A name to recon with.

Kasimierz Michal Wladyslaw Wiktor Pulaski, aka Casimir Pulaski, is credited with being the father of the American cavalry.  He was a military commander and Polish nobleman who died in 1779 while fighting in the American revolutionary war.  Why, you may ask, do I care about this?  Two reasons.  First, today is Casimir Pulaski Day, celebrated here in the USA, and second, I am ready to celebrate anything Polish (even including sausage) because of all they're doing to help the Ukrainians.  The fact that my step-mom was Polish American (she lived through WWII in Warsaw, Poland and worked for the Polish underground) also adds to my urge to celebrate the Polish. So kudos to Poland.

a great performance

 I saw an excellent play this afternoon.  It was performed at the PFW Studio Theater in Kettler Hall.  For those who can remember way back to the late 60s - early 70s the same space used to be called The Pit.  So that was a bit of nostalgia.  The play itself is "Women Unbound" by a Fort Wayne play write Ruth Tyndall Baker.  It was a very well written and wonderfully performed play but what made it especially interesting was the history behind it.  The play was about the three Hamilton sisters who grew up here in Fort Wayne and two of whom became very successful in their fields.  Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) wrote many books about the ancient Greeks, Romans and early Christians.  Her book "Mythology" was one of our college Art History text books but I didn't know until much later that she was from Fort Wayne.  Her sister Alice (1869-1970) did ground breaking work in studying toxicology in the work place, basically started OSHA, and was the first female professor at Harvard. Enough said, it's an excellent play and is still on next weekend if you're interested. Check out Playground630@gmail.com.

game on....

 I really do enjoy computer games, not the kind where you have to have quick reflexes and rapidly shoot things, but the kind where you can take your time and think.  I recommend Red Herring, Seven Words and Monkey Wrench, all of which can be played for free once a day. I also like Yahtzee and Backgammon which can be downloaded and played against my tablet or phone or whatever as many times as I want to.  So that's five good games that I can play every day.  You would think that would be enough, wouldn't you?  But no, I had to try another one.  A couple of friends introduced me to Wordle, a simple little game where you need to figure out a five letter word in six steps.  I have  downloaded a version that I can play several times a day and also the New York Times once a day version. Now you may think this sounds intriguing but I feel I must warn you, it is highly addictive.  Woops, time for my next hit.   

That big???

 Do you know how large the Great Sphinx of Giza is?  I didn't either until I read yesterday's entry in my trivia calendar.   Evidently the Sphinx is 66 feet high and 240 feet long.  I had no idea.  I knew it was large but six stories high and longer than two football fields?  That is really big.  I have obviously never seen the Sphinx although I would like to visit Egypt someday.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Many years ago I lectured in Art History at IPFW.  That involved showing lots and lots of slides (it was the high tech of the time) to my students. The trouble with seeing slides of great works of art is that they all look the same size.  Over the last fifteen years I have been lucky enough to visit museums in many cities in Europe.  It was always such a pleasant experience to come upon a work I had lectured about all those years before.  Like finding an old friend.  But there was almost always a surprise attached - pictures and sculptures that were much larger or much smaller that I had envisioned.  Fun but a little disorienting.  I am soooo ready to travel and be surprised again.

Home and garden

 A friend and I went to the Home and Garden Show today, along with what appeared to be about half of Fort Wayne.  It was fun to wander through all the aisles, browsing the booths for an amazing variety of things and services for sale.  I did not come away empty handed.  I bought two bags of flavored kettle corn and a chunk of summer sausage.  I was also given two free at-home Covid tests.  I was tempted by a beautiful double porch swing suspended from an A frame that would be great on my balcony, until I saw the price tag.  But the best thing I came away with was a wonderful feeling of freedom.  I don't need a new roof or a new furnace or replacement windows or remodeled kitchens or baths.  Of course I did do all that stuff before I sold my house but I don't need to concern myself with it any more.  I was tempted to sign up for a free house full of replacement windows but I think they might have balked at 14 stories of windows.  

sparkle ashes

 So I went to the Ash Wednesday service at our church, because I felt I should, still wondering if I really wanted to.  But I must say it was the most upbeat Ash Wednesday service I have ever attended.  Much of that was thanks to our head pastor's sermon which put a heavy emphasis on the life we live now vs worrying about death and salvation.  Of course she said it much more eloquently.  But the real boost to my spirits came with the "Imposition of Ashes" which sounds rather ominous.  Before going forward to get our ashes we were told that we could chose regular ashes or sparkle ashes.  I chose the sparkle ashes and was delighted when instead of the usual "for from dust you came and to dust you shall return" as you get your ashes, our associated pastor said "from stardust you came and to stardust you shall return" which seems much more positive to me. And in a silly fun end to the evening, I rode up in the elevator with a young man who had just come from the service at Trinity Episcopal.  He said my ashes were 'way cooler' than his.  I know it's not a competition but, hey, the Presbyterians won this round.

please pass the syrup

 Today is International Pancake Day.  While this has nothing to do with IHOP, I did see that they were passing out free pancakes earlier today. Today is also, of course, Fat Tuesday, or if you prefer the French, Mardi Gras.  I've been to a few Mardi Gras celebrations in my life and they are lots of fun.  Music, dancing in the streets, lavish floats, parades and beads, lots of beads.  I did accumulate some beads along the way but not in the traditional way.  They were just being tossed off the floats. Of course all this celebration means that Lent will start tomorrow with Ash Wednesday.  Now my question is when did protestant churches start observing Ash Wednesday?  In my childhood only Catholics (and they were few and far between in my small home town) walked around with ashes on their foreheads.  In my very conservative Lutheran congregation that would have been considered much too Catholic.  But now my anything but conservative Presbyterian church observes Ash Wednesday.  I don't mind it and I plan to attend the service tomorrow evening, but I must admit I still have questions about it.