Lift Up Your Hearts!

When I was in high school, a semester course in economics was required for graduation. I managed to convince the school to accept an advanced physics course instead, so I can't claim to know much economics. Yet being married to a guy who majored in that field in college helps, and in any case the following scenario not only makes no economic sense, it makes no sense at all. (More)

Any extravagance around the time of a birthday counts as part of the celebration, and thus comes without guilt. Thus when Porter wanted to attend the Mad Cow Theatre Company's It Was a Very Good Year, part of the Orlando Cabaret Festival, and even suggested we get the special dinner package, who was I to complain? (More)

Last year I was well prepared for Ash Wednesday, with a rather extensive personal program planned out for Lent. This year, what with company and an intensive two weeks devoted to reroofing our house (and not done yet), it came as a shock this morning to realize that February is over. We were thus saved from having to decide with which of our two churches to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, a small blessing but one we could have done without. No crawfish gumbo, no pancakes.... :(

Maybe I'll dust off some of last year's ideas...they worked pretty well.

Most of you will hear about this sooner or later—it was on the front page of the CNN website tonight, so no doubt it will be on the evening news. So yes, that's our Milwee Middle School at which a student brandished a pellet gun that had been modified to look like a 9mm handgun. There was a brief hostage situation; the school was "locked down"; and the student isolated and later shot by the SWAT team, after which the remaining students were sent home. The gun-wielding student, who was labelled "suicidal," is currently in the hospital on life support.

Here's a local version of the story:

http://www.wftv.com/news/6056445/detail.html

Time spent celebrating the season precludes (for the moment) collecting and publishing my thoughts on Christmas and culture. That will come later. In the meantime, please know, or remember, that hidden deep within and behind and under and through and above all the traditions and chaos and commercialism of the season lies meaning and purpose and hope and a story unequaled. And have a

Jonathan has his own small electric screwdriver, which he uses to remove and replace the tiny screws on the back of his (non-working) computer keyboard. I would be amazed enough at his physical dexterity, but what really blows me away is his knowledge of when and how to reverse the direction of the tool.

I could write so much more about the great things Jonathan is doing, and I probably will, eventually. But what impelled me finally to write was watching him peel, perfectly, a hardboiled egg for his lunch today. He only just turned two years old!

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)

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)

I just heard from Heather and Jonathan, who have safely navigated car and plane and bus and foot and are home in Pittsburgh. I didn't get any details because they are having problems with their phones at the moment. We miss their cheerful faces and voices!

What a memory Jonathan has. We haven't mentioned pretzels at all this week, but in the car on the way to the airport he suddenly declaimed, "Airplane, pretzels!" Obviously he was more impressed than most people with the in-flight food.

You might guess that Jonathan is the son of two engineers by the fact that he frequently peruses their Dilbert calendar, laughing heartily. An incident today confirms the inheritance. He is sleeping in Janet's room, and she has some clear plastic file drawers filled with very interesting items that would not be good for him to investigate. Jonathan is in general an obedient child, but rather than expose him continually to temptation I ran a strip of duct tape along the drawers so that they could not be opened. Heather assures me that she never mentioned the words in his presence in relation to the drawers, but tonight he walked over to them, looked at the silver-colored stripe, and commented, "duct tape." Any 22-month old who knows duct tape when he sees it is well on his way.

I once read that a child should learn "at the rate determined by her own happy hunger." (I believe the quotation is from John Ciardi, but I haven’t been able to confirm that.) It is delightful to observe Jonathan’s voracious appetite. (More)

Great-Grandma Landeen came for lunch yesterday, and Jonathan had fun playing trains with her, and reading the new books that she brought him. I had been worried about an "elderly lady" slipping on the train track pieces that covered most of the family room floor, but she nimbly navigated them and without hesitation sat down on the floor to play!

On Friday Jonathan and Heather had accompanied us the park for our regular running date. While Dad-o ran, the rest of us walked around the trail. Sometimes Jonathan is enthusiastic about running, and we thought he might enjoy it here, but he was not in the mood. In fact, he wanted to be carried from the beginning. With encouragement, he walked about 0.7 miles before I gave him a piggy back ride the rest of the distance to the playground. (More)