with more dog shows than the law should allow.
We don’t watch anything involving nannies or wrestlers or tattoo artists. We’re not interested in the private lives of pop-culture icons who are past their prime (Ozzie Ozbourne, Hulk Hogan, and Gene Simmons come to mind) or of pop-culture icons who are not, or people who work on cars and motorcycles, or people who can’t wait to tell us the latest rumors and gossip about celebrities and politicians. We used to watch Atlanta Braves baseball games a lot, but the team is not what it used to be.
So more and more lately we do the only logical thing. We turn off the TV set and play a game of Scrabble or Skip-bo or Phase 10, or take Jethro for a ride in the car.
Perhaps it’s because of television that I have so very little on my mind.
Thank God for blogging.
I grew up so long ago that we had only three channels in Dallas-Fort Worth (an area now called the Metroplex) -- WBAP-TV (NBC), WFAA-TV (ABC), and KRLD-TV (CBS). I know that seems impossibly primitive to you younger whipper-snappers. And even more unbelievable, the three channels came on the air about two in the afternoon and signed off about ten or ten-thirty at night; the rest of the time there were only “test patterns” that eventually gave way to a snowy nothingness. This may not be entirely accurate, but it’s the way I remember it.
Not that anybody cares, but I remember watching The Milton Berle Show on Tuesday nights (You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the great big Texaco star!); and Mama starring Peggy Wood, Judson Laird, and a very young Dick Van Patten on Friday nights; and The Red Skelton Show; and, for some reason, Broadway Open House with Jerry Lester and a big, dumb, buxom blonde named Dagmar (maybe I was sitting up late with Dad). I remember Pinky Lee; and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie (Kukla and Ollie were puppets, but Fran was a real person); and Soupy Sales with his huge doggie friends, White Fang and Black Tooth; and Jimmy Nelson and Farfel singing (but only Farfel moved his mouth) “N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestle’s makes the very best...chaw-klit.” I remember Ding-Dong School with Miss Frances from Chicago; and Beanie and Cecil, the Seasick Sea Serpent. On Saturday nights there was Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, and, yes, even Marguerite Piazza; on Sunday nights there was What’s My Line?with Dorothy Kilgallen and Bennett Cerf and Arlene Francis and a weekly guest panelist, moderated by “your host,” the very properly attired John Charles Daly. Dorothy liked to ask unusual questions; one of her favorites was, “Is it bigger than a bread box?” A few years went by and eventually there was Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons (with which I identified completely -- wrong decade, right poverty level); and Dick Van Patten again on Eight Is Enough.
Nowadays there are hundreds of channels and most of the programs are not fit for human consumption. Let’s call them what they are: Trash. I will not watch lewd and lascivious programs or listen to four-letter words in my house. So we watch other stuff. TLC, the home of what was once must-see TV, Trading Spaces, has other programs: Little People, Big World and What Not To Wear and the 21st-century version of Eight Is Enough, a show that ought to be called Eight Is Way Too Many. Its real moniker is Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and I must confess to you at this point in the proceedings that I get very upset at the way Kate sometimes treats Jon. The Bravo people have given us ice princess Heidi Klum on Project Runway (it can get a little raunchy, but it’s mesmerizing). HGTV (Home and Garden Television) has My House Is Worth What? and If Walls Could Talk and House Hunters and Curb Appeal and Property Virgins and Color Splash with David Bromstad. My blogger friend Ruth in Illinois has advised me not to make so many long lists, but I get started and I just can’t seem to stop. HGTV has even more home fix-it and home decorating and home flipping shows, often starring people who used to work on Trading Spaces -- can you say Vern Yip and Carter Oosterhouse? The Food Network has Emeril Lagasse and Rachel Ray (or it had her until Oprah started producing her program) and Bobby Flay and lots of other up-and-coming gourmet chefs, if you like to watch food. The Animal Planet lets us keep up with more dog shows than the law should allow.
We don’t watch anything involving nannies or wrestlers or tattoo artists. We’re not interested in the private lives of pop-culture icons who are past their prime (Ozzie Ozbourne, Hulk Hogan, and Gene Simmons come to mind) or of pop-culture icons who are not, or people who work on cars and motorcycles, or people who can’t wait to tell us the latest rumors and gossip about celebrities and politicians. We used to watch Atlanta Braves baseball games a lot, but the team is not what it used to be.
So more and more lately we do the only logical thing. We turn off the TV set and play a game of Scrabble or Skip-bo or Phase 10, or take Jethro for a ride in the car.
Perhaps it’s because of television that I have so very little on my mind.
Thank God for blogging.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday ramblings #2
It’s Tuesday again, so welcome to another edition of my Tuesday ramblings! By the time this post is published, Mrs. Rhymeswith-plague and I will have bid a temporary adieu to our hearth and home and comfy surroundings in North Georgia and gone on a little “mini” three-day vacation in beautiful western North Carolina. We are joining our oldest son’s family for a short visit during their longer stay at Lake Lure. I wrote this week’s ramblings in advance and scheduled them for Tuesday publication (first time I have done this) because I didn't know whether I’d have access to a computer while we were away. My home computer is a desktop, not a laptop, and not easily transported.
This morning I saw a bright yellow and black male goldfinch in my backyard; it was on the topmost branch of a Leland (or Leyland, apparently either is correct) cypress tree. It has been nearly five years since I last saw a goldfinch. We used to see lots of them at our feeders before we moved away from our woods and creek to where we live now, Little House By A Strip Mine. I’m kidding; I’m kidding (about the strip mine, not the goldfinches). We used to see cardinals and rock doves and bluejays and rufous-sided towhees and brown-headed cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds and brown thrashers (Georgia’s state bird) and Carolina chickadees and even an indigo bunting once. Now we see mostly mockingbirds and crows and an occasional passing flock of Canada geese (honking, of course). I miss the songbirds.
Speaking of Leland (or Leyland) cypresses, one of the ten that we planted five years ago along our back property line has died. It was about eight feet tall, not as tall as the others, and just lost the will to live, apparently. It went very fast. The other nine all appear to be just fine. The one on the far left is almost twice as tall as the others. We’ve treated them all the same; I can’t explain the difference in their growth. Someone suggested on one website that the drought in the Southeast has caused dehydration among the cypresses and the dehydration has caused (or allowed) canker disease in some trees.
Which brings me to foreign coins (don’t ask me how). I saw “D. G. Regina” on a Canadian coin and figured out all by myself that it was Latin for “Queen by the grace of God,” Dei Gratia being the phrase for which “D. G.” is the abbreviation and Regina meaning, of course, Queen. Then I saw a British (United Kingdom) coin with the abbreviation “Elizabeth II D. G. Reg. F. D.” on it, which threw me for a minute...
...until I remembered that the British monarch is also head of the Church of England (Anglican) and therefore is automatically fidei defensor, the defender of the faith. (It didn’t mean Fire Department after all.)
And speaking of Latin abbreviations, most of us know etc. (the abbreviation of et cetera, “and so forth”). And we know a couple of others like i.e. (the abbreviation of id est, “that is”) and e.g. (the abbreviation of exempli gratia, “for the sake of example”) that we usually manage to get confused. The first means something like “specifically” or “this is what I’m talking about.” The second means something like “here's one example out of many from which I might choose.” Please keep this in mind in your future writing! If you had to write research papers in the dear, dead days beyond recall you may also remember et al., ibid., op. cit., loc. cit., and q.v.. One that was used frequently in those bygone days that no one seems to use any more is D. V., the abbreviation of Deo volento, God willing.
As in next Tuesday, D.V., these ramblings will continue.
This morning I saw a bright yellow and black male goldfinch in my backyard; it was on the topmost branch of a Leland (or Leyland, apparently either is correct) cypress tree. It has been nearly five years since I last saw a goldfinch. We used to see lots of them at our feeders before we moved away from our woods and creek to where we live now, Little House By A Strip Mine. I’m kidding; I’m kidding (about the strip mine, not the goldfinches). We used to see cardinals and rock doves and bluejays and rufous-sided towhees and brown-headed cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds and brown thrashers (Georgia’s state bird) and Carolina chickadees and even an indigo bunting once. Now we see mostly mockingbirds and crows and an occasional passing flock of Canada geese (honking, of course). I miss the songbirds.
Speaking of Leland (or Leyland) cypresses, one of the ten that we planted five years ago along our back property line has died. It was about eight feet tall, not as tall as the others, and just lost the will to live, apparently. It went very fast. The other nine all appear to be just fine. The one on the far left is almost twice as tall as the others. We’ve treated them all the same; I can’t explain the difference in their growth. Someone suggested on one website that the drought in the Southeast has caused dehydration among the cypresses and the dehydration has caused (or allowed) canker disease in some trees.
Which brings me to foreign coins (don’t ask me how). I saw “D. G. Regina” on a Canadian coin and figured out all by myself that it was Latin for “Queen by the grace of God,” Dei Gratia being the phrase for which “D. G.” is the abbreviation and Regina meaning, of course, Queen. Then I saw a British (United Kingdom) coin with the abbreviation “Elizabeth II D. G. Reg. F. D.” on it, which threw me for a minute...
...until I remembered that the British monarch is also head of the Church of England (Anglican) and therefore is automatically fidei defensor, the defender of the faith. (It didn’t mean Fire Department after all.)
And speaking of Latin abbreviations, most of us know etc. (the abbreviation of et cetera, “and so forth”). And we know a couple of others like i.e. (the abbreviation of id est, “that is”) and e.g. (the abbreviation of exempli gratia, “for the sake of example”) that we usually manage to get confused. The first means something like “specifically” or “this is what I’m talking about.” The second means something like “here's one example out of many from which I might choose.” Please keep this in mind in your future writing! If you had to write research papers in the dear, dead days beyond recall you may also remember et al., ibid., op. cit., loc. cit., and q.v.. One that was used frequently in those bygone days that no one seems to use any more is D. V., the abbreviation of Deo volento, God willing.
As in next Tuesday, D.V., these ramblings will continue.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tuesday ramblings
No one has ever accused me of thinking in a straight line. My side of a conversation tends to cover a lot of territory but I try to tie all the loose ends together by the time I’'m finished. So I thought I might have a “Tuesday ramblings” post each week. If it doesn’t work out, forget I ever mentioned it. It will be our little secret. But since today is Tuesday, here goes:
Our oldest son has been out of town on business, so we met our daughter-in-law for lunch on Sunday at Ruby Tuesday -- that’s a restaurant -- and then we took our grandchildren Matthew (almost 12) and Ansley (just turned 8) home with us for a couple of days. We returned them to their mother safe and sound late yesterday afternoon, but not before playing a lot of games -- Mexican Train Dominoes, Skip-Bo, Scrabble (twice), even Chess (with Matthew while Ansley helped Nana make a wonderful new dessert called Death By Cream Cheese) -- and when we weren’t playing games we were laughing at Jethro’s antics and giving him doggie treats or going to Canton for shakes at Arby’s. We also squeezed in a drive to our other son’s house because he and his family are out of town also and asked us to feed Sharpie, their black Lab. On Monday morning we spent an hour and a half at the pool with Matthew and Ansley before the day turned into a scorching, sultry beast to be avoided at all costs. All in all, it was two days of making happy memories, for them and for us.
On a typical Monday morning, one of the first things I do after signing on to the computer is read The Writer’s Almanac, a whole week’s worth, Monday through Sunday, all at one sitting. Don't ask me why; it’s just something I do. You can do it too by typing writersalmanac dot publicradio dot org or if you don’t want to tire yourself typing in all those letters you can click on it over there in the sideband. The Writer’s Almanac might not be your cup of tea, but I enjoy it immensely and usually learn a few new things.
With Matthew and Ansley here this week, I didn’t get my weekly dose of The Writer’'s Almanac until today. One of the things I learned is that today is the birthday of author Tom Robbins, and clicking on his name took me to an extended interview with him and a photograph of him. His shock of red hair makes him look a lot like actor Timothy Busfield, and if you don’t know who Timothy Busfield is you never watched thirtysomethings or The West Wing or Field of Dreams. Or if you were watching, you weren’t paying attention. Tom Robbins is the guy who whote Jitterbug Perfume and Still-Life With Woodpecker and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and Half Asleep In Frog’s Pajamas and Another Roadside Attraction and Villa Incognito and Skinny Legs And All and a bunch of other stuff besides. I have read only two of his books, and I enjoyed one and didn’t enjoy the other. So the jury, in this corner at least, is still out. I’m not really recommending him. But in the interview he said two things that struck me and I want to pass them along to you.
Here’s the first statement: “My view of the world is not that different from Kafka’s, really. The difference is that Kafka let it make him miserable and I refuse. Life is too short. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just mindless joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.”
That part about “joy in spite of everything” really resonated with me. It’s so easy to get depressed and down in the mouth and Lord knows there are plenty of reasons not to feel “up” all the time, but I think Tom Robbins is on to something important. It might even be Scriptural (think Philippians 4:4). Think about it: JOY IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING.
And here's the second statement: “At the end of every writing day I feel like I’ve been wrestling in radioactive quicksand with Xena the Warrior Princess and her five fat uncles.”
As a fledgling blogger, I know that feeling. Someone asked Flannery O’Connor one time how writing short stories differed from writing a novel. She replied that it was like coming out of a deep, dark forest only to be set upon by a pack of wolves. Tom Robbins. Flannery O’Connor. Writers. My kind of people. They understand.
Our oldest son has been out of town on business, so we met our daughter-in-law for lunch on Sunday at Ruby Tuesday -- that’s a restaurant -- and then we took our grandchildren Matthew (almost 12) and Ansley (just turned 8) home with us for a couple of days. We returned them to their mother safe and sound late yesterday afternoon, but not before playing a lot of games -- Mexican Train Dominoes, Skip-Bo, Scrabble (twice), even Chess (with Matthew while Ansley helped Nana make a wonderful new dessert called Death By Cream Cheese) -- and when we weren’t playing games we were laughing at Jethro’s antics and giving him doggie treats or going to Canton for shakes at Arby’s. We also squeezed in a drive to our other son’s house because he and his family are out of town also and asked us to feed Sharpie, their black Lab. On Monday morning we spent an hour and a half at the pool with Matthew and Ansley before the day turned into a scorching, sultry beast to be avoided at all costs. All in all, it was two days of making happy memories, for them and for us.
On a typical Monday morning, one of the first things I do after signing on to the computer is read The Writer’s Almanac, a whole week’s worth, Monday through Sunday, all at one sitting. Don't ask me why; it’s just something I do. You can do it too by typing writersalmanac dot publicradio dot org or if you don’t want to tire yourself typing in all those letters you can click on it over there in the sideband. The Writer’s Almanac might not be your cup of tea, but I enjoy it immensely and usually learn a few new things.
With Matthew and Ansley here this week, I didn’t get my weekly dose of The Writer’'s Almanac until today. One of the things I learned is that today is the birthday of author Tom Robbins, and clicking on his name took me to an extended interview with him and a photograph of him. His shock of red hair makes him look a lot like actor Timothy Busfield, and if you don’t know who Timothy Busfield is you never watched thirtysomethings or The West Wing or Field of Dreams. Or if you were watching, you weren’t paying attention. Tom Robbins is the guy who whote Jitterbug Perfume and Still-Life With Woodpecker and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and Half Asleep In Frog’s Pajamas and Another Roadside Attraction and Villa Incognito and Skinny Legs And All and a bunch of other stuff besides. I have read only two of his books, and I enjoyed one and didn’t enjoy the other. So the jury, in this corner at least, is still out. I’m not really recommending him. But in the interview he said two things that struck me and I want to pass them along to you.
Here’s the first statement: “My view of the world is not that different from Kafka’s, really. The difference is that Kafka let it make him miserable and I refuse. Life is too short. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just mindless joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.”
That part about “joy in spite of everything” really resonated with me. It’s so easy to get depressed and down in the mouth and Lord knows there are plenty of reasons not to feel “up” all the time, but I think Tom Robbins is on to something important. It might even be Scriptural (think Philippians 4:4). Think about it: JOY IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING.
And here's the second statement: “At the end of every writing day I feel like I’ve been wrestling in radioactive quicksand with Xena the Warrior Princess and her five fat uncles.”
As a fledgling blogger, I know that feeling. Someone asked Flannery O’Connor one time how writing short stories differed from writing a novel. She replied that it was like coming out of a deep, dark forest only to be set upon by a pack of wolves. Tom Robbins. Flannery O’Connor. Writers. My kind of people. They understand.
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