Lift Up Your Hearts!

I've known the Agony of Defeat often enough when it comes to the sport of e-mail balancing, but today I glory in a victory:  My Inbox is empty.

That's rare enough, but not enough to merit a blog post.  Although it seems to balloon to over 100 e-mails with unconscionable ease, and sad to say even 300 if I blink, I can usually whack it down to manageable size, even briefly zero, with a little sustained effort.  And some cheating.

You see, I have this other folder called Awaiting Action, a kind of alter ego for my Inbox.  When I’m hacking through the e-mail overgrowth and come to an item I can’t deal with immediately, I move it into Awaiting Action.  This keeps me from becoming discouraged and giving up, which is a good thing, but organizationally it’s the equivalent of clearing house clutter before company comes by throwing things higgledy-piggledy into a box and stuffing the box into a closet.

Like that box in the closet, it’s out of sight, out of mind, easy to ignore until the next clean up spree when one opens the closet door to deposit yet another box.  Yet it’s not really out of mind; I don’t know about you, but such boxes—real and virtual—haunt my subconscious, the nagging discomfort of things “left undone which we ought to have done.”

This weekend I was inspired—perhaps by Porter, whose e-mail deluge makes mine look like a drippy faucet—to open the closet door.  My Awaiting Action box contained items that had been waiting since 2005.  It had sprouted several subfolders, as if organization could substitute for action, and the contents of each had grown apace.  I picked up my best Ponce de Leon machete and plunged in.

The subfolders are now gone.  The contents of Awaiting Action now fill a mere half page on my screen.  I hope to do better still, but at a more gradual pace, since the remaining e-mails involve projects, some of considerable magnitude, that are not suited to machete-style work.  “Good enough is better than perfect,” and indeed some of the projects are of too low a priority to merit much effort right now.  Nonetheless, I’m determined not to let this box grow beyond a page—no scroll bars allowed.

In the process I reorganized and simplified my e-mail folders, taking better advantage of Thunderbird’s expanded tagging and filtering options.  I like it!  More than that, I hope the new system will help me stay on top of my e-mail at last.  Posting about it is part of the effort, too, providing Accountability, as they say in the 12-step biz.  Feel free to come back and ask me how I’m doing as the days, weeks, and months pass.

Now about that closet….

I had hoped to bring you video of tonight's launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.  Night launches are rare and beautiful.  However, although Endeavour had a successful launch, my view was completely obscured by a generally-overcast sky.  So my best view was the same as yours:  that provided by the television cameras.  Only I'll bet none of you were actually up at this hour watching.  I wouldn't have awakened just to see it on TV, but any launch is worth seeing, and even the chance of a night launch is worth arising for.

It was almost worth getting up to see another phenomenon:  twilight at 2 a.m.  The clouds were low and reflected back so much city light that I could have been excused for thinking I'd wandered into the Land of the Midnight Sun...were it not for the 62-degree temperature.

Two years ago, Andy F. alerted me to a National Review article by Rod Dreher entitled Crunchy Cons.  This was actually a reprint, the original having been published 'way back in 2002.  Andy suggested I might enjoy both the article and the opportunity to turn it into a blog post, and he was right.  It's not his fault it's taken me so long to write.

Dreher has a book of the same title that I haven't yet read, so I'll only be commenting on the article.  But the book's subtitle nearly says it all:  How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party).

Despite having been a card-carrying Democrat from the day I filled out my first voter registration form, I've never fit well with any political party. I learned quickly that the Democratic Party and I differ in significant respects on many crucial issues, not the least of which is the definition of words such as "liberal" and "conservative." Yet the Republicans haven't won me over, although I confess it's been many years since I've been able to stomach voting for a Democrat at other than the local level.  I consider myself a Liberal Conservative—on some days a Conservative Liberal—when I think of labels, which I rarely do, and feel very much alone.

Yet Crunchy Cons lets me know that I am not alone after all.  I'm not the only one who shares interests and convictions with people of drastically diverse political persuasions.  A number of those who hold conservative views on economic and family issues also realize that homeschooling, home birth, organic farming, locally- and humanely-raised food, recycling and composting, freedom of choice, and putting family and community before profit are inherently conservative activities, important ground not to be ceded to the political Left.  By following our desires and beliefs in these areas we often find ourselves side by side in common cause with those whose views on other issues we find appalling, as they do ours.

This is a good thing.  It's far too easy to demonize an unknown political enemy, but when that enemy has a face and meets you each week at the farmer's market, or works with you to make home birth legal in your state, then is the soil tilled for planting seeds of peace and understanding and hope.

As Janet has mentioned (in her comment on My Lenten Disciplines), nothing sends me to sleep faster than staring at the television set:  broadcast show, DVD movie, or even a Teaching Company lecture that I'm particularly interested in seeing, it matters not.  There's something about the experience that triggers the sleep reflex in me.  Oddly, it's a particularly pleasant sleep, too—perhaps it hearkens back to childhood days of drifting off to the incomprehensible yet comforting sound of adult voices.  Thus I couldn't help noticing when two consecutive comics (Baldo and Hi and Lois) in my morning routine hit that nerve.

For those of you who don't read Heather and Jon's blog, I can't resist posting this view of life through the eyes of a four-year-old living in a geek house in this new century:

We happened to get two pictures in the mail, and Jonathan was holding them and looking at them. Then he piped up, "How do you get pictures to look like this?" Like what? This is a 21st century boy—he meant how do they get on paper.

It's another one of those things I lived without just fine, thank you, though now I wonder why I waited so long.  Blame an outdated sense of the cost of webcams; I never imagined I could buy one for under $100, much less under $30.  But thanks to Stephan, Janet, and Best Buy, I'm all set.

It has been great to be able to see Janet when I talk with her, as well as for her to be able to initiate phone calls.  Now I'm having double the fun (or five times as much, depending on how you calculate it) because another of my favorite families has joined the video Skype crowd.  I'm sure the excitement will wear off after a while, but for now I'm enjoying lots of smiles, hugs, I-love-yous, what's-happening-now, and best of all those dear faces and voices.  I love to get those quick little text messages that say things like "Hi! I finished my math and am now going to do writing," with plenty of music note and hugging teddy bear emoticons.

And this morning?  This morning I was the delighted one-person, long-distance audience for a cello concert!

Now here's something we don't see every day.  In fact, this is the first time.  I looked out the front window, saw a flock of ibis (or ibises if you prefer) standing around on our street!

  

Then they started marching.

Our neighbor, who is reroofing his house, made a sudden noise, and they flew off.

(As usual, click on the preview pictures for a larger view, and click on the links to see the videos.) 

I am so tired of being grumpy about the movies we've seen recently in our Oscar-winning Best Picture Odyssey.  I should mention that, although we've beeng going roughly in chronological order, we haven't been watching them all. Some of the early ones aren't available, and of the later ones we've skipped those Porter had already seen.  Our next one is Gladiator (2000), and of all those remaining, the only one I'm looking forward to is A Beautiful Mind.  We recently discovered, however, that we had somehow skipped Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

At last I can report a positive experience!  So many of the recent movies have been downright revolting, or at best blah and dissatisfying.  Driving Miss Daisy was delightful from beginning to end.  The PG rating, I have decided, is far too broad.  This movie was rated PG; as far as I can tell, the cause being one, brief instance of bad language (ask me if you care to know what it is) that was appropriate to the context.  There are plenty of other PG movies I've found much, much more offensive.  There is one scary scene on which I won't elaborate, but it wouldn't frighten anyone ignorant of Alabama history.  Not that the movie is appropriate for young children anyway.  It is an adult film, but only because it's about characters, not action.

One of makers of the movie (I don't remember whether it was producer, director, or writer) said that one of the most gratifiying things was all the letters he received from old Southerners thanking him for making a movie that was so true to the South they lived in.  I suppose one of the reasons I like it was that it brought back memories of my own grandparents—they didn't live in Georgia, where Driving Miss Daisy is set, but Florida was much more of a Southern state in those days.  My grandparents weren't rich, and they weren't Jewish, but there was still much to recognize about the people, the town, the language, and the lifestyles.

If you haven't seen Driving Miss Daisy, do.  It's a delightful story about people who seem as if they really could have existed—in fact, they did; the writer modelled them after people in his own life.  The seamy side of the historical South is not ignored by any means, but the goodness and humanity that shine through make it more realistic, not less.

Having discovered FEEDJIT on Stephanie's blog, I had to try it myself. (That's the "Recent Visitors" map in the panel to the right.) It's a graphical (and geographical) peek at who my faithful readers are, and who has wandered in via a random search.  Don't worry, I don't really know who you are, just where you're coming from (which allows me to guess who you might be).  Even that isn't always accurate; I'm certain that all those Portsmouth, Rhode Island hits are actually from Hartford, Connecticut.  And my Swiss fan has only once showed up as from Basel—the rest are all over the map, and I'm certain I don't have a following at the Château de Chillon, despite the hits from Montreux. The greatest problem is that I won't see you if you hide behind a feedreader; until Heather posted a comment, one would have thought I had no readers in Pittsburgh at all.

Still, it's been both entertaining and enlightening.  I'm certain of the identity of those who show up on the map as Oswego and Schenectady, and am delighted to know you read much more than you comment.  :)  I can identify most of my known readers, but am totally mystified by someone in Tempe, Arizona, who read some 20 posts.  Most who find me via a search read the one post and then leave.

The most popular page for searchers is the quick Fahrenheit/Celcius conversion formula I developed when we were in New Zealand and posted for friends who were travelling to Spain.  This was long before it came in so handy for us thanks to all Janet's travels.  Searches for that one come from many places on the globe.  From Rochester, New York it's not surprising to find searches for the Bay Punch recipe.

A great deal of traffic came from Australia, which is not as unexpected as it might be if you have been reading Janet's blog.  I've read many a warning about being careful what you put on the Internet because your boss or future employer might see it; it is just as unnerving to discover that a potential son-in-law has been reading my posts on homemaking and childrearing.  Not that I'd take anything back—and I confess to having found and read his Amazon reviews (the ones that were in English)—but it's still a bit intimidating to remember that what I write is not only read by people who matter, but by people who matter to people I love!

I am on an Andrew Pudewa kick.  I first discovered his Institute for Excellence in Writing through an online forum for early childhood education, and—as usual—once I'd heard of him, his name started coming to my attention in other ways.  A friend of ours is the principal of a private Christian school which emphasizes academic excellence as well as a solid Christian worldview, and she and her teachers waxed so enthusiastic about his program for teaching writing that she even sent me a sample videotape of one of his lectures.  It didn't take me long to get hooked.  For the first three minutes, I found Pudewa's voice to be annoying; after that I was so intrigued by what he was saying and how he was presenting it that it didn't matter.

Now I'm not averse to spending money on educational materials for our grandkids, but they're not yet old enough for the writing materials, which are a bit pricey to buy on speculation, especially since there might well be a subsequent edition or two by the time they would be used.  Fortunately for my curiosity, one of our favorite homeschooling families was impressed enough to try it out, and I'm looking forward to hearing about their experiences.

Some of Pudewa's other materials are financially more accessible, and since I couldn't interest anyone else in his poetry memorization program, I bought it for myself!  I think I'm going to enjoy it.  It came with a bonus DVD of his lecture entitled Nurturing Competent Communicators, which I highly recommend.  As a writing teacher, he has been appalled by the lack of writing ability very much evident today, and has come to the conclusion that you can't get out of a mind something that's not there in the first place.  Today's children (and those from a generation or two before, as well) simply have not had sufficient input of good language vocabulary, structure, and style; this hinders not only their ability to write, but also their ability to think.  Rather than spend much time berating the negative influences on language (peers, media, lack of reading, stress and fast pace of life), Pudewa suggest two positive solutions.

Read good books (especially poetry) aloud.  This is still critical well after children are competent readers.  One can read aloud books at a much higher level of sophistication than a child can (or will) read for himself.  Moreover, even very good readers will often mispronounce words they've only encountered in print, and will often read so quickly as to get the meaning of the words while missing their music; hearing them read aloud corrects both these errors.  A cosy family situation is best for such reading, but Pudewa acknowledges the time crunch many families suffer and the value of books on tape.  He also suggests enlisting grandparents in the project, suggesting we create heirloom recordings of our own.  Reading aloud is more critical to language development, says Pudewa, than much of what we give higher precedence.  I'm grateful that Porter knew this instinctively and for many years ended each meal by reading aloud to us.  He even began with poetry—and no, it wasn't just a way of getting out of helping with the dishes, though I must say it did make doing the dishes much more interesting.

Memorize poetry and other examples of good language.  Memorization itself promotes brain growth, and memorization of good language provides the brain with a stock of good language patterns.  Pudewa tells a story close to my own heart for reasons most of you will recognize.  As a Suzuki violin teacher, he had lived in Japan for three years, studying under Shinichi Suzuki himself.  Naturally he wanted to learn the language, and had reached the point where he could communicate reasonably well, and yet was frustrated by knowing that he wasn't really getting things right.  Drawing on his Suzuki training, he devised a plan:  He asked his sensei to record himself reading a Japanese children's book version of Jack and the Beanstalk.  This Pudewa practiced and practiced, phrase upon phrase, until he had it completely memorized.  As a result, his ability to speak Japanese took a significant leap forward; through a simple children's story he had given his brain many of the patterns and cadences of the Japanese language.  Plus he became a great hit with the little Japanese children he met.  He would have loved the HIPPO Family Clubs!  No wonder my dad was so smart:  when he was young, he walked a lot, and when he walked, he memorized poems.

At the same time that I purchased the poetry program, I couldn't resist getting a couple of CDs containing his lecture, The Profound Effects of Music on Life.  I'm anxious to hear my favorite musician's take on this lecture (if she ever has time to listen to it).  I know he has greatly oversimplified things for his lay audience, but much of what he says rings true to my ears and I'd love to have an expert's opinion.

And I wonder why everthing takes me so long!  It was to clean my office that I set out to do, but I couldn't just put the CDs on the shelf, I had to enter them into my library software, and I had to rip them to mp3s so I could listen to them when I go out walking.  In the process of ripping I discovered that one was a DVD, and since I couldn't rip it I listened to it then and there.  And that inspired me to install another piece of software that I was going to install "sometime," and then of course I couldn't stop but had to write about it all.  Now I'm done and can finally put the materials away.  But there's still the rest of the room to work on, and where did the day go???

In case any of you are more aware of the news than I am (I suspect that includes most of you), we have not been affected by the Florida Power and Light blackout.  (We have a different power company.)  I understand that parts of our county have been, so I might notice if I were out driving around, but I'm not, and aside from a brief Internet glitch (which is not all that uncommon) everything seems normal.  A beautiful sunny day, with a lovely more-than-normal breeze, though I did wish I'd changed into shorts before going for my walk this morning.

My good friend PG has often been my source of breaking news, and she was again, IM-ing me from Rochester, NY to ask if we were okay.  :) 

Has anyone here seen the movie, The English Patient?  If so, did you like it?  If you did, why?

It was the latest in our Academy Award Best Picture quest, and I had been looking forward to it, largely because I had remembered positive reviews of it.  I obviously had not paid enough attention to the reviews.  It wasn't the worst movie—I knew enough not to join Porter in watching The Silence of the Lambs—but afterwards I felt I had been walking about in slime to no purpose.

I appreciate Heather and Jon's zero tolerance policy when it comes to objectionable elements in movies, but I'm not that strict myself.  If a book or movie has enough good in it, I will often put up with the parts I don't like.  There's a moment I would like to cut out of Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, for example, but that doesn't stop it from being one of my favorite movies of all time.  His Much Ado about Nothing has two scenes that are even more objectionable, but it's right up there in my estimation as well.  I've been far more unhappy about some of the Oscar winners we've been watching, but still able to say afterwards, "I didn't like the movie, but so-and-so acted the part really, really well."  Or, "There's a lot about this movie I don't like, but I can't help admiring the way it was crafted."

Not so The English Patient.  Perhaps my view was colored by it being not at all the movie I had thought it was, but I found nothing redeeming about it at all.  My mind is left scarred by disturbing images and sounds, and I find myself none the richer.  Did anyone out there get more from the movie than I did?

Why, I wonder, do people watch disturbing films?  Am I just unusually fussy?  I understand that there are times when a book or movie has become so embedded in the culture that it is probably a good idea to know them, even if they are otherwise objectionable.  The Lord of the Flies is an unpleasant book, yet what it says and the effect it has had probably make it worth reading, if only for understanding of the many subsequent references to it.  On the other hand, I believe I have learned quite as much as I need to know about Hannibal Lector from crossword puzzles!

I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one dramatically affected by what I read or watch.  Words and images make their mark on my brain and soul and cannot be undone.  (I wish I remembered names and faces that well, or even history dates.  It would be much more useful.)  I must be very careful about what I allow into my mind, because it changes me.  "Garbage in, garbage out" applies to more than computers.   I suppose I could become inured to it all with more frequent exposure, but that's not exactly a comforting thought.

Then again, maybe I'm just being grumpy.  Forrest Gump was better, but I was still less than impressed.  I'd seen it before and hadn't cared much for it, but it was actually worse than I had remembered.  (I must have seen a version that had been edited for television.)  It was okay, and I supposed it's good to know the context for "Life is like a box of chocolates," but the sixties were a very unhappy time, and reliving them is not high on my list of what consitutes a good use of a couple of hours.

So, what do you think?  Do movies (and books) leave an indelible impression on your soul?  Can you appreciate the craft of a movie if you don't like the content (and vice versa) or does the one spoil the other?  What makes a movie worth the time it takes to watch it?

Note to Janet:  I may not have liked these movies, but I stayed awake!  :)  I must not be as sleep-deprived as usual. 

I mentioned the advantages of my customized Google News page yesterday, and here today is another example of its serendipity. One of my categories is "Basel Switzerland," which I'll admit is not usually very interesting as it usually contains only stories about banks, drug companies, and the occasional Paris Hilton slip-up.  This morning, however, I was greeted by the headline, More Dairies Go Raw.  That sounded interesting, given my interest in foods natural and unpasteurized, and my observation that, while Switzerland does cheese very, very well, the milk—at least that available in the grocery stores—is less than stellar.  Just like here, everything is pasteurized and homogenized, and if you want skim milk (as I do), you are reduced to buying that which has been so denatured as to be able to sit, unrefrigerated, on the shelf for an indeterminant time.  No thanks; I got my dairy from yoghurt and cheese while we were there.

So what was a story from the Boston Globe doing in my Basel news feed? Because of these sentences:

Researchers at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Basel in Switzerland followed nearly 15,000 children ages 5 to 15 in Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany from 2001 to 2004. The study, sponsored by the European Union and published in 2007, found that children who drank raw milk had a lower incidence of asthma and allergies.

I love the season of Lent.  Not only because of all the great hymns associated with it, but because of the new possibilities it opens up.  At face value, idea of giving something up for Lent is a negative one, and a rather poor picture of the one at whose "right hand are pleasures forevermore."  Whether we observe Lent by abstention from something pleasurable, or by some positive action, I believe God's purpose in the exercise is to unshackle us from old habits and open our hearts to something new and better.

Thus I have at different times celebrated Lent in various ways, from a more traditional fasting from sweets to "fasting" from making negative comments (harder than you think!) to making myself listen daily to a genre of music I dislike ("praise and worship songs") to listing, at the close of every day, five things for which I was thankful (a lovely exercise).  Lenten disciplines are much more fun than New Year's resolutions, because you only commit yourself from Ash Wednesday till Easter.  Thus it's easier to experiment, to be more daring, to test new ideas and practices.

Lent came late for me this year.  At its beginning we were in Switzerland visiting Janet, and Mark 2:19 seemed applicable.  For another, even after we returned there was nothing that seemed right to do.  Until now.

About a month ago I read French Women Don't Get Fat; I found it only moderately interesting, but if all I take from it is the author's baguette recipe I am still much the richer.  (Side note: I have a friend who is gifted with the ability to make an excellent summary of the important points in a book.  The down side of this is that I'm usually disappointed when I read a book she has recommended, because I'm expecting more but have already received most of what's there.  It happened with The Power of Full Engagement, and again with this book.)  One of the author's suggestions, which I've heard before, is to keep a food diary, in which one writes down everthing eaten over a period of several days or even weeks.  Similarly, Randy Pausch's lecture on Time Management strongly suggests keeping a time log, for thirty days, chronicling how one's time is spent—for every 15-minute interval!  If the food diary seems daunting, this seems downright impossible.  We're talking about someone who is woefully behind in her personal journal, and unaccountably uninspired to do better.  I can't do this!  It's crazy.  It would require...um...discipline!  Ah, ha!  And look, thirty days brings me right up to Easter.

So I'm attempting both:  keeping logs of both food and time.  You needn't worry that I'll share the details here—for both my sake and yours I'll limit myself to general observations.  One thing I've learned already is that I'm a compulsive multitasker.  I like to read while I eat, work while I'm talking on the phone, scan photos while IM-ing, and write (mentally) while doing almost anything else.  (One reason I don't care for watching television and movies is that I don't knit and there's not much else you can do effectively at the same time.)  Even my 15-minute segments often have X's in two or more boxes!   This may be a natural part of my personality, but I'm also convinced it's a learned behavior, a consequence of my career as wife/mother/homemaker.  Is there any other job more prone to constant interruptions?  Children, of course, but also husbands, friends, neighbors, telephones, and boiling-over pots are all prone to demanding frequent attention—and right now!  Before long, the ability to string two thoughts together is in jeopardy, and one loses the habit of concentrating on one task alone.  Of course, being available when needed is part of the job description, but perhaps we allow it to be taken too far.

The ability to multitask is a useful one, to be sure.  To be able to fit more than one activity into the same time slot enables us to accomplish more, and this is no small achievement.  But it's also true, I'm afraid, that we're likely to do neither activity as well as we could if only we'd give it our full attention.  And perhaps our enjoyment is less, also.  In many cases that may be okay, and "good enough is better than perfect."  But the problem is worth considering.

And at this point, just considering.  The purpose of these Lenten exercises is not change, but observation only.  Change may come later, but it's going to be quite enough at the moment just to write things down!

One other thing I (re)discovered is my perfectionism.  I wasted too much time trying to design the "right" log templates.  It's harder than it sounds to come up with the right categories and labels and deliniations!  But you know what I discovered?  It doesn't matter.  I finally started with very basic logs, almost blank, and have discovered that they are designing themselves as I go along.

Those of you who begin each day with my Morning Coffee page are already familiar with the Geography Zone challenge.  Thanks to DSTB you will now see a new geography quiz in the list, National Geographic's GeoBee.  This is a tough one, not only because it covers more than locations (natural resources, culture, and religion for example), but because the questions are not always multiple choice.  Not only is it necessary to come up with the answer on one's own, which is much more difficult than merely choosing, but spelling counts.  I mis-spelled "Montpelier."  :(

Gambate!