Lift Up Your Hearts!

Lift Up Your Hearts! will be undergoing non-routine maintenance for a little while.  Please refrain from making posts or comments until the changes are complete, otherwise your good words will disappear into cyberspace and never return....  Thanks.

Mallard Fillmore hits the nail on the head again. One can as easily subsitute "president" for "congressperson."

What’s Going On in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, by Lise Eliot (Bantam Books, New York, 1999)

I don’t have time to do justice to this wonderful book, only to say that every mother, grandmother, mother-to-be, and potential mother should read it—and that goes for fathers, too. When Eliot expresses her opinions on the data she presents, I don’t always agree, but as a collection of clear, readable reports on the latest research on brain development, this book is invaluable. I’d love to post large quantities of this amazing information, but will content myself with a few more or less random samples. (More)

The Real War Against America, by Brett Kingstone (Specialty Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL, 2005)

Our local library has a subscription to Ancestry.com, the genealogical research site. Unfortunately the response time is slow, and one day a couple of months ago I was working near enough the “New Releases” shelf to do some browsing during the otherwise interminable wait between entering my request and the return of the results.

The bright cover of Brett Kingstone’s book caught my eye. I was not impressed by the title, which sounded Limbaugh-esque and evoked images of conspiracy theorists. I brought the book home, thinking Porter might enjoy it, but did not expect to read it myself. It didn’t sound like my kind of book.

Never judge a book by its title. (More)

As promised elsewhere, I am finally printing the recipe (actually, a couple of recipes) for Bay Punch, absolutely the best drink in the world to serve with pizza.

Bay Punch was invented by John Lefor and Chip Nimick for Pizza Night at the Towne House computing center at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. The name came from the original pizza source, Bay & Goodman Pizza. It did not change even after we switched to Cap'n Tony's Pizza. The traditional punch bowl is a large dishpan. John says that if it tastes as if it needs more pineapple-orange, add more cranberry, and vice versa. The punch is better if it ages a bit before serving. We used to start making it just as someone left on the 45-minute round trip to get the pizza. Another tradition is the punch ladle, a simple soup ladle, which must be hung on the outside of the punch bowl, and woe to him who puts in inside, where it will slide down and disappear into the drink. Of course this is all tradition—Bay Punch tastes great in a traditional punch bowl, too. But you must squeeze the limes and lemons, not just float them artistically on top. (More)

A friend sent me a copy of Louise Story's New York Times article describing the new generation of bright, college-educated women who are chosing shortened, delayed, or part-time careers so they can give their best to their families. A quick Internet check tells me this story has already been blogged and overblogged, so I won't spend much time on it. (The article ran exactly one month ago—my friend is one of the rare breed who still cuts articles from the paper and mails them, and I am not as prompt as I should be at getting to my reading material.) Nonetheless, I can't resist a couple of comments. (More)

There's not much to do but pray, watch, and wait for now. Our freezer has been full of ice and frozen jugs of water and other potables since the beginning of the season; the cupboards are replete with flashlights, batteries, and non-perishable food; the propane tank (for the grill and camp stove) is nearly full, and our plywood window covers line the garage wall. While I was out today, I filled the car's gas tank, figuring that prices can only go up in the next week or so, and wanting replenish the supply before everyone else has that idea. Other than that, our preparations have mainly comprised lending an occasional hand to a neighbor who is trying to get an outdoor project to a sufficient state that it can withstand abnormal levels of wind and rain. The next project will be some cleaning and organizing, both physical and electronic, in case we lose power for a while. But that's an ongoing effort, anyway....

I would not do well on one of those music school "drop the needle" tests, in which one needs to name a piece of music based on hearing a small excerpt. It's not that I can't recognize the music—often just a few measures, even a few notes, is enough to bring forth, "Ooo, I know this piece! What is it?" I know that I know it, but identification often eludes me. What's more, I sometimes recognize brief motives from one piece of music in another, and that's even harder to pin down. I had no trouble identifying The Phantom of the Opera in the praise song, You Are My Hiding Place, but the hymn, Jesu, Jesu (1982 Episcopal Hymnal #602) was another story. There are four measures in the verse part that stung me on first singing with that "why do I know this?" feeling and I was never able to determine an answer. One day, listening to Vivaldi's "La Primavera" (from The Four Seasons), I finally found it: there in the third movement, clearly the same motive. Not that there was any sharing between Vivaldi and the Ghanaian folk song that is the basis for the hymn—it's a simple phrase, bound to show up independently in many places—but I was thrilled to make the connection in my mind and resolve the mystery.

Jonathan is never cold. Our pool was a Florida-warm 77 degrees for his visit, but it didn’t take long for the rest of us to feel chilled when the sun was not shining. Not so Jonathan, who never flinched when entering the water, and was still happy after three hours’ immersion. This is the same child I watched run outside on a bitterly cold Pittsburgh winter day, shoeless and wearing only a diaper. His only unhappiness was with the killjoy adults who brought him back inside. Looking at Jonathan’s portly body, one might think his imperviousness to cold was related to excessive insulation. However, I have plenty of that and it doesn’t keep me warm in the pool. Infants, I have learned, are born with brown adipose tissue (“brown fat cells”), which unlike the white variety actually produce heat. This phenomenon is also seen in small mammals that live in cold environments, and in hibernating animals. I venture the claim that most of Jonathan’s plethora of fat cells are of the brown kind! Brown adipose tissue also helps protect against obesity, which may explain why so many mothers have told Heather stories of their own children, now grown and thin, who when young were as large as Jonathan. (More)