Lift Up Your Hearts!

Humor is a funny thing.  Laughter may be the best medicine, but it can also wound deeply.  John Stackhouse addresses this issue thoughtfully in his post, Why No One Here Is Laughing at My Jokes.  While lecturing in India, he discovered that all his standard jokes fell flat with his Indian audience, except amongst those who had been educated in the West.  Only when he switched to more obvious, I Love Lucy-style joking did the others respond.

Their humour, it seems, is straight on the nose, big smiles telegraphing the punch line, with no ambiguity: That’s a joke. Ours, instead, comes at you sideways, no smile, with a dash of bitters. Oh, yeah: I get it.

The experience caused him to reconsider his own joking.

Friends have warned me...that people near me, whom I want to stay near me and to enjoy being near me, are frequently uncomfortable with me just because they’re not quite sure what I mean by that. And not knowing means not feeling safe. And nobody likes to feel unsafe....

So some of my students are wary of me. Some of my colleagues keep a certain distance. And some of my family members wonder—if only for a second—whether I really love them.

That’s a pretty big price to pay for trying to be humorous.

Humor has indeed taken a dark turn in recent years.  Even children's movies must have a cynical (or sexual) twist, to entertain parents while purportedly going over the heads of the children.  Walt Disney would be appalled at what now passes for humor at his theme parks, where even the guests are insulted by pattering cast members.  Family members and friends routinely disrespect each other, verbally and physically.  All in the name of a joke.  This is not new behavior, but it does seem to be more widespread, and accepted, than ever.

The root of the problem is not, however, simply I Love Lucy versus Frasier.  Like Stackhouse, I prefer cleverness, wit, wordplay and irony to slapstick.  It's not a specific genre of comedy that I find disturbing; anyone who has watched the Three Stooges knows how cruel the latter can be.  Rather, to paraphrase a line from Randall Garrett's marvellous Lord Darcy mysteries, black humor is a matter of symbolism and intent.  If we would not give offense, it is important to know both ourselves and our audience.

What is my intent?  Does my supposed humor mask real hate, anger, or contempt in my heart?  If so, the victim is sure to detect it.  Worse, hearers who harbor similar feelings will be encouraged in their sin.

What about the audience?  The physical and mental sparring that might strengthen some would crush others.  To trade insults and even blows is a well-accepted form of bonding, especially among males; whether this is overall beneficial or harmful I'm not in a position to judge, though I have my suspicions.  An appreciation of such humor requires a certain security, emotional stability, and self-confidence that I'm not sure we have a right to assume.  To joke about fat people with those who struggle with weight issues, mental illness among those who've fought depression for years, or brain death to one who has ever faced life-support decisions is to deliver a potentially devastating blow.

I would not have all humor crippled by a fear of "political incorrectness," but love and decency require that at the very least we not ignore the circumstances and personalities of those with whom we jest.

I'm trying to clean up my office.  There's too much stuff that needs attending to, and it's getting lost in the paper shuffle.

Unfortunately, one of the things that needs attending to happens to be my sample ballot for the upcoming Florida presidential primary.  It inspired me to go online and try again to find help deciding for whom to vote.  Now that was depressing.  I suppose it doesn't matter, because the Democratic National Committee has chosen to play the bully and not count our votes. (They're still sore over 2000, I guess.)  What hurts so much that it's hard to think about is how opposed all of the Democratic candidates are, in their stated positions, to so many things I hold dear.  What I once believed to be the party of the little people seems bent on being the party of big government, big unions, big education, and big medicine—the bullies that are pushing around the little people I know.  "Litmus tests" on the issues are of questionable value, but it's hard to see all the candidates failing all of them.  Sigh.  I can't say I'm impressed by any of the Republicans, either, but some of them at least give lip service in favor of my positions.  So I could always cast my primary vote hoping to put forth the least electable candidate.  If I could figure out who that was.

Clinton the First wasn't as bad as he threatened to be, partly because it seems one must be extreme while campaigning, and partly because Congressional opposition kept him from accomplishing all his goals.  Perhaps my best hope is a similar stalemate.

There's always the temptation to set up a Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton - Bush line of presidents (all different people).  :)

I normally don't mind that most news stories are bad news.  After all, the different, the unusual, that which makes "news" should be bad; good should be so common that it doesn't make headlines.

However, I'm beginning to suspect that some folks actually enjoy reporting bad news, as stories that have both good and bad sides always seem to be reported in the negative.  Take the latest housing "crisis."  Yes, I know, people who should have known better, and bankers who did know better, behaved stupidly and even wickedly, which led to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and I understand how that's a problem for a lot more people and businesses than those directly involved.

I certainly sympathize with those who are trying to sell their houses and find that prices have fallen and they have to sell for less than they could have received a year ago—maybe even less than they paid.  But this is not news.  There have always been "buyer's markets" and "seller's markets," and I grew up knowing that one is more likely to be on the wrong end of the swing.  Yet now the headlines scream disaster because housing prices keep falling.

Sure, this is bad news to some.  But a few years ago the headlines cried woe and doom because housing prices kept rising, squeezing people—especially first-time home buyers—out of the market.  We certainly felt that way when we looked at buying a house in the Boston area.

If it must always be bad news, if the country is headed toward disaster when housing prices rise, and again when they fall, I'm likely to cry, "A plague on both your houses!" and toss the paper over in favor of my World of Puzzles magazine.

 

 

Thank you, veterans, and all who are and have been prepared to give the "last full measure of devotion" for our lives and freedom, whether we honor, despise, or ignore them.

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (Free Press, 2003)

I must send this book back to the library without a proper review, but it deserves a few comments.  After hearing a friend's summary, I had to find out more.  I'm afraid I was somewhat disappointed, but I think that was more because my friend's summary was so good, causing me to expect more than was there.  I almost, though not quite, would have been as well off with just the summary.  I also might have appreciated it more if I had not already read so many books by Stephen Covey, of which this book reminds me very much.  I think Covey's books are well worthwhile, and this too, but there wasn't as much new as I had expected.

After that buildup, I'm sure you're expecting me to reproduce what my friend said.  Alas, I can't do that, but I will try to cover a couple of points that were especially meaningful to me.

First—and this is a point that needs much more exploring than I can do here—is the power of positive rituals in our lives.  The authors studied top-notch tennis players to try to find what separated the greatest from the great.  Their conclusion was that they were equally skilled at the game; the difference was in how they used the brief moment when they were not actively playing. The really great players, for example, had specific rituals that they went through between points.  What that did for them, the authors discovered, was enable them to rest and recover more than their non-ritualistic opponents.  Both had the same amount of time, but somehow the ritual enabled the greater player to get into recovery mode much more quickly; thus he recovered more fully.  All this in a few seconds between points, but it made a huge difference.

That idea got me thinking about the importance of ritual in general, in a way I hadn't considered before.  I've often felt that the increasing loss of ritual and routine in our casual and hurried society is not good, that we suffer for the loss of regular bedtimes and predictable bedtime procedures, consistent family meals, gestures of respect, holiday customs, liturgy in worship, and so much more.  Now my eyes have been opened to a possible reason for my gut feeling.

Flexibility is important too, but ritual is a kind of lubricant that makes life work better, and more efficiently.  Automating parts of our lives frees energy for more important work.  Certain decisions, once made, can be rested upon and not revisited every night, or every year.  Perhaps rituals work like the "muscle memory" of a musician, in which the muscle is so well trained that it works independently of the brain, and thus much faster than if the movement required conscious thought.

I haven't thought it all through yet, but it's definitely an idea worth pursuing.

The second powerfu idea in The Power of Full Engagement is that we are not only overstressed, we are also understressed.  High performance requires balance in our lives among the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.  For each we have "muscles," either literal or metaphoric, and with that analogy it's easy to see the harm in both overuse and underuse.  Most of us, the authors found, can reduce stress in some areas by stressing others a little more.  For example, people in high-stress jobs tend to neglect themselves physically, which leads to a downward spiral.  Even though they feel they can't possibly make time for exercise or good nutrition, when they do, they find they improve their lives in all areas.  We speak much about the need to reduce stress in our lives, but paradoxically that may be best achieved by increasing stress in neglected areas.

I'll close with a quote that doesn't fit with either of the above thoughts, but which I love and want to record.

Extrinsic rewards have actually been shown to undermine intrinsic motivation.  Researchers Mark R. Lepper and David R. Green spent time watching nursery school children at play in order to assess what they most enjoyed doing.  Next, they began giving each child a reward each time he or she engaged in the preferred activity.  [I'm fairly certain this is a reference to the work of the University of Rochester's Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.]  Across the board, the children's interest in activiies quickly diminished when they were associated with rewards.  In a second study, adults doing puzzles were rewarded each time they were successful in completing them.  Like the children, their interest in continuing the activity progressively decreased.  Plainly, people can be motivated by material gain and by external praise.  The point is that we feel more passion for and derive more pleasure from doing what we freely choose and most enjoy.

I wasn't one of the ones she "tagged," and I generally think "memes" are generally inane, but Liz over at Smithical posted this one, and I like it, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Five Good Things

Silence  This blessed commodity is very hard to come by these days.  I don't mean total lack of sound so much as freedom from mechanical, manmade sounds and loud sounds in any form.  As I sit here in my office, it is "quiet":  Porter is reading, there is no music, television show, nor telephone conversation to hear.  And yet I am still assailed by noise at significant volume:  the chug of a hard drive, the whirr of a fan, the whine of a monitor.  If I sit on our back porch early enough, I can avoid the noise of pool pumps, air conditioners, and power saws, but the birds, bugs, frogs, and squirrels don't quite drown out the roar of the highway two and a half miles away.  Waiting at the doctor's office, driving down the road, eating at a restaurant, getting one's hair cut, grocery shopping—whatever we do, we are bombarded with sound.  And when was the last time your church allowed any amount of time at all for silent prayer and meditation during a worship service?  At one of ours, we designed a Maundy Thursday service that included a full minute of silence; it seemed an eternity, but was very powerful.  Without silence, we will lose our ability to think deep thoughts.

Hugs  In our sex-obsessed culture, we have forgotten the critical importance of non-sexual physical affection.  Without it, infants "fail to thrive"—they die.  As we grow, we learn to endure that deprivation, but we die inside.  Only young children give their affection freely; perhaps that's why they are so beloved.

Books  Our connection to the Great Conversation, to the past, to the wide world, to worlds of fantasy.  How could we live without books?  Whether a dusty genealogy tome in the library, a delightful novel with a comfortable chair and a cup of tea, or a children's book and a grandchild in my lap, I love books!

Water  Was there ever such a wonderful element?  Cold water, the best drink ever for a thirsty throat; cool water to swim in on a hot day; water for washing away the grit and grime of life; no wonder God endowed this symbol with such rich spiritual significance.

Making Music Together  Music, itself, is a Good Thing, but the miracle of coming together and making music for the joy of it is a Very Great, Powerful, Healing Thing.  With our professional music groups, our concerts, and our CD's, we have access to music of a variety and quality no other era could imagine.  But we have almost lost what it means to make our own music, and that is tragic.

Organizing for Your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone (St. Martin's Press, 2005)

Heather reviewed this book, and generated quite a discussion, some of which was actually related to the topic.  I started adding my reflections as i read it, but have decided it's best not to clutter up her post anymore and have started a new post here.  Below are a few of my reactions copied from her post; I'll add more in the comments to this post as I continue through the book.

1.  The library finally came through with this book, and I've just started reading it. I'm interested to see where it will go, because I've already been surprised by the quiz. I was sure I'd be a cross between the Harmonizer and the Innovator, but my highest score was Maintainer! Actually, I didn't score high enough in any category to fit well: 15, 11, 14, 10 [Maintainer, Harmonizer, Innovator, Prioritizer] -- and you have to have at least 20 in one category to fit that label. Just like me to defy labels, I guess. Maybe I'll get more insight as I read further.

2.  I just took the sensory preference quiz: Kinesthetic=11, Auditory=9, Visual=4. I'm not too surprised, but wish I could take the more official test you (Heather) took in school, because I know the situation is much more complex than the book's quiz can show. As low as Visual is in some areas -- powers of observation, for example -- I'd much, much rather get information from a book than a lecture, and in some ways (albeit weakly) my memory is photographic -- I'll remember the location on a page spread of a quotation I'm looking, for example. Yet if I've talked with someone for two hours and you later ask me what color dress she was wearing, I'll likely not have a clue....

3.  Although I know Dad [Porter] isn't 100% Maintainer, here's evidence that that Force is strong in him:

With your linear, structured style, you focus on details and develop effective methods that allow you to manage tasks and complete assignments, checking them off one by one. Your work style isn't about speed, but reflects a methodical approach that usually requires uninterrupted time to get the job done. Being slow-paced, deliberate, and sequential, your brain type prefers doing things in a way that can appear to others as somewhat boring. But who cares, you do it right the first time and would rather take the time to be right than [be] the first one done!

One of my first memories of Dad is that his programming style was painful (to me) but his programs always worked the first time! (I was much more of an iterative programmer - try this, make a change, try that, make a change, etc. as I homed in on the solution.)

This morning I did as I usually do several times a day—I went to Google to perform an Internet search.  This time the front page informed me that Google is now celebrating its ninth birthday.

I'm not sure what to think about that.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. 

If you think about that too much, you can find yourself ranking it among the world's most terrifying statements.  Not that it in any way diminishes the value Google and other search engines have added to our lives.  But whether for good or for ill, the Internet and Google have wrought radical changes.  I'm old enough for nine years to seem but an instant, and find it hard to believe the pre-Google world was less than a decade ago.

I acknowledge that sometimes the government is better than the market at accomplishing good things.  In the classic example, Company A might want to reduce its emission of pollutants, but knows that if it does it will no longer be competitive with Company B.  Company B might be in the same position.  But if the government requires all companies to make the reduction, none is left at a competitive disadvantage.

Nonetheless, I believe the market can often do a better job, being more flexible.  Take low-flow shower heads, for example.  I'm all for saving water, but I'd rather choose the method.  I'm a quick shower person: get in, do the job, get out.  Low-flow shower heads frustrate me, because I have to go more slowly—and I suspect thus use at least as much water as before.  I would much rather be able to purchase a high-flow shower head for my house, and save water in other ways.  What we don't spend watering our lawn would probably supply a small city.

What inspired these thoughts was not only my frustration at trying to wash my hair while we were on vacation, but an article by David P. Gushee in the July 2007 issue of Christianity Today:  Old-Fashioned Creation Care.  It's a good article about Gushee's rediscovery of his grandparents' values—hard work, modesty in consumption, consistent giving, frugality in spending, saving for the future, and squeezing every last drop of value out of your possessions—in the context of his concern for proper care of God's creation.

Yet when I look at what his family is doing to live more simply and use less energy, I am yet more convinced that these must be personal, individual commitments, not something mandated from on high.  Take these two, for example:

• We are making a gradual transition to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which cost more on the front end but use less energy and last longer.


• We have set the summer thermostat to 75 and the winter thermostat to 65.

I hear talk of making the use of those fluorescent bulbs mandatory, and I groan.  Maybe the technology will improve, but I saw them in use on our trip to Europe, and throughly disliked them.  We even had one here for a while, and I was very glad when it finally died so we could go back to an incandescent light.  It may save energy, but I found myself much more likely to leave it on instead of turning it off when I left the room, because I couldn't stand the delay between flipping the switch and seeing light.  As I said, I'm a get in, get the job done, and get out type of person, and waiting at the door to the garage for the light to decide to turn on was maddening.  Worse, it was harder for my old eyes to see in the dim flourescent light, and the colors were all wrong.  If they can come up with an energy-efficient lightbulb that more accurately mimics natural sunlight, and turns on when I flip the switch, I'll be happy to switch, but until then I'll fight the idea.

Because there are other ways to save energy!  Reading about Gushee's thermostat settings made me realize why I was actually cold at two of the places we stayed on our recent trip, despite sweltering outside temperatures (104 degrees in North Carolina!).  If 75 degrees is an environmentally-responsible A/C setting, then we are going 'way above and beyond.  When we first moved to Florida we had the thermostat set at 88 degrees.   After all, that's when we had been able to endure in New York, where we didn't even have a pool in which to refresh ourselves.  That didn't last long—in New York it cools down at night and the clothes don't mildew in the closet.  But even though we've been getting wimpier and have gradually lowered the thermostat over the years, if we ever let it dip below 80 degrees it's a temporary indulgence, usually brought on by the fact that all the computer equipment in my office makes it a lot hotter than 80 degrees in the place I spend much of my time.

So I figure what we save in A/C use makes up for our light bulb preference.  Others might make the opposite choice.  As much as possible, we should have such options, and the market generally does a good job of providing both choices and incentive.  Yes, we keep our house temperature (summer and winter) at something other than completely comfortable as part of being environmentally responsible, but I can't deny that saving money is also a motivating factor.   If there really is a compelling government interest in encouraging us to ditch our incandescent bulbs and our high-flow shower heads, I'd far rather see the price rise than have them unavailable.

Let people choose their own shades of green; a colorful palette will encourage voluntary compliance, and will probably be healthier and more helpful in the long run.

I have a friend who is a faithful e-mail forwarder.  I don't mind, because she is pretty much the only one who sends me the dusty sweepings of cyber space, and occasionally she finds some gems.  One of her recent offerings was not treasure, however, but fool's gold.

Note that the words of the e-mail, the majority of which I reproduce below, do not belong to my friend.  She gets credit for providing blog-post inspiration, not for the embarassing sentiments.

Today I picked up at Bank of America several of the new $1.00 coins with the picture of George Washington on it. To my shock and dismay the words, "In God We Trust", are not on this coin!

A quick search of the other coin denominations in my collection confirmed that every one contained these faithful words. The new George Washington $1.00 coin is the first money ever issued by the USA in modern history without the words "In God We Trust". By omitting these words, our politically correct, secularist leaders made a conscientious decision that either; 1) God does not exist, or 2) that God exists, but can no longer be trusted.

Who originally put 'In God We Trust' onto our currency?

My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins.

All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!

I am personally offended and fed up with the denigration of God and Christianity in my country. I am certain George Washington would never have agreed to his picture on the coin if it any way diminished faith in God.

What can we do to show our displeasure? First of all, let's boycott the coin. Do not ask for it at banks. If it is given to you in change ask for dollar bills instead and tell the person why. Write your Senators stating your displeasure.

Finally, if you agree, pass this e-mail on to others. Collectively, we must send a strong message to those secularists who are trying to remove God from our culture. If we do this, some 300 million $1.00 coins will back up and rot in the supply chain! To God be the glory!

Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on you mail list !!!

You had better believe I don't want one !!!!!!!

Sigh.  I could give free rein to my Inner Conspiracy-Theorist and say it's all Ted Kennedy's fault.  Having experienced the higher-level coinage of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and the European Union, I wish the United States had the sense to supplant (not just supplement) the dollar bill with dollar coins.  (And maybe the $2 and $5 bills while we're at it.)  But the mountain of paper used to print dollar bills comes from Massachusetts, where the Crane Paper Company has a stranglehold monopoly on the business.  The $1 bill has a lifespan of under two years and represents about 45% of the U. S. currency production, so it's no surprise that Massachusetts politicians don't like dollar coins.

However, as I've always maintained, there's no point in invoking conspiracy theories when plain human ignorance can provide sufficient explanation.  What makes this e-mail so embarassing is not just the hype but the ignorance:  "In God We Trust" IS on the new dollar coins.

I'll send a dollar coin to the first nephew who e-mails to tell me where the motto can be found.  If you do find one of the new coins WITHOUT the motto, please send it to me.  It's worth a lot more than $1.... 

Facts about $1 notes

The history of "In God We Trust" on U. S. money

I need Porter.

I'm not in this case referring to the fact that he has a good job and my employable skills are a quarter century out of date.

Nor to the fact that when I say I'd be lost without him, I mean that literally.  Oh, I can navigate pretty well and even find my car in the parking lot if I put my mind to it.  The trouble is, my mind is usually elsewhere entirely.

Nor because it's wonderful to have someone around who can work on the roof without getting all faint-hearted and weak-kneed.

I'm not even talking about emotional support; the security of knowing someone cares if I'm late coming home; arms to comfort and a shoulder to cry on; tender words of respect and encouragement; a friendly presence in the house, and on the other side of the bed.

Not even love.

I love him for all of these, but what I really need Porter for his efforts to pull me out of my ruts.  In a grumpier mood I call these distractions.

Inspired by my daughter's mother-in-law (there must be a better way to say that), I'm making a list of things I want to do before I die.  This is an interesting exercise, though like most forms of exercise better started at an earlier age. But while writing the list is a new idea, I've had an unwritten, mental list for years that tends to consume my life.  "Workaholic" is not a term usually used to describe someone whose last paycheck was 27 years ago, but it's not inappropriate.  When you're over 50 and the list of what you want to do before you die keeps getting longer, a feeling of urgency is justified.

Recently, Porter attended a class that kept him out of town for two weeks.  Certainly I missed him!  But the time was not without advantages.  Figuring eight hours for sleep, and another for meals, phone calls, and miscellaneous, that left me with a 15-hour work day!

I cut my meals down to two a day, which turned out to be remarkably easy.  People talk about skipping breakfast and/or lunch, but I've never been able to do that without significant sacrifice.  I'm always hungry for breakfast and lunch.  But with no one to cook for, I learned that skipping dinner is a piece of cake.  (Figuratively speaking, of course.)  By eating a late lunch I discovered the remarkable liberation of finishing the final meal of the day and still having seven or eight hours before bedtime—what's normally considered a full work day.

Except for church on Sunday, the only time I left home was as part of my exercise routine.  It being summertime, most of my away-from-home commitments were curtailed, and best of all I did absolutely no shopping.

Fifteen hours a day of work.  I completed two major projects, made significant progress on several others, and developed and established some important personal habits.  Yet I had more energy than usual at the end of the day, not less.  It was utter bliss.

It was also a fool's paradise.  It only worked because everything else worked.  Porter's salary continued to be paid, no appliances broke down, I stayed healthy, there were no family crises to deal with, no hurricanes came our way; there were none of the events—happy or sad—in which being alone is really hard.  I'm deeply grateful.

Even in the absence of problems, however, it's not a sustainable lifestyle.  One cannot just write; one must take time out to live life and thus have something to write about.  Creating photo albums is not possible without the events that make up the photos.  (Though, frankly, my backlog is of sufficient size to take me well into old age, I fear.)  Most of all, the point of most of my projects is to share with or benefit other people in some way, so cutting myself off from those very people to work on the projects makes only short-term, occasional sense.  (Not that I was cut off during those two weeks, being blessed with e-mail, inexpensive phone service, and friends and family who make a point of keeping in contact.  Porter calls at least once, often twice a day when he is on the road, God bless him!  That's why I can spend two weeks alone without being in the least lonely.)

Enter Porter.  As far as I can tell, his primary love language is Quality Time.  He loves to do things, he loves to do things together, and he particularly loves doing things that involve going somewhere away from home.  All of which Interrupts My Work.

It also makes my work worthwhile, so I recognize it as a gift and a blessing.  There's a reason God designed us to require other people in our lives.  It doesn't have to be a husband; in fact, we really need many kinds and sorts of people.  But a spouse is definitely an asset in this context.

Which brings me to the other point of this post:  The Concert Surprise.  We're regular patrons of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, but we didn't sign up for their Sounds of Summer series this year because of our irregular schedule.  When he discovered that we would actually be home for one recently, Porter wanted to go.

Sounds Of Summer II
Italia “La Più Bella”
Thursday, July 5, 2007 7:00 PM
Created by Daniel Flick

This musical feast is sure to satisfy the tastes of all Italian Music Lovers. Works of the classic Italian masters, Corelli, Tartini, Vivaldi, and Boccherini, are accompanied by Italian folk music favorites ranging in flavor from “la Sole alla Luna” or as we say in English, from “the Sun to The Moon.” These works are brought to life on traditional Italian instruments including Mandolin, Accordion, Classical Guitar, String Quartet and Soprano.

It sounded interesting, but had I been alone I would not have attended.  Too many other projects would have taken higher priority.  But I went, because anything done with Porter automatically acquires very high priority along with considerably increased interest.

Yes, it was an enjoyable concert.  But the part that was the most fun was opening up the program to discover that one of the two above-mentioned Sopranos was our friend, Ashley Locheed!  We've been enjoying Ashley's performances since she was a freshman in college, but lately her career path has taken her into venues we don't usually frequent and hours at which we'd rather be asleep, so this was a treat.

It pays to get out of the house every once in a while.

I'm mailing a package to France, and as always it amused me to check out the "prohibited" list.  You are not allowed to send any of the following:

Arms, ammunition. Cigarette lighters using butane gas. Feeding bottles. Funeral urns. Goods bearing false marks of French manufacture or origin. Imitation pearls containing lead salts and any articles of jewelry made with pearls of this type. Measuring instruments marked in units not complying with French law. Perishable infectious biological substances except as noted in Restrictions below. Perishable noninfectious biological substances except as noted under Restriction below. Radioactive materials. Saccharine in tablets or packets. Live plants and animals. Arms and weapons. Human remains.

Okay, so much of that makes sense.  But feeding bottles?  If I didn't know better, I'd say that France must be extremely pro-breastfeeding.  Measuring instruments marked in units not complying with French law?  Maybe they take their metric system very seriously.  Saccharine in tablets or packets?  Quart jars are okay then?  Interesting to have baby bottles, rulers, and sweeteners in the same category as ammunition and radioactive materials!

While working on my book cataloguing project, I came upon an old church mission report, stuck in an even older Cruden's Complete Concordance.  Those of you who are interested in history might enjoy this glimpse into our country's past, and those of you who have are accustomed to reading modern church mission reports may be amused at how little some things change.  Unfortunately, parts of the report are missing, including the date.  Remember to click on the picture if you want to see the whole thing.  (I also have to use "CTRL +" to make the print large enough for me to read it comfortably.)

  

   

   

The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who have given their lives in our country's wars.  The advantage of a blog is that I can do that with a link, so this year I'm doing something different, and give the day a genealogical bent.

According to no less an authority than Wikipedia,

The southeastern United States celebrates Decoration Day as a day to decorate the graves of all family members, and it is not reserved for those who served in the military. The region observes Decoration Day the Sunday before Memorial Day.

Therefore I will metaphorically decorate the graves of all our family members who have gone before,

From my most ancient documented ancestor (so far)

Pepin d'Heristal (abt 635 - 16 Dec 714)
(You can follow the line back further from the link, but despite what I said above, I'm waiting to consult another authority than Wikipedia.)

To our beloved

Isaac Christopher Daley (21 Nov 2002 - 23 Nov 2002)

On one of our recent bike rides, we came upon a dead armadillo.  Dead armadillos happen not infrequently in Florida.  They may be faster in crossing a road than turtles, but they will dawdle.  Worse, their startle reaction is to leap straight into the air, dooming them even when a car would otherwise pass harmlessly over them.

This one had apparently managed to crawl from the road to the nearby bicycle trail, but not before the vultures got wind of the event.  Porter was biking a little ahead of me, and I saw them beginning to circle as he approached.  A few had descended upon the poor beast by the time he rode by.  His presence more annoyed than scared them.  When I reached the scene there were at least a dozen blanketing the pavement, and I chose to veer off the trail and leave them to their vicitim.

Vultures are ugly birds, and their behavior was uglier:  fighting, shoving, greedily tearing the little armadillo apart.  By the time we came to that part of the train on our return trip, there was nothing left but a dark spot on the pavement.

And that's the point.  Carrion-eaters may be ugly, dirty things, but they are also God's creatures, and their work is important.  They are the garbage collectors of the natural world, and they, too, deserve the more lofty title of "sanitation engineers."  Maybe even more so, because they don't just cart the bodies off to the landfill; they are the ultimate recyclers.

I'd rather see a sandhill crane, or a woodpecker, or an egret on our rides any day.  But if there's a dead armadillo on the trail...Who you gonna call?