4/26/09:
The sun has been warming the earth, and the tulips. We went for a ride around the valley Friday evening, checking out vibrant fields without crowds, and had ice cream for supper. We have been able to see the traffic building out our living room window all day Saturday and Sunday, becoming a crescendo by late afternoon and plugging up the byways as far as the eye can see. A unusually huge hawk has been hanging around on the power poles we can see out the windows the last few days, checking out the fields below. Jay says he is reading Rodent Track magazine.
The weather was beautiful this weekend, we stayed home– Jay puttered and I piddled. We pulled a lot of weeds, some that thought the beds were theirs because Cindy had not gotten to them last year in the midst of construction... they protested mightily, but in vain. The front window and screen got cleaned, as well as both vehicles. Our bodies are stiff and sore.
A busy week is ahead. I am going to a training in Seattle on Wednesday and one in Everett on Thursday. My aircast came off last Friday, I see my Ortho doc this Friday. I'll tell you more about it later, ciao.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.— Abraham Lincoln
4/24/09:
I love bargains. My car was about due for an oil change and since I am going down to Seattle next week for a couple of trainings I figured I should get that chore done this weekend. Yesterday I got my hair trimmed after work and decided I would use a coupon I had in my wallet to stop and get my oil changed before heading home. I pulled in to Jiffy Lube and while in the waiting area realized they had a $10 off special sign out front that I had not noticed– they sometimes put a sandwich board special out when things are slow. In my haste to use my coupon I had not noticed the better deal— cool beans. Little did I know what the fates held... As I waited for my car to be near done and the guys to consult with me about the state of affairs under my hood, the store lights blinked. Others in the waiting room commented upon the short electricity outage, but I was unfazed and continued to wait. Blink. The lights were out again, and continued out. Interesting, but more was in store for me on this fate-filled day. Hmm, no power these days means no computers, means no cash register... yes, you can see where this is going. Luckily my car floors were vacuumed, the oil drained from my engine and fresh oil added prior to the outage— my oil change was free! I buy Lotto tickets now and then, but my luck is in oil. As I headed home I realized the power was out all over, all the way home. We were out for only an hour and a half, other people were out all night. Ah, the price of free oil.
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.— Jack Handey
4/19/09:
Jay and I were recently talking about someone I had interacted with who repeatedly used his fingers to put "quotes" around a certain word he said. It was all part of a weird interaction and we enjoyed using "airquotes" ourselves for a day or two to amuse each other. Today Jay sent me the picture to the left of airquotes immortalized for eternity, or at least for as long as mankind is around— supposedly a carving from an ancient Chinese temple. Interesting. Maybe Nixon saw it when he visited China...
Last week I regaled co-workers, clients, and just about everyone I ran into with a story on myself. They have all been so focused on my aircast and several people have learned to mimic the sound I make clomping around in it. One of my co-workers dreamt of the sound, waking up alone in her house and at first being afraid someone had broken in, until she realized she had been asleep and, thinking about it, recognized the sound... So, they all call me "Boot". The boot slips on over my sock and is secured with velcro straps, then I use a little pump to snuggle it to my leg with air– an aircast. I cannot wear it driving and do not wear it to bed. Every morning I sit up in bed and slide it on before heading to breakfast. Remember the story of my morning herron sightings and how it took a while for the sightings to register with me because I am not a morning person? Yes. Well, Wednesday morning I got up, slipped on my "boot" and started to walk to the lovely breakfast Jay had prepared for me. Hmm, what the heck? Jeez-louise, I am walking weird for some reason. Hmm, yes, looking down it dawned on me I had put the aircast on the wrong foot. A joke for everyone to enjoy for several days.
The ancient airquotes picture links to an apropos cartoon you may enjoy. Ciao.
I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.— Robert McCloskey
4/18/09:
Today I donned a couple of plastic grocery bags over my aircast and took advantage of true spring weather to do some weed pulling and planted some flower seeds, including some short sunflowers. The picture of tulips to the left is from the local newspaper's online photos– if you click on it you can check out Skagit flower photo submissions. We spent part of the afternoon strolling downtown Mount Vernon's Tulip Festival street fair, checking out craft booths and having some kettle corn. It was jammed with people, probably the best showing in the last couple of years.
I recently finished reading Thinking in Pictures by Dr. Temple Grandin. I read the 1995 first edition and since then Dr. Grandin has written a lot more about autistic spectrum disorders and her experience and findings in exploring how she thinks and experiences the world differently. Clicking on Thinking in Pictures will take you to a page on her website that includes chapter one from this book and an update of research and thoughts on her 1995 ideas of thinking in pictures. Clicking on Dr. Temple Grandin will take you to her website's main page, which has links to pages about her livestock handling ideas and inventions for humane slaughter as well as links to her "squeeze machine" invention that helps people with autistic spectrum disorders. If you are inclined, Dr. Grandin's writings are very interesting to check out. Here are a couple of excerpts from the book for your edification, enjoy:
Over the years I have seen animal handling improve with a change in management, and I have seen it get rough and nasty when a good manager left. A good manager serves as a conscience for the employees. He has to be involved enough to care but not so involved that he becomes numb and desensitized... The people who actually kill the animals should be rotated, and complete automation of the actual killing procedure is good for employee well-being. Automation of killing is especially important in very high-speed plants... At slower speeds one can take pride in doing the job humanely and treat each animal with respect, but at high speeds it's all one can do to keep up with the relentless movement of the line. Page 151
Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was unable to pass the exam to get a high school teaching license... He conducted his classic experiments in the corner of the monastery garden... When he presented the results at his university thesis defense, he failed to get his degree. Nobody paid attention to his wild theories... Today his principles are taught in every high school science class. During my career, I have met many brilliant visual thinkers working in the maintenance departments of meat plants. Some of these people are great designers and invent all kinds of innovative equipment, but they were disillusioned and frustrated at school. Our educational system weeds these people out of the system instead of turning them into world-class scientists. Page 186
...then I started working with cattle in the Arizona feedlots. Did the animals just turn into beef, or did something else happen? This made me uneasy, and my science-based religious beliefs could not provide a satisfactory answer. I thought it must be very comforting to have the kind of blind faith that enables one to believe that one will have an afterlife in heaven... It wasn't until I first drove past the Swift meat-packing plant that I began to develop a concrete visual system for understanding what would become my life's work. In my diary on March 10, 1971, I wrote about a dream I had: "I walked up to Swift's and put my hands on the outside of the white wall. I had the feeling that I was touching the sacred altar." A month later I drove past Swift's again, and I could see all the cattle out in the pens, waiting for the end to come. It was then I realized that man believes in heaven, hell, or reincarnation because the idea that after the cattle walk into the slaughterhouse it is all over forever is too horrible to conceive. Like the concept of infinity, it is too ego-shattering for people to endure. Page 194
the real ethical questions regarding the creation of any kind of animal or plant we desire will seem far more significant than killing cattle at the local slaughter plant... We will have the power of God to create totally new forms of life. However, we will never be able to answer the question of what happens when we die. People will still have a need for religion. Religion survived when we learned that the earth was not the center of the universe. No matter how much we learn, there will always be unanswerable questions. Yet if we stop evolving, we will stagnate as a species... There is a basic human drive to figure out who and what we are. The mega-science projects of the 1990s, such as the Human Genome Project, the Hubble space telescope, and the now defunct supercollider, replace the pyramids and cathedrals of our ancestors. Page 203
4/17/09:
A couple of Saturdays ago Jay worked at the store so the owner could go visit friends and family up in British Columbia. As a treat he brought back some Pakistani desserts for us: Pateesa, Jalebee and Gulab Jamun... yum! What a fun, nice surprise.
It was raining this morning going into work, then the day cleared, bringing out bright sunshine and balmy temperatures in time to invite me to open my car windows as I left the swimming pool after my laps. The tulip festival is in full swing this weekend, street fair and all. It is supposed to be sunny so maybe there will be fields displaying vibrant tulips after all. Plus, there should be sun for gardening and other activities to beckon summer. More later, ciao.
Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.— Susan Sontag
4/11/09:
It is time again for what is my favorite Easter cartoon, perhaps because there are so few of them or perhaps because it is, indeed, amusing.
Good Friday has come and gone, Easter is on the horizon...
Ah, what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am left alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What
to do but, like Michelangelo's
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?
— R. S. Thomas, "Threshold", p. 110
4/9/09:
Jay and I head down the road to have dinner at Mexico Cafe almost every week. We order meals that come with rice and beans, then take most of our rice and beans home in a doggie bag to have Sunday morning with scrambled eggs and toast, plus green salsa for me. It is a comforting routine and comfortable Sunday breakfast. Tonight was dinner out at the Cafe for us this week.
Tonight at dinner we spoke of several things, and along the way ended up at the beginning page of this website of mine, 9-11-01, actually. This is where I went: "[9/12/01] Yesterday a co-worker of mine who is originally from Russia was deeply injured, she has so many memories of awful atrocities that came back to visit her, sitting on her shoulder all day and coloring every aspect of the news stories, she spoke of children being thrust through with pitchforks and paraded throughout town and other such things, she reflected upon Rudyard Kipling and his words from a century ago, referring me to a short story, The Drums of the Fore and Aft, where Kipling talks of [terrorists] 'who have not European nerves... wholly mad with religious fanaticism... because a man who means to die, who desires to die, who will gain heaven by dying, must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who has a lingering prejudice in favour of life', such a weakness we have, the wish to live, and for others to live." Those were special days.
Along the way to this conversation I snapped some shots of the field across the road from Mexico Cafe, and after the meal Jay drove around the block to humor me and allow me to take more shots from the rear of the field. If you would like to see the pictures, click on the yellow one above. Ciao.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.— Plato (428/427 BC - 348/347 BC)
4/6/09:
Learning to Read
If I had to look up every fifth or sixth word,
so what. I looked them up.
I had nowhere important to be.
My father was unavailable, and my mother
looked like she was about to break,
and not into blossom, every time I spoke.
My favorite was the Iliad. True,
I had trouble pronouncing the names,
but when was I going to pronounce them, and
to whom?
My stepfather maybe?
Number one, he could barely speak English;
two, he had sufficient intent
to smirk or knock me down
without any prompting from me.
Loneliness, boredom and terror
my motivation
fiercely fuelled.
I get down on my knees and thank God for them.
Du Fu, the Psalms, Whitman, Rilke.
Life has taught me
to understand books.
— Franz Wright
Click on the shell for a neat video... ciao.
4/4/09:
The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, lasting through the month of April, has begun with an abundant supply of just daffodils at the moment. The picture to the left is an aerial view of flower fields taken a year or two ago in which you can see one of the area's typical drainage ditches etched in a zig-zag through the fields. As I ran some errands today I was thankful I had taken a route that mostly avoided the traffic-jamming hoards, consisting today primarily of cyclists who, by and large, stayed in their rightful place on the roads. Even so, the slower cyclists left automobile drivers struggling on the County's two-laned, shoulder-less roads to accomplish their own visions of what their Saturday would contain.
Jay bought me a present– The Complete New Yorker. It is an 8 DVD set of all volumes of the magazine since 1925— that's a lot of cartoons and poetry! It was a nice surprise. Tonight I loaded the program on my computer and took a stab at perusing some of its contents. The tulip field picture links to an amusing cartoon I purloined that you might enjoy too. Ciao...
The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.— Susan Sontag
4/1/09:
April showers have come to greet the month today— no real surprise, no April fools joke there. Did you experience any good jokes today? In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." You can watch the piece here, thanks to that modern marvel, You Tube.
The joke about Seattle is it gets a lot of rain... A man talks to a kid on the street in Seattle, "Hey kid, I'm here visiting from California for a week and it's been raining every single day. When is the rain going to stop?" The kid says, "I don't know, I'm only six." In reality Washington gets far less rain per year than Michigan, yet the Olympic Peninsula here is one of the wettest areas of the US. Olympia, Washington is 24th in annual rainfall for US cities, but it rains there more frequently than anywhere else. Once again an old theme of mine emerges– yes, context is everything. The dog and cat cartoon links to yet another funny, enjoy.
Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded.— Yogi Berra
Jardot's World: April Edition, 2009
All pictures on my page link to
somewhere... go ahead, click!
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