Lift Up Your Hearts!

Today's Dilbert is for all the bright students frustrated by teachers who insist that they show their work.

Don't overthink it; I just think the last panel is funny.

I know it's sometimes important to show the intermediate steps, and what I used to tell my students was that they didn't need to show their work, but that if they didn't, they wouldn't get any partial credit if their answer didn't agree with mine.  Too many teachers, however, don't understand that some students can no more explain the process by which they arrive at the correct answer to a math problem than a fluent reader can detail the steps by which he understands a paragraph.  "Showing your work" becomes a matter of reverse engineering, which is another skill altogether.

I've noticed a strange error in the time stamp when I take videos with my phone.  A Google search has not led me to others experiencing the same problem, so I'm posting it here so that the problem will be "out there" in case someone comes along.

The photo and video time stamps seem to be consistent and accurate, until I change time zones.  When I do, my phone automatically updates its time to reflect local time, which is exactly what I want it to do.  Whatever time stamps my photos apparently grabs the system time, because they show the correct local time.  However, the videos do not.

When I shot videos in St. Louis, Missouri, which is on Central Time, their time stamp was still on Eastern Time—one hour ahead.  When I took videos in Switzerland, the time stamp acted as if I were still back in the U.S., on Eastern Time:  it was six hours behind.

As long as I am aware of the problem, I can easily correct the time because my file naming convention includes the date and time.  I just have to remember to add or subtract for the videos, and that's usually easy enough because otherwise they appear out of sequence.  That's how the problem came to my attention in the first place.

But what I'm really curious about is why the photos have the correct time and the videos don't.  It's the same camera that takes them both.  The only logical place for the software to get the time is from the phone's system time.  But obviously whatever stamps the videos is doing something altogether different.  Well, not altogether:  the minutes and seconds are correct.  It's just the hour that's wrong, and it's clearly a time zone effect.

If anyone comes by here looking for answers, I don't have them.  But at least you'll know that someone else has had the problem.  And if anyone comes by with solutions, thanks in advance!

Would you be this cool if you found an eight-foot king cobra under your dryer?

Mike Kennedy's cobra escaped a month ago.  Intense efforts on the part of many to find it came up empty.

Last night Cynthia Mullvain was putting clothes in her dryer when she heard a hiss.

Did she panic?  Throw a fit?  No, but she did call for wildlife officials to come investigate.

They retrieved the missing cobra, which was officially identified by its microchip—not that king cobras are so routinely found in Ocoee, Florida that there was any doubt.

Ms. Mullvain is not suing—someone, anyone, everyone—for pain and distress.  She didn't whine to the media about how scared she was, and how no one should have to go through such an experience.  She didn't demand that the cobra be killed or not returned to Mr. Kennedy.  She's happy to have him go back home, as long as his enclosure is secured.

I think Cynthia Mullvain is one cool lady and reacted just the way a good citizen should have.

This summer I noticed that our grandson was reading a book about "staycations."  I think it was about how to have a great vacation but save money by staying in your own town, and your own home, but acting as if you were on vacation:  eating out, seeing the attractions that you would see if you were visiting your city as a tourist, etc.  However, my mind leapt at a different interpretation of the term:  What if I "went on vacation" but never left home?

To me, vacations are not only fun but critically important, being mostly about family, but they are anything but relaxing.  I leave behind one set of responsibilities, but take on another, and if grandchildren are a joy that reminds me life is worth living, they don't leave much time for rest.  Or for making any progress on my own work, which is always waiting for me when I return.  So when Porter planned a three-week "working vacation" to the Northeast to help with construction projects in New Hampshire and to help out his father in Connecticut, I thought, "What a great time for me to take a staycation!"  Hard as it was to give up any chance to visit family, this was too good an opportunity to miss.  I would be home, but not home, avoiding as much as possible any normal activity or chore that I would not be doing if I were actually away.  If it could survive three weeks of my being out of town, it could survive being ignored for that long.

There were exceptions.  If we had both been out of town, things like mail, newspaper, lawn/pool care, and feeding the worms would have been taken care of, but it made much more sense to handle them myself.  A friend pointed out that I could have hired someone to mow the lawn, but that would have been more stressful than just doing it.

I didn't have a hard-core agenda; this was supposed to be a vacation, after all, a personal retreat, and I wanted to leave it somewhat fluid.  But I did have a few goals.

1. This seemed like the perfect time to accomplish 95 by 65 Goal #94:  Rocket boost photo work (40 hours of work in segments of 1 or more hours, over 2 weeks), since I could work largely without interruption and any hours of the day I chose.
2. There are some projects that work a lot better if I can spread them over space and time without worrying about interfering in someone else's life.  I wanted to work on some of these.
3. I've been battling a tendency toward hoarseness ever since I got the worst laryngitis of my life four years ago, and being alone at home with no outside commitments looked to be my best chance to see what a period of voice rest could do to help.

These were my three big priorities.  How did I do?

1. I knew from my experience with Goal #86, Rocket boost genealogy that the hour-long segment requirement doesn't work for me, so I gave myself the freedom work in segments of any length.  That worked great.  Sometimes it was ten minutes, sometimes several hours, but I met the goal and never experienced the burnout I did with the genealogy work.  It also helped that I had mostly cleared my schedule, so guilt over not doing other things was not part of the picture.  Also, in this case the hardest, most tedious work came at the beginning, instead of at the end.  I spend approximately 56 hours on this project over the three weeks, and here's what I did.  (If it doesn't seem like that much to you, you don't know the magnitude of the project; trust me, it was a big deal, and I'm very happy with it.)
   • Set up a set of working files on a new 2TB drive I had bought for this purpose.  Having all that space gave me the freedom to make as many interim backup copies as I wanted to, which took away the fear of messing things up badly.  It's impossible to overstate how lovely this was.
   • Learned to use Irfanview to make lossless JPG rotations, and batch-process name changes.  Again, it's impossible to overstate the value of these tools, especially the batch processing.
   • I researched and decided on a system for identifying all my photos with the date and time as the first part of the filename.  Maybe that's old school—they say that the date and time, along with people, places, and other keywords, should be stored as EXIF data associated with the file—but I've been burned before with having information lost when I switched systems.  Maybe that won't happen with EXIF, but I also like to be able to see and search for that information easily. 
   • I decided that I would begin with what is probably the easiest part of my many, many years of backlog:  2015 photos from my phone.  They have date-and-time information stored with each image, and in most cases location information as well.  What's more, the more recent memories are easier to recall than those from, say, 2007, or even worse, 1975....  I then processed all of the 2015 photos from January through mid-September, giving them all filenames that looked like this:  yyyy-mm-dd@hh-mm-ss (with appropriate extension).  Do I need to know what second a photo was taken?  No, but the point is to be able to sort photos by the order in which they were taken.  It's also an easy way of making sure each has a unique filename, so I no longer have to worry about appending numbers after each photo in a series, and adding further suffixes when I find something that belongs in between two consecutive numbers.  It's liberating and I haven't yet found a downside.  Unless it might make the filename too long; I've also put sometimes lengthy descriptions in the filenames.  Long names have gotten me in trouble before, with certain copy/backup programs with less generosity in that department than Windows.  But so far I've been okay with this.
   • I made a quick-and-dirty cull of pictures that were obviously bad.  I mean really quick:  mostly pictures that were taken accidentally.  Trying to choose the best from a set of basically the same shot was not appropriate for this step.  This was the end of Phase 1.
   • In Phase 2, I went through all the renamed photos, culling still more (but still being very generous in what I kept), and changing the filenames to include descriptions:  people, places, events, anything to help place the photo in context.  I'm actually still in Phase 2, having at this point not quite completed from January through May.  I had hoped to finish this phase of 2015, but another major project was spawned when I hit April, and our genealogical visit to a cemetery.  Before declaring those photos complete, it only made sense to analyze the data and put together the whole story of our findings.  That in itself took almost 20 hours.
   • Phase 3 will consist of going through the photos again and making edits so that the images show best what is important to me in the picture.  For example, I have one photo of the family eating at a large table, and in itself it's not worth keeping because too many people were caught not looking very attractive.  But properly cropped, there's an adorable picture of a sleeping grandson.  Finally, Phase 4 will be the Production stage, in which I choose photos to share with others in some attractive form.
   • For Phases 3 and 4 I purchased PaintShop Pro.  It's intimidating, but I've been helped a lot by instructional videos available on YouTube.  For those who might be in similar straits, Christopher Oneill's YouTube channel has a lot of detailed information.  Too detailed, maybe, but I've found nothing else that covers the material as well.  And if I can multi-task, say eating lunch while watching, it makes it less frustrating that he is sometimes repetitious and slow.
   • Why do I do everything in phases, making several passes through the images?  Because I have a very, very large elephant to eat, and it goes down better one small bite at a time.
   • Yes, I'm making sure to back up my work.
   • Maybe best of all, I now have a set of procedures and a system for continuing to make progress, albeit at a much slower rate, now that my retreat is over.
2. Working on house projects was a great success, as detailed below.  Projects involving the kitchen and the master bedroom are particularly likely to annoy other people if they're spread out over several days.
3. The jury is still out on my throat.  I've made progress, but not as much as I'd like.  That's not going to stop me from going back to choir this week, however.  I plan to keep up my regimen of salt-water gargles, xylitol nasal spray, and lots of drinking.  For the last, I'll keep up the regular tea, and the lemon and honey, but I will be glad to see the back of the make-me-gag herbal tea that is supposed to help soothe throats.  Maybe I'll have to go back to that, but I'm sure hoping not.  One problem I did discover was that being home alone did not mean I didn't use my voice:  I talk to myself a lot!  I pray out loud, and I often keep a running commentary on what I do and how it's going.  As I've said before, I think in words, and it turns out that when I'm alone I like to hear those words aloud.  I kept catching myself and reminding myself not to talk, but it's a pretty strong habit.  At least my volume is lower than when speaking to someone else....

In answer to the question you all are asking, "What did you do on your retreat?" here's what I can remember.

• Set up system for labelling and identifying photos
• Learned a lot about PaintShop
• Culled bad photos from 2015; labelled the remainder with date and time; labelled January through most of May with description
• Analyzed, augmented, and wrote up the genealogical data from our cemetery visit in April; also did some general genealogy work
• Maintained a schedule of daily Bible reading and prayer
• Maintained a schedule of daily exercise, only twice logging less than 90 minutes and 10,000 steps
• Completed two major yard projects
• Mowed the lawn twice
• Cleaned the pool three times
• Maintained a schedule of daily language learning with DuoLingo
• Exchanged our defective toaster oven
• Bought a bunch of clothes—those who know me will understand what an extraordinary accomplishment this is
• Wrote 12 blog posts
• Read and reviewed one book—below average for me, but it was not a priority for this retreat
• Completed six kitchen-related projects—some large, some small
• Completed a major project in the master bedroom/bath
• Created four Shutterfly projects
• Cooked some dishes to freeze for future quick meals
• And a lot of little things

Because my 95 by 65 goal required me to log at least 40 hours of photo work, and I didn't want to limit myself to either one-hour time blocks or very tedious record-keeping, I looked into time-tracking software.  I found Gleeo Time Tracker, and I absolutely love it!  I think so much of it that I will be writing a review, so I won't go into details here, but it does what I need, it doesn't do what I don't need, and anyway how can you go wrong with a Swiss timepiece?  I began with the photo work, and gradually added (and am still adding as time goes on) more categories and tasks, so the numbers below are, except for the photo hours, understated.  By how much depends on when I added them to the time tracker, and of course there were plenty of other things I did that didn't get recorded.  But what there is, is enough to give a pretty good feeling for how the three weeks went.

I logged an average of about 12 hours per day.  There is some duplication, as when it was appropriate I counted each task separately when multi-tasking.  For example, I often do reading and exercise simultaneously, but they are clearly different activities and it's important for me that I count them both.  Exercise and yard work I only counted as yard work, even though I expended a lot of energy and wound up very tired, because they were the same activity, not two activities occurring simultaneously.  I could have counted the PaintShop instructional videos as either Learnig or Photo Organization, but I chose the latter.  And so on.  There were also many activities that didn't get logged.

Even with some duplication taken into account, these were long days.  I worked from morning till bedtime.  I read only one book, and never turned on the television.  When I sat down to watch a video, 99% of the time I was learning about PaintShop.  (There were a few short videos of terribly cute grandchildren as a change of pace.)  My staycation was no more relaxing than our vacations.  It was wonderful, it was restorative, and I feel great about what I accomplished.  But relaxing it wasn't.  I guess I'm just not cut out for rest.

Or maybe I just need rest in the right circumstances.  Porter came home last night, and this afternoon we sat down together and watched an episode of NCIS.  I have to admit that was just lovely!

The best part of our visit to St. Louis, Missouri this year was without a doubt time spent with living relatives.  Yet we also had a great time visiting several dead ones.

A member of our extended family was born in St. Louis, and has roots there going back to the mid-1800's, when her great-grandparents arrived from Ireland.  Hereinafter she will be referred to as GrandmaX—not to be confused with the usual Grandma on this blog, that is, me—because it is considered bad form to use the names of living people in online genealogical work.  The Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis has a great online burial search tool, so I knew that several of GrandmaX's family members were buried there.  It would be fun to see what we could find.

But first, we stopped at the Old Cathedral, the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, formerly the Cathedral of Saint Louis.  This was the first Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi (but just barely west; it’s right on the river) and was the only Catholic church in St. Louis until 1845.  When all other nearby buildings were demolished for the building of the Gateway Arch, the Old Cathedral was left standing because of its historical significance.  (You can click on any photo for a closer look.)

Old Cathedral     As seen from the top of the Gateway Arch

The Cathedral may or may not have been the family’s parish church, but it must in any case have been important to them, as they were at that point a Catholic family.  When the family left the Catholic Church I do not know.  It might have been because of the divorce of William and Margaret (Donohue) Goodman, GrandmaX's maternal grandparents, though both of them, and also Margaret’s second husband, Joseph A. Murray, and some others of their family, are buried in the Catholic cemetery.  At the present time, Catholics who are divorced and remarried without having obtained an annulment are not considered to be "members in good standing," and thus cannot participate in some aspects of church life, but they are allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.  I don't know if that was also true in the 19th century.

The next stop in our genealogical adventure was Calvary Cemetery itself, located at 5239 West Florissant Avenue in St. Louis, little more than ten minutes away from our hotel near the Gateway Arch.  We were overwhelmed by the size of the cemetery, but the people there were welcoming and helpful, providing us with both burial data and maps.  Some of the graves we had come to see were easy to find; others, impossible.  Markers on the map below show approximately where we went.

Marker B:  Section 1, Lot 587—Donohue

North Side

Our first stop of genealogical significance was the Donohue family plot (called “Donohoe” in the cemetery records).  Owen and Margaret (Sullivan) Donohue both came from Ireland, and were in St. Louis no later than 1856, when their daughter Margaret—GrandmaX's grandmother—was born.  The front of the monument, facing roughly north, has the Donohue surname and Owen and Margaret's information on it.  (On the left, the stone; on the right, our transcription.)

Nineteenth-century immigrant birthdates can be problematic, with a lot of guessing going on, thanks to faulty memories, what records that exist being a long way away in the home country, and people having reasons for presenting themselves as older or younger than they really were.  So birthdates and ages at death must not be considered definitive when obtained much later in life, even when carved in stone.  Owen's death certificate agrees with the stone as to date, but says he was age 62, and that's what the official cemetery records say.  Yet the stone clearly says 63.  Census records give somewhat earlier birthdates.  It's a pretty good guess that he was born sometime in the 1830's, but we'll never really know without finding his baptismal records back in Ireland...

...Which we are significantly closer to doing thanks to this gravestone.  We had had no clue at all as to where in Ireland the Donohues came from, other than the idea that, being Catholic, they were more likely from the south than the north.  That's not much to go on.  Knowing the county doesn't make it easy, but at least it makes it possible, and now we know that they came from County Cork!

West Side

Michael G. Donohue was the son of Owen and Margaret, born in St. Louis.  Again the information on the gravestone gives cause for puzzlement.  Maria's death certificate says she died on June 18, 1891, and the cemetery records that she was buried June 20, 1891 are in line with that.  However, the gravestone clearly says she died April 18, 1890.  Carver's mistake?  Bad handwriting?

Michael's information is also confusing, even though he was not himself an immigrant.  The death record says he died November 7, 1906, and the cemetery record that he was buried November 10, 1906 at age 48, making his birth year 1858 or 1859.  Try as I might I can't read the stone inscription as anything other than 1867 for the birth year—in any case the final digit is most definitely a 7.  On the spot we read the death year as 1905, and looking at the photos I still think that's the most likely date, though 1906 is possible.  Fortunately, although I haven't found a birth record, Michael is recorded as being 4 months old in the August 1, 1860 census.  At that age, there's no mistaking or lying about more than a month or two, so for certain the 1867 birth year, carved in stone, is wrong.

East Side

It was a hard time to be a child.  Joseph O. and Catherine (Katie) M. Murray were the children of Joseph and Margaret (Donohue) (Goodman) Murray.  Margaret was the daughter of Owen and Margaret (Sullivan) Donohue, and the grandmother of GrandmaX.  Joseph A. Murray was her second husband; we'll get to Mr. Goodman later.  These children, then, would have been half-siblings of GrandmaX's mother, who would have been in her mid-to-late teens when they died.  Although they died a year apart (Katie on July 30, 1896 and Joseph on July 22, 1897), given their ages at death, they were probably twins.

And Mazie?  Bear with me here.  Margaret (Donohue) (Goodman) Murray had a sister, Ellen (Nellie).  Nellie married Nelson Harvey Howard, and Mary (Mazie) Howard was their second child.  Mazie would have been a first cousin once removed to GrandmaX.  She died on July 14, 1893, at 21 months of age.

Although she is not listed on the stone, cemetery records tell us that one more baby is buried here:  Oaty Ester Dennis, GrandmaX's older sister, whom she never met, because Oaty died on Christmas of 1911, just 27 days after her birth.  "Oaty" is an odd name, but real, after her paternal grandmother.  Her maternal grandparents were William and Margaret (Donohue) Goodman—but as I said, we'll get to them later on.

According to their death records, Joseph Murray died of "infantile convulsions, teething," Katie Murray of gastroenteritis, Mary Howard of "infantile convulsions," and Oaty Dennis of pneumonia.  According to Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms, quoting a reference from 1785, "Though more children are said to die of convulsions than of any other disease, yet they are for the most part only a symptom of some other malady. Whatever greatly irritates or stimulates the nerves, may occasion convulsions. Hence infants whose nerves are easily affected, are often thrown into convulsions by any thing that irritates the alimentary canal; likewise by teething; strait clothes; the approach of the small-pox, measles, or other eruptive diseases."  Children died of a lot of things back then.

Marker D:  Section 8, Lots B and F—J&RGoodman

Section 8 is just down the road from Section 1, so our next effort was to find the gravestones of John and Rose (Ward) Goodman (Lot B Row 25 and Lot F Row 5, respectively).  They also came from Ireland, and were in St. Louis no later than 1855, when their son William—GrandmaX's grandfather—was born.  According to the cemetery records, John died at the age of 48, and was buried on July 26, 1875.  This would mean he was born around 1827, which is reasonably consistent with the census data.  Rose was buried on Feb 20, 1890 at the supposed age of 58, giving her a birth year around 1832.  The census data consistently claims she was born in 1830.  Again, we can't do better than that without the original Irish records.

There is another John Goodman in Lot B Row 25, buried on March 9, 1877 at age 0.  Death records show that the baby died at the age of six days, of "trismus nascentium"—probably neonatal tetanus.  His parents aren’t named, but this is likely the son of William and Margaret (Donohue) Goodman, named for his grandfather who had died two years earlier.  There are no other Goodmans buried in Section 8, and to the best of my knowledge William had no brothers, making this identification reasonable.  If true, young John would have been born three years before their daughter Margaret (GrandmaX's mother), who is the only other child I've found from their marriage.

Unfortunately, we found no gravestones to add anything, either useful or confusing, to the data.  Many of the stones in this cemetery were made of less durable materials than granite; time and acid rain have not been kind to them.  What was once a heavily-populated section of the cemetery now sports a lot of bare grass, with many graves now unmarked.  Of the stones still in place, we found most to be illegible.  Some sections—such as the one where we found the Donohue stone—have the locations of graves clearly marked in the records, and on maps.  Others, sadly, only let you know that a particular person is buried "somewhere in here."  Such is the case for Section 8, and also the next section on our tour.

Marker E:  Section 5, Lot H—Murray

We packed up and moved to Section 5, Lot H, hoping to find Joseph A. and Margaret (Donohue) (Goodman) Murray.  Margaret, as I have said before, was GrandmaX's grandmother, who married Joseph Murray after her divorce from William Goodman.  Sadly, we found here a repeat of our previous frustrations:  missing and illegible stones.  However, the photo below from "Elaine R S" on FindAGrave.com was taken in 2013, so either our painstaking search wasn't as thorough as we thought, or there's been some serious vandalism since then.  I'd love to go back and find the spot where this picture was taken.

Death records and the gravestone agree that Joseph Murray died on December 2, 1911.  He was buried on December 5, and was supposedly 54 when he died.  Census records vary, suggesting birth years between 1852 and 1857.    Margaret died on March 21, 1923 and was buried on March 24.  Her birthday is given on the death certificate as April 9, 1858, although the 1900 census says April 1859 and others censuses suggest it was 1856.  Looking at the supposed birthdates of Margaret's siblings, 1856 and 1859 are possible, but 1858 is not.

Marker C:  Section 24, Lot 430—Hendron

So far we have learned about four of Owen and Margaret (Sullivan) Donohue's children:  Margaret, who married William Goldman (more to come on him, really!) and then Joseph Murray; Michael, who married Maria (last name probably Duffy); and Nellie, who married Nelson Howard and whose daughter Mazie is buried in the Donohue plot.  There's one other boy that we know of: Thomas, who was born about 1869 and died young.  The family lived in Litchfield, Illinois for sometime around 1870, and that is probably where Thomas was born and buried.  There is also one more girl:  Catherine (Kate), who was either first- or second-born, depending on what date one accepts for her sister Margaret's birth.  Catherine married William Hendron, and finding their gravestone was a much-welcomed success after so many cases of, "They're buried somewhere in this plot but we have no idea where."

Kate was born December 19, 1857, and died June 13, 1933, at age 75; William, born May 6, 1863, outlived her by just over a year, dying on October 27, 1934 at the age of 71.  This information comes from their death certificates, and is in agreement with the gravestone and the cemetery records, but the census data reminds us that without reliable birth records, we can't be sure.  (The 1900 census says Kate was born in December 1891 and was 38 years old.)

Several of William and Kate Hendron's descendants are buried in this plot as well.

No Marker:  Section 24, Lot 973—Evans

We did not visit this lot, which is across the street from where the Hendrons are buried, because I didn't find out until later that Joseph and Margaret (Donohue) Murray's daughter, Ruth (Murray) Evans, is buried here.  She was GrandmaX's half-aunt.  Ruth was born on December 17, 1893 and died at age 37 on February 10, 1931.  GrandmaX was six years old when Ruth died, and so probably doesn't remember her, but I wonder if she remembers any family stories about her.  For Ruth Evans was murdered—shot through the stomach and the liver.  That information came from her death certificate; at this point, I know no more.

Marker A:  Section 26, Lot 863—WGoodman

Yes!  We have finally arrived at William Goodman's stone.

That's exactly how we felt at the time, because the cemetery at first sent us on a wild goose chase.  We went to the plot were they said he was buried, along with his sister Mollie (Mary) (Goodman) Adams, and his niece, Hazel Adams.  Where Mollie's husband and Hazel's father, William Adams, is buried I do not know, nor do I have any other data for him.

After a long and fruitless search—all the more frustrating, because unlike the previous times we came up empty, the stones around this lot were in good shape—I made use of my handy smart phone and its Internet connection to do some digging on the cemetery's website.  By looking up the names on gravestones where we were, I determined that we were, indeed, standing before what should have been William Goodman's grave, but it was not his name on the marker.  We took this evidence back to the cemetery office, where they discovered that, indeed, their database was wrong.  They were, however, able to send us back out to the right plot.

When we arrived, there was William Goodman's gravestone, plain as day and easy to read!  Unfortunately, what you see is the sum total of the information it contained.

That was disappointing; if I hadn't already known a bit about William Goodman, the stone would not have helped in the least.  Information on William was hard to find, because he disappeared soon after his divorce from Margaret, which appears to be shortly before the 1880 census, in which they are both listed as divorced, but which was taken very soon after their daughter, Margaret (GrandmaX's mother), was born.

When I began my research I didn't even know his name:  he was only "Grandpa Goodman who was a miner in Colorado."  At that time, Colorado was not a place of good record-keeping, and I despaired of ever finding him.  But the man had the good sense to come back home to die, and though his death certificate agrees that his residence was Denver, Colorado, he died in St. Louis, the home of some pretty good online death records.

According to those records, William Goodman was the son, as I have said, of John and Rose (Ward) Goodman.  He had at least two other siblings besides Mollie—Elizabeth and Julia—but if they are buried here it must be under married names.  William was the oldest, born October 15, 1855.  He died on May 8, 1933, quite possibly on a visit to Mollie, as she is the informant listed on the death certificate.  Apparently William fell down the stairs and fractured his femur, dying two and a half months later, officially of chronic myocarditis.  In a mystery novel, this would be cause for suspicion, but in real life, in a 77-year-old man with signs of dementia, the fall was no doubt an accident, as the official record declares.

With no marriage record at hand, it's hard to say when he married Margaret Donohue (Owen and Margaret's daughter, remember?).  If the John Goodman who died as an infant was indeed their son, it would have been about 1876, when he was 21 and she—probably 20, but possibly 17.  John, and their daughter, Margaret, born June 2, 1880, were probably their only children together.  We know that Margaret (Donohue) Goodman then married Joseph Murray in about 1885, and had four children, at least three of which (Ruth, Joseph, and Catherine) are buried in this cemetery.  (The firstborn, Theresa, I have no further record of.)  If William Goodman ever remarried and had any more children, I don't know about it.  He's listed as divorced on his death certificate.

We will probably never know what led to the divorce of William and Margaret (Donohue) Goodman.  Did his daughter, Margaret, even know him?  Her parents divorced before she was born, and she grew up with her stepsiblings.  Whether she knew him or not, after she married George Saul Dennis, they memorialized him by naming their firstborn William Goodman Dennis.

William Goodman Dennis was GrandmaX's oldest brother.  She had one other sibling whom she knew, named Sayle after his father's side of the family, and one more who died before she was born, four days after his birth.  Little George was born when his family was in Ohio, and his death certificate reads, "sudden death, specific cause unknown."  Oaty Esther Dennis, GrandmaX's only sister, is also the only one of her immediate family to be buried in St. Louis:  like many in the 20th century, they moved on and spread out.

It has been 40 years since GrandmaX's last living sibling died.  She herself has outlived them all by at least 20 years.  I hope her children and grandchildren, who will surely recognize her despite the anonymous moniker, will enjoy this look into their St. Louis roots, and will perhaps pay her a visit with a laptop or tablet so she can enjoy it as well.

And now we're almost done with our St. Louis cemetery visit.  There are some famous people buried there, too, and in and around our family gravestone searches we checked out a few of them.

Dred Scott     Dr. Tom Dooley     William Tecumseh Sherman

And with that, we left the cemetery and went to meet our living family.  I've eaten lunch in a cemetery before, but in general, the living make better dining companions.

Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.  Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.  And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.  Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.  And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

This parable of Jesus is well-known to Christians, and at least it used to be familiar to the wider world as well.  Usually it is given a strictly spiritual interpretation; indeed, Jesus himself appears to endorse that in his explanation.  (All quotations are from the book of Mark, English Standard Version.)

The sower sows the word.  And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.  And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.  And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.  And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word,  but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

And yet, as I was reading this chapter the other day, it occurred to me that the parable has a much wider application, which of course doesn't surprise me, as great truths usually apply in many situations.  Nor do I claim my thoughts to be original; I'm sure many others have seen the same things.  But they were new to me, and I want to write them down.

How often this plays out in my life!  Here's one example:

I read a new book or article, hear a lecture or the words of a friend.  I might react in any of those four ways.  Sometimes an idea may be too foreign, or too objectionable, or I may have strong prejudices against the writer or speaker, and I reject it immediately.  For good or for ill, I give it no place in my thoughts.  At other times—all too often—I respond to an idea with great enthusiasm, but do not do the work necessary to truly understand it, so when someone—especially someone I care about and/or respect—opposes it, I can't defend the idea, and soon drop it.  Frequently the idea makes it through the above obstacles, and I fully intend to apply it in my life, but I get busy with everyday living ("cares of the world"), worry about the cost in money or time ("deceitfulness of riches"), or don't give it priority ("desires for other things") and nothing comes of it.  Only if I make an idea my own, give it time and attention, and above all act upon it, will it actually make a difference in my life.

It's also applicable to blogging:  I have thousands—tens of thousands—of ideas for blog posts.  There's hardly an idea or event that comes my way that doesn't present itself as a possible subject.  Li'l Writer Guy (I haven't mentioned him in a while, but he's still around) immediately starts turning it over for possibilities.  But many ideas are rejected out of hand as inappropriate; others get dropped when I realize they're not as interesting as I had thought; and most of the rest get dumped into the "blog post ideas" bucket never to see the light of day again, choked out by higher priorities.  Only a few of the seeds get the soil preparation and care they need to make it into print.

It's fun for me to see Bible passages in a different light.  And maybe useful, too.  Recently I've been trying to decipher inscriptions on gravestone photos, and have found photo-editing software to be helpful.  Seeing them literally in a different light can sometimes cause what was murky to pop out with clarity.

I try to avoid clickbait—you know, the Internet equivalent of the TV news teaser, "World ends tonight, details at 11"—but this one on Facebook mentioned both "Basel, Switzerland" and "drum corps" in the subtitle, so I succumbed.  I was glad I did.  (Thanks, BJ.)

The Top Secret Drum Corps founded the now-famous Basel Tattoo in 2006.  I enjoyed watching the parade in 2010, though we didn't attend the Tattoo itself, being fully entertained by newborn Joseph.

Okay, Faithful Readers.  I'm listening to an instructional video on using PaintShop Pro, and the instructor interrupts his teaching to give a lecture on how important it is NOT to geotag any photos in or near your home, because "you don't want other people to be able to find out where you live.  It's not safe."  Huh?  Has he never heard of a telephone book?  And now with the Internet it's ridiculously easy to find out that kind of information.  Where you live.  What taxes you pay.  What you paid for your house.  Your birthday.  Your family members.  Your political donations.  If you're lucky enough to be a state employee in Florida, your salary.  Google will even show you the flowers in my front yard—at least what they looked like at some point in the past.  So what if someone can tell from my photograph where it was taken?  If anyone wants to do something nefarious, they have plenty of other resources.

I find the feature on my camera that detects and saves location data to be extremely useful.  I'm undertaking the incredibly, ridiculously challenging project of organizing many years' worth of photographs, and the only thing that annoys me about embedded GPS data is that it's not available on most of my photos.  Even my phone camera, which is the first I've had with GPS information, only began recording that data once I found and enabled the feature.

Privacy has always been very important to me.  This may seem odd coming from someone who writes a blog that is shared with the world, but I still consider myself a private person.  "Private" doesn't mean I don't share, any more than "introvert" means I don't like people.  To me, it means (1) I choose what I share and with whom, and (2) I accept that some things are going to be available to others whether I choose to share them or not.  In facing the latter case, I have come to realize that I can either shrink back in fear, or I can accept the small additional risk for the sake of the benefits that have come with new technology and new situations.

My blog audience my not be large, but I know it's diverse, with people everywhere on the privacy spectrum.  So I'll ask:  What's your take on geocoded photos?  Do you use that feature?  If you don't, is it because you don't find a need for it, or because, like my photo software instructor, you think it's dangerous?  If you are worried about safety, what advantage do you think it gives criminals that they couldn't easily get elsewhere?

Malestrom:   Manhood Swept Into the Currents of a Changing World  by Carolyn Custis James (Zondervan, 2015)

Malestrom is the fifth of Carolyn Custis James' books I have read and reviewed.  (Most recently, Half the Church; you can find links to my other reviews there.)  It's similar in style to her other books, which is both good and bad.  Actually, I'm getting a little tired of that style, and of her confidence that she has discerned the feelings and motivations of Biblical characters.  Trivially, may I say again how much I dislike questions at the end of the chapters?  And what was she thinking with the title?  I like wordplay as much as anyone, but we didn't need another excuse to be confused about the spelling of "maelstrom."

Okay, whining over.  The great thing about Carolyn James is that she is an intelligent, seminary-trained, Christian woman who focuses all four of those attributes on questions that the church has not done well at answering.

Such as, What have we done to our men?  As society has redefined what it means to be a woman, and what roles women can successfully fill, has that changed what it means to be a man?  Has the cultural definition of manhood ever been satisfactory?  How can we help our boys to become men when we don't even know what a man is supposed to be?

Not that James provides any down-to-earth, practical answers; she herself states that she reached the end of the book with more questions than when she started.  But she has erected a framework on which to build, and offers several fresh insights to assist with that labor.

Here is my take on that framework:

• The purpose and role of all human beings, male and female, is to be—in life, in action, in relationship—the Image of God that they are.
• The Image of God cannot be revealed without both male and female.  Not male and female individually, but "male and female" together.
• There's an important blank space at the beginning of Genesis.  We see Creation, we see the Fall—what we don't see is how life and purpose were fleshed out for human beings in the time between those events.
• One of the tragic consequences of the Fall was the near-universal development of patriarchical systems of power—the Malestrom—which have pitted men not only against women, but also against other men in a scramble to be at the top of the power pyramid.
• Just because God worked through a patriarchical system to reveal himself and bring about restoration of his image-bearers, that doesn't imply the system itself was good.  In many ways the history of God's interventions is a history of exceptions to the rules of patriarchy, especially once Jesus comes on the scene.
• Jesus is the true Image of God, and the ultimate revelation of the "missing chapter" in Genesis.  He is therefore also the truest and best example of what it means to be a man.  (Or a woman, for that matter, but Malestrom is largely about men.  Women are covered in James' other books.)

You may not agree with all of James' conclusions.  You may groan for less theory and more practice in her writings.  I'm with you on both counts.  But that doesn't change the fact that Carolyn Custis James is a vital voice in the Church today.  She's asking important questions, providing new insights, and challenging us to consider how well our assumptions, our traditions, our words, our policies, and our actions reveal the Image of God to a world that's in a world of hurt.

And now for the quotations.  They're pretty random, but that's where the sticky notes fell.

The malestrom is the particular ways in which the fall impacts the male of the human species—causing a man to lose himself, his identity and purpose as a man, and above all to lose sight of God's original vision for his sons.

For Christians the prominence of patriarchy on the pages of the Bible means patriarchy is important for a variety of reasons, regardless of what our personal views may be of that cultural system.  First, patriarchy matters because it is the cultural backdrop of the Bible.  Beginning with Abraham, God chose patriarchs living in a patriarchal culture to launch his rescue effort for the world.  Events in the Bible play out within a patriarchal context.  But patriarchy is not the Bible's message.  Rather, it is the fallen cultural backdrop that sets off in the strongest relief the radical nature and potency of the Bible's gospel message.  We need to understand that world and patriarchy in particular—much better than we do—if we hope to grasp the radical countercultural message of the Bible.

Second, patriarchy matters because the prevalence of this cultural system on the pages of Scripture, in cultures around the world, and throughout history can easily lead (and has led) to the assumption that patriarchy is divinely ordained.  Many believe this is the way God wants us to live, even though westerners who embrace patriarchy are selective about the few patriarchal elements they retain from the Bible—which is itself an admission that something may be wrong with the system.  Most throw out slavery and polygamy, along with associating disappointment and failure with the birth of a daughter, child brides, honor killings, and inheritance laws, for example.  But they cling fervently to male leadership and female submission in the home and in the church.  Some extend these male/female dynamics to include the wider culture.

The years my family lived in Oxford, England, were life-changing for all three of us, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. But to be honest, the whole time we were there I longed for the day when we would pack up and move back home to the States.  Most of my friends shared that sentiment.  We were all eager to return to our country of origin and threw parties for each other when the dissertation was successfully defended and one of us was moving home.  We looked forward to the day when friends would celebrate us.

But two of my friends didn't share our enthusiasm for leaving.  Both came from worlds very different from mine and from the life we all enjoyed in England.  One was a Muslim from Pakistan; the other a Hindu from India.  Both were intelligent, educated, and articulate.  One had earned a PhD.  Both came from patriarchal cultures.  Both were successful mothers of sons.  Yet both expressed serious dread as their time in Oxford neared a close and they contemplated returning home.  Why?  Because "home" meant living with their husband's family where they would come under the thumb of their mother-in-law and be treated as a child.  Patriarchy was no picnic for these educated and talented women.

My two friends would have been dumbfounded to read the words in Genesis that follow God's creation of the ezer kenegdo and usher her into marriage.  "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."  This is not just a romantic statement about marriage that gets repeated in wedding ceremonies in our western culture.  Within the patriarchal world where a man's wife becomes family property, this one sentence in the Bible violates patriarchal tradition and dismantles it.

The Bible is replete with examples where patriarchy is rejected.  Regarding the rights of the firstborn, God repeatedly transforms power relations to invalidate patriarchal priorities.  It happens in stories when God bypasses the firstborn and chooses a younger brother to inherit his covenant promises.  God chooses Abel and then Seth, not Cain; Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau.  Jacob favors Rachel's sons, Joseph and Benjamin (sons eleven and twelve), over their older brothers, but the kingly line goes to Judah, Leah's fourth son.  And when Jacob blesses Joseph's sons, he gives the greater blessing to Ephraim, not his older brother Manasseh despite Joseph's protests.

Patriarchy is the cultural background against which God reveals the newness of his kingdom breaking through as he overturns cultural norms that issued from the fall of Adam and Eve.  In the final analysis, the gospel and the kingdom of God are not endorsements for any world system that is familiar to us in this world.  Jesus is making something new—recovering that missing chapter and the kingdom we lost sight of in the fall.

We are mistaken to try to salvage pieces of a fallen human system like patriarchy.  And while some readers may think this means egalitarianism wins out, even that system doesn't go far enough.

The "iron law of primogeniture" is one of the first and central pillars of the patriarchal system that the biblical narrative demolishes.  Even today primogeniture is a major argument used to bolster patriarchal thinking in the church concerning male leadership and male/female relationships.  The fact that "God created Adam first" is seen as a biblical warrant for male priority over female.  But as we mentioned earlier, God is no respecter of primogeniture, and with astonishing regularity inverts it to carry his purposes forward with a second or third or eleventh son.

Historically men have held physical, social, and political power over women—many in benign ways, but even "benign" falls woefully short of how God intends for us to use this gift.  Young boys are socialized to adopt a "dominant, aggressive, controlling, and sexualized version of masculinity." ... Instead of a gift that multiplies and blesses, power has been distorted into a zero-sum game.

Jesus' message has a double-barreled impact on [gospel-writer] Matthew who lived at both ends of the fallen world system.  He had unjustly oppressed others, even the poor, and was himself a target of abuse, discrimination, and exclusion.  Matthew presents a Jesus who does not inaugurate a kingdom of weakness, but a new kind of power that doesn't flinch in the face of evil but also refuses to engage on evil's terms. ... This is a brand of masculinity that breaks the cycle of violence with mercy ... and peacemaking.  This redefines power in far more subversive terms.

After Joseph takes Mary as his wife, he "shuts down his carpenter shop, gets behind Mary's calling, and adapts himself to his wife and God's calling on her life."  His whole life will be committed to making sure she succeeds in carrying out the mission God has entrusted to her.  Even according to today's egalitarian standards, this is radical.  [This is an example of where I think James goes too far in her interpolations.  Yes, Joseph had to leave town when young Jesus' life was endangered, but there's no indication he stopped working—the family still had to eat!]

Jesus is the ideal man.  Any conclusions we draw about what it means to be a man must begin with Jesus. This does not minimize in any way the fact that he was also God.  But his identity as a human male should never get lost in his divinity.  Jesus' maleness embodies God's vision for how his sons are to live and holds the key for combatting the malestrom.

What is more, it is also profoundly important for women that Jesus was male.  His maleness was integral to the completion of his redemptive task, for it facilitated his ability to expose "the radical difference between God's ideal and the social structures of his day."  Let us not forget that in the ancient patriarchal culture, "only a male could have offered an authoritative critique of those power structures."  And Jesus' regard for women was truly earthshaking.  His actions and relationships as a man vis-à-vis women carry more weight than we can possibly give them and prove even more culturally revolutionary than we generally acknowledge.

One of Jesus' final acts was something only a slave would do—he knelt and washed his disciples' dirty feet.  This is not like today's annual foot-washing services where everyone shows up with clean feet and a fresh pedicure.  Peter's appalled and indignant refusal at the mere thought of Jesus washing his feet demonstrates just how completely unacceptable a thing this was for someone like Jesus to do.  Jesus' reply wasn't to institute seasonal foot-washing ceremonies, but to explain this was how he expected them to live.  I'm not sure the contemporary discussion of "servant-leadership" captures the full intent of what is going on here.  Jesus is being far more radical than merely nuancing male leadership.  Jesus is not telling his disciples to be kinder in their station at the top of the human pyramid.  He is directing them to see themselves at the bottom and to conduct themselves accordingly—just as he has done for them.

Jesus also frees men to express the full range of human emotions, not just in private prayer but in public.  For starters, Jesus displayed love, compassion, sorrow, fear, courage, strength, vulnerability, anger, and dread.  He wept publicly ... in grief over the death of his friend Lazarus and wept openly over the resistance of Jerusalem.  Instead of men becoming pent-up emotional islands, Jesus gives men permission to be fully human, to admit that they struggle and are hurting, and to embrace the wholeness they were created to express as men.  The fruit of the Spirit—"love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control"—are not "chickified" qualities that need to be corrected with hyper-masculine traits, but the manly relational attributes of Jesus.

Like all of Jesus' disciples, Mary [of Bethany, Lazarus and Martha's sister] struggled to understand the upsetting things he was saying about laying down his life.  His words conflicted with her messianic expectations too, especially with daily reminders of the Roman occupation.  So when Mary invades an all-male feast intended to honor Jesus and anoints him with nard—a perfume the ancients used to pour on a corpse and an aroma everyone present recognized—her actions are intentional and infused with meaning that isn't lost on Jesus.  She was his student.  As she sat at his feet, he taught her the same things he told his male disciples about his approaching death.  ...

In the midst of a party atmosphere, six days before the Passover that goes down in history as the Lord's Supper, with the looming battle ahead weighing heavily on Jesus and his male disciples in denial of what awaits him, Mary's anointing breaks his isolation and affirms the mission he's been telling his followers about for a long time.  It's the only time anyone stood with him and said "Yes" to the cross and to the mission his Father has given him.  In contrast, Peter's response was, "Never, Lord!...This shall never happen to you."  At Mary's anointing of Jesus, the disciples all chime in with Judas Iscariot to criticize her and point to the terrible waste of "expensive" perfume.  In utter contrast, Jesus not only defends her actions, he interprets them.  "When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial" adding, "She has done a beautiful thing to me."

Jesus was on a mission to restore the world God created and loves deeply.  He didn't come to make slight adjustments to the way things work in a fallen world.  It was not his intention to offer men a kinder, gentler patriarchy.  His mission was to turn this fallen world right side up. ... To bear God's image inevitably means going against the cultural grain.

I don't change my Facebook profile picture very often.  Nor my cover photo, as evidenced by the fact that the current one is missing two grandchildren.  In fact, I think I've only had three profile pictures since I joined Facebook in 2007.  For a long time I used a version of our Sursum Corda Academy shield, which you see on the left-hand side of the banner at the top of this page.  In 2014 I switched to this picture of Vivienne and Grandma swimming.

While I hate to replace that adorable moment, I think it's time I changed things up a little more often.  Plus, I not could resist this photo of, um, myself with my cup of tea and my handsome prince, sitting on a bench at one of our favorite places:  Leu Gardens, where we enjoy the flowers and others do all the work.  (You can click on the images to see larger versions.)

The sculpture is by J.A. Cobb, and was part of a very enjoyable Ribbet the Exhibit display back in February.

And I'm not the only one in the family with a frog doppelgänger.

Jon and Heather

Vivienne

As I was preparing the last photo for posting, it occurred to me that it resembles something other than our granddaughter.  Sure enough, I found this picture of Edgar Degas' Petite Danseuse de 14 Ans, from our trip to the St. Louis Art Museum.  That had looked familiar in its turn; there's also a version at the Musée d'Orsay, in almost the exact pose as my frog picture.  Now I don't know if it looked familiar in St. Louis because of the Orsay or Ribbit the Exhibit!

St. Louis       Paris (photo from the Musée d'Orsay website)

I like Bed Bath & Beyond.  Their prices can be a little higher than at some places, but there are plenty of opportunities to get 20%-off coupons, and despite what the fine print might say, the coupons never expire.  Most of all, here is the reason I love to buy small appliances at BBB:

Three years ago we bought a new toaster oven.  I've been very happy with our choice, but early this year I noticed that one of the lower elements had developed a split.

The appliance still worked fine, so dealing with the problem dropped to the bottom of the to-do list.

However, I recently realized that the three-year warranty was about to expire, and the element, much to my surprise, had shown no sign of healing over the last seven months.

I wrote to Cuisenart, and I wrote to Bed Bath & Beyond.  Both responded.  Cuisenart's response was acceptable, but felt scripted and was not particularly helpful.  I was beginning to wonder if it was worth the hassle and postage to return the unit.  Maybe I should just fork over another $65 for a new toaster oven.  If I were being cynical, I'd be pretty sure that's why warranty returns can be difficult.

But Bed Bath & Beyond's response pushed cynicism out the window.  What it boiled down to:  There's no limit on our return policy, just take it back to the store.  Now that's what I call customer service.

So this afternoon I bundled up the toaster oven, not without a prayer of thanksgiving for three years of good service, and headed off to our local store.  Thanks to Porter's meticulousness, I had the receipt, but since I wanted to do an even exchange I might not even have needed that.  The cheerful and helpful sales clerk took the old toaster oven and sent me to pick out a new one.  I was pleased to note that they are still carrying the same model, slightly updated, and for the same price as in 2012.  The clerk made the exchange and sent me out of the store with a smile.  Needless to say, I was smiling, too.

As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough reason to shop at Bed Bath & Beyond.  And to keep our receipts!

The Green Ember by S. D. Smith (Story Warren Books, 2014)
The Black Star of Kingston  by S. D. Smith (Story Warren Books, 2015)

My place beside you, my blood for yours,
Till the Green Ember rises, or the end of the world!

The Green Ember stories began on a porch in West Virginia, with S. D. Smith and his young daughter watching rabbits cavort in their yard.  Soon Smith began telling her stories about those rabbits and their adventures.  Like rabbits, the stories multiplied.  So did Smith's children (though not like rabbits) and they all loved the stories about #RabbitsWithSwords.

Finally, Smith decided to share his stories with a larger audience.  If you want to know more, you can watch what apparently was their Kickstarter promo video.  If it sounds a little funny in places, that's because for some reason the references to Kickstarter have been blanked out in this version.

The Green Ember is just a story. It's not a lesson, it's not a sneaky vehicle to teach you something.  It's just a story.  But I believe in the power of stories. — S. D. Smith

I also believe in the power of stories, whether from a book, a movie, a video game, or any other medium.  Even at my age I must be careful what stories I let myself experience, because I'm so vulnerable to their effects. By now most of you know what's coming, my definition of a good book, slightly paraphrased:  A good story inspires me to be a better person.  These are good stories, not at all in a syrupy way, but shot through with reality, life, action, and beauty.

Yes, I realized I just used the term "reality" about a book with anthropomorphized animals.

It was a little jarring at first to wrap my head around the idea that the rabbits have both human and rabbit physical characteristics.  That is, they are fully capable of using their front paws as hands (e.g. wielding swords, making stained glass windows, knitting), while their hind legs are rabbit-style powerful weapons.  But it didn't take me long to get over it.  (I wonder if it helped or hindered that I was at the same time reading Uncle Wiggily's Adventures.  For the record, much as I respect the bunny rabbit gentleman, The Green Ember is 'way better.)

Let's see, what do I like about this book, other than its positive impact and the fact that I was immediately entranced and didn't want to put it down?

• The primary protagonist is a strong female character.  I've mentioned before how I grew up with books that made me embarrassed to be a girl, and nearly always identified with the male characters instead.  Here's a female character who can think, fight, nurture, worry, and push herself beyond her limits. 
• This rabbit heroine is named Heather!
• The secondary protagonist, Pickett, is highly intelligent and mathematically talented, and his gifts don't make him a freak, but rather a valuable asset in the community.
• Due to his young age and the trauma in his life, Pickett has some dangerous emotional issues.  The wisest rabbits in the community don't seek to make him "normal," but instead help him find healing through becoming more, not less, himself.
• This is very much a medieval rabbit world.  They fight with swords and arrows—and feet and just a little bit of gunpowder.  They make clothing by hand.  Skills are learned through apprenticeship.  Somehow chivalry and honor and high callings fit better in a medieval-themed world, as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis amply demonstrated.  Even George Lucas peopled his high-tech future with swords and knights.
• The rabbit community values, supports, and praises excellence in every good endeavor, from cooking to fighting to building to storytelling.  The end of the rabbits' world seems imminent, yet they emphasize the importance of the arts, and value doing the work of ordinary life extraordinarily well.

The ending of The Green Ember begs for a sequel, and I understand one is in the works.  In the meantime, there's Smith's second book, The Black Star of Kingston.  It's a distant-past prequel to The Green Ember, and definitely enjoyable to read in its own right.  It's not quite as satisfying, mainly because it's much shorter, but also because the strong female characters are mostly missing.  Perhaps even rabbit civilizations need to develop over time. 

Thanks, Serina T. for recommending The Green Ember, and especially for letting me know about the amazon.com special when I could get the Kindle version for free.  I'm hooked, of course, and bought The Black Star of Kingston at full price.  Not that $3.99 is going to break the bank around here.

The Pope is getting all the publicity, but he isn't the only head of state visting a city of historic importance these days.  Last week King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain came to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States.  St. Augustine is celebrating its 450th anniversary, having been founded by the Spanish on September 8, 1565.

I'll bet the Spanish monarchs, cheered as they were by adoring crowds, didn't make nearly as much of a mess of the city as the visit of Pope Francis is expected to do to Philadelphia.

This is my 100th blog post for this year, and I think it fitting to dedicate it to promoting another blog, just five months old but very promising:  Blue Ocean Families.

Inspired by the business concept of Blue Ocean Strategy, the Blue Ocean Families team seeks to answer the question, How can we leave this frantic modern life and carve out a peaceful blue ocean for our families?

Blue Ocean Strategy: Don’t beat the competition, make it irrelevant.

The creators of Blue Ocean Strategy illustrate their idea by envisioning traditional markets as a bloody red ocean of cut-throat competition. They propose that businesses should leave this deadly environment and carve out untapped market space (i.e. a customer base nobody else is reaching). They call this unique market space a blue ocean and explain how to create one in any industry.

Blue Ocean Families: Turn the competition into community.

The red ocean is where we try to keep up with the Joneses and fight the mommy wars. A blue ocean family doesn’t follow the status quo, but celebrates and develops its uniqueness while living in community with other families.

Here are five of my favorite posts:

Can We Trust the Path of Learning that Our Kids Choose?

Support for Parents on the Road Less Traveled

The Cost of Creativity: 9 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Want Creative Kids

Learning to Eliminate: Cultural Context

Entertainment Rethink:  Don't Forget Fun!

(It was hard to pick just five, but then I am biased.  I suppose that in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the founder and primary author of Blue Ocean Families is my daughter.  But that would be bragging.)

Picture the Blue Ocean. This peaceful haven is a place where just one family swims and where each family member can thrive. They have room and laughter, and time to explore and expand. They threaten no one because they chose to leave the Red Ocean and carve out space to make their very own Blue Ocean.

How do you create a Blue Ocean – a unique family culture – where each member has the freedom to thrive AND where success helps others rather than threatens them?

That’s the question I want to explore in this blog. It’s little more than a vision now, but if you find the idea intriguing, then please join me on my journey!

Ah, I knew there was a reason I didn't want to have Amazon's "1-Click" purchase button turned on.  But when buying Kindle books, there's no choice.  Tonight I was browsing their daily deals and, somehow, accidentally clicked on a "Buy now with 1-Click" button.  I think the problem was related to the fact that something—my computer, Firefox, Norton, our ISP; I don't know the culprit—has been making the Internet unpredictably slow.  For a while it will go just fine, then lag by several seconds.  For example, typed the first half of the previous sentence in real time, then the last half took in all my keystrokes before appearing all at once.  The mouse has a similar problem, so the computer must have registered a click in the wrong place.

Whatever the reason, I was on the phone to Amazon right away.  There really needs to be a "cancel this order" button.  I know how to do that with physical orders, but could see no way to do it with the digital order.  So I called.  Yes, I, even phone-phobic I, picked up the phone.  The cost was only $1.99, not a high-risk financial move, but two bucks is two bucks, and it was definitely not the  kind of book I wanted cluttering up my Kindle.

Despite language issues, I think the Amazon rep got things straightened out for me.  The book disappeared from my Kindle all right, but the refund of my charge should come "within two to three business days."  I'm hoping it will be a bit faster than that, just because I don't think it should take so long, but I'm happy to know that such accidental purchases can be undone.  Maybe next time I'll find a "cancel" button—but I'm also hoping there won't be a next time.

Now my computer/Internet/browser/whatever really needs a rest.  Maybe it will feel better in the morning.