Taking my youngest to college. Maybe this will turn into an emotional trip, but all I feel now is exasperation over the car-loading, and anxiety about the bike on the trunk carrier and the inability to see much out the rear window.
The large drowsing animal in the passenger seat has spent a great deal of time saying farewell to his pals. He has not invested much thought or energy into packing and organizing for the move to the dorm. His belongings are not alphabetized, color-coded, or marked with indelible ink. No checklists were created, let alone harmed in this experiment. This child who can be so much like his mother sometimes, is being completely unlike her today.
The rain is coming down so hard I may have to stop under an overpass. What if the bike falls off the carrier, or the carrier falls off the trunk? The instructions for the new carrier were not user-friendly in the cloudy six a.m. light.
Three cars are in the ditch. I grip the wheel tighter, not wanting to join them. The large drowsing animal stirs enough to change the Ipod music from Miles to Coltrane. Have to cut him some slack for choosing music we both love.
Last drove this highway through Wichita Falls alone during a March snowstorm. Years ago now, but a major moment in my journey to being a strong, happily-divorced woman. The current downpour on 287 marks the next transition.
8/16/05
Westward Expansion
I'll huff,
and I'll puff,
and I'll stuff,
and I'll slam that trunk down!
Torrential rain prevented loading the trunk last night for the trip to the dorm. The pioneers were stalled at St. Jo by the flooding of the Missouri.
Not one toothbrush more could fit into the trunk of the Buick. Shoes are wedged into the tiny spaces between the duffels and the crate of art supplies. The computer still has to be loaded into the back seat. Hard decisions have to be made. The piano is going to be jettisoned long before Death Valley in this wagon train movie! I hope Lil Stevie doesn't fall out and get bit by a rattler.
and I'll puff,
and I'll stuff,
and I'll slam that trunk down!
Torrential rain prevented loading the trunk last night for the trip to the dorm. The pioneers were stalled at St. Jo by the flooding of the Missouri.
Not one toothbrush more could fit into the trunk of the Buick. Shoes are wedged into the tiny spaces between the duffels and the crate of art supplies. The computer still has to be loaded into the back seat. Hard decisions have to be made. The piano is going to be jettisoned long before Death Valley in this wagon train movie! I hope Lil Stevie doesn't fall out and get bit by a rattler.
8/15/05
Learning the Drills
It's mid-August in North Texas. It's ninety-nine degrees. School is in session. Therefore, it is marching band practice season. Time to learn the drills and routines for football season.
My little rolling band of recycling collection bins is also learning its positions and routines at the condo complex. This band is my project. I hope the residents will soon learn the routine and be pleased with the performance.
At first the bins were rolled out of their "staging area" to the far corners of the complex. They had to be returned to their positions, as the city collection trucks have an automated arm that grabs and dumps the bins. The arm hooks onto that metal bar on the front of each bin that looks a bit like a mouth, OR MAYBE a silver piccolo.
I would like to get each bin a band hat with a marabou feather, but I have riled some of the residents enough for this month. People are beginning to participate in the voluntary effort. I'm using Professor Harold Hill's "Think System" in hopes that this could be an effort that unites and reenergizes this community.
By the way, the little blue recycling basket is the baton twirler!
My little rolling band of recycling collection bins is also learning its positions and routines at the condo complex. This band is my project. I hope the residents will soon learn the routine and be pleased with the performance.
At first the bins were rolled out of their "staging area" to the far corners of the complex. They had to be returned to their positions, as the city collection trucks have an automated arm that grabs and dumps the bins. The arm hooks onto that metal bar on the front of each bin that looks a bit like a mouth, OR MAYBE a silver piccolo.
I would like to get each bin a band hat with a marabou feather, but I have riled some of the residents enough for this month. People are beginning to participate in the voluntary effort. I'm using Professor Harold Hill's "Think System" in hopes that this could be an effort that unites and reenergizes this community.
By the way, the little blue recycling basket is the baton twirler!
Humidity Flashback
Walked out to the dumpster this morning, and came back soaked. Geez, it feels just like Camp Kiwanis near Milford, Nebraska, in June. That would be just after the flood waters of the Big Blue River receded enough for the Camp Fire Girls of 1964 to hike out on the penninsula to the swinging bridge, swatting at the enormous mosquitoes and horseflies as they walked.
Camp Fire Girls hiked in their little baby blue Keds and white anklets with their names written in Rub-a-Dub laundry marker. They wore navy shorts, white blouses, and hats to protect them from ticks. They coated any bare skin with a 6-12 brand insect repellent stick that looked like an art room glue stick and felt about the same, if you've ever drawn on yourself with glue stick the way my students often do. Smelled lots worse though.
The Kiwanis Club of Lincoln owned and maintained Camp Kiwanis from the 1920's until 1983 when it was sold to Easter Seals. For fifty years the camp was used by the Camp Fire Girl's Council. Originally six acres in size, it grew over the years to sixty-three acres bounded by the Big Blue River and the Chicago Burlington railroad tracks.
Being a camper on the Big Blue River penninsula, and much later visiting the Lied Jungle at Omaha's fantastic Henry Doorly Zoo are the closest I've ever been to the Amazon rain forest. If I ever went there, I would be sure to write my name on my socks!
Camp Fire Girls hiked in their little baby blue Keds and white anklets with their names written in Rub-a-Dub laundry marker. They wore navy shorts, white blouses, and hats to protect them from ticks. They coated any bare skin with a 6-12 brand insect repellent stick that looked like an art room glue stick and felt about the same, if you've ever drawn on yourself with glue stick the way my students often do. Smelled lots worse though.
The Kiwanis Club of Lincoln owned and maintained Camp Kiwanis from the 1920's until 1983 when it was sold to Easter Seals. For fifty years the camp was used by the Camp Fire Girl's Council. Originally six acres in size, it grew over the years to sixty-three acres bounded by the Big Blue River and the Chicago Burlington railroad tracks.
Being a camper on the Big Blue River penninsula, and much later visiting the Lied Jungle at Omaha's fantastic Henry Doorly Zoo are the closest I've ever been to the Amazon rain forest. If I ever went there, I would be sure to write my name on my socks!
Salon product
Got my hair cut by an actual stylist today, with shampoo, goops for this and sprays for that, blow-drying, curling iron, and more spray. Was swirled around in the chair for, voila, the New Me with extra body. Holy moly! It's the Pillsbury Doughgirl in a Raquel Welch wig! All I need is a lavendar pique dress and matching scalloped jacket with pearlescent buttons to play the mother of the groom in a sitcom wedding.
Usually I go to the JiffyChop for the fourteen dollar/four minute haircut. The cutesy motto taped onto the chopper's mirror reads, "Mom doesn't let me play with power tools at home." Occasionally, one of those cuts goes way wrong. I had to grow my hair out a few weeks extra, then let someone try to start me fresh along the meditative path to the true coiffure.
Usually I go to the JiffyChop for the fourteen dollar/four minute haircut. The cutesy motto taped onto the chopper's mirror reads, "Mom doesn't let me play with power tools at home." Occasionally, one of those cuts goes way wrong. I had to grow my hair out a few weeks extra, then let someone try to start me fresh along the meditative path to the true coiffure.
8/13/05
Grizzly Man in Seventh Grade
Irrational dread of starting junior high school filled me during sixth grade, and expanded through the summer of 1967. Now I know that this was my first episode of depression and panic disorder, possibly aggravated by or masquerading as an enervating illness that resembled mononucleosis. As the start of classes loomed, I bundled my fear into obsessive reading of magazine stories about fatal grizzly bear attacks. I'm sure there's a psychological term for this coping mechanism.
In my black and white memory of this time, I am reading the magazine stories while lying on the gray living room carpet--reading the stories over and over again. The carpet is new, just installed the summer before. In my recollection, Sports Illustrated ran a continuing story for four issues, although I can only find a citation for "Menace in Our Northern Parks; Grizzlies," by E. Watson, SI 27:62-4+, October 30, 1967, in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Time Magazine online archive provided some corroboration of my memories, and I was able to print out the ghastly report, "Night of Terror; Two Killed By Grizzlies in Montana Parks," Time 90:19, August 28, 1967.
Werner Herzog's new documentary film about the grizzly-obsessed Timothy Treadwell is in theaters now. I'm both repulsed and attracted by the subject. I'm thankful, too, that I don't have to start junior high ever again, speaking of horrifying.
Herzog made a film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God in 1972 . I saw the film in college at the UN-L Foreign Film Series in 1975, give or take a year, and I have been haunted by it for thirty years.
Amazon.com reviewer, Bret Fetzer, writes that Aguirre, "becomes more pertinent every year. The astonishing Klaus Kinski plays Don Lope de Aguirre, a brutal conquistador who leads his soldiers into the Amazon jungle in an obsessive quest for gold. The story is of the expedition's relentless degeneration into brutality and despair, but the movie is much more than its plot. Director Werner Herzog strove, whenever possible, to replicate the historical circumstances of the conquistadors, and the sheer human effort of traveling through the dense mountains and valleys of Brazil in armor creates a palpable sense of struggle and derangement. This sense of reality, combined with Kinski's intensely furious performance, makes Aguirre, the Wrath of God a riveting film. "
Watching the Grizzly Man movie trailer, I mentally substitute Klaus Kinski for Treadwell. Do I want to be haunted by another Herzog movie for thirty years?
Living in Texas in the summer often leads sane persons, trying to steer their cars along congested expressways without actually touching their fingertips to the red hot steering wheel, to wonder what-in-the-hey-ho those armor-clad Spanish conquistadors were thinking when they decided this region was fit for human habitation. Had they completely fried their brains inside those helmets in their obsessive pursuit of gold, the fountain of youth, and opportunities to abuse the indigenous population? Fried brains may account for the Spanish conquistadors speaking German!
In my black and white memory of this time, I am reading the magazine stories while lying on the gray living room carpet--reading the stories over and over again. The carpet is new, just installed the summer before. In my recollection, Sports Illustrated ran a continuing story for four issues, although I can only find a citation for "Menace in Our Northern Parks; Grizzlies," by E. Watson, SI 27:62-4+, October 30, 1967, in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Time Magazine online archive provided some corroboration of my memories, and I was able to print out the ghastly report, "Night of Terror; Two Killed By Grizzlies in Montana Parks," Time 90:19, August 28, 1967.
Werner Herzog's new documentary film about the grizzly-obsessed Timothy Treadwell is in theaters now. I'm both repulsed and attracted by the subject. I'm thankful, too, that I don't have to start junior high ever again, speaking of horrifying.
Herzog made a film, Aguirre, the Wrath of God in 1972 . I saw the film in college at the UN-L Foreign Film Series in 1975, give or take a year, and I have been haunted by it for thirty years.
Amazon.com reviewer, Bret Fetzer, writes that Aguirre, "becomes more pertinent every year. The astonishing Klaus Kinski plays Don Lope de Aguirre, a brutal conquistador who leads his soldiers into the Amazon jungle in an obsessive quest for gold. The story is of the expedition's relentless degeneration into brutality and despair, but the movie is much more than its plot. Director Werner Herzog strove, whenever possible, to replicate the historical circumstances of the conquistadors, and the sheer human effort of traveling through the dense mountains and valleys of Brazil in armor creates a palpable sense of struggle and derangement. This sense of reality, combined with Kinski's intensely furious performance, makes Aguirre, the Wrath of God a riveting film. "
Watching the Grizzly Man movie trailer, I mentally substitute Klaus Kinski for Treadwell. Do I want to be haunted by another Herzog movie for thirty years?
Living in Texas in the summer often leads sane persons, trying to steer their cars along congested expressways without actually touching their fingertips to the red hot steering wheel, to wonder what-in-the-hey-ho those armor-clad Spanish conquistadors were thinking when they decided this region was fit for human habitation. Had they completely fried their brains inside those helmets in their obsessive pursuit of gold, the fountain of youth, and opportunities to abuse the indigenous population? Fried brains may account for the Spanish conquistadors speaking German!
8/12/05
Dangerous Tellantura and Bambi
Air holes are important, as any child who has ever caught fireflies in a jar knows. My preschool students have been pretending to be explorers, photographers, and biologists in the Amazonian rain forest. They've been drawing air holes on the lids of jars to keep the bugs they've created alive for further study with tiny toy magnifying glasses. The bugs are made out of fun foam, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, irridescent beads, and buttons. We put snips of emerald green raffia into plastic boxes and jars from the Raytheon WASTE recyclables program. Kids still believe that the "grass" in the jar will make the bugs happy, just as we did forty-five years ago. I find this reassuring.
The kids use their Altoids/Rx 35mm cameras to take photos of their bugs, then they scribble about the animals and plants they have seen on their expedition in their teeny-tiny scientific journals with short country club golf pencils. We make sure to carry extra film cannisters filled with rolled up metallic ribbon. We wouldn't want to run out of film on this trip!
My favorite part is writing labels for the bug jars. "Have you identified this insect?," I ask. Amazingly, the child may tell me this specimen is the Dangerous Tellantura that eats green beetles. Other times, the child will say, "huh?"
I refine my interview question. "What kind of bug d'ja think you've got there?" The child explains it's a friendly Rainbow Sparkle Beetle. "Hmmmm," I say in a scholarly review musing voice.
When the second question fails to get an answer I can write on the label, it is time to ask, "What is your bug's name?"
Bambi
Sarah Catherine Margaret Jane
Rockstar Firelight
Thanks to all the folks who save their Altoids tins and other fun recyclables for our survival kits!
The kids use their Altoids/Rx 35mm cameras to take photos of their bugs, then they scribble about the animals and plants they have seen on their expedition in their teeny-tiny scientific journals with short country club golf pencils. We make sure to carry extra film cannisters filled with rolled up metallic ribbon. We wouldn't want to run out of film on this trip!
My favorite part is writing labels for the bug jars. "Have you identified this insect?," I ask. Amazingly, the child may tell me this specimen is the Dangerous Tellantura that eats green beetles. Other times, the child will say, "huh?"
I refine my interview question. "What kind of bug d'ja think you've got there?" The child explains it's a friendly Rainbow Sparkle Beetle. "Hmmmm," I say in a scholarly review musing voice.
When the second question fails to get an answer I can write on the label, it is time to ask, "What is your bug's name?"
Bambi
Sarah Catherine Margaret Jane
Rockstar Firelight
Thanks to all the folks who save their Altoids tins and other fun recyclables for our survival kits!
8/11/05
Jag of the Junkle
The kids finished the "junk jaguar" today, painting the face and spots on the papier mache collaborative effort. It is a magnificent beast, and will be prowling the school for many months. That makes up for the disappointment of sending the masks home tomorrow.
I wouldn't want to meet this cat in a dark alley!
We all learned that the spots of a jaguar are clustered in a pattern called, "rosettes". The students had different ways of painting spots on their parts of the jaguar, which makes it more fun.
The elementary students, kindergarten to grade three, put several layers of newspaper papier mache on the structure built of recyclables last week. The final tawny coat is torn paper scraps of yellow, tan, and orange. The paper is saved receipts, maps, magazine pages, patterns, gift wrap, junk mail, envelopes, old finger paintings, and even some Egyptian hieroglyphics.
My hope is that the students now have a personal connection to this Amazon creature because of their artwork. May that connection encourage their curious self-motivated research, and their concern about the rain forest.
I wouldn't want to meet this cat in a dark alley!
We all learned that the spots of a jaguar are clustered in a pattern called, "rosettes". The students had different ways of painting spots on their parts of the jaguar, which makes it more fun.
The elementary students, kindergarten to grade three, put several layers of newspaper papier mache on the structure built of recyclables last week. The final tawny coat is torn paper scraps of yellow, tan, and orange. The paper is saved receipts, maps, magazine pages, patterns, gift wrap, junk mail, envelopes, old finger paintings, and even some Egyptian hieroglyphics.
My hope is that the students now have a personal connection to this Amazon creature because of their artwork. May that connection encourage their curious self-motivated research, and their concern about the rain forest.
8/9/05
Eat More Chicken
Those Chick-fil-A cows have the right idea. I specifically need my friends and students' parents to eat more of the deli rotisserie chickens from their favorite grocery store. See Example A.
Example A
See that black plastic pan holding the golden brown chicken under the clear plastic dome? We just used a bunch of them to begin the forms for papier mache jaguar masks, and they were perfect. We used a lot of Altoid gum boxes for mouths, and many other items for eyes, ears, and noses, but the chicken pans were the key to success.
Example A
See that black plastic pan holding the golden brown chicken under the clear plastic dome? We just used a bunch of them to begin the forms for papier mache jaguar masks, and they were perfect. We used a lot of Altoid gum boxes for mouths, and many other items for eyes, ears, and noses, but the chicken pans were the key to success.
8/6/05
The voice of the automaton...
...or the language of Love?
Substituted again today at the small library where I used to be a storytime lady back in the late Nineties. It is fun to spend time there, see some of my favorite patrons, wonder how the kids got so grown up, and just be around books. The library's technology has changed radically since 1999, and become much more user-friendly for staff and patrons.
One of the relatively new improvements is an automated notification system for reserved books. That means that when a book reserved by a patron becomes available, the patron receives an automated phone call informing them that they can pick up the book at the library. The phone recording has a woman's voice saying something like, "This is the Broccoli Public Library calling with a message for..." Then an automaton pronounces your last name first, first name next, and middle name last. The woman's voice returns to explain that materials you have placed on hold are now available to be picked up and will be held for a certain number of days.
We used to make the phone calls ourselves. We would leave more personal messages:
This is Clementine at the Broccoli Public Library calling for Mrs. Brainly. I know you just stopped by this morning, and I hope you got home before it rained. Wouldn't you know, as soon as you left, the book you placed on reserve was returned, so we will hold it at the desk for you until Tuesday.
One of the patrons thinks my voice is the one on the new automated recording. She says it's strange to hear, since I don't really work there any more, so why would it be my voice? We joke about it for awhile, but it slowly dawns on me that I was originally so nervous about making the phone calls that my messages were very flat and jerky. Phone phobia was just one of the aspects of my anxiety disorder in the time of my divorce. So, it's not that the automaton sounds like me, but that I sounded like an automaton much of the time.
In 1979 I worked at Love Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a job that also had its fun moments. The library received a Kurzweil Reading Machine for the blind, and I spent time training on it so that I could theoretically help visually-impaired patrons with this brand new technology. The Kurzweil Reading Machine somehow scanned print material, and "read it aloud" for the user in a very mechanical synthetic "voice". This was pretty far-out sci-fi stuff in those days. Bar codes had only been used in retail stores for five years, the same year Atari launched Pong, the first video game. "Star Wars" had brought us the voice of Darth Vader just two years before. Audiotapes were still reel-to-reel. Answering machines and microwave ovens had been around a few years, but personal computers were off in the future.
Substituted again today at the small library where I used to be a storytime lady back in the late Nineties. It is fun to spend time there, see some of my favorite patrons, wonder how the kids got so grown up, and just be around books. The library's technology has changed radically since 1999, and become much more user-friendly for staff and patrons.
One of the relatively new improvements is an automated notification system for reserved books. That means that when a book reserved by a patron becomes available, the patron receives an automated phone call informing them that they can pick up the book at the library. The phone recording has a woman's voice saying something like, "This is the Broccoli Public Library calling with a message for..." Then an automaton pronounces your last name first, first name next, and middle name last. The woman's voice returns to explain that materials you have placed on hold are now available to be picked up and will be held for a certain number of days.
We used to make the phone calls ourselves. We would leave more personal messages:
This is Clementine at the Broccoli Public Library calling for Mrs. Brainly. I know you just stopped by this morning, and I hope you got home before it rained. Wouldn't you know, as soon as you left, the book you placed on reserve was returned, so we will hold it at the desk for you until Tuesday.
One of the patrons thinks my voice is the one on the new automated recording. She says it's strange to hear, since I don't really work there any more, so why would it be my voice? We joke about it for awhile, but it slowly dawns on me that I was originally so nervous about making the phone calls that my messages were very flat and jerky. Phone phobia was just one of the aspects of my anxiety disorder in the time of my divorce. So, it's not that the automaton sounds like me, but that I sounded like an automaton much of the time.
In 1979 I worked at Love Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a job that also had its fun moments. The library received a Kurzweil Reading Machine for the blind, and I spent time training on it so that I could theoretically help visually-impaired patrons with this brand new technology. The Kurzweil Reading Machine somehow scanned print material, and "read it aloud" for the user in a very mechanical synthetic "voice". This was pretty far-out sci-fi stuff in those days. Bar codes had only been used in retail stores for five years, the same year Atari launched Pong, the first video game. "Star Wars" had brought us the voice of Darth Vader just two years before. Audiotapes were still reel-to-reel. Answering machines and microwave ovens had been around a few years, but personal computers were off in the future.
8/5/05
Revenge of the Yerm-Lims
High five this old CollageMama! I am so vindicated. El Steveroo received a letter from his university explaining that he wouldn't have to take any college foreign language classes BECAUSE his mom ruined his life* and made him take French his senior year of high school.
*You Ruined My Life, Mom!
*You Ruined My Life, Mom!
Hamilton Pool Preserve
Received a comment from South Australian blogger Beerli about the waterfall photo in my sidebar. The forty-five foot waterfall at Hamilton Pool Preserve is one of my favorite places in Texas. When my cousin treated me to a delightful weekend in Austin last spring we had a picnic and hike at the Preserve. On other visits my sons and I have floated and played in the water.
(My photo from 4/05)
Descending the hill to Hamilton Creek and following the path to the Pool feels like a transition into a time both prehistoric and magical, as well as a transition from the semi-arid Texas Hill Country to a riparian canyon of ferns and chatterbox orchids. Thousands of years ago the limestone dome over an underground river collapsed due to erosion to create this beautiful grotto. Now the grotto forms the end of a steep box canyon. The ecology is very fragile, and seems to be carefully monitored and protected by Travis County so that needs of endangered species are balanced with enjoyment by seventy-five thousand visitors per year.
(My photo from 4/05)Descending the hill to Hamilton Creek and following the path to the Pool feels like a transition into a time both prehistoric and magical, as well as a transition from the semi-arid Texas Hill Country to a riparian canyon of ferns and chatterbox orchids. Thousands of years ago the limestone dome over an underground river collapsed due to erosion to create this beautiful grotto. Now the grotto forms the end of a steep box canyon. The ecology is very fragile, and seems to be carefully monitored and protected by Travis County so that needs of endangered species are balanced with enjoyment by seventy-five thousand visitors per year.
Photos I wish I had taken, but are from the links above.
8/4/05
The Sloth Movement
After the second day of Amazon camp, a kindergarten student insisted her mom take her to the library to get books about the rain forest. There are few things that cheer me as much as when a student gets hooked on the public library. The student in question was so excited about the illustration of a three-toed sloth she found, she could hardly wait until class to share it.
On the fourth day she came to class wearing a claw necklace. It probably came from Oriental Trading Co. as a plastic bear claw party favor, but we pronounced it a sloth claw, then started laughing. "Sloth claw, cole slaw!" I used to take a Tupperware container of sloth claw to my ex's family reunion picnics. Talk about your exotic animals!
Tree sloths are smaller than I imagined. My library book explains that they are only two feet in length full grown. I was thinking of the Ice Age giant ground sloth fossil at the University of Nebraska State Museum. Tree sloths style their hair with green algae, but they can't match their Ice Age relatives for strangeness.
About now you may be wondering about the Seven Deadly Sins, since you survived twelfth grade English and only have those terrifying flashbacks a couple times a month now. Afraid you will forget the seven, along with Snow White's dwarfs, but afraid you will never forget the torture of Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Dante's Inferno...you reach for the Tums.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
On the fourth day she came to class wearing a claw necklace. It probably came from Oriental Trading Co. as a plastic bear claw party favor, but we pronounced it a sloth claw, then started laughing. "Sloth claw, cole slaw!" I used to take a Tupperware container of sloth claw to my ex's family reunion picnics. Talk about your exotic animals!
Tree sloths are smaller than I imagined. My library book explains that they are only two feet in length full grown. I was thinking of the Ice Age giant ground sloth fossil at the University of Nebraska State Museum. Tree sloths style their hair with green algae, but they can't match their Ice Age relatives for strangeness.
About now you may be wondering about the Seven Deadly Sins, since you survived twelfth grade English and only have those terrifying flashbacks a couple times a month now. Afraid you will forget the seven, along with Snow White's dwarfs, but afraid you will never forget the torture of Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Dante's Inferno...you reach for the Tums.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Occupational Outlook Handbook
In high school I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't, but that's a different story. My high school counselor, Mrs. North, gave me a pep talk about attending Bryn Mawr, and sent me home with a book of career choices the size of the Los Angeles white pages. Mrs. North thought I should become a medical illustrator. She didn't understand that I fainted whenever I had blood drawn. Let's just say my middle name is Queasy Louise. Drawing accurate colored pencil innards illustrations was not my destiny. Neither was Bryn Mawr. To this day, if someone says, "Bryn Mawr", I get a colored pencil mental diagram of the inside of the human eye, then get noodly in the knees.
My students are much more focused about their career plans. The three-and-a-half year-olds discuss their futures while munching on popcorn.
"I'm going to be a Pizza Girl," says the dark-haired girl.
"Well, I'm going to be an Alien," responds the red-headed boy.
Stay tuned for the 3D classic Pepperoni Original Crusts From Space after these messages from our sponsor. Instructions for making your own 3D glasses come from the U.S. Geological Survey Terra Kids web site.
My students are much more focused about their career plans. The three-and-a-half year-olds discuss their futures while munching on popcorn.
"I'm going to be a Pizza Girl," says the dark-haired girl.
"Well, I'm going to be an Alien," responds the red-headed boy.
Stay tuned for the 3D classic Pepperoni Original Crusts From Space after these messages from our sponsor. Instructions for making your own 3D glasses come from the U.S. Geological Survey Terra Kids web site.
8/3/05
Beyond Banana Bread
On the phone with Dad, discussing food, of course, and I wander out to the kitchen thinking I would stare into the cold refrigerator for a minute and a dinner inspiration would pop to mind. Whoa! What happened to those bananas on the kitchen counter? They looked fine this morning, but now they are so dark and fragile I can barely lift them into the waste basket. They have oozed and stained the counter.
Dad is considering whether to go out for cooked veggies or fresh. Wendy's? Boston Market? I tell him the bananas have got to go.
"What about banana bread?," he asks.
"These babies are beyond banana bread," I explain. We agree that Beyond Banana Bread sounds like a bad summer sequel movie or remake, maybe starring Mel Gibson. We get the giggles, especially when we decide we must each go forward toward our supper destiny with a cry of, "To banana bread and beyond!"
Although we've hung up, I still have the giggles. I see Mad Max himself, Mel Gibson, wearing a Fruit of the Loom classic tv costume for the grape guy. I try to say "beyond banana bread" aloud, but my tongue is tangled in Toy Story-speak with Buzz Lightyear, and it comes out like "Binaca Breath Spray". These bananas definitely belong to the post-apocalyptic science fiction movie genre.
Good grief! Back in the early 1970s when we were wearing gaucho pants, battle jackets, and hot pants all made of polyester double-knit, high school was the land of Binaca. We were all hurrying to our lockers in the halls of high school learning spraying wintergreen breath freshener on our tongues. Life was primitive in those Olden Days Before Backpacks. Bianca had just married Mick Jagger.
Told my youngest that my class was making a life-size papier mache jaguar, and I was still working out the design bugs in my junk-collecting mind's eye. "Just go on-line and get a schematic," he suggested. Oops. The diagrams are for Jaguar cars. My class is making an animal.
Same son went to see the remake of "Bad News Bears" last evening. What was he thinking!? He said it was an awful kiddie movie with cussing. Walter Matthau clones dressed in banana costumes do a Kilgore Rangerette dance routine just off camera in my brain.
Kick-step-kick-turn.
More rotten than the bananas, George W. makes newsreels of "Beyond Arrogance". Twenty-one U.S. soldiers were killed in Bush's post-apocalyptic science fiction Iraq in the past three days while the President touted teaching intelligent design in public schools and disbelieved Rafael Palmeiro's positive steroid test.
On a local level, my son is making a smoothie fruit shake. He fills the blender one-third full of ice cubes, then adds frozen peach slices and frozen berries. He peels a banana, and adds it with a bit of cran-grape juice, some fresh strawberries, and a peeled orange. Turns on the blender, and it freezes up. Put the banana in first! Always put the soft stuff into the blender before the frozen stuff!
Dad is considering whether to go out for cooked veggies or fresh. Wendy's? Boston Market? I tell him the bananas have got to go.
"What about banana bread?," he asks.
"These babies are beyond banana bread," I explain. We agree that Beyond Banana Bread sounds like a bad summer sequel movie or remake, maybe starring Mel Gibson. We get the giggles, especially when we decide we must each go forward toward our supper destiny with a cry of, "To banana bread and beyond!"
Although we've hung up, I still have the giggles. I see Mad Max himself, Mel Gibson, wearing a Fruit of the Loom classic tv costume for the grape guy. I try to say "beyond banana bread" aloud, but my tongue is tangled in Toy Story-speak with Buzz Lightyear, and it comes out like "Binaca Breath Spray". These bananas definitely belong to the post-apocalyptic science fiction movie genre.
Good grief! Back in the early 1970s when we were wearing gaucho pants, battle jackets, and hot pants all made of polyester double-knit, high school was the land of Binaca. We were all hurrying to our lockers in the halls of high school learning spraying wintergreen breath freshener on our tongues. Life was primitive in those Olden Days Before Backpacks. Bianca had just married Mick Jagger.
Told my youngest that my class was making a life-size papier mache jaguar, and I was still working out the design bugs in my junk-collecting mind's eye. "Just go on-line and get a schematic," he suggested. Oops. The diagrams are for Jaguar cars. My class is making an animal.
Same son went to see the remake of "Bad News Bears" last evening. What was he thinking!? He said it was an awful kiddie movie with cussing. Walter Matthau clones dressed in banana costumes do a Kilgore Rangerette dance routine just off camera in my brain.
Kick-step-kick-turn.
More rotten than the bananas, George W. makes newsreels of "Beyond Arrogance". Twenty-one U.S. soldiers were killed in Bush's post-apocalyptic science fiction Iraq in the past three days while the President touted teaching intelligent design in public schools and disbelieved Rafael Palmeiro's positive steroid test.
On a local level, my son is making a smoothie fruit shake. He fills the blender one-third full of ice cubes, then adds frozen peach slices and frozen berries. He peels a banana, and adds it with a bit of cran-grape juice, some fresh strawberries, and a peeled orange. Turns on the blender, and it freezes up. Put the banana in first! Always put the soft stuff into the blender before the frozen stuff!
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