What a Wonderful World, Part 2

I am not a scientist, but I am a crap (pardon my language) savant. That is, someone who for no explicable reason absorbs trivial facts (like the names of small tree frogs in different regions) but can't remember important facts like trash pickup days. (Sigh) It's a burden, but someone has to bear it.



I have been struck by the beauty of what is hanging over my head atmospherically in the last two weeks, and whilst tagging my photographic finds on Flickr decided to check out what the names for the different cloud types were.



It was then that I made this discovery. (dun dun duh!) Earth talks to the sky. No, this isn't a conspiracy theory, it is pure science.

About 40 years ago scientists discovered these little microbes called ice nucleators. They are a type of bacteria that are in dust, and serve as the foundation for formation of ice and snow crystals in clouds. They get kicked up by a farmer plowing his field and carried into the clouds by wind. Ski areas use a type of these things to create artificial snow.



I still can't tell you the difference between the lus-es, be they strato, nimbo, cumu, or their higher flying cousins, but I am fascinated by the fact that earth and sky communicate via those teeny little ice nucleators. Ice nucleators are our friends. Peace, out.

What a wonderful world!

(cue Louie Armstrong again.)

What a Wonderful World

Even though our last frost date for planting is June 1st up here in the Frozen North, our recent weather has been spectacular. I walked outside to gather up my freecycle dog Misty in the late afternoon and was greeted with an incredible display of light, landscape, and clouds.



People, please keep in mind that this is straight out of the camera. Spielberg couldn't CGI (computer generated imagery) anything better. And he rates an Oscar. What could we possibly give to God in recognition of this?

Misty and I proceeded to the local park for walk with a friend and her dog Kolby. Kolby is a young black Lab. We had fun watching his short legs trying to keep up with Misty's long ones.



I have found that stopping to take pictures is counter productive for the exercise value of a walk, but when I slowed to allow Kolby and his friend to catch up, I caught a glimpse of blue and white canopy above the still naked trees.



Walking in the park is a great exercise for dogs and humans alike. And a wonderful opportunity for good conversation. But mostly it is a sacred time to relate to everything around me, to breathe in the grand scope of nature, the trees, the critters, the ground, the sky. A time for reflection on how all this came to be and continues to function in breathtaking symmetry and synchronization.

Louie Armstrong said it best,
"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

Both Sides Now

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all"*



If you could go back in time, with the knowledge that you have now, would you change anything?

One of my favorite films is Peggy Sue Got Married. On the eve of a small town high school reunion, a woman experiencing marital difficulties is transported back in time to her high school days. It's an interesting look at the "what if" of experiencing a part of that awkward teenage period through more mature eyes. A monumental "do-over". Peggy Sue finds humor (her Dad buys an Edsel), regret (at having devalued her relationship with her younger sister), and gratitude (opportunity to reconnect with grandparents that had passed on). Most importantly, she rediscovers her first love for her husband. (There is also a running gag about her alliance with the geeky kid she ignored in high school. He is the only one in the her past who can imagine her being from the future, and benefits from information on the technology she has seen there.)



When I first viewed the movie, I was captivated by the idea of living in the same small town for your entire life, maintaining those teenage relationships through adulthood. That seems exotic to someone who grew up in a large metropolitan city. My relationships have changed, keeping pace with educational status(high school vs. college), marital status (single vs. married), and location (Texas, New York, Pennsylvania). Perhaps that's the reason family is so important, it's one of the two unifying elements in my life (the other being my faith, which my parents introduced me to).

"But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living ev'ry day"



Change is part of life. I can't move on and stay in the same place. On the other side of fifty, gravity starts taking its toll on the body and information overload takes over the mind. There are some psychological losses to deal with. But there are some perks, too. History gives me perspective. Experience gives me humility. It is an incredible revelation to find a purpose in all the failures.

"I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all"*



It's a very freeing thing to let go of the pretense of the illusion that I can understand and control my life, to relax into the cloud of uncertainty, the joy of living that life. The more I know, the more I know I don't understand. I find peace in still learning.

I've looked at my life from the arrogance of youth. I'm beginning to reflect upon it from the humility of experience.

I think the view is better from here.

_____________________________

*"Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell

Ipodite's Main Squeeze

My sister, iPodite, has a new man in her life. Actually, he's a little man. Actually, he's not really a man. He's a dog. But oh, what a cutie.

This is what he looked like last summer when the courtship began. He could literally sit in the palm of her hand. When he went outside, he was dwarfed by blades of newly mown grass.


And this is a recent head shot.


What a hunk. His name is Spike, and he is all Cheekywawa sweetness and cuteness.



Spikey is a bit short of 13 inches tall, likes dog movies, playing with his squeaky turkey toy, and cuddling with iPodite. He is people friendly and housebroken.



*Sigh* Isn't he a little studmuffin?

Quintessential Texas

This morning's word is quintessence. (I had to look it up to make sure I spelled it right.)

Etymology:
Middle English, from Middle French quinte essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, literally, fifth essence
Date:15th century
1 : the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies 2 : the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form 3 : the most typical example or representative
— quin·tes·sen·tial adjective
— quin·tes·sen·tial·ly adverb

Thank you Merriam Webster dictionary.

1. Quintessential Texas flower, the bluebonnet (you HAD to know that was coming)


2. Quintessential Texas Restaurant


3. Quintessential Texas Snack Cracker


4. Quintessential Texas Cooler


5. Quintessential Texas Bike Decoration


6. Quintessential Texas Books


7. Quintessential Texas 911 House Number Identifier


8. Quintessential Texas Form of Transportation


9. Quintessential Texas Home Repair


10. Quintessential Texas Picture of Significant Other Frolicking in Bluebonnets

Gourmet Texas on a Budget

There are certain delicacies without which a trip to Texas is just not a trip to Texas. Here are a few of them.

1. Good Mexican food made with fresh ingredients from scratch.
You can find plenty of that here in Austin, and don't forget to order The Bob. Or the Guacamole. I'd better stop there.



2. Forget Krispy Kreme. It's Shipleys Donuts or none at all. You can find these in most major Texas cities, for sure Houston and San Antonio.



3. My favorite hamburger used to be at Prince's Drive-In on Main Street in Houston, with a tall, frosted mug of root beer. My current fave these last thirtysomething years was introduced to me by my Dear Professor down in South Texas. They are now everywhere.



4. Mexican Coca Cola. Bottled in Mexico in REAL bottles, and made with pure cane sugar, not that high fructose stuff that they use in the States. It has a wonderful bouquet and a smooth finish. Currently appearing at your local HEB. (Texas grocery chain)

5. I saved the best for last. (Drum roll please.) It just ain't a trip to Texas without bluebonnets or Blue Bell Ice Cream. After hearing DP wax eloquent about it in class, one of his students, after graduation, had two gallons shipped to us in western PA. Wherever that student is, God Bless him!!



I'm salivating just remembering it all.

My Worst nightmare

I have a recurring dream that strikes terror in my heart. Magically I am transported back to high school. Keep in mind that must be some major time machine voodoo to take a sixtysomething back fortysomething years. I walk into class and there is a final exam for which I did not prepare. In the immortal words of Buck Owens and Roy Clark, Hee Haw characters and songwriters, "gloom, despair and agony on me."



This is always followed by waking up in a sweat, then a sense of relief as I regain some semblance of reality. At least, that's how the nightmare has played itself out.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I accompanied my beautiful Principessa to her school for the final two periods of the day. Principessa is a social studies teacher in a humongous high school in a large Texas city. May I brag? Our little Principessa is the new chairwoman of the social studies department. Way to go, Principessa!



Seventh period began harmlessly enough. The initial students entering class were momentarily taken aback by my presence (fearing I was a substitute teacher). Some were excited to see that Principessa was indeed the result of normal human reproduction. I think they viewed her as springing fully formed from the History Channel, or perhaps an alien. Teachers have normal human lives?



Principessa led her students through a rapid review of the last twenty chapters of study and then handed out a 25 question test. As the kids were quietly working away at sharpening their pencils and answering the questions, my darling daughter, the joy of my life next to my computer, grandchildren, and grandkitties, nonchalantly turned in my direction and said, "Mom, would you like to take the test?" How else could I respond but, "OK".

She handed me the innocent piece of paper and then it hit me. (Dun dun duh!!!!!)

It was my worst nightmare. Only it was REAL! Here I was taking a test for which I had not prepared, even though Principessa had gone over the questions beforehand. I vainly went down the list, trying desperately to remember what she had said. I did pretty well until the final eight. It was then my sixtysomething brain ran screaming from the room, leaving me to sit there blankly staring out the window.

When I mumbled a pathetic "I just can't remember this", Principessa retorted, "but Mom, you LIVED through this period of history."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I paid ATTENTION to what was going on!" I replied.

Have you any idea what it's like to have your DAUGHTER make you stay after school and write 500 times, I WILL pay attention in class?

I Want to take as many with me as I can

One of the incredible people I inherited in my marriage to my Dear Professor is his 85 year old Aunt Mellie.  Aunt Mellie is a role model for more people than you can shake a stick at.  (Something about being in Texas brings out my background in southern colloquialisms).  She was born in Mexia, a little town between Houston and Dallas, a tad west of the interstate.



There's an old groaner of a joke about Mexia (pronounced Mu-hay-uh).  A salesman comes to town and, wanting to check his facts, inquires as to how to pronounce the town's name.  One person tells him Mex-ee-uh, another Mu-hay-uh.  Just a little confused, he goes to the local ice cream store and asks the clerk, "would you please pronounce the name of this place very slowly for me?"  The clerk responds, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly,  "Da-ree Queen".  (I warned you it was a groaner!)

Perhaps I should get back to Aunt Mellie.  Despite her 85 years, she is vibrant, active, and has much less grey hair than I do.  MUCH less.  She attributes her stubborn hair color to her Cherokee lineage.  All I know is I want to be like her when I grow up.

Last summer she went swinging on ropes through the jungle canopy of Costa Rica, then caught a huge swordfish in the Gulf.  Should you doubt, she has pictures to prove it.



But her  most outstanding characteristic is her love for family and her love for Jesus.  Principessa and I stopped by to visit her a couple of days ago on our way from iPodite's home in one major Texas city to Principessa's in another.  Although Texas is pretty big, our family members have somehow managed to settle along one of the major highways, which makes it convenient to visit them.

Aunt Mellie, who moved from her home of 55 years to her current home only 7 years ago, brought us up to speed on her family, including grandkids, and spoke of heaven.  She loves parties and family reunions, and I think that's how she envisions eternity.  Her words are still ringing in my ears.

"I want to take as many with me as I can."


 

I can say from personal experience these thirtysomething years,  anything Aunt Mellie sets her mind on is pretty much a done deal.

Where it's always 9 o'clock

My dear sister iPodite loves clocks.  Her guest bedroom is the clock repository.  Sleeping in a room with 21 clocks is not as difficult as it might appear because not all of them are functional-- 18 of  them exist in a world where it is always 9 o'clock.  It is, however, just a tad unsettling to have that many faces watch you as you sleep.



I asked her about the setting.  Was it aesthetic?  iPodite is an enormously creative person with an artistic eye.  Actually she has two of them.  Is it possible for one eye to be artistic and the other not?  If so, would they be constantly arguing over aesthetics?  Sorry, I digress.



iPodite's response was that she just became wearied of resetting 21 clocks every time Daylight Savings sprang forward or fell back, and so 18 of the clocks were frozen in time.  My sister and I grew up in a land BEFORE Daylight Savings time was initiated, so I can understand the weariness.  I remember being VERY disconcerted about having to go to bed while there was still daylight to burn in play.  When my Dear Professor, ALL his books, our three children and I moved to the Frozen North, where in the fall and winter the sun hides after 3PM, I became grateful for the sacrifice of thousands of boys and girls in later time zones going to bed with daylight to burn so that our three didn't have to walk home from school in the dark!

I also discovered that I have been living on slow Amish time for most of my life.  But I have discussed that before.

iPodite has several wonderful clocks.  My favorite two are the cat with the wagging tail and what iPodite calls "jazz hands Mickey."



I believe the novelist Thomas Wolfe is responsible for the phrase, "you can't go home again".  I know that is indeed true because things change within you and within the familiar surroundings you left behind.

Yet, for a few days every summer, I can visit my sister, and while I sleep in that room where 18 clocks are frozen in time,  my dreams  transport me back to the simpler days of our shared childhood. I  "go  home again" in the room where it's always 9 o'clock.

The Grandkitties

Since I have bored you senseless with talk of our fabulous grandkids (the Sprittles), I thought it time to introduce you to my grandkitties (Chester and CC).

Here is Chester, the thoughful one.



And this is CC, the shy one.



Chester and CC belong to Principessa.  Principessa loves kitties.  She loves them so much she talked my Dear Professor into getting one and letting it live in the house.  Our first cat, the legendary Mittens, proved much smarter than our Springer Spaniel, Bandit.  Mittens went out of his way to endear himself to DP.  Bandit bit him.

When Principessa found Chester and CC (who are brother and sister) as kittens, she just could not bear the thought of breaking up their kitty family, and so she took home both of them.  I blame all of this on the Hello Kitty phenomena that continues to take young females by storm just like Godzilla took Tokyo.

Chester is the model of what big brothers should be (protective and caring of their female siblings), much like Son 1 has become.  Only I cannot imagine Son 1 flushing the toilet for Principessa with the same attention to detail as Chester who lovingly covers his sister's, ahem, litter box deposits.  CC appears to be a tad litter box challenged.  She tries to cover her, ahem, deposits by pawing the floor after making the afore mentioned, ahem, deposit in the litter box.

The importance of all this is that Chester and CC are my grandkitties and the loving and pretty much well behaved companions of our Principessa.

And worthy of a grandmother's love, even if they have four legs and long tails.

Where am i?

Where am I?  I'll give you a hint.  It's not the Frozen North.



Nope, it's not DC. You're getting warmer, though.  Take a good look at that little flag flying just below the Stars and Stripes.




Uh uh.  I'm not in Chile.  But there's plenty of REALLY good Mexican food here.  Try this place and order a Bob.  You'll thank me.



OK.  This should be a dead giveaway.  In what US state where EVERYTHING is bigger, do you find these in the spring?



That's right.  I'm deep in the heart of Texas, enjoying warm weather, Mexican food (you should REALLY go to Matt's and try a Bob), and the bluebonnets. 



I just love bluebonnets.

Don't play with your food

"Don't play with your food".

I can't say how many times Mom told me that when I was a child.  Yet I said the same thing to my kids. 

In the United States we seem to do that with much more abandon than people in other cultures.  We are obssessed with food on a large scale, its production and consumption specifically.  Recently a french woman wrote a "diet" book about why french women are not as hefty as their american counterparts.  The book was all about eating to live rather than living to eat.  Oprah has given us a parade of psychologists, dieticians, and medical doctors to explain the danger of emotional, non-nutritional, and high carb/fat eating.  The slow food movement was created to inform us of the social and healthful aspects of growing and cooking our own food as well as the importance of biodiversity.

I visited our local grocery store the other day to buy a few things and found this in the produce department:



Plastic tomatoes and bell peppers.  In the PRODUCE department.  Okay, they are promoted as containers to insure your peppers or tomatoes keep fresh, but really, is this more efficient than plastic wrap or tupperware? 

Or does it feed our fascination with food play?

For a long time the US was faulted as being a small fraction of the world's populace, yet consuming most of the world's goods.  China outpaced is in 2005 and, I assume, continues to do so.  Sometimes being number 2 or 3 is truly better than being number 1.  But that does not answer the question of why we are so obsessed with playing with our food.

One of my hobbies is making hand soap in exotic scents.  I once gifted a friend with a chocolate colored and fragranced bar.  On her trip home she took a bite out of the unlabeled soap bar thinking it was a brownie!  A current trend is creating candles in edible themes.  I am sure Kathy is a wonderful lady, but why pie shaped candles? 

What does it say about a culture that is so awash with goods we can afford to consider a vital life component as a plaything?  It reminds me of the excesses of Roman civilization, decadent prewar Germany, or Marie Antoinette.  Perhaps we are in danger of losing the meaning of nourishment and instead promoting entertainment. 

Or maybe, just to be safe, we all need to go outside and reacquaint ourselves with the miracle of planting a seed and growing our own tomato. 

Homegrown tomatoes taste better anyway.

People With Fur

Please do not misunderstand me. I love cats. But dogs have a certain mythos. They have that "man's best friend" and "a boy and his dog" thing going for them. I was out the other day driving down one of the many country roads near Iron Acres, and caught a glimpse of something. In the middle of a driveway was a truck with tools and lumber, a makeshift cutting platform, and a carpenter hard at work. Laying near the platform was a dog. That picture touched something warm and fuzzy inside me.

Why? If it had been a cat it would have been an altogether different feeling. What is it about dogs?

We had a succession of them when I was growing up. The most memorable was a Chihuahua named Teensy. And she was. My first real experience with grief was the day 13 years later that she died. That little mutt really became a part of our family.

Our freecycle dog Misty is the current Iron Acres dog. She is smart, a little attention deficit, and all nose.



Misty can go for an hour walk and her nose never leave the ground. When she first came here, she was a year old, and not at all socialized to people or dogs. She was in her own world. My friend, the farmer with 12 plus dogs, assured me that all Misty needed was some attention and a good old dog to teach her the ropes. My farmer friend was right. After only a month, Beau taught Misty not only how to go for a walk with another dog, but also to be friendly. Beau led by example and patience.



He's a good old soul.



Now Misty has a new friend, Toby. We went for our first walk together today. Toby is cute, furry, and friendly, but not quite ready for the freedom Misty enjoys.



I believe we are all a bit like Misty and Toby. We need someone older and wiser to mentor us in life's journey. Someone to show us how to act around others, how to get along. Whether it be a parent, a teacher, or a good friend, we all need someone to look up to, someone to represent for us the kind of person we want to grow up to be, a model of what a responsible human being looks like.

A wise person once said we need three types of people in our lives: those older and wiser to give us counsel, those in the same life situation to give comfort, and someone younger to mentor.

Perhaps Beau, Misty, and Toby are just people with fur.