Lift Up Your Hearts!

I'm definitely still climbing out of battle-fatigue mode when it comes to writing. It's so weird. Normally I find writing to be energizing and restorative. I find it relaxing, even when it's also a struggle. Writing is one of the most important ways I keep my hold on sanity; writing is how I think. But ever since the election, my incessent and irresistable drive to write has gone into hibernation. Generally, I'm pleased with the results of the election, but I'm not dancing in the streets; I'm numb and exhausted. The last few months have been intense.

It may be weird, but at the moment it's a good thing. Too many other areas of life are demanding my attention! I know I'll be back to writing soon enough. But for the moment, I'm pulling out bits and pieces I've saved for just such a time.

This may not be the most important thing my father taught me, but it comes close to a universal truth.

Why is it that if you are trying to lose weight, one tablespoon full of ice cream will add five pounds, but if you are trying to gain weight, a whole day's worth of forbidden food makes not one iota of difference?

Microsoft caught me.

I have been avoiding ChatGPT and other AI temptations for a long time, particularly when I receive invitations to use AI for my writing. I am confident enough to prefer what I write myself, thank you!

Drawing, however, is another matter. When Microsoft's Copilot recently—and unexpectedly—appeared in my Windows Taskbar, I was a bit disconcerted, but intrigued enough to give it a try.

I wanted a picture for Grace, to go with the caption, "Happy 3rd birthday, bonnie warrior!" After about 15 minutes of work, this is what I chose.

These are some of the iterations along the way. My second choice was the manga-looking image on the right.

That was fun!

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. —Pericles

Despite the truth of this wisdom of Pericles, aren't we all tired of politics? I can't overstate how critical I believe our political situation to be, but sometimes we just need a little break—from both politics and hurricanes.

For me, I find it surprisingly calming to watch the Black Spruce YouTube channel, which I've written about before. In this video, he's building an outdoor kitchen for his off-grid cabin.

Is this taking sympathy too far?    Porter after MOHS surgery this morning.

You know how you do a search on your computer or your phone, and the next thing you know an advertisement related to that search shows up on Facebook? Or worse, it seems as if even talking about a product brings up such an ad? I have a new twist on that problem, and I say the situation has gotten out of hand.

This morning I wrote a new blog post, which I have saved for another day. It contains the following line:

We absolutely drink tap water when we can, but we also keep bottles of water in the closet in case a hurricane (or anything else) threatens our water supply.

In point of fact, no hurricane has yet cut our water supply, though we take that threat seriously, in the same way we take the possibility of fire seriously and have smoke alarms installed. But the worst that has happened with our water was to have had it cut off for an hour or two for maintenance, which has only happened a couple of times, and for which we were always warned ahead of time.

After a lovely morning with a friend at our local botanical gardens, followed by a delicious lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, we came home to no water. When our local government wanted to tell us where we could pick up sandbags if needed (we've been getting a LOT of rain), we got phone calls to all three phones, text messages to two phones, and e-mails to two separate accounts. I think we even got alert messages on our phones. But for this, nothing.

In a reminder of why it can be good to hang on to my Facebook account, that's where we found the information that much of the neighborhood was also without water, that the city had no idea when it would be back on, and that we'd probably be faced with a boil water directive when it was.

Shortly after 3:00, the water was back on. We never heard anything about a need to boil our water, but we did hear (again, via Facebook) that the workers were taking steps to make sure the lines were clear and that wouldn't be necessary. So all's well that ends well.

But I'll admit it was a shock, and a bit of a wake-up call. I'm quite certain that in the 40 years we have been here, this is the first time we have had our water supply halted without warning. The fact that I had just written about its reliability just added a little freakiness to the surprise.

As the Boy Scouts always told us, Be prepared.

Yes, I do have at least two bagpipe players among my readers!

I haven't seen The Crown, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying Charles Cornell's analysis of what the composer did with the bagpipe sound for that movie.

Here's yet another reason why I prefer to judge politicians by what they do rather than what they say:

Porter was listening to Vice President Harris speak. As I walked by his office, I heard her say, "For the past 10 years we have had a president who did his best to divide our country." I fully admit that that's a paraphrase, because I don't remember word-for-word, but I assure you that was the sense and the number is correct.

I can't just walk away from something like that, even though yelling at the screen didn't do the least bit of good. Let's do the math.

Ten years ago, we were more than halfway through 2014, and Barack Obama was president. Donald Trump took office in 2017, then Joe Biden in 2021. That's four years when Trump was president, with roughly two and a half of Obama and three and a half of Biden. So, four years of the person she vilifies, bracketed by six years of those she admires. Shouldn't the latter take 60% of the blame for the mess she claims was made of the past ten years? She, personally, should take 35%, since she was second-in-command, and by her own admission highly influencial in the decisions that were made during that much of the time.

For those of you who enjoyed Charles Cornell's analysis of the writing of the Pirates of the Caribbean music, and/or Grace's family's production of the same, here's another Cornell video, and not coincidentally another Daley production, this time for The Lord of the Rings.

I have mixed feelings about those movies, which to my mind do a grave injustice to J.R.R. Tolkien's creation, but they have their good moments, and the score is incredible. I'm a devoted "classical" music fan with little patience for so-called popular genres, but modern art music has veered off into such strange directions that I'm more than half certain that all the good composers have deserted to movie music. And I say, more power to them!

The Daley version was created two years ago this month, a year earlier than their Pirates production. Grace's contribution comes at the end of the credits.  (I was disappointed that there was no 2024 family musical production, but there was this small matter of Grace's cancer consuming every spare moment of their lives.  Maybe in 2025!)

Check out the first three minutes of this How to Cook That video for some depressing news from Switzerland. Toblerone isn't Toblerone anymore!

First of all, hooray for Switzerland for being very picky about where and how "Swiss" products are made. America's labelling rules in this matter are much too weak, which has resulted in products that are cheaper, yes, but also made with inferior ingredients and in countries that do not have the same safety standards we have come to expect. Mind you, I'm strongly in favor of food freedom, especially with regard to individual choices and small enterprises. (It's absurd that in the Free State of Florida dairy farmers can't sell raw milk for people to drink but have to label it as "for pet consumption only." It's even more absurd that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—in the name of health and safety—is persecuting independent Amish farmers, who have been safely feeding themselves and others for centuries. But that's a story for another time.) However, if we are to be free to make our own food choices, honest and clear labelling is essential.

I trust the Swiss to maintain their high standards even if they now make some of their Toblerone in Slovakia, and the ingredients don't all come from Switzerland, but I can't help being disappointed. Maybe they should make two versions, "Classic Toblerone," all Swiss (except the cocoa beans), and the other "New Toblerone," and see how it flies. We know what happened with Coke! But Coke messed with the basic recipe, and I believe Toberone is not doing that.

I'd be happy to volunteer for taste-testing.

I've written here several times about Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-educated mathematician/musician/comedian whose That Was the Year That Was was one of my favorite childhood albums.  (Another was Music, a Part of Me, a collection of oboe works by David McCallum—yes, that David McCallum—but that's another story.)

Although I've frequently replayed some of my favorite Lehrer songs, such as Pollution and New Math and The Elements, this particular song is one I probably haven't heard since I was in my teens.  Nonetheless, I could still sing much of it from memory, even though it wasn't until now that I finally understood the line about Schubert and his lieder!

Whatever Became of Hubert? needs no commentary, although it's enhanced if you know a little about the Lyndon Johnson years.

I can't wait to see one of these new signs the next time we return to Florida by car.

I'd like to add, "Let's Keep It Free" to the sign, because freedom is a fragile thing. (Quoting Ronald Reagan, though I'msure it wasn't original with him.)

Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide by Michael J. Knowles (Simon & Schuster, 2017)

My son-in-law is brilliant. They both are, actually, but this post is about the one who ensures that birthday and Christmas gifts from our family overseas almost always include a number of books. As I said, he's smart, and he's also good at choosing books I will enjoy.

He has an impressive track record, but it's not perfect. On very rare occasions he has been known to pick books that do not fit my personality at all, but which might be good for me to read. I appreciate the motivation, and have been known to commit that particular sin myself (though not as often as some people think!). Because I am human, such books tend to end up far from the top of my enormous "to read" list.

I had a birthday recently, and the pile of presents that greeted me contained, as expected, a number of book-shaped packages (and one Kindle book, not pictured). (Click on any image to enlarge, if needed.)

Porter (who had wrapped the packages), had arranged them so that I would open the other books first. Then I unwrapped Reasons to Vote for Democrats.

Let's just say that our son-in-law and I have more than a few disagreements when it comes to politics. (It's possible to be both brilliant and wrong.) I think I can be forgiven for my gut reaction that this was another of the "take your medicine" books. I looked quizzically at Porter, who had said, "This one is so good that I read it completely before wrapping it." (That happens in our house, not infrequently.)

He insisted, "Open it."

I turned the pages. Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Table of Contents. Nothing enlightening.

I looked at him again.

"Read it!" he urged.

Finally, I came to the first page of substance. Sort of.

Except for the sticky note credit to composer John Cage, which Porter had added, and the bibliography, every page looked like this:

Maybe I should have read the back cover, with its endorsements, first.

This gift was the best laugh of the week. Maybe month. Truly a welcome prank! It could ony have been better if my birthday were April !.

I miss the Muppet Show! Thanks to a friend with some exciting news, I was reminded of The Cat Came Back. My friend wasn't aware of the song, so I went looking on YouTube.  There are several versions, including some highly sanitized and no doubt considered more appropriate for children, but this is my favorite.

I couldn't resist posting this Future Proof video, because my husband is obsessed with flavored sparkling water, and our grandchildren love it, too—probably because they're allowed to drink more of it than they are allowed soda. Special note to said husband: check out this guy's favorite brand (9:17).

(14 minutes on normal speed, mild language warning. I am, by the way, really annoyed by the objectionable language that finds its way into so many YouTube videos. It would probably be easier to note when there isn't bad language. Good ol' YouTube, for whom "free speech" means you can swear to your heart's content as long as you refrain from expressing unfashionable opinions.

Before Canada's Freedom Convoy, which catapulted his vlog into fame, if not fortune, my favorite Canadian lawyer, David Freiheit, was a mild-mannered YouTuber who expounded on legal issues in a funny and understandable way. Today this flashback to 2019 showed up, and I offer it to you, in case you want to vicariously experience some really exciting zip lines, and learn about liability waivers in the process.