Organize

April 28, 2012

This is not a store display.  This is a small section of Erin's room.

Thanks to my uber organized sister Kat (who would be OCD about organizing, but refuses on the grounds that OCD isn't in alphabetical order), the bulk of the seed beads donated by Jennifer Fountain at the end of last year and sitting in a jumble in a cardboard box since then, are now ready to go for the summer lanyarding season!

Do you feel your creative juices flowing?

Learn by Reading

April 25, 2012

Things I learned from reading this week:

From The Economist

 According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, there were 294 million guns in the country in 2007, up from 192 million in 1994. More guns might be expected to mean more influence for the N.R.A., except that the number of households with guns has actually declined fairly consistently since 1973. The people who buy guns, it seems, are usually those who already own them.

*****************

From The New York Times

Plato was an athlete, particularly skilled as a wrestler. His given name was Aristocles, after his grandfather, but the coach under whom he trained is said to have called him “Plato” — from the Greek for broad, platon, on account of his broad-shouldered frame. It stuck.

*****************

From The Atlantic

State tax codes have a way of accumulating junk -- quirky breaks and carve-outs that grow increasingly odd as they linger on the books, like tacky old legislative souvenirs. In Alabama, you can still deduct $1,000 for building a radioactive fallout shelter. In Arkansas, blind combat veterans may buy a new car every two years tax free. In Hawaii, residents can claim a $3,000 deduction for taking care of "exceptional trees" on their property -- as long as an expert deems them "exceptional."

One of the strangest?  Florida's greenbelt law, which gives significant property tax exemptions for preserving green space areas.  The way to prove you deserve the exemption?  Rent cows for your lot and pay significantly lower taxes.

 
*******************

And these contrasting quotes from the Herding Cats blog

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science — Lord Kelvin

We contrast that with Einstein quote

Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts.

Compare/Contrast

April 18, 2012

A quick glance at my bookshelf in the left column reveals some that I have had going for quite a while and a couple recently added reads.  I don't know if you know Wilkie Collins or The Moonstone.  I didn't.  First published in 1868, folks who more in the know than me identify The Moonstone as the first detective novel.  It also has the quirk of telling the story through the eyes of several different characters, over time and in different countries.


I'm in the part told by the house steward, a seventy-something family servant named Betteredge, and given the pithy asides he adds to his storytelling, I would say that I'm not he first to notice that he is aptly named.  He also has the habit of dipping into Robinson Crusoe when confronted with a problem, needing wisdom, or just looking for comfort.  I found that funny and endearing enough to tell the Sunday school class about it on Sunday.  Of course, some people do that with the Bible, which I guess is the point, and also why I brought it up in Sunday.  


As soon as I set it up and delivered the part about about Betteredge consulting Robinson Crusoe for divine insight and had worn out eight copies over the years, my good friend Bill jumped in and said,  "My mom did the same thing with The Count of Monte Cristo."  I didn't believe him, but he insisted it was true.  Do you think this is as funny as I do?  I mean, it was funny for a made up eighteenth century servant with little education to consult a work of fiction for sustenance, but I have laughed every time I have thought of an actual 21st century woman dipping into The Count, just like Walter's grandmother relied on The Bible.  I have also added Robinson Crusoe and The Count of Monte Cristo to my future reading list, just to see what the buzz is.


Speaking of grandmothers (that wasn't a very clever segue, was it?), Walter's grandmother not only consulted her Bible, she took it another step.  Apparently, she got a new Bible every year, read it cover to cover, annotating heavily as she went.  At the end of the year, she would put the Bible in a shoebox, tie it up with a ribbon, and stack it in the closet (never to be viewed again).  When she died there were layers of boxes lined up on the shelf in the closet.  His other grandmother (maybe great-grandmother, I will have to check) was a Freethinker (if you don't know what that is, you should look it up).  When Walter's dad went to her to explore the idea that he wanted to be a minister, she listened carefully until he was done, then sent him on with the advice that went something like "Why don't you find honest work?"


My grandmothers were just as different.  I grew up thinking of them as the "cooking" grandmother and the "playing" grandmother.  I think that is a little one-dimensional of me, but I do think, like Walter's grandmothers they represented somewhat distinct points fairly distant from each other on the grandmother continuum.  


I can remember my mother's mother loving to play canasta and bridge (I was taught bridge as a ten-year old so she and my mom and my aunt would always have a fourth).  She could keep the conversational ball rolling with anyone.  I have a fixed memory of her stretched out in front of the huge black and white console television, working out with Jack LaLane.  She liked the horse races.  The only thing she could cook that I remember enjoying was "Sock-It-To-Me" cake.  Everything else was a disaster.

My father's mother was a cleaner, from cleanersville.  When she visited, I had to sleep on sheets and pillowcases that she had starched and ironed.  By the time she left my cheeks were rubbed raw.  The upside to her lengthy visits was that she cooked a full hot lunch every day and we all came home from school and work to eat.  She sewed me so many dresses that when I started first grade I didn't repeat an outfit until October.  


When I was young I just thought of them as work v. play, but my "work" grandmother also taught me to play poker and honed my skills until I was pretty scrappy.  She'd fly kites, fish, and work jigsaw puzzles with me--everything was very Vickie-centric. This was different from my other grandmother, who made no real effort to endear herself to me on my terms.  I think she was much more adult-oreinted, and it pleased her to no end when I finally caught on to her bawdy jokes and her clever charm.


In hindsight they were a contrast, just not the contrast I grew up thinking I understood.

Write

April 4, 2012

Writing fascinates me.  

Usually.

Except, of course, when it irritates me.

I have writing on the brain.  I think it's because I have graded non-stop since the week after spring break and see little respite on the horizon.  Not all students write badly, but enough do that I'm tempted to despair.

I constantly seek ways to support students' writing.  I start with the obvious:

FD FC (First Draft Doesn't Equal Final Copy)--although, admittedly, in blog writing, sometimes it does.

I introduce them to the Seven Dwarfs of Bad Writing:  

Choppy
Clunky
Sloppy
Wordy
Fuzzy
Trite
Boring

I warn them not to pull a Snow White and set up housekeeping with these bad influences.

I give them general advice and specific guidelines.  I point them to writing experts at the University and in the public domain (for instance, Constance Hale on sentences.  She begins, "I like to imagine a sentence as a boat.").


Mainly, I wonder about their previous writing instruction.


Teaching writing is just not held to the same standards as the other two Rs (readin' and 'rithmatic).


Educators attack the process of teaching reading.  We have multiple methods and a huge number of weapons in our arsenal:  phonics, "look & say," language experience, context clues.  Teaching reading is designed to span the entire range of intrinsic capability and interest.  Once a student can read Hop on Pop, teaching doesn't stop.  Even if most of the class is still "sounding it out," other kids move on to chapter books, literature, and discerning reading (which means you figure out that you don't read the newspaper the same way you read your favorite blog or your chemistry text).

Math is much the same. No one expects everyone to learn in the same way or at the same pace.  Students who master basic operations go on to algebra, geometry, and beyond.  Others get more practice on the basics.  Teachers differentiate the curriculum and there is always more to learn for everyone.    

I wonder about writing instruction.  Do instructors meet every student where they are?  Do students who figure out basic sentence structure get channeled into more challenging writing opportunities?  How much effort goes into remediation?  Is there an armada of opportunities to figure out a range of writing skills and strategies?

When I read my students papers, it feels like everyone has had exposure to writing instruction, but at some point (8th grade, maybe?) their writing became frozen in time.  Somebody signals that is good enough (and from my vantage point the bar here is pretty low) and then everyone stops progressing.  So I'm faced with college students and even college graduates who write by formula, who can't discern the appropriate type or style to adopt for any writing opportunity, and who really haven't explored the concept of writing beyond trying to avoid it.  I think that many of my students believe that writing is an innate skill/gift that you either have or you don't, and that if you are a "bad" writer there is no hope and if you are a "good" writer you are a lucky dog and don't need any more instruction. 


That drives me crazy.  They are wrong.  They need to learn and then practice what they learn.


For the record, if you work at it, your first draft could should look like this:

 

Wish

March 27, 2012

As in, I wish this post had a coherent theme.  Alas, it doesn't.  But here are some random things:

Davis came home last week.  It was a coincidence.  He was accepted to attend a math conference hosted at A&M.  After I heard the theme (Groups, Geometry, and Random Structures) I even considered going to some of the sessions with him.  Of course, that was when I thought I knew what those five words meant.  When I looked at the session titles, I realized my confidence about understanding any of it drained away rapidly after I got past the articles, conjunctions and prepositions.

You can test yourself.   Here's a link to the program:   http://www.math.tamu.edu/~kerr/groups12/program.html. 

In the wake of Davis's departure, I did what came naturally.  I washed his sheets and towels, remade the bed, and volunteered to keep a teenage boy at my house for a week while his mother went to mandated training over in Austin.  I think I must have gotten used to seeing a light on in Davis's room at random times in the day and night.  I had completely forgotten the rat's nest of traffic trying to move west to east across town at 8:00 when I took Connor to school yesterday.  This morning we took a different, secret route.

I read on facebook a little while ago about a trend in smart phone storage that occasionally results in women texting photos of their boobs to their friends on speed dial.  Given the size of smart phones that don't always fit in a pocket, some women keep them in their bras so they will always have them close at hand.

I only have two thoughts about that:

• What if there is only room for a nano iPod in there?
• If my phone were in my bra, where would I keep my chocolate and how would I keep it warm?

I had a great time at the Greens Prairie Elementary Rodeo and Craft Fair on Saturday and the folks down there loved and supported Erin's Dream Lanyards.  I wondered if their PTO screens their officers and volunteers.  They were all very nice and very organized.  And all of them I saw could make the final call for casting for the Hot PTO Mom's of College Station.  I felt relieved that I no longer had elementary kids, because I know I would not have made the cut.
    

Flatten

March 15, 2012


While some people stab Julius Ceasar twenty-three on the Ides of March, I spent my day doing other things--which you don't have to hear about in their dull entirety.  I will say that part of the day, like part of the week has involved figuring out what to do with all the stuff that we moved into Davis's room back in January when we emptied the attic.  After only 27 and a half years, Walter and I finally built the cedar closets we have been thinking about our entire married life.


But, because the semester was hot to go by the time the contractor finished, we have been somewhat slow (might I say snail-like?) in putting the good stuff back in the attic and disposing of that which deserved disposal.  Today, we broke down a clothes carton that we first used when we moved to Nashville in 1990. And I felt a wee bit funny that I had a cardboard box that was almost as old as my son.

That was until I looked at a empty box I had carried to the back porch last weekend.  It came into my possession when my mom closed down the travel agency she ran.  It is thirty years old.

Of course, neither of those compare to the box that holds the outdoor Christmas light.  I'm not sure if it or I qualified for AARP membership first.


Then I reassured myself:  everyone has old cardboard boxes that they stow for years, even decades.  They probably are just the right size, were sturdy to begin with, and only get used once a year, or maybe even less often than that.  That reasoning comforted.  Well, it comforted me up until the moment that I realized my twenty-two-year-old box and my thirty-year-old-box were empties that I had saved "just in case" I needed a box.  Who in their right mind stores ancient cardboard boxes "just in case?"


Not me.  Anymore.  They have resumed their original flat shape and have gone to live at the recyclery.  What was I thinking?

Trendset

March 9, 2012

I guess I need to take care not to do anything too wacky, since I am apparently an awesome trend setter. Here is proof from Politico:  

While in St. Petersburg, Fla., for a fundraiser Wednesday night, Vice President Joe Biden got a compliment on his red necktie.

Rather than just thanking the donor and moving on, Biden admired the man's purple tie, a pool report said. Then, in a moment of Biden being Biden, he suggested that they swap ties. And, in the midst of a photo line where donors paid $1,000 apiece to pose with the vice president, the two men did just that.

Of course, the Vice President takes his cues from me, because not only did I come home from Houston with a new watch, I didn't even make it all the way through last weekend before someone swapped with me again.  Here is my new Timex flex band.  The swatch has moved on.  I kind of feel like I belong to the sisterhood of the traveling watch.

Some of you had some good questions about the original swap.  

Jan wrote:  

Vickie -- your life certainly is not dull! But in all fairness -- if the new watch keeps time, then (assuming YOURS did, which seems likely) the Venn diagrams should have overlapped -- just as teensy teensy bit. I have a lot of really serious questions for God when I get to heaven (and many of them have to do with neuroblastoma and kids) -- but I will be curious to know the answer to this one too (who knows, perhaps you just passed the Matthew 5:41-42 challenge!)


Jan, you are right, of course.  My Venn diagram was inaccurate.  The swatch did appear to keep time, although because of the unusual face and lack of digits, I didn't ever really know what time it was (and I would write a song about it, if Chicago hand't already beat me to it).  As for Matthew 5:41-42, I suspect you weren't supposed to get a vintage item in exchange for your effort.


Brooke wrote:


That's great Vickie! I love stories like that! The swatch is SO much more playful, and over there in business, y'all need to play more. Seriously, y'all have nothing on the educators. So, for whatever reason, I'm glad. It should entertain your students too!


I'm not sure I'd claim to need to play more, and I'm positive that Walter wouldn't agree.  His favorite family legacy quote is "Work makes life sweet" or as he will say in German "Arbeit macht das Leben sub."


In fact, I relatively sure I am pretty Libra-like on balancing work and play, BUT, you are exactly right about entertaining my students.  I have a student who collects watches that has promised to keep the watches traveling by doing an exchange the week after spring break.  At this point, I can't really tell if I am trading up and will eventually find myself with a diamond crusted Rolex, or down, where I will end up with a watch from a cereal box.


Anonymous wrote:


Okay, Vickie, you're going to HAVE to give us a little more info. Pleeeeeeze don't leave us hanging like this. Zactly how did this little exchange happen?


Similarly, Erin F. wrote:


I, too, need more details about this event. It's just too odd. Where were you? Did the owner of your watch say anything to you as she made this switch? Did she know that 29 February is not the same as 1 April? Is this a person you are likely to see again? Do you think "her" watch is truly her watch or does it belong to whoever she had dinner with on 28 February? Also, you are one of the most well-spoken, diplomatic people I know. I wonder what prevented you from negotiating your watch back. Enquiring minds want to know!


As I said in my original post, I'm not really sure what happened.  I have known the woman slightly for almost thirty years, but have never spent much time together.  I do not know her well.  She worked in the corporate headquarters of a downtown Houston bank and has since retired.  She seemed either to have a quirky personality (consistent with playing a subtle practical joke) OR she seemed to have started that mental slide down that we all would like to avoid.


In either case, as we sat there at dinner, my friend to my left was engaged in a conversation with the person on his left, leaving me to chat with the woman on my right.  As the conversation lagged, I noticed her watch (which she wore on her right arm), and since a plastic banded, vintage swatch seemed a little incongruous and perhaps would lead to an interesting story (little did I know?), I admired it, hoping it would launch us into a new conversational direction.


She took it off and began explaining the background of the designer (maybe Renzo Piano, inspired by Italian architect and designer Alessandro Mendini).  BINGO, I thought.  I struck pay dirt, and I could listen and enjoy my St. Arnold's without having to strain to make conversation.  Except then she started insisting that I should keep it.  


"No, of course, I can't keep your watch," I insisted.  But she wanted me to see how it would look on my arm, so before I could figure out what to do next (remember, I'm thinking this is just a joke or she's around the bend), she had my watch off my arm, and hers in its place.  Then, mine is on her arm.  Then, the food arrives and the conversation spreads tablewide rather that in tete-a-tetes, and there didn't seem to be any comfortable way to make the switch back happen.  If it was a joke, she would swap back in her own good time, after revealing my naivety.  If she was a little batty, then I sure didn't want to call attention to it over a congenial meal.


And so, that really is all I know, except that Davis thought this was a brilliant and funny story and encouraged me to offer whatever watch I wearing to anyone who admired it, to keep the trend going.  So, at church on Sunday, I was telling the story of how I came to wear a watch that didn't particularly suit me, and the person I was talking to, peeled her watch off her arm.  She waggled it at me and then said, I really like your watch.   So, for now I have a Timex.


The next time I write, I promise it will be about something else.  I feel a blog coming on about writing education.

Switch? Swatch?

March 1, 2012


NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition.  Our chief weapon is surprise (and a whole list of other things, including nice, red uniforms). . . 


Well, imagine my surprise when, right before my very eyes, the woman sitting next to me at dinner last night took my watch and gave me hers.  I haven't felt so startled at an exchange since I lost my best shooting marble to Jeff Dean playing keepsies in the College Hills school yard at recess in 1970.  I didn't have much recourse to get my best bully taw back, since it was verboten to play for keeps at school (perhaps too close to the gambling sin for my small Texas town).  


That also appears to be the case with my now gone watch, which looks just like this one except it has VB above the 12 instead of "LHP."  I have also worn out and replaced the band, so mine the one that used to be mine is a little browner and not quite as shiny:

This is my "new" watch, a 1999 Jelly Piano Swatch:

Here is the Venn Diagram containing all the features of both watches (band style, materials, face shape, numerals on face):

Notice how much the two figures overlap?


I wasn't drunk.
I wasn't flaunting my stylin' Orvis watch.
I didn't lose (or win) a bet.


Frankly, I'm not sure what happened, but before I knew it, this older woman had my watch on her right wrist and I had hers on my left, and apparently it was for keepsies.   I kept expecting we would re-exchange, but we didn't.  


The only thing harder to picture than my face trying to make sense of this was Walter's face at breakfast this morning when I told him that someone else now owned the watch he had given me.

Replenish

February 17, 2012

I hope you smooched your sweetie earlier this week, made it through first round exams, and/or appreciated the almost record-setting amount of rain in February.  Speaking for myself, I have done two of those three plus a little more.

One of the "more" I have done is that I have spent some time musing about psychic resources and vegetables.  I have to say that I don't spend the bulk of my time sitting at my desk reading reports from behavioral economists.  I'm also not sure that I agree completely with this piece that came across my news feed:

http://annualreport.wkkf.org/Whats-Inside/Articles/Stress-Impacts-Good-Parenting.aspx 

The premise of this report is that good parenting requires a good store of psychic resources.  It goes on to say that economically well-off parents probably have a bigger store of that than low-income parents.  Here's a relevant quote for context:

Being a good parent, even when you know what to do, is hard. It requires constant attention, effort and stead-fastness. Children need to be motivated to do things they dislike (like homework or learning their tables); appointments have to be kept; activities chosen and planned; children ferried to classes and games. Teachers have to be met; their feedback incorporated; tutoring or extra help provided or procured. Children’s social lives and how they spend their spare time has to be kept track of.

Good parenting requires psychic resources. Complex decisions must be made. Sacrifices must be made in the moment. This is hard for anyone, whatever their income: we all have limited reserves of self-control, and attention and other psychic resources. In that moment, fretting about the deadline, your psychic resources were depleted. Facing pressure at work, you did not have the freedom of mind needed to exercise patience, prioritize and do what you knew to be right. To an outsider, in that moment, you would look like a bad parent.

Low-income parents, however, also face a tax on their psychic resources. Many things that are trifling and routine to the well-off give sleepless nights to those less fortunate. To take a simple example, everyone may face the same bank overdraft fees – but steering clear of them is pretty easy for the well-off, while for the poor it requires constant attention, steely reserve and enormous amounts of self-control. For the well-off, monthly bills are automatically deducted and there is still some slack left over. For those with less income, finding ways to ensure that rent, utilities and phone bills are paid for out of small, irregular paychecks is an act of complicated financial jugglery.


I will say that at least part of this analogy made sense to me, not necessarily the specifics about income, but more about finding yourself in situations with depleted psychic resources.  Any cancer parent can tell you about that.  Do not confuse what I mean here.  I am not saying that having a child with cancer makes you a bad parent, or even tends you in that direction.  I'm saying that any living, breathing, thinking person can actually feel their psychic resources drain lower in the tank when they are navigating the waters of treatment decisions and therapy demands.  They/we might have to let other things slip.

I have also found that using depleted psychic resources holds explanatory power in other areas.  Take something very routine:  cooking supper.  I'm a pretty good cook.  I don't mind doing it.  I can afford it.  However. . . the more hectic the work week gets the more I shrink back to a narrow range of meal ideas--the same few vegetables, a couple of casseroles and some easy-to-grill items, carbs that I can store easily in the pantry.  Even if I have time to nip by the grocery on the way home rather than rummaging through the cabinets and fridge when I get home, my psychic resources are too sparse to think of anything beyond the old standbys.  Believe it or not, I don't browse the produce aisle at 5:30, imagining all the things I could do with bok choy or beets. 

I promise I know how to cook more than spaghetti, meatloaf, and grilled chicken breast, with rice or bow-tie pasta and steamed broccoli or asparagus.  But I just don't get it done when my psychic resources slump.

Recently, I joined a vegetable service Kelly's Greens where I receive a bag of organic vegetables on Saturdays.  This small thing has worked wonders on balancing my psychic resource depletion.  Instead of straining to think of what to to cook or what to buy, I have choices already at hand.  It becomes easier to cook and to cook in a healthy way.  Both of those things not only conserve psychic resources, but in many ways replenish them.


I think the analogy for cancer parents (and those who want to help them, but don't know how) is not to make them use one more ounce of energy or decision making effort to consider what might help them out.  Try making it easy for them.  Become that "bag of greens" that appears in my refrigerator on Saturdays. If you see someone stuck in the well-worn grooves of habit or someone barely keeping up with the demands their current life places on them, don't ask them what they need, throw them a life preserver or a metaphorical bag of greens.

   

Rain

February 4, 2012


Have you missed me?  I have totally been lolly gagging around.  You know--eating bon bons and drinking champagne, crafting astoundingly detailed replications of famous ancient structures (visualize a Mayan temple or the Hanging Garden of Babylon) out of Ivory soap, and in general, wasting more time than you can shake a stick at.  My dereliction to posting is in no way caused by my schedule being filled with the richly rewarding paid work I do, expanding the minds and attitudes of young men and women or in any way by the unpaid work I do--household or community-wise.


I did spend a few extra minutes worrying about the dogs last night.  Walter and I met some friends downtown for First Friday, never expecting that we would get four inches of rain before we got home.  Willie and Teddy didn't get a drop wet, but I think they had very little appreciation for the light(ning) show or the bass-heavy sound effects (that my local weatherman when I was growing up always called "thunder boomers") that came with our rain.  The two and a half more inches that we got as the night progressed plus the run off from the surrounding territory has brought the lake up enough that it is now, once again, recognizable as a lake, in that we could actually stand on the dock and throw a rock that could reach the water.  We are still three or four feet low, but it no longer looks like we live on Newt Gingrich's moon base when we look out across our backyard lakebed.


Across town, my friend Michelle's backyard creek came up so fast that her pair of prized "Amish Furniture for Generations" chairs were swept away downstream (so much for the next generations who were expecting to enjoy them).  They found one, but are still searching for its mate.   If you see an escaped chair that looks like this, drop me a note.  

It is hard to believe a chair this stout looking could just float away, but I have seen stranger things.  Back in 1979, my hometown, Alvin, Texas, had the misfortune of being underneath a mile thick raincloud when it stalled.  We got 43 inches of rain in 24 hours (From the National Climate Data Center:  the Unites States 24-hour record rainfall occurred at Alvin, Texas with 43.00 inches recorded on July 25-26, 1979).  We had friends whose house flooded, and their baby grand piano floated out of the living room, shattering the sliding glass door.  They found it several miles away and in a state more similar to kindling than its previous state as a magnificent musical instrument.


Anyway, I'm happy for the rain and less happy about the destruction that some experienced. 


P.S.  Walter's birthday present did arrive--a nook tablet. 

Travel

January 23, 2012

Davis picked out a gift for his dad and chose express shipping.  Thanks to the efficiencies of modern logistics management, his gift is seeing more of the country than many of my students have seen in their lives:

Memphis, TN, United States	01/23/2012	5:07 A.M.	Departure Scan
Memphis, TN, United States	01/20/2012	11:49 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Nashville, TN, United States	01/20/2012	7:47 P.M.	Departure Scan
	01/20/2012	5:57 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Louisville, KY, United States	01/20/2012	4:04 P.M.	Departure Scan
	01/20/2012	1:24 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Mather, CA, United States	01/20/2012	6:37 A.M.	Departure Scan
	01/20/2012	2:00 A.M.	Arrival Scan
Sparks, NV, United States	01/19/2012	7:00 P.M.	Departure Scan
	01/19/2012	4:41 P.M.	Origin Scan

That's right:  

West and South for 150 miles;
due East for 2250 miles;
mostly South and little West for 175 miles;
mostly West and a little South for 200 miles.


Total miles, so far:  2,784 (still 500 miles to go by the most direct route!).  

Can you locate Bryan on the map?  Draw a triangle between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio and look for a spot somewhere around the middle of the triangle.  You might think it could get here eventually.  BUT, considering that--with one exception-- it can't seem to get more than a couple of hours down the road on any particular day, you might think it could be another three days before it arrives.  That is, unless you know, as most Texans do, that you really can't get from Texarkana to Bryan by any direct route.





View Larger Map

Love

January 19, 2012



Walter grew up think that his birthday was a holiday.  Fort Stockton schools dismissed for Robert E. Lee's and Jefferson Davis's birthday, which happened to beWLB's birthday as well (Unfortunately, in 1973, the Texas legislature combine the previously official state holidays honoring those two specific men, who Walter didn't mind sharing a birthday with, into a single "Confederate Heroes Day."  At that point he may have either started claiming birthdays with Edgar Allen Poe, or perhaps only mentioned it in the years when the 19th fell on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.).

For some reason, Walter doesn't end up in too many photos.  I really like the one I opened with because Walter looks so relaxed, but also very wise.  It also shows the rocker that has been in the family for generations.  

Erin talked him into this birthday pic a few years ago.  I think his birthday must have coincided with MLK Day that year, which would explain how Ayesha ended up visiting (probably a three day weekend!)  

From WELCOME TO ERIN'S HOME

Tonight will definitely be quieter when Walter and I celebrate his birthday than it ever was when Erin was in charge of the party, but we will have a lovely and loving time nevertheless.

Steam and Bake

January 8, 2012


Classify this under first world problems.


Walter and I like cabbage, both as slaw and steamed.  With the right kind of prep, we could probably eat a whole head of cabbage over a few meals if we made it into slaw.  But.  Those store-bought bags of shredded cabbage with both purple and green varieties and some bits of carrot added for color are a lot easier than starting from scratch with a head of cabbage.


So, usually when we have a head of cabbage we slice and steam it.  Except.


There is no way we can eat a whole head of steamed cabbage.  Even on our healthiest days.  So, I usually take out my biggest chopper, slice it, steam half, and return the other half to the refrigerator to mildew until I can lug it out to the compost pile.  Not that I intend this.  It just happens every time.  I'm usually not in the mood for steamed cabbage two nights in a row.  Somehow, the half a head gets pushed to the side and forgotten.  It wouldn't be that hard to cook it all at once, but I could never figure out a way to use leftover cabbage (and perhaps I am always a little too pleased with myself for cooking with cabbage in the first place, and as a side note, that part of the joy of cooking cabbage is that it allows me to call to mind the Cosby Show episode when Clair Huxtable was turning 46 and the kids put on a show that featured among other things the price of a head of cabbage at various points in her life).  Thus I keep buying cabbage, and thus I keep throwing half of it away.

To crack this puzzle, I finally consulted the inestimable James Beard's American Cookery and found a very cool recipe that completely eliminates the problem of what to do if you can't eat a whole cabbage in one sitting.  Ladies Cabbage.

"Ladies cabbage must have been a very fashionable dish, for it appears in recipes by everyone from Mrs. Harland to Mrs. Rorer.  Strange how certain dishes have a vogue for years and years and suddenly disappear.  No one hears of ladies cabbage nowadays."

Let's just suffice it to say that if you add enough butter, cream, and eggs to chopped up, leftover cabbage, you will never worry about buying more cabbage than you can eat.  You might even decide two heads are better than one. 

Confess

December 29, 2011


I had an appalling realization last week.  Finding myself with a bit of extra time on my hands, I started some heavy-duty cleaning, including in one of my three attics (and don't you think owning three attics in the same house is a little outrageous? Perhaps even decadent?).  Anyway, one of the things I found was a rather large basket of rags and leftover clothes and sheets meant to be made into rags at some point.  That finding, in and of itself, is not worth confessing.  That I have a similarly large stash of rags in each of the other attics AND in the shed and some closets led me to a realization:


I am unable to throw away clothes.


Think about this.  I have bought or received clothes for a family of four for more than half my life.  I do give away some items.  I have donated wearable clothes to the Twin City Mission and to various garage sales for good causes.  I have passed along some things as hand me downs.  However, as I pondered it, I could not remember EVER throwing away clothes.  Somehow, the idea that Someone Somewhere cut and sewed the item, as opposed to something mass produced and spit out by a machine, gives me pause.  I can't seem to throw those things away, even when they are no longer fit for anyone to wear.  I just put used clothes, sheets, towels, socks, even underwear, in a box or basket "to make rags out of them." I have now reached the point that I have so many rags I could clean up all the sites on the Superfund list and still not deplete my stock.


I think I need a chiffonier!  Or in English, a rag picker.


Did you know that the average American throws away 67.9 pounds of clothing and rags each year? With some 20 million people in the state of Texas, that’s 1.4 billion pounds of clothing thrown away each year in Texas alone.


Surely, there must be a way to recycle and/or re-use the fabric, buttons, zippers.  Locals, do you know anyplace that recycles clothes and other fabric items?  I'm talking about items no longer wearable--stained, hopelessly out of fashion, torn, faded.


Barring that (and this is a serious request), would anyone be willing to teach me how to make rag rugs?  And if I learn, are any of you willing to receive a rag rug gift from me?


An addendum to this confession:


The day I discovered my rag problem, I was confessing it to my friends, Jim and Margie.  They have just bought a new place near Dripping Springs to replace their Bastrop home lost to the wildfires last fall.  When I bemoaned my overabundant bounty of rags, Margie pulled the most wistful look, and said, "Jim and I were just shopping for rags to use to rub oil into our butcher block island in our new kitchen.  They are really hard to find at the store, and of course, I don't have any now.  I don't really even have spare clothes to make into rags."


I never imagined giving a bag of hole-y socks, ripped knit shirts, too-old-to-wear-for-yard-work pants, and a bottom sheet with bad elastic as a Christmas gift.  And what's more, I never thought the receiver would be delighted.

Open Letter to a Grieving Friend

December 24, 2011

Erin's First Christmas Eve--14 Years Ago

I have a friend who has suffered some gut-wrenching losses.  She's pretty far from friends and family and pulling the oars towards finishing her dissertation.  There are so many people I know who can identify with her words to me:    "so, this death thing seems to get worse, or at least it has for me. I guess it was the whole shock thing that has made this last longer? or does it just get harder the longer they are gone? I'm finding it absolutely ridiculous . . ." and so on.  

Many of you know these words and all the verses that follow after.  Here's my current thinking on that topic and what I wrote her [with a couple of corrections and grammar fixes]:

"Dear Friend,

I'm pretty sure I'm not an expert here, but since you asked:

I think the whole living on after your Rock of Gibraltar dies is a pretty sketchy process, and I really think you need to find more ways to be gentle with yourself.  Consider how tough what you are experiencing really is:

You have lost part of your self, all the shared memories and specialness.  It is not particularly fulfilling to try to describe those things to others, because it makes what you are talking about feel so light weight and inconsequential.  Then it makes you mad or sad that that person can't really know what you are talking about, describing, trying to express.  They can't know the person.  There aren't any mores, just what you have stored in your memory and relics.

It is okay to feel empty.  It is okay to start crying at really weird and inconsequential (or heavy-weight) things.  Give yourself a chance to talk about it and talk about your dad.  If it helps, write me out long letters telling me about him.  Take little steps.  Nothing is the same as it was.  

The main thing is that you don't have to decide how you are supposed to feel about it, how you explain it to yourself emotionally or intellectually, how you frame your life going forward, and especially you don't have to stick with one answer.  My feelings, explanations, rationales, and so on about Erin change to match what I need.  I don't have to put it all in a box that I can store forever.

I'm sorry you are lonely and suffering.  Think of a small thing you can do to honor your feelings for your situations, and do it.  It's even better if you can do it with others.  Find a verb that works.

Vickie"

About the photo at the top:  I think we bought this Santa suit for our oldest niece Lauren.  I know her sister Shannon wore it, as well as Davis, and possibly Annabelle.  I don't really know where it is now, but I think I need to look for it in the attic next time I clean up there.  We still have the wagon (much worse for wear).  We hauled Erin around the lake in it when she was little and later at various times when her adventurous spirit outstripped her ability to navigate where she wanted to go.  The Elmo plane and train were just part of the always eclectic tastes Erin had in toys (and everything really).  The smile?  That's just the way she rolled.

Exercise

December 13, 2011


I'm a day ahead of my usual schedule.   Ordinarily, I turn my grades in on the Wednesday of finals week and G.T.H.O.O.D (Get The Hell Out Of Dodge) so that I don't become a wheedle magnet for students looking for a mullet who might change their grade for no other reason than they have  a sad story and a compelling look on their face.  I turned all my grades in this morning and can now avoid my office for a few weeks, as if stopping by would unleash a plague of locust.   Then I hit the gym.  


I have a new incentive program to make me more faithful about working out.  I love reading mysteries, but some authors like Laurie R. King I just gobble up.  Here's my latest: 

The key to this new approach to making sure I get to the gym is that I will only let myself read The God of the Hive if I am on an exercise bike at the Rec Center.  I have other things I can read at home, even other mysteries, but to make progress in this one, I have to be exercising.  I'm about 160 pages in now, and I can honestly say I'm studying my calendar and my to do list to see when the next time I can make it to work out.  I'm glad I have my semester out of the way. . . now what to do about that pesky approaching holiday that requires cleaning and cooking and other activities that might stand as a barrier to finishing the book and solving the mystery?

Narrate

December 5, 2011


Many weeks and months have passed since I gave a straight narrative of the Buenger activities (don't you feel boredom coming on, just anticipating a recital of "we went _______" then "we ate ______" and "saw ________").  Well, if your friends can't give you a little boredom and a chance to snooze at the screen this hectic, fast-paced, and stressful time of year, then what are friends for?


Do you believe in coincidences?  Me neither.  Except, here's what I read on my friend D'Anna's facebook page tonight:


Don't you just hate when you painstakingly prepare a beautiful quiche, put it in the oven, wait patiently for the timer to go off alerting you that your masterpiece is ready, and then discover that you forgot to turn the oven on? Yeah, me too.


The exact same thing happened to me last Tuesday.  I decided that I would whip up a quiche and use up the extra pie crust I made for Thanksgiving (and I want you to notice that I was using healthy ingredients, like broccoli instead of Karo syrup and sugar or chocolate and heavy cream).  I know I had the oven on at some point, because I baked the crust for about ten minuted before I filled it.  


Anyway, I checked it at the minimum bake time and thought the egg part still looked runny.  It also looked that way at the maximum bake time.  At some point around then I noticed the oven was off, but I thought I might have turned it off the first time I checked it.  I kept cooking it a little more and a little more.  Eventually, I doubled down on the bake time and pulled a decent well-cooked quiche out of the oven to serve to The Very Hungry Caterpillar Walter.


Given that very lame mistake, I was a bit leery when I was tapped as the voice of God for the liturgy on Sunday.  However, when I thought about it, I figured acting as God, even for just a few minutes at the beginning of a church service might be pretty handy for someone like me.  If I forgot to heat the quiche, I might just smite it down or materialize as a burning bush to finish it off.  Did I mention I was the voice of the Old Testament Hebrew God?  


The God-thing was fine for those few moments during the worship service, but no residual effect lingered that gave me the capacity to answer prayers or even comfort my people (which was the theme of the liturgy).  I haven't even been able to channel my inner God to connect with Elaine and Mark and catch up with their doings down under.  Every time I get on the computer, it seems like they have just moved on to something else.  Plus, my trusty little MacBook is about to go to MacBook heaven.  Even the Geek Squad only offered workarounds to make me more comfortable until the inevitable end comes.  Can I enroll in Mac Hospice?  


[Note Bene:  if you come across a word or letter that doesn't belong in a sentence, it is NOT MY FAULT.  Part of my Mac disease is cursor hopping.  I'll be typing along at the speed of molasses--looking at the keyboard so I don't make mistakes, of course--and when I look up at the screen, my little blinky friend has decided to pay a visit to the previous line or take a Ground Hog's Day trip back several words, returning repeatedly like some perverse arsonist admiring the burning building.  My touch pad is no better, picking up random parts of the screen and moving them by slight of hand.  I won't even mention the spinning beach ball of death that haunts any effort that requires more than a minimum of active memory.]

Having discovered that I neither had God-like powers to resurrect my Macbook from death or even the ability to properly time the baking of dinner, Walter left this morning--choosing to entertain himself in the archives in Austin for the week.  I think he also noticed the fit of organizing and furniture re-arranging that struck me when I finished class for the  semester last Thursday.  We now have a fresh look in the living room and all indications are that I plan to  steamroll my way through the house, until everything is flattened or at least de-cluttered and put away.


I don't know why I'm such an invalid when it comes to keeping up with household chores and normal, routine activities during the semester.   All I can say, that I don't have classes and my schedule still doesn't have much wiggle room.  But at least by tomorrow the laundry, including all the towels and 
sheets) will be washed and I will have a fresh haircut.


Wednesday, Erin's Dream Wands, which played a small role in the lighting of the Childhood Cancer Awareness Christmas Tree (Thanks to Ruth Hoffman and Amber Masso of the American Childhood Cancer Organization and the teens and teachers at Hammond-Oliver High School), will serve as the First Presbyterian Church, Bryan's Advent service project.  We will be making wands for the Cure Me, I'm  
Irish fund raising event in Boston in March, benefitting groundbreaking neuroblastoma research.

Then, the lanyards and other beaded delights are headed back to Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church for   the Women's Dinner and gift market on Thursday night.


No doubt Presbyterians all around will be saying God is among us this week.

Thank

November 28, 2011

I know we have a boatload of things to be thankful for this year.  We are a lot closer to the top of the 99% than the bottom of the 99%.  We have had nothing but routine encounters with the American Healthcare System this year (although I did field a call late one evening from Davis asking how he might tell if his collarbone was broken. . . I described. . . he self-diagnosed that he was sore, but fine).  We have enough more than enough food, and three fine dogs. 

The true moment of realization didn't come on Tuesday when my sister arrived to help with Thanksgiving Day preparation (appreciated!) or on Wednesday when I filled the house with the spicy smell of pies and cookies or on Thursday when Davis arrived safely and we shared our meal with about forty folks.  Friday was good, too, but not the day that I realized how thankful I was. 

Thanks settled in around us on Saturday morning, and we received the gifts and blessings we needed.  First, we had a gentle, steady rain.  You can't understand what that means unless you have ever been 20 inches behind for the year, staring at a lake in your backyard that looks like the surface of the moon.  Then, each of had our own special thing.  Katherine got to sleep in, without guilt or interruption.  Walter got to putter around in his shed with no real deadline or urgent item in his inbox (he also got to make Davis's plane reservation for his trip home at Christmas!).  My mom settled in with her new beads (donated crystals and lampwork beads from a new friend near Franklin) to do what she does best:  create.  Davis and I fitted ourselves on to the living room sofa in between the dogs, tuned in the Manchester United/Newcastle match, and worked a jigsaw puzzle.

There were no chores hanging over anyone's heads.  No meetings, conference calls, or stacks of papers to grade.  We had leftovers if anyone was hungry.  We had each other.  That did it for me.  Complete. Total. Thankfulness.  Enough for me.