Who are all these people anyways???

So, a blogger walks into a side bar and says "Give me a link!"

That's pretty lame humor, but I wanted to talk about blogrolls and sidebar links to other blogs.

(And this is funny...I am posting this directly to my blog with the newly de-glitched Picasa to Blogspot interface, and my cursor is staying on the right, and is filling in going to the left, like if I was writing in Hebrew. Yo, Google Crew, I'm not Jewish, OK?

Helloooo???)

Well, I guess I'll just have to cope with it for this post.

And yes, I did already try to change the justification setting

One of my favorite past times is link surfing. By that I mean finding a blog on a subject I am interested in (such as cats or millinery...) by going to "Search all blogs", or just clicking on the "Next blog" link after mine posts.

Or even just by checking out the "Blog of the Week" or "Blogs of Note."

If I like what I see, I then start clicking on the sidebar links to that blog writer's recommended blogs.

It's sort of like going to a party at a friend's house, and meeting the rest of her friends at last.

Great fun!

Now if I like a site, I try to remember it. Sometimes I even write down the site's address. Of course I usually lose the little piece of paper I write that information down on, then have to try to figure out some key word that might get me back there.

If I am really lucky, I type in the URL, and then it just shows up in the drop down menu on my address bar.

Sweet!

Some sites I check everyday. I should set up an RSS feed so I would be notified when there is something new, but usually I can click through my favorites pretty quick without doing that.

Plus most of my favorites are sidebar links on the sites that are MY side bar links.

Which brings me back to the original question:

Who are all these people on my sidebar anyway???

Let's find out.

Autumn Cottage Diarist is a woman perhaps a tad older than myself who lives in England and has the most gorgeous garden, adorable village, charming friends, and in general is like someone in a Rosemunde Pilcher novel. I read her infrequent posting and wallow in her former postings when ever I want a quick trip to England without the long flight.

I found her site when I first started reading blogs and have no idea how I got to her site.

Her side links go to other interesting women who tackle late midlife women's issues, religious issues, and various gardening, crafting etc. adventure.

Those side links will eventually lead you to "As Time Goes By", a HUGE blog specific to aging issues that is (horrifyingly) often submitted by folks my age.

A great stopping place to grab some pointers on the years ahead from those already living the challenges and blessings of later years.

Time really will go by if you stop there, so I don't have it in my sidebar.

Too tempting. I get too little done each day as it is without going there each morning.

Dressaday was selected as a blog of the week about a year ago.

I was clicking through a list of the selected blogs and went absolutely crazy over her.

Her being Erin McKean, as I later learned.

She is the editor of the New American Oxford Dictionary (wowzah!), is married, has a six year old son, lives in Chicago, and LOVES dresses and roller skating.

When I first started reading her blog I was just FLOORED at her command of the English language, and just drooled over her writing style, as well as the daily dress.

When I found out about the dictionary thing...well, NO WONDER she writes so well!

DUH!

She is so personable, actually responds to emails personally, and her readership is enormous.

In two words: Erin ROCKS!

Her side bar links are pretty thirty-something in tone.

DO NOT MISS reading Threadbared, especially the comments, and be thankful that Erin loved You Knit WHAT??? so much that she kept it as a side link even after the site writers hung up their keyboard.

Fourfiftythree is a lovely blog I found by hitting "Next Blog." Dawn writes a very brief post every "dawn", and it is a lovely way to put a cheery note in your mind while you savor your morning cup of coffee. She's in New York area, and has sons in the Air Force, a mother with Alzheimer's, and is a pastor's daughter.

Her blog roll includes children's book illustrators (nice to know they have days that entail dealing with car and kid issues too...), various homeschooling moms, her own daughter's blog, and in general a nice circle of beautiful crafty minded blogs that usually make me want to try something new cooking or crafting wise.

(Which I probably would be doing more often if I wasn't so dumb and happy just reading about what others are doing... )

Dawn occasionally pops over to my blog and leaves a sentence or two as well.

She usually invites you over for coffee...maybe someday that could happen for real!

Hatsbykatrika is single handedly responsible for both my being a milliner and a blogger.

Katrika is the childhood nickname for my friend Kate, who was my millinery instructor in Houston before she left to go live in Switzerland with her attorney husband.

She decided to write a book about her European adventures "one page at a time" via blogging.

I was impressed.

She said it was easy.

(I trust her, when she says something is easy, it is easy, if she says it's kind of hard, it is kind of hard. I like people who know the difference!)

So far, Kate is the only blogger on my sidebar that I actually have met.

Itsgoodtobeme is written by a woman I actually know a little too well...she's my daughter. She writes about her life as an oncology and bone marrow transplant nurse.

She has never held back about anything important to her, and her blog is a look inside a world most of us will never (pray God..) have to deal with.

(Disclaimer: I am not responsible for, nor do I necessarily endorse everything she says. Even thought I pretty much egged her into writing a blog because I have been so taken by the expressiveness and humor of other blogging nurses. She is a fabulous nurse and I love her to pieces!)

There aren't any side bars on her site, but if you like hers, I will suggest these:

OcnRN

and

Nurseblog

Finally, I have recently added Whatmattersmost.

I could call this link "Seven degrees of Separation", the theory that everyone on the planet knows everyone else through seven connections. The "I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew...thing.

Lovella is hammering out her blog from BC Canada, another country, just like Texas. (You might have to be a Texan to get that joke...)

How did we link? Well, my mom suggested I go to a Bible study that was being held on the beach near my house. I went, and later a guy, Rich, who had been at that study ran into me at a book store. He remembered me, and introduced me to his roommate Scott. Scott later became my boyfriend, and in the room next to his room was a guy named Brad. Brad's roommate was Dennis. Dennis met Del, who was in school with Bernie, and brought Bernie along to a Bible study in Brad's room.

Later on I married Bernie, and Brad married Chris. Brad had a son named Josh, who went to England and met a girl named Heidi, who was from Canada.

They got married on the beach where I originally went to the Bible study, and where both my parents and Bernie and I had our first dates.

Heidi started a blog, Chris let me know (Chris RARELY reads my blog or Heidi's either for that matter..) and after I made a few smart alex remarks about Josh on Heidi's blog, I surfed over to Heidi's mile long collection of links (mostly about EVERYONE'S new babies, by the way...) and somewhere along the line I came across Lovella's post about an enormous egg her husband had brought in to her one morning.

I asked Chris to ask Heidi who Lovella was. Answer: Heidi's Aunt Flo's friend.

OK...have we got that all clear now?

Good.

I don't want to repeat myself.

Now it feels like we're old friends, separated only by a half a continent.

I'd add more links, but for now I think my little group is a manageable jumping off point for exploring blogdom.

And who ARE all those people in the picture at the top of this post?

The guy in the middle is my grandfather. The seated folks are his folks, my great grand parents.

The other people are his siblings, in a picture taken around 1900, either in Germany or Salt Lake City.

I'm glad I'm a link to all of them too.

Grey and Yellow

Grey rainy weather.









The temperature is a good 20 degrees colder than typical here for this time of year.

I find myself buying yellow flowers, and yearning to surround myself with the color yellow to dispell the grey gloom

Outside my study, a moving van arrives, cheerily brightening the view with yellow and the word "flower" (the "May" part of that name obscured by the moving van's door.

The house next door that has stood vacant for months now has new owners.
And I have new neighbors.
A husband and wife roughly my age, with an eleven year old daughter still at home, and two adult children my kid's age.
They're from California!
And they have a yellow lab.

Out in our back yard, the new squirrel proof bird feeder has been hung.
A Christmas gift from my folks.

The squirrels spent yesterday twirling their tails in frustration, looking like small gray helicopters attempting to fly.

Now the birds are discovering it.

A grey titmouse nervously lands, perches briefly, pecks a single seed and then jolts away quickly.


The cardinals are everywhere except the new feeder.

I like how this one is just visible in the middle of the picture, his red body repeating the color of the Aunt Lu begonia, which has miraculously survived the freeze without being covered at all.
Our sweet gum (also known as liquid amber) has shed all its colorful leaves, but still holds its prickly sphere "gum ball" seed pods.

This picture looks like it was taken in black and white.

It wasn't.

The sky and trees are simply devoid of color in the cold.

Inside it is nice and toasty.

Earlier I had gone to the store, driving through drippy rain and ponding water on the side roads.

It was cold enough that my eyes watered a bit as I loaded the groceries into the car.

When I returned home, I was so happy to see Bernie pulling into the driveway right next to me.

(I guess I don't check my rear view mirror as conscientiously as I thought I did, or I would have noticed him following me!)

After two days apart, hugs warmed me up better than anything!

I really didn't want to head into the study to do what needed to be done on our desktop computer.
I wanted to stay in the living room, by the fire, watching the birds.

I whined a bit.
(It was a fine whine, vintage 1954, aged in California...good legs, nice color, a bit sweet...)

I want a lap top.

He had been suggesting we get a lap top for me.
(I used to have one with a company I worked for, so I know how nice it is...)

The unmerited favor received in response to my kvetching?

In the above picture, grey cat Hart supervised Bernie as he helps me customize my order for a new laptop from Dell (shameless plug, they're a client...) using his Dell laptop as we sat together watching the birds in front of the fire.

For my sweet Honey, I'm soaking up a batch of 13 bean soup.



It'll taste great with yellow cornbread, butter and honey.

(Wish I had started it earlier...)

Bernie is starting another bonsai forest.

And of course you can always count on Tiggie to pose to perfection.

Yellow flowers, yellow lemons, yellowish cat.

The part I don't get is how he did the yellow eyes.

Usually, his eyes are a nice shade of green.

Now how did he do that???

Reaction: A mixed bouquet

Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss, and no information is innocent.

That last part is what powers my pondering.
When I grabbed the paper this morning, it was, thankfully, dry for once.
This dry state of affairs out-of-doors did not last.
It is now half heartedly raining, cold and dreary out there, which could easily dictate my mood.

Bernie being gone today, I climbed back in bed with the paper, for a while I am a slatternly woman, more concerned with information than household ecology.











I read rapidly, and often dog eared articles that I wished to consider again later.

There was an article about blogging scientist. I can really get behind this idea: Scientists blogging about their research, so we common folk can catch their enthusiasm for scientific discovery.

But, as usual, part of the article made me laugh.
Quote:

"People hear the word "blog" and they think 'what I had for breakfast'..."

Add that to the Pew report comment that the average blogger is a fourteen year old girl writing about her cats, and you've caught me red handed.












From what I've seen, it's middle aged ladies like myself who are writing about our cats.

The fourteen year old girls are blogging about sex, school, travel, and mental anguish.

I often wish they were just writing about their cats.
I think they would be happier if they did.

Or at least not so disturbing to me.












Then there was an article about how 80% of our 18-25 year olds see getting rich as their top goal.
Parents are spending 500% more on their kids than just one generation ago.
And that is after adjusting for inflation.
The kid's reaction: They feel empty inside.

How odd that these kid's parents were mostly the "all you need is love" generation, they of hippy beads and anti-business sentiment.
The generation who thought they were right while they lived in hippy communes eschewing capitalism, and now think they are right as they seek more financial leverage in all their endeavours.

Speaking of our children, the children's book awards, the Newbery (remember: only one "r" in that...) and Caldecott Medals were declared.
The Newbery went to "The Higher Power of Lucky."




It is a book about a ten year old coming to terms with her mother's death, "a perfectly nuanced blend of adventure, survival (emotional and physical) and hilarious character study."

I'll have to check it out.
Somehow "hilarious" and "My mom died" don't readily click together in my mind.
Newbery books are always interesting.

David Wiesner won for his illustrations in "Flotsom", a book about a camera that washes up on the beach and opens up a magical underwater world for a young boy.
Wiesner is a gifted artist. Feel free to give his books a whirl and get back to me with your take on it.






Getting other people's "take" on things is always interesting.
The other day Bernie was talking with a man who blogs.
The man blogs about politics.
Bernie shared that I blog.
But not about politics.
He did a valiant job of explaining the scope of my blog, and then was very surprised that evening to find that I actually had blogged about politics.
Instead of my notable tendency to blather about millinery, cats, and in one instance, what I had for breakfast.

Our President is giving us our annual State of the Union address tonight.
The newspapers and the airways are filled with observations, condemnation, and accusations.
My friend Kate posted her political opinion.
We don't match up in our politics, but we share other interests.
Hats, specifically.
We could choose never speak about our politics, but what a loss that would be.











I truly do love being "being pleasant" as the ladies said in the book "The Land of Second Chances."
I think politics often is not very pleasant.
Disagreements rarely are pleasant, unless you trust the one with whom you disagree.

A wise person once gave me this illustration:
You are holding a very large ball, and you can see that the ball is blue.
Another person, whom you respect and trust, is standing facing you, and holding the same ball.
The other person says the ball is red.
The natural thing is to think you are right and they are wrong.
But if you truly trust that other person, you will listen to them and learn something.
And the learning will allow you to see what you could not see from where you were standing.
One half of the ball is blue, and the other half is red.

The other person didn't know all the truth, and neither did you.

I think I need to hear what others see, read and hear, to know about what they are thinking, promoting, championing, and protesting.
People who speak from a different viewpoint than my own.
People who give me information that melds with my information, information that loses its innocents as it mates with other information, thereby creating new ideas and agendas.
People who will say what they say because they are working from the information that has come their way.
If I trust them, I will listen, and learn.
Perhaps to agree, perhaps to disagree.
Pleasantly.

(A facinating instance of open consideration is comic strip writer Gary Trudeau, he of the highly liberal comic strip "Doonsbury" fame. His anti-war viewpoint has never been subtle, yet he now hosts "The Sandbox", an open blog for all those who serve in the military in the Middle East.
The authentic first person voices of the individuals who serve speak distinctly about a view quite different than what Mr. Trudeau has historically promoted.
Plus it is so interesting to read the writings coming in daily from the war.)

(My African violets bloom in a wide array of colors and patterns. I never concern myself with deciding if one color is right and the other color is wrong. I might prefer one color over another, but they are all interesting members of the African violet family. Mine are on the windowsill around my tub, along with visiting bonsai, and a painting by my grandmother-in-law.
The windows above the tub look out into our private garden. I often enjoy soaking in a hot bath while taking pleasure in observing the garden as it goes through its seasonal changes.)

Mundane Monday...

The good news is that I got an email from the Blogger Team out at the Googleplex.

They have fixed the glitch in my Picassa to Blog posting.

The bad news is that apparently I can only post small or large centered photos.

I haven't taken the time to write them again, or play around with it either.

Other than that, life is same-old same-old.

Tiggie is playing "Aquarium Cat" by sitting beneath the glass top of our dining table.

This is why I usually use table cloths instead of placemats whenever we have guests.

He sits looking up at our guests, following each forkful with his green eyes in a manner that is somewhat unsettling.

Othertimes he just looks like he is practicing being a "collectible" inside a glass display case.

The reflection below his nose is of the chandelier hanging above the table.
He's looking sad because Bernie is out running an errand. Sheesh.

I'm trying to be fair and balanced.

I caught up with Hart as he was all cozy on the couch in the breakfast nook.

It took three tries to get this shot.

He just isn't very good at posing.

But he will sit on your lap and purr.
Something Tiggie never does.

Ever. Period.

Both boys supervised me as I planted violas and pansies.

Bernie had worked the soil for me this weekend, and so all I had to do was dig holes and drop in the plants.

(You'd think the boys could of helped me there. You'd be wrong.)

I need to make another run to get another flat of pansies to finish up the bed.

There probably is a math formula I could use to figure out how many flats I need.

Instead, being nearly math illiterate, I just buy a few flats, plant, and then routinely make another trip.

(You'd think I'd remember from year to year how many flats I need to fill up the bad. You'd be wrong about that too.)

To thank Bernie for doing the heavy soil work, I weeded his bonsai.

You use tweezers to do that.

(That was new information to me. I was trying to pull the seedling weeds out with my fingertips, when B. caught up with me and told me Bonsai Masters use special tweezers to weed their bonsai. Ah so!)

I love the bonsai, because I love being able to have a tree on my coffee table, or counter.

Imagine, a tree that I can cart around with me the rest of my life.

Perhaps someday a great-grand child will enjoy these trees as well.

Wouldn't that be cool?

Forget the veil, check out that hat!

My friend Millie's cat Sam, he who doesn't play well with others, but who does blend beautifully with my friend's decore, don't you think?

Sam's person, Millie and I went and saw the movie "The Painted Veil" this afternoon. My mom had recommended the film, highly, so the one hour trip to the Landmark theater was in order.

Now my mom doesn't always enjoy all the movies that I like, but I like all the movies she likes.

So I've got the best of the deal.

"The Painted Veil" is a wonderful movie.

It would be a wonderful movie even if the sound was turn off, because the photography is so luscious, and the costuming from the 1920's was just grand.

Best of all...

HATS!

Lots of Hats!

Lots of Panama Straw Hats on both men and women!

Sigh.

No milliner is listed in the credits.

What is up with that?

Twice there are hats left behind after the hat is blown off the wearer's heads.

Granted the person wearing the hat was in terrible danger at the time, but it was all I could do not to yell out

"SOMEBODY GET THE HAT...BE CAREFUL, DON'T RUN OVER THE HAT!"

Anyway, it rates right up there with the movie "Bagger Vance" for fabulous 1920's era inspirational millinery.

Apparently there was an earlier version of "The Painted Veil" back in 1934 with Greta Garbo.

Wonder if there were great hats in that edition?

Guess who is going to try to find a copy and watch it to find out?

Ah, gee, you guessed!

(And whew, I'm pooped. Way to much excitement in one weekend for me!)

January's Friday Night Date Night

A few years ago I inexplicably had the TV on while I was rustling up some dinner.
For some reason the report of the following little snippet of life caught my attention:

The actor Jeff Daniels (he of "Dumb and Dumber" and "Fly Away Home" fame) had been dining in a restaurant alone after attending to some out-of -town business.
Also dining in the same restaurant were three girls in prom dresses.
They spotted Mr. Daniel's, and asked for an autograph.
He cheerfully signed for the girls, and then began chatting with them.

It turned out the girls were heading to their Senior Proms, without escorts. No one had asked them out, so they had decided to just go to the prom together, as friends.

(This is the part where Jeff Daniels got me as a fan for life...)

Mr. Daniel promptly asked the girls if HE could escort them to their prom, and be their date for the evening.

HOW SWEET IS THAT????

There were home video film clips of Mr. Daniels and the three young ladies sweeping down the side walk, arm in arm, and going into the building along with other tuxedo clad young men and their ball gowned garbed dates.

Reportedly Mr. Daniels remained with the girls throughout the evening, dancing with each of them and generally making the "wall flowers" into the belles of the ball.

I'm just a sucker for acts of kindness.

Mr. Daniels has appeared in a lot of movies, some of which I have seen, and some of which I have not. After the prom story I googled Mr. Daniels. He's been married since 1979 to his high school sweetheart, has three kids, and lives in Michigan, where his wife was raised.

Oh, so NOT southern California Hollywood type.

I also learned at that time that he sang. There was a site with clips of him singing songs he had written.

They were pretty funny, and actually his voice was pretty good.

Which brings me to our January's Friday Night Date Night.

The local paper always has a section on Thursday's which discusses movies, plays, museums, restaurants and "diversions". I always look through it, mark up what I think would be fun to do, and then 95% of the time, don't do it.

This is because 95% of the time, it is close to an hour long drive to get to all this fun stuff.

And by the time Friday night rolls around, Bernie has already zipped around the country enough that staying home is a real draw. I'm a big fan of home and hearth, and early to bed myself, so we are most companionable about this option.

Well, last Thursday I barely glanced at the Entertainment section. Too cold, too tired to even think about going out.

Friday morning I was gathering up the newspapers when I took a second glance at the cover picture.

It was of a scraggly looking blond guy in a brown felt hat.
Under the picture it said "Jeff Daniels to sing at the Mucky Duck."

Jeff Daniels? HERE??? TONIGHT???

I was already racing for the door for an appointment, but I mentioned that Jeff was going to be singing tonight at the Mucky Duck (an Irish pub downtown, which recently has become NON-SMOKING, hallelujah...I'd never been due to smoke, but had heard a lot about it.)

Bernie of course said:

Jeff Daniels...you mean the guy in Dumb and Dumber, SINGING???

The look on Bernie's face was very interesting. Like the look you would give to a crazy woman announcing the Pope polkas during Mass.

He warily said he would consider it.

I called for tickets.

I would need to drive downtown to purchase them, or just come and hope for standing room only. There would be a7:30 and a 10:30 show.

Naturally I didn't drive downtown to get tickets. Decided to just to be indecisive the rest of the day, and see where "we" were at by evening.

"We" were pretty bogged down by five o'clock.

"We" both were sorely tempted to stay home by the fire. Cornbread sounded good. Maybe some kind of chili. Maybe go out to eat....maybe just hit the sack early, it had been a VERY long week for Bernie.

But somehow, from deep inside, "we" both had a spark of life left in us.
The spark that said "get up and go...have some fun...you aren't dead yet!"

So we threw on jackets and drove downtown.
We found a parking place right across the street from the front of the pub!
Whoo-hoo!
Rock Star parking!

The show was sold out.

We decided to wait, just in case there was a no-show.
I sat out front next to the ticket taker, while Bernie chatted with the owner.

A few minutes before the show was to start the owner decided we could stand inside by the door for the show.

"You two look like you would fit right in!" the ticket taker said.

And we did.

After ordering a basket of fish and chips, and a pint for us at the bar, Bernie headed to the boy's room, where he greeted Jeff himself.

A few moment later Jeff was on stage, singing great songs that those of us who are in our 50's, married for years and years to our spouses, and have raised kids and loved our hometowns can totally identify with.

We laughed, we enjoyed.
It was great to be out on a Friday night, at a 7:30 show with other middle aged folks like us.

After it was over, we were still hungry.

So we went out to IHOP.
International House of Pancakes.
And remembered back when the syrup pitchers there used to have metal tops.

It doesn't seem all that long ago.

(If Jeff Daniels ever comes to your area, be sure to catch his act. Here's a Youtube clip of him singing. And if you haven't seen him in the sweet film "Because of Winn-Dixie", be sure to view it too.)

The girls are ready for their close-up....

Bet you can't guess where this is!

Here's another hint.

(Bucky?)
Now you're getting warmer.

The soft foamy pad is a real improvement since the last time the girls had to come for a visit.

It used to be a frosty occasion all around.
Hmm, that pink ribbon, does that remind you of anything?

(It should...)
Oh oh.

(That's Debbie, and she was really nice and gentle. )

The "Owie" part lasted only about 6 seconds on each side.

Not so bad.

My oncology nurse daughter tells me about how bad it can be to go through treatment if breast cancer isn't detected early.

Twelve seconds of "oww"...glad to do it!

These are a new thing since last year's mammogram.

They're rather small compared to Janet Jackson's exposed pasty, but since they really aren't wardrobe, small is better.

The silver bead in the middle will help the radiologist identify what part of the picture is the nipple.

They were held on with a sticky backing that did just that: stick.
Ouch and OUCH coming off....

Well, that wasn't so bad.

Back out into the Kingwood Medical Center Mall.


The storefronts are actually doctor offices!

Very cheery.

I'm glad that is over for the year, and I have every reason to believe that both girls are just fine.

Afterwards, I took them out and treated them to a brand new comfy cotton bra.

They deserved it!

Please be sure to get your "girls" in for their "close-up" too.
Remind your friends and loved ones to schedule an appointment.
Because as most of us women know... our bras are dingy and we need to go get a new one anyway.
What better way to inspire a shopping trip to the lingerie department than
as a way to reward "the girls" for being so good during their yearly picture taking session.

When is your appointment?

If you haven't got one already, make one today!

Pleasantly pondering ponds

While Tiggie stays on storm watch, I'm getting in gear to go back to work.

Second gear...I can't get up a lot of speed on this, simply because I'd rather lounge around the house, sit by the fire, sip tea, and read a nice book.


It probably needs to be said: Librarians haven't actually READ every book in their library.

A lot of us take our best shot at doing so, but in reality, what we mostly do is read reviews.

The reviews are most often written by librarians, or subject matter experts. Evaluating children's books is heavily taught in children's literature classes.

Adult literature review is a bit more dicey.
Some of the reviews I have read have made me want to disinfect my eyes and brain. I won't go into detail.
Trust me, it is a weirder world out there in publishing land than I ever imagined.

I haven't been reading much lately. You can see my summer reads here
I've got about a half dozen editing books hanging around right now, as I need them as I edit my novel.

My favorite is The Elements of Style by Wm. Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web fame.)
It is a tiny 85 page book that is so enjoyable I laugh out loud while I read it.
Really.
Bernie had to tell me to settle down when I first read it on a plane flight.

At Christmas, Bernie gave me "Seasons of Woman's Life" by Levinson,(the famous author of Season of Man's Life, a book Bernie has found enormously insightful as a man.)
I haven't begun reading it yet, but he has.
He is amazed at what it has to say about women's lives.

I've had a book review on the side of my refrigerator for a year now.
"In the Land of Second Chances" by Shaffner.
The review says it's about a quilting circle, who have all joined because quote:

...we all wanted the same thing. We just wanted people to be pleasant to each other.

Yeah, me too!!!
One reason why I like the bloggers that I like.
They manage to be pleasant, and that is a good thing.

While I was a school and then a Children's Librarian I read children's books daily.
I would cheerfully vote for a law that required all adults to read a children's picture book daily.
All 32 pages.
All Children's picture books are 32 pages, except the few exceptions that prove the rule.

I came across a review the other day of the new children's picture book "Babies in the Bayou", (recommended for age 3 and up.)
Author is Jim Arnosky.

Now this review deserves to be read out loud in your best "talking sweetly with children's voice."
Go ahead, clear your throat, and start reading:

There are sharp-toothed alligators, hungry raccoons, tiny turtles and watchful ducks in the bayous, and they all have mothers looking after them.
Arnosky's green watery world looks calm until you take a closer look. The gators are eyeballing the ducklings, and raccoons munch turtle eggs.
Danger is all around for the babies of the bayou, but there's no sense of fear in the story, which introduces children to a swamp ecosystem where animals come and go.

Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it!
Animals "come and go"? You mean get eaten?
Oh there's sweet dreams for you.

Back to my earlier blog about teaching to interest, I'm pretty sure most boys would tag this as a favorite read.
The turtle ate the baby duck?
COOL!

If it wasn't so muddy, I would consider trekking down the way to our own bayou.
The one that I used to explore merrily, and occasionally waded around in on hot summer days.

After two years of this "ignorance is bliss" activities I encountered my first copperhead snake on the path, looking like a pile of dead leaves.
Someone was kind enough to point out that it is wise not to wander off the path through the underbrush because of the notable copperhead population in our area.

Then I spotted a coral snake. Gorgeous little thing, and Bernie says they have such small mouths they really can't do much harm (usually he says this as he is reaching to encouraging it to move along as I scream loudly...) They are quite deadly as well.

Laura first noticed the water moccasin slithering through the bayou waters.
Then the local newspaper reported about the female alligator with a NEST in our edge of the water.

I see jet skiers zooming through our bayou/lake all the time, and figured it was just fine to take a dip now and then, as long as I didn't get any water in my mouth.

Boy was I wrong about that.

Today would be a good day to go to the "pond" as the snakes and alligator would probably be nestled deep within the earth avoiding the cold.

On the other hand, perhaps it would be more pleasant to merely ponder the pond, and linger at home by the fire, until I have to head out to work.

What are you pondering pleasantly today?

And don't you think the men reading this will find all those links much pleasanter than us girl readers do?

Happy to help you learn guys.

Enjoy!

When "H" freezes over

It finally happened.

"H" has frozen over.

And I've got the pictures to prove it.

"H" as in Houston, that is.
Our nickname being
"H town"


Bernie got through the snow, and on to a plane home, arriving at 10:30 pm.


The roads had iced all over the area, with the exception of the freeway between the airport and our home.
I am so thankful!

There were lots of accidents on the roads around our city. Thankfully, no fatalities.
This morning I was amused to see one inch long icicles clinging to one area of our eaves.

Some plants were spangled with ice, others were totally dry.

I've heard of "scattered showers", but I never imagined showers could scatter in a matter of feet.

I guess our local news teams can take a rest now.
It has been a slog.
One poor guy was assigned to follow a sanding truck around downtown and report where it was going.
Another guy (I am NOT making this up...) was assigned to watch a bucket of water and report when a film of ice formed.
He was at it all day.
Guess they must have had a bad experience with thermometers somewhere along the line.
They'll believe it is 32 degrees when they see water freezing with their own eyes.

And yes, if you thought a watched pot will never boil, the same can be said about a watched pot will never freeze.

Jeeze, get a life why don'tcha?

It's still raining, but the temperatures are supposed to be around 35 degrees.
Just a cold drippy day.
Nice and normal.

Staying on the edge of my seat...

The massive ice storm over Texas has looked on dopler radar like a pink cotton candy blob that sends wisps my way, but no real precipitation or ice issues have arrived to speak of.

Yet.

That is supposed to change in the next hour or so.

At this point I'm pretty burned out on watching the news, looking outside, and checking the radar on weather.com

I broke up the routine by going to the dentist to get a crown prep done.
My life, the fun never stops.

Bernie called, and he's driving in almost white-out conditions as he travels up to Cleaveland to catch a flight home.
So I'm monitoring his weather progress as well.

When I was growing up in La Jolla the weather reports never changed:

Night and morning low clouds.
High 75, low 72.



We didn't need to feed the local birds there.
There were always flowers in bloom.
And feeding seagulls, well, they're fun to feed but the results are messy, if you catch my drift.

Here in Kingwood we feed our local birds
We have Northern blue jays, Cardinals, Mockingbirds, four kinds of Woodpeckers, titmouse, warblers, Carolina wrens, cedar wax wings, sparrows, finches, martins, and robins.

I really love the cardinals and woodpeckers the best.

On my last trip to the store I found the brand of bird seed that is pictured above.

Maybe, as a child of the space age, you recall how cool "freeze dried" foods were when they first came out.

Later freeze dried food became a hiker/camper/survivalist food.

Well, Houston IS home to NASA, and the space shuttle and all of that.

(Did you know the first word spoken on the moon was "Houston"?
As in "Houston, the Eagle has landed." I think "Houston" would be a great name for an eagle.)

I guess it is only fitting and proper therefore that our local birdies should benefit from space age technology.

You guessed it: Freeze dried mealworms!

Freeze dried mealworms.

Ewww.

Lazy birds.



Eat up my fine feather friends.

For you, there really is such a thing as a free lunch!

Bon Appetit!

Disaster looms...

So, it's 37 degrees here (2 degrees C.)

And this is what my garden looks like sans leaves.
That "sans leaves" might prove to be very important in the next few hours.

My friends in Colorado and other points north apparently decided to send a "Touch of Winter" our way.

I'm sure they will all be happy to hear that their present arrived safely and was ANNOUNCED in the supermarket this morning.

As in:

"Attention shoppers: Winter has arrived here in Kingwood. Keep your family warm with our delicious morning casserole which has just come hot out of our oven. Come by for a sample and thank you for shopping with us at HEB."


Talk of power lines going down and ice slicked streets made me inventory my larder and make a quick trip to the store.

(That, and I was out of laundry detergent anyway...)

Kingwood has no road sanding equipment.
If it ices, I'm not going anywhere until it melts.

HEB is always fun.

Pictured above is the juice aisle.
Yup, just juice.

The two in-store kitchens offer delicious samples and recipes.
You can see this month's recipes in the little paper next to the sampler.
I've gotten some great recipes from that paper.

The deli, produce, cheese, seafood, and bakery all hand out samples.

Most trips I get enough samples that making myself lunch is no longer necessary.

And sometimes Bernie and I make a quick stop and
ta-da,
"Honey, I'm full. Let's skip dinner!"

Today was especially fun.
Shoppers were wearing ski caps, wool shearling jackets, GLOVES etc while they shopped.

They could have headed to the slopes for a day of skiing without braving the slightest shiver.
Gotta wear your winter gear for the full two days of winter I suppose.

Actually, I am mildly concerned.
After surviving Hurricane Rita, I put a lot of thought into disaster preparedness.
We are all set for abandoning the home in ten minutes (Houston being a port district is identified as being a prime target for terrorism. Chemical/nuclear attack would mean leaving instantly if possible.)
We also are are all set to stay in place without power for a few days.

Preparing for a hurricane is a real pain in the tush.
ANYTHING that might become airborne in high winds must be put inside.
Bernie was out of town until 12 hours before Rita.

I got to drag all the stuff in to the house.
The patio set.
Stuff on the side of the house.
Small potted plants.
Bird feeders.
Trash cans.
Barbecue.

It is amazing how much stuff could be blown away.
All this dragging inside went on in 98 degree heat.
Yuck.

During the storm a tree did come down on us.

And a neighbor had his roof pierced by a broke tree.

With a hurricane, mostly the survival concern is about dealing with the heat and mosquitoes.
This time it is a little more about dealing with ice.

Will my trees break?

Hmmm.

And naturally, Bernie is out of town.
Cleveland, where the weather is nice right now.

Last Friday my folks were under standby for evacuation for a possible tidal wave.
It didn't happen, but they got to think through their plans.
Two cats that hate each other=two cars to evacuate.
Pretty funny.

Forty years ago La Jolla was evacuated for the Alaskan Good Friday earthquake.

That was pretty funny too.

It was a nighttime event, and all the teenage boys wanted to stay down from the mount to catch the surf.
Or at least take their surf boards.
Our neighbor had a box full of kittens to round up.
My dad was the Scoutmaster of the local Boy Scout troop that was coincidentally already camping atop the designated evacuation point, Mt. Soledad.
And he and the rest of the troop were in uniform.

He rushed home to make sure we were OK, and then knocked on the door of some of our elderly neighbors, advising them that they were being asked to evacuate.
The elderly neighbors were VERY impressed that my dad was in his Scoutmaster uniform while he did this.
Others arrived at the mount and thought the Boy Scouts were just wonderful to have set up this nice little camp for all the evacuees.

Doh.
Duh!

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography scientists refused to evacuate, choosing rather to stay on the beach to measure the tidal wave.

Now there's a dedicated group for ya!

It turned out that the tidal wave that had earlier impacted Crescent City and other points north had petered out, and there was no measurable tidal change.

Whew.

I remember the pictures of the ice storm in Canada a few years ago, with broken mangled power lines and fallen shattered trees for miles and miles.
And that recovery took weeks and weeks.

Eekkk!

I kind of prefer earthquakes.
Earthquakes just happen, and then you deal with it.
Maybe "big time" deal with it, or just spend time asking everyone if they felt it.

The last big earthquake in the Santa Cruz area taught us a lot.
Specifically to designate a person in a different state as a contact person.
People were displaced in that earthquake, and phone service within the area was destroyed.
Calls could be made out of area however.
So you could call Auntie in another state, and she could relay messages.

For awhile I carried my Arizona aunt's number on me at all times.

Tornadoes are another concern.
We regularly go under tornado watches and warnings.
We're supposed to hunker down in the bathtub with a battery powered radio.
Daughter Laura actually did this while a tornado blew by about three miles away from her.
Coincidentally Bernie was flying home right over that tornado and got to see it from above.

I got to watch the radar screen, and wonder where Bernie was in term of in the air, and knowing exactly what street Laura lived on as the tornado tracked along a street map overlay on the weather channel screen.

Laura and I talked via cell phone while she was in the tub.
A real bonding time together.
Ah, sweet memories.

Now don't tell anyone, but every time they say to head to the bathtub because a tornado might be headed my way, I always go outside and look.

Secretly, I'd like to see a tornado.
In the distance of course.
Just once.

Once when we lived in Northern California I was driving home from work and the horizon filled with a wall of pea green.

"Gee, that looks just like the videos I've seen of how it looks when there is a tornado. But there aren't any tornadoes in the San Jose area. Huh. Sure looks weird."

Guess what?
A tornado touched down in the Sunnyvale community in San Jose that day.

I have a healthy respect for pea green clouds, and aqua colored skies, even though they say that is not an indicator.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

It's still 37 degrees, and raining.
While I was at HEB I decided that if disaster was to overtake us, I didn't want to go down without having any of this year's Kingcake.

I've had a slice, and will cut out 1/4 of the cake and freeze the rest.

Bernie has requested that Kingcake not become Queenbum.

If things get really bad, and the power goes out, and it thaws, I promise I will share it with the neighbors.
Tiggie of course has this whole situation covered.
He's staked his claim.

This comforter is his.

And he will be here for the duration.