A Merry Christmas Mix Up

I'm feeling a little mixed up this Christmas season. There's nothing wrong you understand.  Things just aren't happening in the traditional order. Today, for example, I hosted my family "Christmas" dinner but tomorrow is Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day I'll be at my son's for a casual lunch, but since we've already exchanged gifts, it will feel more like a casual New Years Day get together. Then next week I'll be spending time with my brother and his family and it will feel like Christmas again.  I'm so confused, but in a very happy way and, an additional happy note, an item I had ordered and then discovered was "back ordered" arrived today, just in time for giving.  Life is good this Christmas season, confusing but good.  Merry Christmas to all, and great happiness..  I will resume blogging next year.  

I do appreciate precision

A couple of days ago I heard a weather forcaster commenting on the fact that after December 21 the days will start getting longer. The laughed and said "Well, actually days are prety much the same length all the time.  What I meant to say is that the hours of daylight will start to increase." Good for him.  I do appreciate accuracy. 

Star Wars has another Winner

I saw the newest Star Wars movie, "Star Wars VIII" this evening with my family.  It was a delayed birthday present and well worth the wait.  I've been told that this episode has had mixed reviews but I enjoyed it very much. I must admit to having a long term love affair with the Star Wars series going all the way back to "Episode IV" which came out 40 years ago. I remember my son, age 5 at the time, sitting on the edge of his seat during the entire show. He jumped with that first jump into hyperspace and has loved the idea of space travel ever since. This evening he wasn't on the edge of his seat but rather reclining in a big comfy theater chair. The theater experience has changed over the last 40 years but the magic of getting caught up in an exciting movie is still there. I was very pleased with this one.

Special /December Days

Today is (was) "Go Caroling Day" but I restrained myself for the good of all my neighbors and did not go caroling up and down the halls. Tomorrow is "Humbug Day" but except for wrapping a last few gifts I'm ready to celebrate with my family. I'm even ready to cook Christmas dinner so I'm not really feeling too humbugish. I did hear a funny story in the news today though about an eight year old boy who got so caught up in the story of the Grinch that he became convinced that the Grinch was about to steal Christmas at his house and called 911.  Happily, the police were very understanding. So no Humbug for me.  Once I get past Christmas though there are two more special days I do plan to celebrate. December 27 is "Fruitcake Day" and I am one of the few people I know willing to admit I really like fruitcake so I will be celebrating appropriately. Then December 28 is "Card Playing Day" and, as luck would have it, I will be with family members who love to play cards.  So bring on those silly special days.

My patiencde is wearing out

It's 10:49pm as I start to write this.  I started watching "The Voice" at 8:00pm, knowing that there would be a lot of music and other entertainment before we got to the big announcement - who will be the winner of "The Voice" but I never thought they wouldn't make any announcements until the last 10 minutes. Finally, at 10:52 he's announcing 4th place - Red Marlowe.  That works for me.  I thought the three female finalists were all better than him.  Third place is Brooke Simpson (I thought she would be second).  Woops, now they have to take a commercial break.  Have you noticed how long commercial breaks are these days?   Back from the break, words from the coaches.  It's 10:58 now....  Second place goes to Addison and Chloe ends up in first place.  I'm a little disappointed but still 2nd place isn't bad.  I think we'll be hearing more of Addison Agen. At age 16 she has a long time to work on her career.  So, good for you Addison.  And that's the last you'll here from me on this subject til she wins her first Grammy. 

Fort Wayne in the news

If you watched "The Voice" this evening, you know that Fort Wayne's own Addison Agen did very well and, I think, has a good chance of winning the competition.  We'll know the results tomorrow. I think she was best over all and I did vote for her, but I must admit Brooke's performance of "Oh Holy Night" was really amazing.  
But more good news for Fort Wayne.  Last year IPFW's Mastadons unexpectedly won a basketball game against then 5th ranked IU played at the Coliseum here in Fort Wayne. I believe that last year they won it in an overtime.  Tonight the same two teams met in Bloomington, and to my (and I think some other people's amazement) IPFW won again, this time by 20 points. 
So let's hear it for Fort Wayne success stories!!!

keeping it light

A friend commented today that my recent blog posts haven't been very humorous.  This blog is called "Luci's Light Look at Life" so, in an effort to lighten it up a bit, this evening I am going to share some of my favorite, recently observed T-shirt wisdom.  My daughter is getting T-shirts for her highschool children that say "Marching Band, Like a Sport only Harder". I have purchased for my left-handed sister-in-law a shirt that says "I may be left handed but I'm always right."  Since she is only 4'11" tall, I was also tempted by "I'm not short, I'm fun sized."  But my current favorite, which I should buy for myself says "I'm planning to be cremated when I die.  it's my last chance to have a smoking hot body."

What have I done?

My daughter gave me a DNA test kit for my birthday this week.  I had asked for it because I'm interested in what it might show about my ancestry. The kit I used is from 23andMe and the instructions were easy to follow.  I spit in the tube and mailed it off today after skimming their very lengthy disclosures, registering on line, and agreeing to their terms.  I also answered a lot of survey questions and generally thought the whole process was pretty interesting and harmless. That was until I watched "48 Hours" this evening.  It involved, among other things, the ordeal a young  man went through when his DNA was almost a match to that found at a murder scene.  What caught my interest was that he came under suspicion, not because he had any criminal record, but based on a near match with his father's DNA which was on a public DNA search site, in this case Ancestry.com.  I'm not really too worried about this. My children and grandchildren are all law abiding citizens as far as I know.  I did find another of the company's disclosures interesting.  They warned that they are not liable if you don't like what the test results show. The example they used was discovering that your father wasn't your biological father.  I'm not worried about that either since, as far as I know, my dad never had his DNA analyzed so I'll never know if we match or not.  I have no reason to suspect that we don't.  I will however be surprised if my results don't show a large percentage of German ancestry.  I'm looking forward to getting the results. Stay tuned.

A different theater experience.

I attended the Arena Dinner Theater's production of "Peter and the Starcatcher" this evening.  The dinner was traditional; salad with French dressing, beef and noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and cake. All very tasty but not particularly imaginative.  The play, on the other hand, was quite imaginative.  It was the story of how a poor, mistreated orphan boy became Peter Pan.  A wildly slapstick performance of a cute story.  The mermaid scene (with all of the pirates and sailors portraying the mermaids) was a sight I hope will fade from my memory with time.  The play was full of slightly skewed 'one liners'. One of my favorites was "No man is an archepelago." (Maybe you had to be there.)  One of my favorite bits in the play involved the pirate captain accidentally cutting his hand off and then running through a list of things he will now never be able to do.  Most memorable "I shall never be a satisfactory juggler."  It was quite a play.

I'm sensing a trend here.

Looking ahead on my calendar of special days, I find that tomorrow is "National Cupcake Day" while Saturday is "Chocolate Covered Anything Day". Then on Monday we have "Bake Cookies Day." Anyone would think a special event is coming up soon. While I probably won'r be baking cookies or cupcakes anytime soon (mainly because others are bringing desserts to my Christmas dinner) it would just seem wrong to ignore "Chocolate Covered Anything Day."  In fact I've already made a start on that celebration. A couple of days ago I baked some coconut blondies, from a mix, and thought, as the pan was cooling on my counter, that some chocolate chips sprinkled on top and allowed to melt might be good, and it was.  It's hard to go wrong by covering anything with chocolate except maybe broccoli, although I admit I've never tried that. Feel free to experiment.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Tomorrow is "Roast Chestnuts Day", not too surprising that this is in December along with "Gingerbread Decorating Day' which was last Saturday. I'm not sure what "Wear Brown Shoes Day" (December 4) has to do with Christmas but who knows, there may be some deeper meaning there that I'm not aware of. Anyway, back to those chestnuts. Many, many years ago when I was teaching in New York State some other teachers and I took a bus load of students on a field trip to some museums in the city.  The bus ride was the noisiest I have ever been on but I prefer not to dwell on that. While there a teacher friend introduced me to roast chestnuts.  They actually were being roasted over hot coals in little carts along the sidewalks and you caould buy a small bag full for a minimal price. I remember them being hot and very tasty. No wonder there's a song about them.

Hooray, she did it again.

No, this time I'm not talking about Addison, althought she did make it and is one of the four finalists who will compete next week. I'm very pleased for her but this evening I'm talking about my youngest (8th grade) granddaughter who won the all-school spelling bee at her school today. She will go on to compete at the county level sometime after Christmas. Needless to say, I'm very proud of her. She also won at her school last year but didn't make it as far as state. Hopefully this year (well, next year actually) will be her year. Fingers crossed and best wishes.

How far we've come

Today is National 'App' Day which ties in perfectly with what I was already planning to write about. Yesterday I drove to the mall to do some Chritsmas shopping and realized, when I got there, that I had left my cell phone at home. My first response was a quick burst of panic as the thought passed through my mind that I wouldn't have a way to call for help on the way home if I was in an accident. After reassuring myself that someone (or everyone) in the crowd of onlookers who would gather at this fictional accident would no doubt call for help for me - after they clicked off a bunch of pictures of course.  Once I reassured myself that I would no doubt make it home alright, I realized I would still miss my phone. It contained pictures (love that camera) of things I had planned to shop for. I don't use all of the apps available but I do appreciate the availability. The whole experience made me remember my first "cell phone" or box phone, a clunky box that sat on the floor of my car between the front seats. My husband insisted I have it for safety's sake because I was making a driving trip to Reno by myself. It did make me feel more secure. Of course neither of us considered that (back in the 80's) there were vast stretches of the wild west without any cell tower service.  Ah well, i did survive that drive, just as I made it home yesterday.  Of course, I will have to go back this week, with my phone, to finish my shopping. Ho, ho, ho....

Computer frustration

I've been working on my annual Christmas poem today. It's not great poetry but I have fun composing it, unless, of course the computer program doesn't cooperate. I have two programs I can write with, Word and Wordpad. Wordpad is simpler but Word offers more options so I decided to use Word. The typing went fine and I saved it, or thought I did, then couldn't find it later.  A mysterious blank document popped up, yikes! I searched through several files, thinking I had accidentally deleted it (panic time) until it finally showed up in, of course, the last file I checked. Not willing to risk having to go through this hunt again, I copied and pasted it into Wordpad where it is readily accessible.  Sometimes simple is much better.

not so secret present

I finished wrapping my gifts today for the 10 year old girl I selected off the Angel Tree at church this year. I was able to get everything on her list and the wrapping was no problem.  However, keeping her gifts a surprise until Christmas morning may be a problem. One of the gifts she wanted was a light up 'figet spinner' and I noticed, after it was wrapped that the light up feature was glowing through the heavy wrapping paper. The other toy gift she requested was a "FurReal Puppy". This annoying toy is motion activated and repeats 80 different phrases, interspersed with barks and an occasional rude noise (was that really necessary?). I'm sure a 10 year old will think it's hilarious. I tried pushing on the tail to turn it off, as the note on the box suggested, to no avail. So it's sitting, heavily wrapped, quiet at the moment, but very likely to give away any surprise when anyone shakes it.  Ah well, it will be someone elses problem tomorrow. Being a basically helpful person, I did remember to enclose four AA batteries so its little life can go on. 

now I'm in hte Christmas mood

Yesterday  I finished some Christmas shopping, not all of it, that would be much too out of character, but enough that I could get all of the gifts for my Spokane family shipped out today. I always feel good when I know that box has been sent. I also finished shopping for my angel tree girl. My granddaughter helped me with most of this but I needed to find one more item on her list.  I braved Toys R Us to find a FurReal Puppy which I have temporarily stowed in the spare bedroom because it is motion activated and was barking and talking to me whenever I walked by.  There must be a way to turn it off but I haven't figured it out. After Sunday it will be someone elses problem. As a reward (at least I'm seeing it that way) for all this energetic pre-Christmas preparation, this evening I was able to relax and enjoy "Jingle Bell Jazz" presented at C2G Music Hall by "Heartland Sings". it was a lovely evening of lively Christmas music and I really enjoyed it. The wine helped too. The music ranged from classics like "Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire" which always brings back memories of a long ago visit to New York City to new compositions like "Food Coma Christmas" which was almost to true to be funny. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow. It just keeps getting better and better.

The Great American Baking Show

I enjoy watching "The Great American Baking Show" because I know it won't tempt me to over indulge in sweets.  Oh, don't get me wrong - everything the competitors create looks absolutely scrumptious (thank goodness I don't have 'smell-a-vision') but there's no way I would go to the lengths they do to create such goodies. I also don't have a proofing drawer or many of the other bits of equipnment they use, which helps me resist the urge to start rolling out some dough. i do think it's deliciously ironic that one of the commercials on the show this evening was for Pillsbury's cinnamon rolls in a tube. Now that's my kind of baking.

Angels, angels, angels

Every year the women of our church hold an event called Advent by Candlelight. Women are invited to host tables which really just means decorating them and (usually) hosting women from some church group. I said I would host a table, and ended up with two.  Happily a friend helped out and became my co-host. She knew how to fold green cloth napkins into Christmas trees and those were a big hit. We were told to decorate our tables to reflect a favorite Christmas carol.  I chose "Angels We Have Heard on High" and asked those who sat at our tables to bring some angels of their own to share. It was great.  We ended up with tall, slender agnes, modern stylized angels, chubby little cupid angels, homemade angels (one my daughter made in kindergarten) tree topper angels and more. It sounds like a terrible hodgepodge but it actually was really beautiful and fun to hear the stories behind some of the angels. I am really in the Christmas spirit now, and as soon as I figure out who left the one mystery angel behind all will be well.

Expert Advice

It's always good to seek expert advice when you know you need help. Today, for example, I took my 13 year old granddaughter with me to help me shop for gifts for a 10 year old girl whose card I had sellected off the Angel Tree at our church.  She led me right to the appropriate clothing, found the toy requested, and we finished up the whole process in about 15 minutes. There's nothing like an expert shopper to get things done efficiently and I came away feeling like my angel child will enjoy these gifts.  I hope so.

Biz Town

Today I tried something new.  I volunteered, with some other friends at my church, to help with the Biz Town (Jr. Acheivement) experience for about a thousand 4th and 5th graders from South Wayne Elementary School. Actually it was more like 80, but it felt like a thousand as they milled around, going from "business" to business doing their assigned projects. It was an interesting experience and I will probably agree to do it again but it was also frustrating in some ways. I had one boy in my group of seven (we were the utility company) who needed to be led by the hand through his jobs, which involved quite a lot of reading. He also was very intense and easily upset when he met with any frustration. I'm not sure how jobs were assigned but he would have done much better with the job of changing furnace filters in all of the other companies. The boy who actually did that job finished in an hour and didn't have much else to do for the rest of the 5-hour experience. Overall it was well organized. The staff at JA had everything we needed to get the jobs done but I felt I could have done a better job of helping my group if I hadn't had to focus so much on one student.  I didn't know, until I was filling out their computerized survey at the end of the day that there was on-line training I could have taken. Maybe next time. One thing assured me the students were learning something. Early in the day, when the students had only finished a small part of their jobs, one girl said to me "No wonder my parents are always so frazzled when they get home from work at night." 

it still makes me laugh

I just finished watching the Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special and I am amazed at how many times I laughed. All of the sketches were ones I had seen before but they still made me laugh.  The ones involving Tim Conway were the best.  Most epic were the Siamese elephants bit (they were joined at the trunks), the dentist, the slippery doorknob, and of course Carol's own scene in "Went with the Wind" where she appears wearing a dress made from draperies with the curtain rod still attached. And all that comedy without any obscenities or crude innuendos. Isn't it interesting that good, clean humor could be so funny? Some current writers of 'comedy' shows could take notes.

My Christmas Poem

Every year I write a Christmas poem instead of a newsletter. I hit the high points of my year and figure if people are curious for more details we can talk. Today I realized that it is December and I had better get started. I did buy the Christmasy paper a couple of weeks ago so there's really no excuse to delay any longer. And so I have started.  Here are the first two lines of my 2017 poem:
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Do you have to show it all?

Stay tuned for more.

Car Envy

I'm really very happy with the small car I drive. it's a Fiat 500L and it suits me very well at this time in my life.  However, I must admit that when I see car commercials on TV (and they're impossible to avoid) I can't help but think how nice it would be to have a car that parallel parks all by itself. Although, to be honest, I can't remember the last time I actually needed to parallel park. When I was learning to drive, many years ago, a girlfirend who was helping me drilled and drilled me on parallel parking. I was so ready for that part of my test, but when it came time to parallel park the tester had me try it on a quiet residential street with only one car parked on it.  I pulled up beside that car and had the whole block to back up and pull in. So easy. I think what I really need is a totally self-driving car. Until that time the next best thing may be to let my grandchildren drive me around.  They will all be in the driver training years over the next four years. I'm trying to decide if I would be more nervous driving with a grandchild or in a self-driving car. I think it might be a toss up. 

Daydreams

I enjoy seeing sports reports on the local news about women's basketball.  When I was in high school we did not have a girls' basketball team. We barely had any physical education for girls at all, I think it was six weeks. But I'm sure, given the opportunity, I could have been a basketball star. After all I was the tallest girl in our school. Granted, it was a very small school, but 5'10" is tall enough to play women's basketball. I have a friend who is only 5'2" and she played basketball at a much larger high school. When I close my eyes I can picture myself running up and down the court, dribbling the ball, flawlessly weaving around the oposition guards and sinking basket after basket to win the game. The really nice thing about daydreams is that they don't need to have any relationship with reality.  In my daydreams I can completely disregard the fact that in highschool I was clumsy, uncoordinated, gawky, nearsighted and never could dribble a basketball more that two steps.  Ah well, it's my daydream and i will continue to enjoy it. Just listen to the cheeers of that crowd.

Giving Tuesday

Today was Giving Tuesday and I did make a charitable donation. Of course it was a check I had already written to a charity I give to fairly regularly, but I mailed it today so that should count, right?  I was interested to hear the warnings on TV about avoiding scams and had a little scare along those lines.  I had recently charged an upcoming trip on my credit card. I want the points and will pay it off this month but I was surprised to see an email purporting to be from my credit card company telling me that I had charged too much and should make an immediate payment of $1,700.  Or I could call a phone number provided if I had any questions. I checked the number against the customer service number on my card and they were not the same.  After checking on line to see what my current ballance actually was, I called the number on my card and talked with a very nice real person named Melissa. She checked my account, agreed with me on the actual current balance, and said it looked like the charge for the trip had been run through twice. She got it straightened out and it's all OK now but I'm still wondering what happened. I've worked with the same travel agency many times with never a problem. It probably was an honest error, but who knows?  At least it's good to know I can still talk with a real live person when there's a problem. Thanks for your help, Melisssa..

Addison sings on

I managed to resist going on line to buy anything today so no Cyber Monday for me. I also skipped Black Friday, and, in spite of all the alluring commercials, I have not yet bougth a new Lexus. However, I did go on line this evening to vote for Addison Agen, the contestant on "The Voice" from Fort Wayne. I know I'm prejudiced but I do think she's one of the best on the show. Tomorrow we'll see if she has made it through this week's competition. I like this show but they are certainly drawing out the final stages. Last week the 12 best cntestants competed and only one was eliminated. This evening the 11 competed. I'm not sure how many will be chopped tomorrow but I think they could cut half of them and speed things up (as long as Addison isn't part of that half).

Mother really did know best.

Turns out my mother knew what she was talking about when my brothers and I were children and were told to "Go outside and play." It was a daily refrain, especially in the summer months when we didn't have school. Yesterday on the morning news show they had a report on the latest 'medicine' being prescribed by doctors. It's nothing chemical but rather the instruction to spend at least one half hour walking outside in parklike settings. They call it Ecotherapy and it's supposed to help overcome anxiety and depression, among other things. It turns out that seeing trees, hearing birds sing and listening to water (river, ocean, whatever) is good for your eyes and your general health. Who knew? Well actauly anyone with a little common sense knows that you generally feel better if you get outside for a little while every day. In the meantime, I'm not sure if sitting on my balcony counts, but I can see trees and running water and there's lots of bird song when the weather is warmer. It works for me.

Riding the Holly Trolley

My daughter, granddaughter and I rode the Holly Trolley today and enjoyed Small Business Saturday in downtown Fort Wayne.  I did this last year on my own but it was much more fun to have them with me.  It is very convenient that one of the trolley stops is right here at my apartment building. We enjoyed lots of little shops, and some big spreads like the LuLaRoe shop set up in the Grand Wayne Center. I bougth some very comfy tights which I will probably never wear out in public. We tried a new restaurant for lunch. Caliente is a Cuban restaurant across the street from JK O'Donnells. We were actually heading to JK's til we discovered no one under 21 could enter. My 15 year old granddaughter is growing up fast but she can't pass for 21 yet. Anyway the Cuban option turned out to be very good. It was fun to be downtown with lots of people around. It reminded me of "the good old days" when we went downtown to do all of our Christmas shopping. Of course back then there were big stores down town, Do you remember Wolf and Dessauer, Patterson Fletcher, and of course Murphy's. Did you know that Cindi's Diner still sells Murphy's donuts? Talk about sweet memories.

The magic is still there.

For the last many years my grandchildren have come over on the day after Thanksgiving to help me decorate my Christmas tree. Each year we pull out all the old ornaments and enjoy remembering the history of each piece. This year, though, I thought perhaps the tradition had run its course. They are all teenagers now with busy lives. However, my daughter and her two children (ages 15 and 16) decided to come over this afternoon and help with my tree. And just like every other year, by the time we had a few ornaments on the tree the laughter and memories were flowing. We snacked, we listened to Christmas music, we finished the tree and it all felt so right. One more thing to be truly thankful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I was blessed with lots of family time and lots of great food today. I'm counting my blessings (not calories, just blessings) tonight and hope you are too. Now I have to go sleep off the turkey.

Turn on the lights!

Tonight Fort Wayne continued a long tradition of turning on the downtown Christmas lights on Thanksgiving Eve, so now I know it's time to get serious about Christmas shopping. I did not join the thousands outside but I did enjoy the TV coverage. Of course the high point is the lighting of Santa Claus and his reindeers.  They said on TV today that this Santa display was first put up in 1940, used for several years and then stored away until the 1980s when it was rediscovered and used again.  I have clear memories of my brother and me being driven downtown by my parents to see the Santa Claus on the side of the store (about 1950 I'm guessing) and then being taken inside Wolf and Dessauer's Department Store to sit on the real Santa's lap. Back then Phil Steigerwald was Santa and I've never yet seen a truer rendition.  Many years later I had the pleasure of working with Phil in real estate and I'm happy to say hew was every bit as nice as Santa should be. Sweet memories. 

more great days

As if it isn't enough that we have Thanksgiving already this week, there are four other days that can be celebrated this week. First, and I missed this one, Monday was "Name Your PC Day". Now I admit to naming my car, I even have a license plate with its name on it. "Blue" in case you're wondering. But I have never considered naming my PC. Guess I'll pass on that one. Tomorrow is "Go For a Ride Day" but I plan to stay home all day preparing the food I'll be taking to our family Thanksgiving. I guess, if I discover a missing ingredient, I might take a quick trip to the grocery store.  That will have to do. Saturday is "Shopping Reminder Day.' Really??? A month before Christmas do we have to be reminded to shop? But Sunday will be "Cake Day.' Now there's a holiday I can embrace with enthusiasm. I wonder if brownies count?

I voted

I watched Addison Agen on "The Voice" this evening. She's the 16 year old from Fort Wayne who has made it to the live, last stage of the competition. She's one of the final 12.  Tomorrow night results will be announced and we'll know if she moves on to the next level.  As I understand it, only one of the top 12 will be sent home tomorrow. They do like to drag these things out. I don't know if she'll win the competition but I do think she should end up in the top 5 or 6. For the first time ever I voted. You can vote up to 10 times so I cast my 10 votes for Addison.  keep your fingers crossed, or better yet vote for Addison.  You can vote on nbc.com.

Amish potatoes and corn

I just got home from an interesting weekend spent with friends in Holmes County, Ohio. This is Amish country in Ohio and we had fun exploring cheese stores, bakeries, antique shops and a 'hardware' store that stretched on for a couple of blocks and sold an amazing variety of stuff including some hardware. Sort of an eastern version of Wall Drugstore in South Dakota without the turquoise jewelry (at least I didn't find any).  In the evening we enjoyed a Christmas variety show at the Amish Country Theater. It was not, as I expected, a play about Amish people but rather a series of acts including a buck tooth MC who told corny jokes that still managed to get a lot of laughs, an excellent a capella men's quartet who made beautiful music and a ventriloquist who was the hit of the show. His routines with his rooster puppet and his 93-year-old man puppet were very funny but his best routine was using four volunteers from the audience as his 'puppets'. He instructed the volunteers to stand in a row and simply move their mouths as he stood behind them and tapped them on the back, quickly or slowly according to how fast he tapped them.  He, of course, provided the voices, high and squeeky for the tall macho guy, deep and solumn for the petite woman. The four volunteers moved their mouths as instructed and it was amazingly effective and very funny. 
Much of the countryside we drove through was rolling hills full of farm scenes right out of Currier and Ives. It would probably have been beautiful but much of yesterday was spent dodging gushing rain storms which took a lot of the fun out of strolling or driving from place to place. I almost forgot, one of the high points for me was my absolutely decadent lunch of mashed potatoes and noodles.  Comfort food from my childhood and perfect on a rainy day.

How much is taht doggie in the window?

I think I might have to rush out and buy a dog tomorrow. According to an announcer on TV people with dogs have 30% less chance of dying. Really? If that's the case a lot of people in my apartment building have the right idea. Several cute dogs ride the elevator with me from time to time.  I wonder if I just pat other people's dogs if that would be enough. My brother has two dogs. Does that give him 60% less chance of dying and what about my daughter and son-in-lawn with three dogs? On second thought maybe it just feels like your living forever when you're outside walking your dog on a cold snowy night.  I think I'll give this a little more thought,

The old button box.

According to the calendar today is "Button Day" but it doesn't specify if this refers to buttons that hold clothes together or pin-on buttons that celebrate some cause like a political candidate or a marching band member. I've decided to assume it's refering to the holding clothes together type.  I really came to appreciate the practicality of buttons when I became aquainted with some Amish girls in high school.  They weren't allowed to have buttons on their clothes (too showy) so the fronts of their dresses were held together with straight pins.  They seemed to handle it without getting stuck but it didn't seem very pratical to me. I think these days some of them have started using velcro. When I was a child I used to enjoy exploring my mother's button box. Actually it was a drawer at the bottom of her sewing box.  Such a variety of shapes, sizes and sparkles. I don't think Mom every threw a button away. I was always impressed with how she could find a matcing button for any that got lost from my brothers' or my clothes. These days I seldom need to sew on a button but I do know how and before I go out and buy a replacement I go to my button box. Mine is actually a little blue glass figurine in the shape of a lady. Her top half lifts off and the buttons are stored in her skirt.  Luckily for me lots of the clothes I buy come with one replacement button. i faithfully put those in the button lady just in case.  So, enough about buttons. On another note, yesterday was evidently "Clean Out You Refrigerator Day." Woops, guess I missed that one.  I'll put it in my calendar for next year. And if you believe that I have a rare antique button I'd like to sell you.

Rugby any one

It was announced this evening on the sports news that a Fort Wayne Rugby team is going to compete for a national championship. I personally never played Rugby but I'm familiar with the game because my daughter played it, on a coed team, when she was in college. Hearing the mention of it on TV brought back a flash of memory from her Rugby playing days. The first time my husband and I saw her play, in a home game at Earlham College, I was appalled by the roughness of the game. She ran, she was involved in scrums, she was in there 'fighting' for the whole game. Rugby games don't have time outs so the game went pretty fast. My daughter is six feet tall and tough so I wasn't really too worried about her safety, but I kept wondering, as I saw her running up and down the field, what was wrong with her hair. I could tell she had it up in a pony tail but something didn't look quite right.  I found out what was wrong after the game was over. She had had the bottom four inches of her hair shaved off all around her head.  As she explained it to me, that allowed her to tape her ears so they couldn't be torn off. Such a lovely game. Interestingly, when she took her remaining hair out of the pony tail it was heavy enough to hang down and completely cover the shaved part. Instant transformation from rugged Rugby player to the young lady I knew and loved.  So reassuring.

Am I spoiled or what?

I've been sitting here feeling put upon this evening because my bank had the nerve to merge with another one meaning that not only do I need to learn a new bank name, I also was required to re-register, and establish a new password before I could do my usual online banking.  Then I got to thinking. How spoiled am I anyway? I was able to do all of the necessary paperwork on line in less than 10 minutes (including time out to make a cup of tea while 'reading' their loooooong disclosure) while sitting here warm and cozy in my robe and slippers. I didn't need to be dressed, drive across town, read and sign physical paperwork, etc. I guess I'll just relax and be glad it all worked.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school, or at least the first day of tutoring with a program through Fort Wayne Community Schools called Study Connections. Every year several of us at First Pres agree to tutor young children from South Wayne Elementary School who are struggling a little with their studies. We meet at the church on Mondays after school for one hour. This year I've been paired with a nine-year-old third grade boy who needs some help with reading and math and a little boost of self confidence. He selected a Captain Underpants book as the first one we will read together. Not my favorite book but I figure if it keeps him reading and it's not obscene (it's not) then it's all good. It's actually pretty funny so far but don't tell any of my sophisticated friends. If all of the teaching I have done over the years could have been one on one, I would probably still be a teacher. Unfortunately, when I was teaching full time there wasn't much call for private tutors in art. Ah well....

Another great day

Today, according to my special calendar, is "Tongue Twister Day". I didn't know tongue twisters needed a day but I've accumulated a few favorites over the years.  Every play I've been in begins each performance with a half hour warm up. In addition to physical exercises we stand on stage projecting our voices to the far corners of the theater and reciting such ditties as 'unique New York, unique New York, you know you need unique New York" and "red leather, yellow leather, red leather. yellow leather" over and over. One of my favorites is "What a todo to die today at a minute or two til two. A thing distinctly hard  to say yet harder still to do."  Of course there's also the classic "She sells sea shells by the sea shore." That's it, I've had my fill of tongue twisters for today. 

"Sister Act" is a hit.

Just got home from seeing "Sister Act, the Musical" presented by University of Saint Francis School of Creative Arts (SOCA they call themselves for those of you who like acronyms). It was an excellent performance, great voices for all of the solos and lots of energy.  As usual I got caught up in admiring the stage sets and these were outstanding.  From soaring Gothic archs to a seedy bar to a run down police department everything was well done.  When they added disco balls and glittering strings of light for the final performance in the cathedral it made me wish every church had disco balls.  Well maybe not really but it was a lot of fun.  The Mother Superior reminded me of Sister Annthelma, the principal when I taught at St. Henry's School many years ago.  This play takes place in the 70s and I was teaching early in that same decade. Like the Mother Superiior in the play, Sister Annthelma was just not at all sure that all the changes taking place in the Catholic church were for the best.  She was the last nun in the school to change to the street length habit and when the Pope decreed that women and girls didn't need to cover their hair in mass any more you could tell that, even though she knew the Pope was infallible, she suspected that he migth have missread God's intent in this case.

Now I've heard everything.

There is a politician currently running for a congressional seat who is being accused of sexually molesting some teenage girls many years ago.  I do not know if this is true or, as some claim, simply a ruse to get him to drop out of the election.  However, a statement I heard in an interview today really got my blood boiling. A local voter, being interviewed said he would vote for the candidate whether he was guilty or not.  Then he went on to say "After all, Mary was a teenage girl and Joseph was a grown man and they were the parents of Jesus, so there's nothing wrong with it."  I'm sorry, what???? This contention is wrong to me on so many levels that I can't imagine any Christian, no matter where they fall on the conservative to liberal scale, agreeing with this position. 

EWATAA

I understand the allure and convenience of acronyms and there are some that have been around for some time that I'm very comfortable with. NASA is one that comes to mind. Technically a true acronym is formed by the first letters of a series of words like 'National Aeronautic and Space Administration' that are used as abbreviations that can be pronounced as a word. Another one that I'm associated with is MOPS (Mohthers of Preschoolers). I'm not sure what it's called when first letters are used to identify something but they can't be pronounced as a word.  PTSD and LGBTA are examples.  I suppose these are just considered abbreviations. But it seems to me too many things are being abbreviated.  Maybe I just don't want to have to stop and figure out what things mean as I'm listening to a news report. For example, on a national news show this morning the commentator was talking about people who have signed non-disclosure agreements and then regret having done so. About half way through the report she switched from saying non-disclosure agreements to calling them NDAs. This may be a commonly used abbreviation in legal circles but I found it distracting in the news report.  Perhaps I'm being too picky but I enjoy hearing real words. Ah well, TIAD.

Musings about Martin Luther

2017 is the 500th anniversary year of the Protestant Reformation and even though I attend a Presbyterian church we've been hearing quite a lot about Martin Luther, especially during the month of October since he nailed those 95 thesis on the church door in Wittenburg on October 31, 1517.  Tonight we had a class that focused on Luther's music and I learned a few things I didn't knwo before. For example during the years 1523 to 1524 he wrote 23 hymns.  He liked to write new texts but often used old popular melodies familiar to his congregation. His contention was "Why should the Devil have all the good tunes?"  A notable exception to tbis practice is his best know hymn "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" for which he wrote the tune and text. He wrote that hymn in 1529. I think it's great that it has lasted for almost 500 years.  Another hymn he wrote, one of my favorites, is "From Heaven Above".  Originally this hymn had 15 stanzas but our current hymnal has cut it to five, which was probably a wise decision.  In the days when sermons typically ran two hours or more a 15 stanza song probably seemed like nothing but I think modern congregations, no matter how devout, might get a little restive after the first 10 verses or so.  

Lady Gaga put on a great show.

I happened to ride down in the elevator this morning with a young lady who was very interested to learn that I had been to the Lady Gaga concert in Indianapolis Sunday evening. She said that several of her friends had posted about it and said it was amazing. It was. I was not a huge Lady Gaga fan but after seeing this show I certainly understand her appeal. Not only does she have a great voice and a lot of musical talent, she also comes across as a really nice person. 
I particularly enjoyed the songs she performed while playing the piano. But if I'm being totally honest, my favorite part of the show was the special effects. Light beams and a wild variedy of patterns projected on huge "clouds" suspended from the rafters, bridges that could be raised and lowered allowing her to walk from one end of the arena floor to the other, stepping from one round stage to another along the way, lots of projections and colored flashing  lights all combined to make it a marvelous spectacle.  The other interesting spectacle was the wild variety of people in attendance. the pink cowboy hats that many of the women and girls were wearing in honor of her newest CD "Joanne" were great. My friend, the one who had decided we should go to this concert and bought the tickets months ago, asked me if I felt 'out of my element'. Not really. People are people and I enjoy them in all shapes and sizes, and there certainly were all shapes and sizes in attendance. By the way I know I wasn't the oldest person there because the friends I was with are both a few months older than me.  All in all it was a fun experience.

Lady Gaga and the marching bands

I just got home from an interesting musical weekend. Three girffriends and I had planned for months to go to the Lady Gaga concert in Indianapolis last night and spend a few extra days together in Indy.  What I didn't realize was that, on Saturday night, the Carroll High School Charger Pride Band, in which two of my grandchildren march, would be competing in the ISSMA state finals of the marching band competition.  They were one of ten bands state wide who made it to state in the Class A catagory and I was disappointed that I had already made plans and wouldn't be able to see them. But, by an amazing coincidence, the hotel where one of our group had made our reservations was right beside Lucas Oil Stadium where the competition would take place. We didn't have any firm plans for Saturday night and my friends agreed that watching the bands compete would be fun. It was. They all put on great shows. There was lots of stiff competition from larger bands. Credit is due to Homestead who won first place with a really fabulous production which included an ice skater.  I thought Carroll might come in 4th or 5th but sadly they finished 9th. Our seats were too high to see exactly what happened but my daughter explained it to me later. Their performance was going beautifully when one of the flag girls accidentally tripped a saxaphone player who fell down. Three other instrumentalists, marching backwards in formation, didn't see what had happened and also fell down. Needless to say this cost them some points. Ah well, there's always next year. I really feel sorry for that flag girl.  She must be feeling pretty miserable.  
Lady Gaga's concert was a very different experience.  More about that tomorrow night.

Is it possible to worry to much about cleaness?

I heard an interesting report on TV today about how clean a person should keep things in their house.  I've heard similar reports before and I do try to live a clean life, within reason. I do vaccuum and dust fairly regularly and of course I run the dishwasher and put out the garbage. I even recycle, and occasionally wash a window. My bathrooms are clean and I swiffer my tile floors sometimes (especially if company is coming). I did wonder though about some things on the report this evening. One question they asked was how often should you wash your pajamas? They said the average time in a survey is every 17 days but the reporter suggested every 3 days is better. What they didn't say in the report was how many pairs of pajamas we're talking about here. One pair of pajamas worn for 17 days sounds disgusting but if you have 17 pairs of pajamas and wash them all together every 17 days that sounds pretty clean to me. I personally wash all of my clothes every 14 days but that doesn't mean I wear them for 14 days.  They also mentioned that the TV remote control is one of the germiest surfaces in the house and should be wiped frequently with antibacterial wipes. Personally I don't put my remote in my mouth so I'm not too worried about this. One mroe thing. She said bathroom hand towels should only be used for one day. That's ok with me if you want to do it but I didn't appreciate the suggestion that we should use disposable hand towels.  Seems to me that just adds to the polution problem.  Ah well, I guess I'll just go to bed (in pajamas that have not been worn for 17 days) and worry about all this tomorrow. 

What a fine idea...

According to my November calendar tomorrow is "Men Make Dinner Day".  Seems like a fine idea to me. Since I don't have a husband available to cook dinner for me I guess I'll have to go looking for a restaurant with a really good male chef.  But thinking about men who cook, early on in our dating days my husband-to-be cooked dinner for me in his little apartment.  He "cooked" by openng and heating multiple cans of Mexican food. I had never had Mexican food at that point in my life and the canned version was not the best introduction.  Happily, I maried him anyway, and on our honeymoon in San Antonio, we ate dinner at a really excellent Mexican restaurant where I got to taste the real thing.  I learned two things; (1) I actually love Mexican food and (2) throughout our married life any time I wanted to eat out I only had to suggest going to a Mexican restaurant. This arrangement led to a very happy marriage and a lot of great food.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to one and all.  They just said on the evening news that they are going to give a tip on how to get rid of leftover Halloween candy. Really?  Is getting rid of left over candy a problem. For that matter how do you define "leftover" candy? Leftover food is easy to understand. It's an item in your refrigerator that makes you feel virtuous twice; once when you wrap it and carefully stash it in the frige and later when it has turned weirdly green (shades of Halloween) and you throw it away before some one eats it and is poisoned. As for candy, I have never had rhe experience of candy languishing in my cupboard for so long that it goes bad. I suppose there's always a first time but I don't think it will be this year.

Two and a half hours later

I took my cute little Fiat into the dealership today for a very minor repair. I was backing out of a tight parking space a few days ago and brushed my front right tire against a curb. Better the curb than the car on the other side, right? I knew I hadn't damamged anything but the next morning when I started my car a flashing light signal informed me that I needed to check the pressure in my front right tire. So I made an appointment and took it to the service department. I figured I would be in and out in a half hour, How long can it take to blow a little air into a tire?  Two and a half hours later I was finally informed that my car was ready to go.  They did indeed put some air in the tire, gave it a five mile test drive and got the sensor light to turn off. They also did a "multi point" inspection and a "Software Flash" update, whatever that is.  As I waited for my car I heard snatches of conversations at the parts desk which was near where I was sitting. After hearing one man object quite vocally after hearing that the part he wanted to buy would cost $1200.00, I was beginning to envision a mamoth bill at the end of my wait. The longer it takes the more it costs. At least that has been my experience in the past. But, hooray, hooray, it turns out everything they did was covered by my warranty. I don't mind a statement with lots of zeros on it when there are no large numbers in front of them.

Advanced Notice

I think it's only fair to let people know in advance that tomorrow is (are you ready for this?) Candy Corn Day. At our church Halloween festival last week there were bowls of candy corn set out on the tables. I was interested to discover that candy corn now comes in different flavors.  Everyone knows the traditional orange, white and yellow candy corn flavored candy corn, but now you can get apple flavored candy corn (pink, white and green) and there was another flavor but I don't remember what it was. They really looked pretty mixed in the bowls but, sadly for me, I don't much like candy corn, so tomorrow when I go to the store to pick up some last minute Halloween candy I will not be buying candy corn.  I realize that that is what I should buy because I won't be tempted to eat it myself but I know in my heart that I will end up buying something chocolate flavored instead. There must be a Chocolate Candy Day coming up soon.  Oh wait, I think they call that Valentines Day. 

Make a Difference Day

According to my nifty calendar, today is "Make a Difference Day" and, while I can't claim to have made a difference to anyone today, one group certainly did. A motorcycle group (I won't call them a gang because they are much too good for that) spent today -and a good deal of money, I'm sure- planting trees. They replaced 75 trees that had died over the last 100 years in Memorial Park. The original trees had been planted to memorialize local soldiers who died in battle in World War One.  The new trees will be dedicated on Veteran's Day, November 11. I like the idea of trees as a memorial. I think I'll try to go to this dedication.  Although they weren't from Allen County, my mother-in=law's three brothers and my father-in-law all fought in WWI. I never knew my father-in-law. He died before I met my husband from heart problems brought on by the mustard gas he had inhaled during the fighting in France. It all seems so long ago but it was na ugly war.

Another kind of play

I saw a fascinating play at First Presbyterian Theater this evening. It was not a typical FPT play but it was fascinating. The play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" was presented as a fund raiser Genesis, a local organization which provides homes and support for women getting off of drugs. The play itself was a wild emotional ride exploring the lives of a group of black women. I think what I appreciated most about this play were the quick mood swings from hilarious scenes to somber one to grotesquely tragic and back again.  It was presented with no intermission and tha 95 minute play certainly held my attention.  Kudos to the eight ladies who carried this off. There are two more performances tomorrow, 2:00pm and 6:00pm (this one with dinner).

Chanticleer was wonderful

I saw the singing group Chanticleer this evening at First Presbyterian Church.  They were here as part of this season's music series and I'm sure this will turn out to be the most well attended music program at FPC this year.  Always a treat to see the church so full. Chanticleer is a GRAMMY award winning all male a Capella singing group based in San Francisco. Their 12 members come from all over the US and present an amazing range of sound. They sang an interesting variey of music this evening ranging from "Haec dies" composed in 1572 to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  After the performance members of the group were waiting to greet us as we walked out. Ihappened to be close to one of the singers on the way out, and said "You were wonderful." to which he responded "I know." A little further on I passed another one of the group and said something about how much I enjoyed the program. He responded "I'm so glad you liked it.  Thank you for coming." Now that was a nice answer.  His mother would be proud of him. 

Revisiting the cursive debate...

I don't think I'm a cursive snob but something that happened today has me wondering.  I received a thank you note from the walk in clinic I went to last Thursday after my granddog accidentally clawed me.  That, in itself, is pretty noteworthy I think. I certainly wasn't expecting a thank you note.  I'm not sure about the proper etiquette but it seems to me that perhaps I should have sent a note. You know "Thanks for the painless tetanus shot and the great taping job." or something like that. The note I did receive was brief and polite and signed by the two people who worked with me. However it was hand printed (no cursive here) perfectly legible, but it looked like a third grader printed it with uneven lines and a random mixture of upper case and lower case letters.  I can't help feeling that, in this situation, if writing the note in cursive was not an option, it would have looked much more professional to type the note, or just send me an email if they were afraid I couldn't read cursive.  But, once again, no one asked for my opinion. Go figure.

It's coming.

Christmas that is.  It's coming, as it always does.  I've been lulled by the beautiful weather we enjoyed during the first half of October, but suddenly, BAM!, within the last 24 hours I've been hit with Christmas decorations in a store (I know, I know, we're not even past Halloween yet), cold weather, and two Christmas catalogs in my mail.  Speaking of those catalogs, they are skinny little things compared to the ones we use to pour over when I was a child.  You remember "the good old days" when the catlogs were an inch thick and contained everything wonderful you could imagine? Today's versions still happily picture dolls and trucks and blocks - sweetly familiar, but also pages of technology and more pages of Legos. All of these are great toys and some bring back memories. Not the technology toys of course, but there are still some things that I do know how to manipulate, like the boxes of Crayola Crayons. I used to love to get a brand new box of 84 crayons.  Yikes! another harbinger of the Christmas season was just on the news. The weatherman says we could see a few snow flurries by morning.  I'm contemplating hibernation.

Addison is moving on.

I'm a fan of the TV show the "The Voice" and this year there is an extra reason for me to watch. A young lady (16 years old) named Addison is competing on the show. She's from Fort Wayne, and an aquaintance of one of my granddaughters. So far so good for Addison. When she did her first blind audition two chairs turned for her and she chose to be on Miley's  team. This evening she sang a duet in the battle competition.  She sounded wonderful to me but sadly her coach chose to keep the lady she was competing against. I don't remember her name.  Happily, as soon as Miley decided against her, two coaches attempted to steal her.  She decided to go with Adam, so all is well for now and she will get to perform again. Win or loose this has to be a great experience for her.  Go Addison!! I might jsut have to vote this year.

The Wired Word

We started a new Sunday morning discussion group at church this fall.  We meet between the 9 am and 11 am services so people from both can attend. So far it has been a very interesting class.  "The Wired Word" is a national, non-denominational program that sends an email each week to the group leader. He then forwards the information to all of the class members. Each week we look at a current event and then look at how our faith impacts our reaction to that situation. There are always suggested Bible verses and a series of questions to open up discussion.  This morning we departed a bit from the current events theme to discuss our understanding of 'grace' vs 'good works'. It is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther and his 95 Theses.  Since I was raised Lutheran this was familiar territory to me.  What I'm really enjoying about this class is that it is attracting a variety of ages from young couples to old timers like me. It was started with the intention of giving young parents an interesting program while their children are in Sunday school but more than half the people who come regularly are over 50. The age spread makes for some interesting differences in perspective and everyone seems to enjoy the discussions.  I recommend "The Wired Word".

like a faded patchwork quilt

I know it was a beautiful day today but I didn't get out much.  I was busy with a Word project so I sat at my computer with my back to the window for most of the day. However, when I did take a few breaks to rest my eyes, the view from my balcony was lovely.  While I like the warm weather we've been having, I was beginning to wonder if the trees would ever start changing colors. Finally they are, and today. with a little mist in the air, the trees spread out below me looked like soft pieces of old, slightly faded fabric.  The oranges, reds, golds and light greens spead out like a much washed,  lovingly pieced together, hand stitched quilt. It was a quiet feast for the eyes and I loved it. 

enjoying a musical on TV

I'm not a fan of most regular Friday night TV shows so I'm trying something different tonight. PBS Great Performances is showing a musical this evening called "She Loves Me". I have never heard of this particular musical before but so far it's quite good. I'm not sure if this play was written before or after the movie "You've Got Mail" (I suspect before) but it's very much the same story. A man and a woman who work in the same shop (a perfumery of all places) know and loathe each other. But in their private lives they have been writing to each other as part of a lonely hearts club, and, having never met, are madly in love with each other. Needless to say complications ensue. So far, so funny. I recommend it. 

She didn't mean to do it.

I know she didn't mean to hurt me, but yesterday, when I stopped by my daughter's house, one of my granddogs, the sweet boxer, in her evident joy at seeing me, jumped up on me and snagged my hand with one of her toenails.  Suddenly I had a rather deep gash in my hand.  It was only about an inch long but deep, and it bled so much at first that I thought I had cut an artery. I realized pretty quickly that that wasn't the case but by then I had scattered blood around quite a bit of my daughter's kitchen.  I think I got it all mopped up.  When my grandkids got home from school a few minutes later they provided bandages and patched me up. Later in the evening, after a couple of hours of bagging food, when my hand started bleeding again, my daughter patched me up once more and all seemed well. However, when I woke up this morning it still seemed to be bleeding a little, and I have a fear of infections, so I went to my doctor's walk in clinic, thinking they could make sure it was clean and stitch it if necessary.  Turns out it wasn't long enough for stitches (the NP measured it to make sure) but they did soak my hand in antibiotic solution, closed the cut with steri strips, and then, just for the sake of being thorough, gave me a tetanus shot and a 10 day prescription for antibacterial medicine. Over kill?  Maybe, but I must admit I feel much better about the whole situation now, although I find my self hoping for cold weather so I'll be wearing gloves the next time I visit my granddogs. 

Winning for a good cause

We won, we won!!!  This evening my family and I participated in our church's "Kids Against Hunger" food bagging event. We have had a Foltz family (and friends) team for the last four years, since we started this mission project at First Pres. The goal of the evening is to pack 25,000 meals for people in need in places like Haiti and, this year, Puerto Rico. We bag, seal and box a mixture of dried chicken protein, vegetables, protein powder and rice. When it's cooked in water each bag makes five nutritious meals. During the evening each team mans a table where we assemble the finished product in an assembly line process.  It's very rewarding to feel like we are accomplishing a good thing. To add to the fun we compete to see which team accomplishes their quota first.   For the last three years our team has come in second, but tonight we won!!
We worked hard and we worked fast and we finished first. Do I sound a little competitive?  It's true, I love to play games and I love to win.  Was it worth it tonight? Yes, indeed, and I will wear my prize (a tee shirt) with pride, especially next year when we compete again. 

Life's adventures aren't over yet.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my daughter-in-law and two granddaughters. We went in my daughter-in-law's car and ate at Friends (love that lemon soup). Nothing particularly unusual or adventuresome in any of that until you know that it was my 15 year old granddaughter who was driving the car. She got her beginner's permit last week. Wow, I'm not sure I'm ready for this. Thankfully I'm not the one who has to ride with her regularly while she completes her 50 hours of required practice driving.  She actually did quite well yesterday.  It was her first time driving through downtown and she handled the lane changes and turns safely. This week she's taking her driver's training class for two hours each evening for six evenings so that will give her more practice, including some driving in the dark.  I've been having flashbacks today, remembering some of the adventures and misadventures of my childr3en's and my own first years of driving. I'm sure my granddaughter will do every bit as well, idaeally with fewer dents and bumps than we experienced. You go girl!!

Maybe I'm too sceptical...

but I don't think so.  I know that we're supposed to believe that everthing politicians say is true but this comment today left me wondering.  60 Minutes had a report last night on the really negative, and supposedly unanticipated, results of a drug bill that was passed through both houses of Congress last year which makes it much harder for the DEA to intercept and confiscate large shipments of oxicotin drugs. Today on the evening news I heard snippets of an interview with a senator who pushed the bill through. He was asked if the fact that the drug industry gave $177,000 to his last campaign had any influence on his support of this bill? His response was that each of his campaigns cost, on average, over 10 million dollars and he really didn't keep track of individual donations. Really?  Granted, &177,000 isn't a huge percentage of ten million, but I find it really hard to believe he didn't know about it. So am I too sceptical? You decide.

movie review

i saw the movie "Victoria and Abdul" this afternoon. It starred Dame Judith Dench and I would go see any movie she's in because I think she's an excellent actor. I would have said 'actress' but I believe it's politically correct to call all male and female thespians actors these days. She did not disappoint in this movie.  It was a beautiful period piece based on the last years of Queen Victoria's rule and her friendship with an Indian Muslim named Abdul. It's really a very good movie, I think, but not easily catagorized. It's certainly not a romance or an adventure movie, nor a military or mystery adventure. There are no wild chase scenes. A friend who saw the movie yesterday described it as a 'quiet movie' and I think that's a pretty good description. I liked it.

farewell to Hamlet

There are some marvelous lines in "Hamlet". "To be or not to be...., To thine own self be true..., Neither a borrower nor a lender be...,, The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.," and on and on. Alas, I will not be reciting any of them even though I would have loved to play the ghost. First Presbyterian Theater will be presenting an all women version of "Hamlet" in March of 2018 but I will be on a trip for over two weeks in February, right before dress rehearsals will start.  The director and I agree that it would be really hard to miss the last two intense weeks of rehearsals and then try to pick up where I Ieft off before my trip.  Happily, lots and lots of ladies showed up for the first stage of the audition this afternoon so he will have plenty of good actors to choose from.  I think so many showed up because it's not often that women get to act the really great scenes in Hamlet. While I'll regret not being in it, (but not enough to give up a trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji) I will cetainly look forward to seeing the production when the time comes.

bald or bold??

Looking ahead on my nifty calendar I see that tomorrow is "Be Bald and Free Day." When I first glanced at the entry I thought it said "Bold and Free" and I started thinking about what I could do to express my boldness and freeness tomorrow. I started my list with eating whatever I felt like, including at least two cookies, but then I glanced at the calendar again and realized it said Bald not Bold. Well, heck, I can't be bald and free. I did get my hair cut recently but I'm not quite bald. I guess I'll go eat a cookie to ease my disappointment.

I shouldn't watch this show.

I should never, ever watch Antiques Road Show. It's not that I want to discover that I own a fabulously valuable piece of art, although I certainly wouldn't complain if that turned out to be the case, but I find myself getting the wild urge to go out and start exploring antique shops. The problem here is that I probably wouldn't know a valuable antique if it jumped up and bit me.  Like people often say about art, I don't know much about antiques but I know what I like. I also have a problem distinguishing between antique and just old.  My husband had a cousin who filled her house with old furniture - rickity tables, uncomfortable, shaky chairs and dark old pictures. None of these were particularly attractive. I have no idea of the value of the various pieces but I would have found it depressing to live with such gloomy pieces.  My mother-in-law used to laugh when we went to estate or yard sales if she saw a piece she remembered from her youth. She would point out a dish or cup for sale for $50 or so and laugh because she remembered buying the same thing for ten cents "at the dime store" when she was a young housewife. I enjoy using the few things I own that are really old, mostly dishes and other small items that I've inherited, but it might be better if I never know their value. I would never want to be afraid to enjoy a piece.  A friend who deals in antiques tells me that old dishes don't sell well these days, young people just don't want them, so I probably have nothing to worry about.

The great butter debate

Some years ago I remember Dear Abbey running a series of columns in which people responded to the question "Which way should you hang your toilet paper on the holder. Should it unroll over the roll from the top or under the roll from the bottom?"  Needless to say there were strong feelings on this topic and I suspect there still are. In fact, there have been a couple of times when I've found the roll in my guest bathroom reversed. In case you're wondering, I'm an over the top person. Now I've been involved in a similar controvesy.  I was at a friend's house for a dinner meeting and she apologized because the butter she put on the table with the rolls was still hard.  She had forgotten to take it out of the refrigerator. That brought a comment from the other end of the table "You know you don't have to keep butter in the refrigerator." to which came the response "Oh, yes you do. It will go bad if you don't." This set off a lively but short discussion of butter keeping practices. Personally, once I've unwrapped a stick of butter I put it in a butter dish and keep it in the cupboard. I've never had it go bad yet and it's always ready to spread. I do, however, keep my unopened butter in the refrigerator, or if I have extra, in the freezer. So now you know my position on this spreading controversy. Of course all this really means is that I'm one of those people who eats real butter, usually melted on steamed vegetables. I'm pretty sure butter is on the 'good for you' list right now but even when that changes (and you know it will) I'll keep eating butter. 

News Flash, alert the world!

It's official, my oldest granddaughter now has her beginner's permit. Not only that but I understand (from an unimpeachable source - her younger sister) that her other grandmother is giving her driving lessons. So are her mom and dad, I'm sure, but that doesn't concern me. What does concern me is the idea that she might want to drive my car. Now, for a long time her other grandma and I have had a non-compete agreement. We don't try to out do each other with Christmas or birthday gifts and this works very well for us. But I'm very protective of my little blue car and my granddaughter too.  Her other grandmother drives a big, heavy GMC SUV which I think is a safer training car than a Fiat. That's my rationale and I'm going to stick to it, at least for the first few months of her driving adventure. 

Yumm, maple...

I heard recently that maple is replacing pumpkin as the most popular fall flavor this year.  So when I found myself at Dunkin Donut this afternoon, killing time between a couple of meetings at the church across the street, I decided to try their new iced coffee flavor, Maple Pecan. I must say it was delicious. Of course it's really not surprising. Real maple syrup is the best thing there is to put on pancakes. I should also mention here that having a Dunkin Donut store inside our downtown library is a marvelous idea. Sweet treats and an endless supply of books.  What better way to pass some free time?

seems a little ironic to me

According to my calendar, and several sale commercials on TV, tomorrow is Columbus Day.  Tomorrow is also, according to my calendar "Native American Day". This seems strangely ironic to me. Who decided it would be a fine idea to celebrate the life of the man who "discovered America" and opened up its resources to the rest of the world on the same day we honor the people Europeans murdered and stole from to aquire those resources. Couldn't we at least give them their own day?

That's not how I remember it.

I saw a fascinating play this evening at First Presbyterian Theater.  "Faith Healer" is the story of a possibly sincere faith healer and his wife and manager who travel for years through Scotland and Wales, doing one night stands offering miracles of healing, sometimes with quite successful results but not always. The story is told by the three characters, each doing a lengthy monologue, and you fairly quickly realize that they each have very different memories of the same events. In his notes in the program the director comments that often members of a family will retell remembered events differently. I know this happens when my brother and I sometimes recall an incident from our childhood.  We never seem to remember it quite the same way. I think we are always trying to portray ourselves in the best possible light or as the victim depending on the circumstance.  That's just what happened in this play, leaving the audience wondering who, if anyone, is telling what truly happened during various landmark events that they all remembered. 

at the Arena

Some friends and I attended the play at the Arena Dinner Theater this evening, "Rehearsal for Murder". The dinner was quite good; stuffed pork chop, baked sweet potato (with brown sugar and butter, yumm) and pumpkin pie for dessert. Also peas and a salad but who cares about those?  The play was very good - a true murder mystery; a play within a play, with plenty of misdirection and a satisfactory plot twist at the end.  Some of the acting was a little spotty but the main characters played their parts very well.  All in all, it was a very entertaining and tasty evening.

more musings about math

Still thinking about my new tutoring effort. A few years ago I was doing some substitute teaching in the Fort Wayne Community Schools system and ended up teaching math to special ed students at a high school. The students were fine and I understood the material, even though I hadn't worked with algebra for several years.  It was obvious that most of the students were really struggling with the equations, though, and I found myself wondering why these students weren't being taught basic math skills; addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. I asked another teacher, at the end of the day, why these students were expected to learn algebra? Her answer - it's what's required by state and federal guidelines. 
Last week I took some tutor training for a program we run on Mondays after school at our church. We do one on one tutoring for an hour with third through fifth graders who are struggling with reading and/or math. The speaker who led us through ideas to be used to reinforce their math skills (and they were good ideas) stressed that she thinks it's very important that students learn the basics, specifically the multiplication tables. I asked her if the multiplication tables were printed in the students' math books, remembering the pages of tables we always had at the back of our books when I was in elementary school. That's how I remember learning math facts, by reading and memorising and being able to see how the sequences went together. Her answer was "Well, no, there are no tables in the back of the books. We just use flash cards." I'm glad they are stressing basic math facts again, but really, would it be so bad to give them some reference material? or would that, like a calculator, be 'cheating'?

Is this cheating?

I recently started working with a young man who wants a little tutoring, especially in math. He's in his 20s, articulate, a pretty good reader, but feels the need to be more fluent in math.  We were talking the other day and, when I asked him how he does math now, he explained that he uses a calculator, then went on to say "but I know that's cheating." Now I am definitely a believer in teaching students the basics of math.  I think they should know the multiplication tables and basic approaches to calculation but I was surprised that he thought using a calculator was cheating. I thought about it a little bit, then asked him "If you were building a bookcase, and needed to nail some boards together, would you consider it cheating to use a hammer, and try to pound those nails in with your fist?" He laughed at that but he got the point. I told him that if he was in school and taking a test where he had been told not to use a calculator, then to use one would be cheating, but out in the real world it is a good thing to use whatever tools are available to get the job done, and a calculator is a very useful tool. Then I casually mentioned that when I was in grade school we didn't have calculators and that brought up the question of when I graduated from high school. When I told him 1962, he looked at me like that was just inconceivable. Boy do I feel old.

a new title

A friend told me that she and her husband have given me a new name after I managed to pretty much ignore the fire in my apartment complex last night. Granted, it was a very small fire and quickly out but they still think I was pretty oblivious so now I'm "Ms. Oblivious". Little do they know that I actually should have earned this title years ago.  When I was a teenager, one hot summer afternoon I fell asleep while reading in my bedroom and woke up an hour and a half later to find out that I had slept through a visit to our house from the local volunteer fire department. It turns our that our clothes dryer, down in the basement, had started smoking quite amazingly and Mom called the fire department. They came, big red engine, lots of volunteers in their cars, sirens blaring, and put out the non-fire quite quickly while I slept.  They left, more quietly than they had come and I slep on. When I woke up I was told the whole story of what I missed. Which just goes to show that being oblivious is nothing new to me.

Where's the Fire???

So I'm peacefully watching a TV program and get a text from my son asking if I'm OK. It seems he heard a news report that my apartment building was on fire. Within the next few minutes I had a call and a text from my brother and a friend asking the same thing. Meanwhile, I had heard no sirens, smelled no smoke and figured there must be a mistake somewhere.  I walked out on my balcony and saw a fire engine and some police cars parked at the Superior Street entrance to our parking lot.  Now I was curious, so I checked news reports and saw a really dramatic picture on the WPTA web site; a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming out of the top of the east building. I live in the north building, happily. Turns out there was a kitchen fire in a 14th floor apartment in that building.  It's all out now, but it has me thinking. Perhaps I should invest in some sort of fire escape, perhaps a rope ladder?  I was explaining to my youngest brother the other day how I figure I could leap from my balcony to the trees across the parking lot and they would break my fall. They look soft and fuzzy from up here. However he informed me that if I can't jump the width of the parking lot to the tree line on ground level I won't be able to do it from 10 floors up. What a buzzkill, but he might be right. So now I will research portable fire escapes. 

I almost missed it.

Yikes, that was close. I've been gone most of the day and just learned that today is National Homemade Cookie Day. I heard it on TV so it must be true, right?? It's too late now to bake up a batch of cookies (or I'm too lazy) but, lucky for me, my freezer is stocked with cookies from the Johny Appleseed Festival. Now these cookies weren't baked in my home but they were mixed and baked at my home church and sold at a festival in my home town. Close enough. Excuse me while I go celebrate this excellent special day.

a perfectly perfect day

The day started deliciously today when my daughter-in-law hosted a tasting party. She is selling a line of spices, sauces and mixes that are really quite flavorful.  Then I attended the Homestead Invitational Marching Band competition. The weather was sunny, crispy cool and the spectators were seated on the west side of the bleachers so the afternoon sun wasn't in our eyes.  A perfect setting for a band competition.  We (my daughter, son-in-law and I) saw all of the class B competitors (medium size schools) and the class A bands from larger schools.  My grandson and granddaughter march in the Carroll High School band in the class A catagory. Today the band performed beautifully. It was the first time I had seen their program this year and it was excellent.  I thought they were very good and, happily, the judges agreed with me.  Carroll took first place for their division and also first place overall. Needless to say we were all very pleased. Congratulations to Carroll!!!

an evening of beautiful music

Yesterday evening a friend and I heard "Joshua Bell in Concert" at the Embassy Theater. It's always a visual treat to attend any concert there because it's such an elegant old. beautifully restored, building. Last night's program opened with Elgar's "Enigma Variations" which I had never heard before,  It was my favorite piece of the evening even though Joshua Bell didn't perform in that piece.  He played in Berstein's "Serenade, after Plato's Symposium". He is a brilliant violinist and played wonderfully, and got a huge long standing ovation, but, personally, I enjoyed the first piece more. Bell played an encore piece that I liked more than the Bernstein piece.  I admitted this to my friend who said I must prefer the more mellow sounds of a violin, and I realized he was exactly right.  All in all it was a lovely evening. 

The last day

After our tour of Stonehenge we drove through the Cotswold countryside and stopped at a little village called Bourton on the Water. This little stream ran right through the center of town. After getting caught in a torrential downpour (brief but intense) which drove us into a little Pasty shop to enjoy tea and a pasty.  A pasty is a folded over crust filled with meat, cheese, or whatever. Yumm. After the rain stopped and the suncame out we enjoyed exploring several little shops and a festival that was being put on as a fundraiser for the local church.  I found out what a Tombola is. I've seen the term in novels and always wondered. Turns out it's just a raffle. So now I know.

In the late afternoon we went back to our second night in Stratford. The picture above is a shot of the interior of Shakespeare's sister's home where we ahd dinner on our final night of the trip. I took this shot because I enjoyed how enthusiastic the docent was about this beautiful old house.

My roommate Sally and I are on the left side in this picture behind Fred. We enjoyed many fine dinners with our group on this trip and our tour guide took pictures with our cameras at each table. Too bad there was nothing more interesting than rolls on the table when this picture was taken. The next morning we headed for Heathrow and the long trip home.  At the start of our trip, it took us about an hour and a half to travel from Heathrow to downtown London.  From Stratford to Heathrow was also and hour and a half which helped us understand why we didn't return to London for our last night. It was a great trip although I would have enjoyed seeing a little more of Wales. But for now I'm turning my attention to the other side of the world. Next year I'm going to 

Australia, New Zealand and Figi.

4000 years ago someone had an idea.

One of our last stops on this trip was Stonehenge. I had seen these amazing standing stones once before, several years ago.  You still can't actually walk in among the stones (I would love to do that) but it seemed to me that we were allowed to walk much closer to the stones than I remember before. It's a very moving sight.

The stones were set in place over 4000 years ago (2000 years before the Druids who may have used the site but didn't build it), about the same time that the Egyptian and South American pyramids were being built, so some people theorize that all of these massive constructions were created, or at least inspired, by aliens. 

Theories (other than the alien one) range from uses as a burial site, (they have found burnt remains), an observatory, a gathering place, a memorial to the dead and more. There are remains of large avenues leading into the stones from miles away. My theory? It was a multi-use facility where people gathered to observe the solstices but also to shop, trade, celebrate festivals, worship and generally spend time with each other.  If I built something this fine i would want to use it all the time.

We marvel that our early ancestors hauled these huge stones from miles away, shaped them slowly with stone axes and carefully set them in place. Think of the time and labor involved, but then there wasn't a lot else to do.  It gave them something to occupy their time whe they weren't hunting or gathering.

In the museum area they showed this (fake) stone on a sled with log rollers. This is how they think the stones were moved with up to a hundred men pulling on ropes to move the stones along while others would grab the rollers from the back and move them to the front as they rolled along..  No small feat when you consider they moved them 30+ miles.  I could tell this was a fake stone because from one angle you could see a solar panel on the top of the stone.

These modest little huts are a recreation of the types of homes the workers would have lived in. Notice the thatched roofs here.  Later on our drive through the Cotswolds we saw several modern examples of thatched roofs which are really quite elaborate. I guess if you find an idea that works you might as well keep using it. 

Shakespeare anyone?

We spent a day and a half in Shakespeare's home town, Stratford. This was interesting for me because I go to Stratford, Ontario every summer for the theater.  It was interesting to see the original. 

I was interested in all the Tudor architecture. Turns out that in the 15th and 16th centuries this was a cheap way to build houses. Wood was expensive so it was only used for the framework and the space between was filled with 'wattle and daub' - basically mud with other stuff mixed in - then plastered over, inside and out.

The richer you were the more wood you could afford to have in your building. This one really impressed me. Builders would put the most wood on the front of the building.  We had dinner in a museum/restaurant that Shakespeare had built for his sister when she got married.  

And we took a boat ride on the Avon River. Yes, there were swans. This bridge is the oldest in the area, from the 1200's I think.