Return (for a Moment)

June 7, 2011


My compressed calendar has unwound a bit, though I still have miles to go before I sleep.  When it has to do with advocating and supporting childhood cancer research, my first inclination is to say "Yes" then figure out how to do whatever it is that the requester has asked.  This is my Erin's Dream Lanyards mantra and it carries over into my world of public policy advocacy.  


This explains how I found myself driving 500 miles roundtrip last week to do training for camp counselors and a workshop for Presbyterian women, coming home to rest overnight, then flying to the West Coast to set up at Max's Touch-A-Truck.

Bright and early Saturday morning I wedged myself between this horse trailer:

and this rainbow muscle car:

This convertible completed the triangle:

Walter and I took a few days to catch our breath and enjoy the mild California weather (and truthfully, to avoid the harsh Texas temps, humidity, pollen, and drought).  See how quickly we catch on?

I'm using free wifi in the San Diego airport to make this post.  We're headed home.  On Thursday, I leave again for West Texas to train another 60 camp counselors how to make Erin's Dream Lanyards so they can shepherd Flaming Arrow campers through the process all summer.  By Friday, I'll be back home, frantically cleaning the house (which I haven't touched in the last month) preparing Chez Buenger for the state visit of the young prince, who will arrive on Saturday for a weeklong trip.

I hope I can stuff the beads that have overflowed into his room back in the "bead room."  Luckily, after the last week there are many fewer to store.  I sent them to camp for the summer and the lucky ones have moved to California.

Store

June 2, 2011

I drove back from Mo Ranch this morning, staring into the rising sun, chatting with Jimmie (thanks for the deft assist at everything we did!), and pondering this:

What would anyone born almost anyplace in the world at almost any other time in the history of man think about a culture and society that spends so much money renting ugly spaces to store our extra stuff in?

 

Really?  We have so much extra stuff that we pay a hundred bucks a month to stow the stuff that our over-sized homes don't have room for?  As a nation we have given rise to an entire industry where we can pay money to have someone store all those treasures in our lives, which we have cleverly disguised as garage sale material to keep it safe:  our collections of mismatched freebie coffee mugs, canvass totes we got at every conference we ever attended, toys our children played with for ten minutes that we are now saving for our grandchildren, lawn chairs we are going to repair when we have the time.

WWALS (What would Abraham Lincoln say)?  What would Marco Polo say?  What would Pliny the Elder say?  What about your average Ugandan or Fiji Islander?

I passed bunches of these places and wondered how this had happened.  It made me say hmmmm.

Mo was terrific as always.  A special salute to the women of First Presbyterian of Fort Worth who all came by on Ellen's instructions and joined the fun!  We are also now geared up for Erin's Drem Lanyards at Mo summer camp.  I am refreshed and ready to start the summer.  Tomorrow we are San Diego bound and are ready to marvel at Max's Touch-A-Truck and see various Thornburgs!  Next week it is back to the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas (just down the road from Mo) to introduce a new set of camp counselor's to Erin's project.  

Life is good.  

I won't start worrying about WWALS or how the American culture and society gave rise to two roomfuls of glass beads in my house until I get back. 

At least I haven't had to resort to off-site storage.

 

Capisce

May 25, 2011

A few years ago to celebrate the end of school, Erin, my mom, and I went with the Tjoelkers down the road to the Little Brazos River to wade around, look for fossils, and hang out.  

We picked some seed pods off a wild hibiscus we found and planted them in the flower bed outside Erin's bedroom.  When I came around from the dog walk this morning, I noticed the plant that came up had started to bloom.

It is not as bold as my day lilies or as edible as the pears that are in process in the next flower bed over.  

In fact, it is reasonably spindly and windblown in comparison.  But I'm glad it it there for me to gaze on.  I have almost reached the point in my grieving that I can appreciated reminders of our good times together without it taking my breath away and making my nostrils burn.  As I said, almost.

Speaking of walking the dogs, I have noted some strong similarities between my three dogs and the students I encounter in the business school.

Uma is the dog equivalent of a doctoral student.  She has a very deep, but narrow working vocabulary.  For example, she knows at least twenty different words for food.  And when I say know, believe me, she knows.  Here's a partial list:

breakfast

snack

treat

cookie

lunchie

schnacken

green beans

milkbone

kibbles

dinner

eats

supper

"it's time"

beans

food

Willie, on the other hand, is the complete undergraduate.  He has nine total words that he understands only vaguely.  He might be able to guess the meaning on a multiple choice exam if there were enough other clues and the alternative choices weren't too fine-grained:

"letsgo"--we are headed outside and I don't have to be on a leash, at least not immediately, and I think I'm supposed to catch up if I'm lagging behind.

"thisway"--oops, I'm interested in something over here, but someone who has a dull sense of smell would like me to go in the exact opposite way.  I will come when I'm ready. 

"wait"--I'm supposed to slow down enough that it looks like she could catch up if she tried but actually I can bolt and get away if I need to.

"uppie-uppie"--someone wants me to sit on their lap and give me mega pets.  This might or might not include an invitation to jump up on people when I first meet and greet them.  I'm not sure.

"youdaman"--I have done something great fantastic stupendous, but I'm not sure what it was and am absolutely certain I won't be able to do it again, except by accident.

"wheresyourropetoy?"/"getyourropetoy"--she wants me to do something and if I can figure out what she wants me to do she will play with me.

"whowantsatreatie?"--if she says this as she walks to that box in the kitchen I get a pitifully small milkbone snack.  Can't she see that she has bought the ones for medium-sized dogs and I am venti?

"biteface"--she wants a sloppy kiss.

"bunny"--there is a fierce intruder threatening my kingdom.  I should run from room to room (if I am inside) or dash around as quickly and randomly as possible (if I am outside) to protect my people from this menace.

"No" would have taken him to double digits, but it has proven problematic.

"noooo"--not sure, but I think it means keep doing what you are doing, only try harder.

Notice the complete absence of "come," "stay," "sit," or "heel." 

Teddy is definitely an MBA, about to graduate.  She has only one word, 

"Cheese"

But that's all she needs.  Capisce?

Count

May 19, 2011


The one thing about the possible rapture on Saturday (not that I'm going anywhere or anything), but there could be a radically lower number of kiddos attending summer camp at Mo Ranch and Flaming Arrow, and my mission to count out 1800 bags of beads (one for each proposed lanyard) might magically melt away.

Two-thirds of a million beads.

I no longer count sheep at night.  In fact, by bedtime I'm really tired enough to drop off without counting anything.


What else can I tell you?  The semester ended successfully for all but a couple of my students (and it really wasn't a disaster for any of them).  The garage sale was a success (around $1100), but if you missed it and still have items you want to donate, 1st Presbyterian is having a garage sale on June 18, so you still have a great outlet for your stuff.  


Walter's tenure as department head of history is finally coming to a close.  He has another book in the works that he has noodged along in his less-than-copious spare time.  Starting June 1 he can dive in.  I'm going to force him into a brief vacation to San Diego and southern Cali right after he goes off the clock, but then he can muck around in archives and libraries as much as he likes.


Davis is deep into his third quarter at The OSU, and it is finally not winter.  But unfortunately, winter morphed right into monsoon season.  He may never get to take his bike, the beautiful Ruby, out for a spin ever again.   His classes (both the ones he takes and the ones he teaches) seem to be fine and dandy, not that I understand much of what he does for a living.


Willie and Teddy and Uma are going to be the subject of my next post, so I won't say much about them here.  I understand that some people say that having obedient dogs is overrated.  I would like to be in a position to judge whether that's true or not. . . maybe in another life time.

Stand

May 12, 2011


So I have balanced my MacBook on my Rubbermaid kitchen step stool and put them both on the kitchen counter so that I can avoid dying.  According to this New York Times article Is Sitting a Lethal Activity? (which you can read for free here even if you have already burned through your free access to the Times this month already and can't get past the paywall) suggests that you don't just have to be a couch potato lying on the sofa watching re-runs of CSI and Law and Order to be doing yourself in.  According to inactivity researchers, including a study by epidemiologist Alpa Patel, "The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher." 


Not going to catch me just sitting around anymore.  Here's the lowdown in infographic format (and, no, I'm not in the habit of perusing Medical Billing and Coding dot org regularly.  It was just something that came across my feed.):





Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Did you make it past the scary part?


Here's the rest of my post.  I'm not sure who put the master calendar together for my universe over the last week, but I sort of wish they would have checked in with me first.  Really!


May 4--Erin Buenger Scholarship presentation
May 5--Top 10% Banquet at Jane Long Middle School for all of Erin's friends and peers
May 6--Final Projects for my grad students (10-12 pages each) due
May 6-7--Relay for Life
May 7--Erin Buenger/JLMS Garage Sale
May 8--Mother's Day
May 10--Final Exam (all essay) for my undergraduates
May 12--Grades due for graduates


These are just the psycho/emotional milestones and don't actually include work or non-work commitments like meetings and conference calls aplenty.


I also needed to order 650,000 seed beads, 1850 lobster claw lanyard clasps, and over a mile of wire to supply Mo Ranch and Camp Flaming Arrow (I'm still working on the accent beads and am open to your ideas and suggestions and help)!  




My response:  Well, I took a pass on a couple of things (sorry to all our friends who were looking for us at Relay!) and slogged through the rest of them.


Given the dire consequences of just sitting around, I had no idea I was saving my own life.

Meet

May 5, 2011

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Allow me to present Phylicia Taylor, the 2011 Erin Buenger Scholarship recipient!  She is interested in biomedical science, music, and neuroscience and aspires to be a surgeon.

Salute

May 3, 2011


Announcements on top.  Fun below.

• If you live within a fifteen mile radius of my house and want to donate items to the Erin Buenger Memorial Scholarship Fund garage sale Taking place this Saturday (May 7) from 8-2 in the gym at Jane Long Middle School, please give me a message, text, email,  phone call, or smoke signal, and I will swing by your place and pick up your stuff.  
• If you'd rather shop than donate, that's fine too.  I have seen a few of the donated items:  
• almost new toddler bed and mattress 
• multiple children's bicycles in good condition 
• foosball table
• table lamps
• working toaster oven
• much, much more
• Both Mo Ranch Summer Camp and Flaming Arrow YMCA Camp in Hunt, Texas have adopted Erin's Dream Lanyards as their summer service project, thus sending me into a spinning frenzy trying to figure out how to supply 1500 kids with enough beads and wire to make beautiful things happen.  Ideas, anyone?
• Erin's Dream Lanyards is also one of the featured service projects at the Presbyterian Woman's Conferences at Mo Ranch.  
• The Brazos Interfaith Immigration Network (which I have a tiny part in helping to organize) will hold its Learn and Launch Meeting on Sunday May 15 at 5:00.  Save the date and I will provide more details later.  Here's the gist of the new organization:  As the immigrant population in Brazos County grows, there is an increasing need to promote the human dignity and the well-being of immigrants in our community and to advocate for and facilitate better access to legal, educational, and social services. BIIN will provide three main services not currently available in the Brazos Valley area:
• Information and referral services for immigrants, regardless of legal status;
• Speakers Bureau; and 
• At a later date, training opportunities for local people to become accredited Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA) representatives.
• Relay for Life will start at 7:00 on Friday night at Wolf Pen Creek Amphitheater. Many teams walking a raising money in Erin's memory and the memory and honor of many others. Walk some laps for someone you love.

Now for the fun:

Q: What is this hummingbird doing in my coffee cup?

A: The backstroke?

The real the answer is: Preparing to challenge Gemma Spofforth for her world record in the 100M backstroke, because I can't imagine what/who could swim faster than a hummingbird stoked by my mother's chickory-laced, fully caffeinated, loaded with sugar, Cafe du Monde French roast. Somehow, she had left a cup half-filled with "her" day starter on her second story deck. When she returned an hour later, she found the hummer drenched in go juice, still stuck in the cup. She showed up at my door with the soggy bird wrapped loosely in a towel, afraid that if she let it go it might die of C8H10N4O2 (caffeine) poisoning. I found the water spray bottle I keep in my trombone case, spritzed the little guy all over ( I don't think you really notice wet birds when it's raining, but they are pretty sad looking up close), and in a moment it flew away, willy nilly, and ever so quickly. With its chances of aquatic glory dashed, it was no doubt looking to set a new air speed record (with the added bonus of putting some distance between itself and those ladies riding the crazy train).

Finally (but still fun), I let it slip by without telling you that I had a special occasion last weekend. The Bryan/College Station Pre-Natal Clinic picked me as one of the honorees for this year's “You’re the Tops!” Luncheon, proving yet again that it is quite possible to pull the wool over people's eyes.

As lovely as it was to be chosen, it was ill timed.  Who could have known that all the horse-drawn carriages would be outsourced to London for the weekend, forcing me to drive myself in the fiery Prius? I also had a hard time finding a decent crown, tiara, or if can believe it, hat.  All sold out by the time I looked.  Something about someone's nuptials or something.  I had to settle for a new outfit and the five most handsome escorts in the room!

Starting from the upper left and moving clockwise:  Nico, me, Jesse, Jason, Ian, and Adam.

Clean or Not

April 22, 2011

My friend Lisa met me for lunch today and asked me, "How are things?"

I replied, "Oh, things are fine.  There are just so many of them."

And that's the truth.  There are just so many things these days.  Loads of things.

I am beaving along, though, knocking through the things one by one.  If I owe you an email, you will get one eventually.  If I owe you a work package, you'll get that too.  If you are my house, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a couple more weeks.  If you are the dust bunny living under my bed, the ever expanding spider family working on the eleventh renovation to your loft-area web, or the luxurious weeds growing rampantly in my front, side, or back flower bed, that means you have a reprieve.  

If any of you are ahead of me on the spring cleaning schedule, we are about two weeks away from the 

Second Annual Erin Buenger Memorial Scholarship Fund 

 GARAGE SALE

I would so love to have any sell-able items you would like to part with.

THINGS TO REMEMBER:

• We have a storage space if you want get rid of your things before May 6 (call, email, or facebook, if you want to take advantage of this option)
• NO CLOTHES
• The Sale takes place at Jane Long Middle School on May 7
• Set up the night before

We have great applicants for the scholarship this year!

Direct, Estimate, and Weigh

April 14, 2011


Rarely, does spending a couple of hours hard at work, feel so good.  At First Presbyterian Church-Bryan last night, about 130 folks of all ages pulled together to assemble, weigh, seal, pack, and load 20,002 nutritious meals for shipment to hungry people around the world. 


I had three jobs.  The first started soon after I arrived.  The director of the evening, who had flown in from California to coordinate our event, immediately recognized my leadership skills and ability to both follow and issue complex instructions.  After I donned my really cool work gear (plastic gloves and a hair net), I spent the next twenty or so minutes acting just like the high skilled airport workers who line the jumbo jets up with the jetway.  Picture me (without the handheld traffic directing lights) motioning people from the hatting and gloving area to the staging area for the food stations.  NO ONE GOT LOST!  


The project director then (as an extra test of my qualification) asked me to estimate the number of people in our crowd, so he would know how many people to place at each work area.  This was harder than it sounds, because I forgot to tag each person as they entered the staging area, and most came without their anchors, so they tended to drift around.


Once we started re-enacting the scene from "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethel work on the candy company assembly line, I became a weigher.  My job was to make sure each pouch of food weighed between 379 and 384 grams.  I had a high-tech plastic spoon to make weight, adding or subtracting from the upper layer of rice to hit my target.  I then past my pouch to an impact sealer, who ensured the food would transport without spilling and stay fresh for up to five years.


If I can bum some of the action photos taken last night during the operation, I will insert them here.


If this sounds like a more worthwhile way to spend an evening than lying on the couch watching the NCIS back-to-back-to-back marathon, you can do it too:

Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief agency that has been fulfilling its commitment to end hunger for more than 12 years. Since 1998, the organization has coordinated the distribution of food and other lifesaving aid to children and families in countries all over the world.

Stop Hunger Now has provided more than $70 million dollars worth of direct aid and 34 million meals to 72 countries worldwide.

Stop Hunger Now created its meal packaging program, in 2005. The program perfected the assembly process that combines rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a flavoring mix including 21 essential vitamins and minerals into small meal packets. Each meal costs only 25 cents. The food stores easily, has a shelf-life of five years and transports quickly.

Stop Hunger Now works with international partners that ship and distribute the meals in-country. Stop Hunger Now primarily ships its meals to support school feeding programs, but also provides meals to our in-country partners for crisis relief. 

The packaging operation is mobile, (i.e. it can go wherever volunteers are located), and can be adapted to accommodate as few as 25 and as many as 500 volunteers at a time. One SHN packaging event can result in the packaging of more than 1,000,000 meals or product servings. The use of volunteers for product packaging has resulted in an extremely cost-effective operation while, at the same time, increasing awareness of global hunger and food insecurity issues across a broad cross-section of the US population.

Stop Hunger Now has packaged more than 34 million meals since the inception of the meal packaging program in Dec 2005. These meals have been used primarily to support school feeding programs in developing countries.  Stop Hunger Now and hunger experts agree that hunger is solvable and is the common thread among the world’s most challenging issues.  When hunger is targeted, specifically by supporting school feeding programs, you give leverage support to other causes including poverty, disease, education and the welfare of women and children

(Can't) Resist

April 11, 2011

Someone has a birthday today (#23), and I can't resist sharing: 

Friend

April 9, 2011


I didn't know that friend was a verb until Erin.  


I'm not talking about the Facebook action where you make a connection and agree to give access to your wall, photos, and comments to someone you love, interact with regularly, just met, or never met but have some reason to want to interact with socially (but electronically).


I'm not talking about the concept of befriending, where you you find an injured bird and keep it in a cardboard box until it can fly away.


Erin looked for the friend in almost everyone she met--even people, who on the surface didn't seem that friend-able or friend-ly.  I think most people who met her felt that warmth of friendship with her.  


Beyond that, though, the verb "friend" also applies to the many, many demonstrations of friendship that the people in her life extended to her on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis over the course of her entire epic illness.


Her friends (too many to name and too awkward to risk leaving someone out) embraced her early and often.  They included her in everything, not as an afterthought or on instructions from some adult to be nice to the cancer kid.  They did what we all want people to do to us.  They took her as she was--sometimes pale, occasionally bald, often just different.  They willingly spent long, dull days with her at the clinic, tolerated the long drives and heavy traffic, and contented themselves with whatever unfolded.  They never made excuses, but showed up ready for whatever she was up for.


In December of 6th grade, she had to make a powerpoint (in Spanish) about her family, but she couldn't resist including this (not all of her friends, certainly, but the ones she could find photos of on short notice):

And the concept of friend didn't have an age cut off.  Her adult friends were just as stalwart, and I think, valued her friendship just as much as she did.


Walter and I, too, grew in our understanding of friend, and we could not have functioned during Erin's illness nor after without the incredible love that our friends (and I count this broadly to include our friends who are related to us, those who we see often, those we rarely see, and in some cases, those we have never met face-to-face) have extended at every bend in the road and every moment we have needed them (and in the many moments we did not know our own need).  


I have heard people say that in illness and tough times their friends were not there for them, but for us that has not been the case.  Our friend circle has grown and strengthened.  They (you) have stood by us, even when it would have been easier to shed us from their (your) lives and move on.  Friend--an action that can not be underestimated.  Thank You!


And brooke, thank you:  http://www.rivervision.com/upwp/?p=2337

Avoid

April 8, 2010


We all have our own reasons why we would prefer the government not shut down at midnight tonight (which probably means that while we don't all love everything the government does, we all do love some, if not many, of its involvements).  


For me, the fact that medical research at the NIH Clinical Center will shut down matters.  New studies (seven are scheduled to kick off next week, including two for children with cancer) won’t begin and ongoing trials won’t enroll new patients, ABC News reports.


I shall have faith that Barry Jackson and David Krone (the two crucial staffers negotiating between the House and the Senate) work something out so we can avoid the shut down.

Trato, Tratas, Trata, Tratamos, Tratais, Tratan

April 7, 2011


I signed up for Word of the Day at SpanishDict.com.  I figured I could supplement my Rosetta Stone efforts and expand my vocabulary incrementally, doing something I do every day:  read my email.  Little did I know that somewhere, embedded in the terms of agreement, I gave permission for the company to explore my subconscious and harness my brain so that they could customize my daily email to my own learning proclivities.


How else do you explain what happened?


The first word I received was quien:  who, whom.  Ha!  I knew this one from Bill Murray's skit on Saturday Night Live from years ago:

¿Quién es más macho? Fernando Lamas or Ricardo Montalban?

[NOTE BENE:  Of course, Ricardo Montalban (he of Corinthian leather fame and Kirk's ultimate nemesis, Khan) won every comparison (Lamas, Lloyd Bridges), until he fell to Desi Arnez.]


My confidence in learning Spanish strengthened on that entry.  The next day, I hit a snag:


tratar:  to treat, to have contact with, to process


Not only was I unfamiliar with it, but it required conjugation to use properly.  I practiced a bit, and thought I had it.


SpanishDict didn't think so.  The next day, bright and early I received my word for the day.  


Tratar (again)


I glanced at it and thought it looked familiar.  And worked on it some more.


Apparently, it wasn't enough.  The following day when I checked my email, tratar had arrived again, a third time, for good measure.  


Finally, on day five I got a new word:  el fin 


I think the joke is on me.

Process (Slowly)

April 4, 2011

I started the day not firing on all cylinders.  Perhaps I was emotionally exhausted from watching the Lady Aggies come-from-behind, final-seconds victory over Stanford in the Women's NCAA semifinal basketball match up last night.  Maybe I should blame Teddy, who commuted around the bed continually during the night as she got too hot then too cold then too hot again.  I also dreamed vividly about Walter and I getting married last night (not a re-play of the original, but instead a new wedding ceremony being held at Kyle Field). 

 
I spent much of my dream running up and down the ramps to the various decks, visiting with friend and making sure they found their way to their seats.  I was also having a hard time finding where I left my gown.  Luckily, I discovered it all laid out for me in one of the women's bathrooms under the west side lower deck.  I had multiple styles of each item of clothing to choose from, each hanging from one of the stall doors.  I quickly picked bikini underwear (TMI?), but couldn't decide on which gloves or hat to wear.  I also couldn't remember whether I had my hair and makeup done before I arrived at the stadium, and there were zero mirrors anywhere for me to check my look.

You can imagine how sluggish I was when I popped up to walk the dogs this morning.  I actually felt like I sleep walked my way around the lake.  A shower left me feeling soggy groggy.

I thought I felt livelier by the time I left the house for the ten minute drive to work, but clearly I was still processing at subspeed.

As I slowed to make a left turn, I glanced into my rearview mirror and noted the car behind me following a tad too closely.  I also noticed a pert, youngish woman driving the car and that the car had vanity plates.  I usually appreciate vanity plates and try to make a connection between the message and the driver.

Admittedly, I was reading the letters backwards in my mirror, but I was puzzled by the disconnect between the driver and BL INKR. 

"Inkr, inkr, inkr," I thought, "Does that mean tattoos?  Does the woman I see really get into tats so much that she bangs out the bucks for a custom license plate?  And if she does love tattoos that much (and given the non-black color of her car), wouldn't she prefer color rather than black?"

"Oh," I tell myself, "I got it wrong.  She's really a banker or accountant, who prefers black ink over red.  I must really be processing slowly this morning to have missed the obvious, particularly consiering my profession and the fact that I'm approaching the business school building."

I started my left turn, and she passed by on my right, so that I could see her license plate once more, this time forward rather than backwards:  BLINKR.

"????"

And so I just accepted my brain was still on impulse drive while the world moved on at warp speed.

Verb

April 1, 2011

I guess my April Fools Day joke is to turn the noun "verb" into an actual verb.  Not that funny.

Anyway, I have been struck with the number of emails and other encounters I have had lately with people celebrating the way that Erin inspires them.  At least four of my friends (Jennifer, Brooke, Spencer, and Kathryn) are celebrating their Relays for Life with Erin in mind.  Thank you dear friends.  That is a lovely thought.  Erin loved Relay and always looked forward to going round and round (and round and round and round) the track, complaining bitterly when I made her leave to get some sleep.

I ran by the meat market after lunch this afternoon, and stood in line into a dad I had know briefly when Erin was at Jane Long.  This lovely man greeted me like a long lost friend and went on to tell me that his son Jason, who had only known Erin for about seven months before she died, had started growing his hair out for locks of love shortly after her death, and had only recently gotten to the needed length.  I think the dad (who is a minister) was really proud of his son, but also really glad to have a clean cut son again. 

I also received this note yesterday morning:

Since I have been a fan of your Erin Buenger page, I thought I would share with you something about myself. My 16 year old son Nate was interviewed for a local PBS station on bullying. If you go to WQED.org, find the show Experience, and watch the show on bullying. My son Nate Bowden and myself were interviewed for the piece. We are taking your advice…we are using Verbs to live our lives.  

Here is the link:  http://www.wqed.org/tv/experience/index.php?id=125 

Nate is fantastic (so's his mom):  so articulate, so composed. 


Another one of my cyber friends Nikki has started an Etsy store (I'm not positive I know what that is, but it sounds daring and important.).  Here is how she describes it:


Disney Princess Autograph Books/Journals for YOUR Princess!

 

“I can make that,” the Disney-loving owner of new etsy store, Paper Diva Designs, said when she saw someone selling journals online. “I can make that AND make it uniquely creative AND OOAK.” Since designing her own upcycled journals, the Diva uses recycled papers and book covers whenever possible. 

 

Paper Diva Designs features an array of handmade upcycled journals, including Disney Princess Autograph Books/Journals and Vintage Ephemera Journals as well as Vintage Collage Packs for every artist’s need! Collages and Custom Disney Journals are soon to follow.

 

Her current featured product is an Upcycled The Little Mermaid Journal/Autograph book. It features all 10 Disney Princesses. It's wonderful for journaling or for getting your favorite princess's autograph at Disneyland or Walt Disney World!

 

To celebrate the Grand Opening of Paper Diva Designs, on April 1^st, 2011, coupon code UBP11 will give you 20% off your entire order April 1 – 9!

I'm pretty sure I am forgetting other folks who do verbs in so many other ways:  those who run, dance, sing, clean, write, play, and just find ways to Do It!  Thank you!

Now for a real April Fool's email, 

Here is what Walter sent to his department of 50 plus faculty and assorted grad student and staff today:

Members of the History Department:

Scientific advances in DNA analysis have now made it so cheap that Israelis are utilizing it to identify the dogs whose owners do not clean up after them:

http://www.nowpublic.com/environment/israeli-city-uses-dna-fight-dog-poop

This same technology will now be used to assure that our "self-cleaning kitchen" becomes truly self cleaning.
It is unconscionable of those who leave dirty cups and behind, expecting the secretaries to do a job that they were not hired for.

Therefore, I am asking each of you to come by Mary Johnson's office to take a cheek swab next Monday or Tuesday.

If you prefer, you can arrange for her to come by your office with a swab. The procedure is perfectly painless and harmless and takes only a few seconds.

Many thanks in advance for your cooperation.

Walter 

Sing

March 29, 2011


Thanks to everyone for reaching out to us with such kind words after my last post.  You all have a right to be angry and sad and frustrated.  Right now, the person is only accused of crimes and not yet convicted, so we should probably remain patient.  That is why I offer the following, much lighter post today:


Quick.  Name the first three hymns that come to your mind.  Maybe your favorites.  Maybe ones you hear frequently.  Maybe ones you have heard your whole life.


Here are mine:


Amazing Grace
Holy, Holy, Holy


and because Easter is approaching


Christ, the Lord, Is Risen Today


Did yours make this list?

And what exactly is this list?


This is a list of hymns that have stood the test of time in the US in mainline protestant churches. 

Robert T. Coote looked at successive hymnal editions of the following six mainline Protestant denominations, starting in the late nineteenth century and stretching forward to present day hymnals:

• Anglican (Episcopal), four editions, from 1892
• American Baptist, four editions, from 1883
• Congregational (United Church of Christ), five editions, from 1897
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, five editions, from 1899
• United Methodist, five editions, from 1878
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), five editions, from 1885

His study uncovered that 4905 different hymns had been published in these 28 hymnals.  Only the first 13 hymns on the list above appear in all the editions.  Nine more appeared in all but one edition, and five showed up in all but two of the hymnals spanning that time.

Did you find yours in the list?  Amazing Grace didn't make it, but my other two did.


Did looking over the list make you start singing or humming?  I didn't know all the hymns on the list, but it did give me pause and comfort to imagine my grandparents, great grandparents, and maybe even great-great grandparents standing in the pew singing the same songs I know.

If you want to read more, here is the original link to the story, Hymns That Keep on Going.