Lift Up Your Hearts!

This has nothing to do with Japan, except that a link to the site was waiting for me in an e-mail when we returned. I scored "38% Dixie. You are definitely a Yankee." This is more fun than most e-mail quizzes, and includes information on regional speech variations. (The friend who sent it to me is very selective in what she passes on.) Enjoy!

Test your own speech habits here.

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Since I don't habitually use the 24-hour time format, or more truthfully, since I have better things to do (sleep) at 1:59 a.m., I choose to mark the occasion at 1:59 p.m. Too bad I don't have time to make a nice strawberry-rhubarb pie today....

This isn't high on the list of important things I have to do at the moment, but Jon challenged me and it looks like fun, so I'll see if I can come up with something reasonably quickly.

Total size of music files in my computer
About 500 songs, I have no idea how many hours, about 2.1 GB.

This is slightly misleading, as most of the music I listen to is not on my computer. What I've counted includes a number of recordings, compositions, and transcriptions of music featuring family and friends.

Last record bought
Prayer for Peace (Orlando Deanery Boychoir and Girls' Choirs), title song by Robert Kerr

Song that I am listening to now
Silence. No, not Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, but the real thing, or what passes for it in this busy world. Sometimes silence is my favorite song, especially when I'm trying to concentrate.

Five songs that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me
Impossible to choose! But here is a representative sample:

Camille Saint-Saëns, Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)

I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say/Star of the County Down (The link will take you to Horatius Bonar's words, but you'll have to click on the "Kingsfold" MIDI link to hear the right tune.)

St. Patrick's Breastplate (Irish tunes "St. Patrick" and "Deirdre" with Cecil Frances Alexander's translation of an ancient Gaelic poem attributed to St. Patrick. The link doesn't have the complete music, but will give you an idea.)

Kilkelly (Green Fields of America)

Non Nobis, Domine (unpublished arrangement by Linda Clary of Patrick Doyle's version from Kenneth Branagh's production of Shakespeare's Henry V)

5 persons to whom I am passing the baton
I'm not going to name names, but hope some people will add their own information in comments.

Easter Sunday is the most wonderful day of the year! Acknowledgement of this in the "everyday world," however, is so rare that it lifts my spirits to see a few comic strips still honoring the day. (As if my spirits should need lifting on such an occasion!). A few of the comics I surveyed, such as The Wizard of Id, were set in a church without making mention of the reason the characters might be there. Some showed egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. Most made no mention of the day at all. A very few hinted at why this day is different from all other days, including B.C., The Family Circus (I'm sorry I couldn't find a link to the actual comic), and my favorite, Fox Trot: (More)

A friend sent me the following Frazz comic and I was immediately hooked. The setting is an elementary school, and the main characters are Frazz (school janitor and Renaissance Man), Caulfield (a genius who hates school because it bores him; he hangs out with Frazz a lot), Mrs. Olsen (Caulfield's teacher), Mr. Burke (the school's best teacher, and Frazz's best friend), Mr. Spaetzle (the principal), Miss Plainwell (first grade teacher).

I've never been much of a Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. fan, but his short story, Harrison Bergeron, has haunted me since I first read it, long before frustrations with our chidren's schools brought us head to head with its stunning reality. Written in 1961, Vonnegut's warning is yet more accurate and more frightening today. (More)