Meteorite strikes Alabama woman

The first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being occurs at Sylacauga, Alabama, when a meteorite crashes through the roof of a house and into a living room, bounces off a radio, and strikes a woman on the hip. The victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges, was sleeping on a couch at the time of impact. The space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.5 pounds and measuring seven inches in length. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured but suffered a nasty bruise along her hip and leg.

Robert Frost

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.

It's weird but I can't stop watching . . . .

Here in So. Cal, seasonal weather can be hard to come by. Depending on who you ask, we basically have 3 months of spring, 6 months of summer and 3 months of fall. In an exceptional year, we may get 2 weeks of below 50's weather. I love our climate although I do miss waking up in Seattle every now and again, looking out the window from our bed and shaking the wife awake, "Honey! Look! It snowed!"

Even though I love a warm Thanksgiving - picking out the Christmas tree in 80-degree weather can take some of the twinkle out of a person's Christmas Spirit.

Well this weekend it rained - not much - but we will take it! All thoughts of yard work were postponed. Saturday the wife came home from work and said, "I am ready for Christmas! Let's get it started!" So out the door I went.

I withdrew our weekly grocery allowance (we are trying to only use cash so we stay on budget) and headed to the store. It was raining and I was in jeans and a flannel with a ball cap (standard fare from my Seattle days). The cold felt good, the rain felt good. Most days, walking into the grocery store does not register a change in temperature (unless it is summer and they have the AC cranked up). This time, I stepped from the wet parking lot and was greeted with a flow of warmth from the store. Christmas music was playing.

Cozy in my weather-wear (which I will likely not donne again for weeks) and cozy in the warmth of the store, I picked up the handful of items we were in need of and headed back into the rain and home.

The wife bathed the wee on and bundled her in fleece PJ's while I made dinner and got the this year's first batch of Wassail brewing. Wassail is our traditional Christmas treat:

One part Cranberry Juice
Three parts Apple Cider
One clove and one allspice berry for every cup of Apple cider
Slice up a couple of granny smith apples
Add a cinnamon stick for good measure
Put the whole thing on the stove to simmer
Serve with a splash of Brandy if you are so inclined.

As I stood over the stove finishing up dinner preparations I thought, "Me too - I am ready for Christmas - the spirit of it - the joy of it - the simplicity of it (if you can keep a hold of it - good luck)"

We had a fine dinner followed by left-over Thanksgiving pie and steaming mugs of Wassail while watching the first Christmas movie of the year (The Family Stone).

This morning we are all lingering in our PJ's - the soundtrack to Charlie Brown Christmas is playing. Yep, I am ready - bring it on - but bring it quietly, bring it softly, like a soft cooling rain on a drought-parched soul. Come on rain.

Season's Greetings everybody.

Wondering what cereal to eat? Well with this handy-dandy flowchart you will wonder no more! (it actually worked pretty well for me . . . except I only have one type of cereal in my house - apparently it's the wrong one . . .)

by Anne Porter

Wild geese are flocking and calling in pure golden air,
Glory like that which painters long ago
Spread as a background for some little hermit
Beside his cave, giving his cloak away,
Or for some martyr stretching out
On her expected rack.
A few black cedars grow nearby
And there's a donkey grazing.

Small craftsmen, steeped in anonymity like bees,
Gilded their wooden panels, leaving fame to chance,
Like the maker of this wing-flooded golden sky,
Who forgives all our ignorance
Both of his nature and of his very name,
Freely accepting our one heedless glance.

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends this year. Always the creative types, one of the boys (Cory) had written a play for the kids to perform. Even Annabelle had a part in the play!

Another great production!

by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

My friend whose husband
will soon succumb to cancer
loves to lie next to him at night

to smell him and feel the warm
stomach and flanks through his pajamas
the two of them are glad

he can still walk the streets of New York
still get tickets to the Philharmonic on impulse
they never fight any more

Pope Urban II orders first Crusade

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II makes perhaps the most influential speech of the Middle Ages, giving rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land, with a cry of "Deus volt!" or "God wills it!"

One of the blessings of having children is that you get to remake yourself. Here, suddenly, midstream in life, are people who look to you, depend on you, love you more than anyone ever has, and in ways you barely understand, and they don't care who you were. All that matters is who you are to them now, how you treat them today, and if you were an ass in some previous life, if you lied and cheated and hurt the myriad of strangers and so-called friends that passed through your space in some B.C., well it can all be dismissed now. Just don't do it again, Dad.

-TMST

Thanksgiving feels like the saying of grace before the big feast of Christmas. A pause, a reflection, an admission that things are actually not quite as bad as all our complaining might make them out to be. Thanksgiving is a day when we stop, we pray,we clasp hands and say "Thanks".

I am so especially thankful this year for the many friends, family members, friends of friends and family members of friends that have prayed, sweated and given on our behalf the past 18 months. I am thankful for my wife, my daughter, my lousy dawg, our home, our jobs, those close to us and those who are scattered far and wide.

Blessings upon you this Thanksgiving day.

Thanks.

By John Denver

I've been lately thinking
About my life's time
All the things I've done
And how its been
And I can't help believing
In my own mind
I know I'm gonna hate to see it end

I've seen a lot of sunshine
Slept out in the rain
Spent a night or two all on my own
I've known my lady's pleasures
Had myself some friends
And spent a time or two in my own home

And I have to say it now
Its been a good life all in all
Its really fine
To have a chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around

And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long its been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share

The days they pass so quickly now
Nights are seldom long
And time around me whispers when its cold
The changes somehow frighten me
Still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old
For though my life's been good to me
There's still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
I'd like to raise a family
I'd like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon

I have to say it now
Its been a good life all in all
Its really fine
To have the chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around

And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long its been since yesterday
What about tomorrow
What about our dreams
And all the memories we share

68 Years Ago Today

Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.

~ Hugh Allen

I love Thanksgiving, but I always feel useless. The womenfolk do all the cooking; the kitchen is a hen party non pariel, and the menfolk just wander at the margins like beaten wolves skulking at the perimeter of the campfire. I don’t watch football anymore, so I don’t have the option of sitting in front of the TV and watching big guys run into each other. But I still like football, if need be, so if I have to join in the reindeer games, I will.

- Lileks

When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there.

~Cecil Selig

Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.

~ Peter T. Mcintyre

We have always mixed Annabelle's dishes in with ours. What I mean is, instead of having all the kiddie stuff on one shelf in the kitchen, we put her bottles with our stemware, her bowls side-by-side with our bowls etc. Partially because I have a pointless opinion that's how it should be, and party because I think it is funny that you have to reach around the baby bottles to grab a wine glass . . .

Baby bottles.

Annie hasn't used a baby bottle in probably 6 months and yet they are still rattling around on the stemware shelf. A while back I felt the time had come, I pulled the bottles down and put them on the counter. And there they have stayed. For weeks . . .

I can't toss them out. It's as if part of my earliest memories of fatherhood are somehow contained in these BPA-free bottles.

John F. Kennedy assassinated

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible.

by Wendell Berry

Though he was ill and in pain,
in disobedience to the instruction he
would have received if he had asked,
the old man got up from his bed,
dressed, and went to the barn.
The bare branches of winter had emerged
through the last leaf-colors of fall,
the loveliest of all, browns and yellows
delicate and nameless in the gray light
and the sifting rain. He put feed
in the troughs for eighteen ewe lambs,
sent the dog for them, and she
brought them. They came eager
to their feed, and he who felt
their hunger was by their feeding
eased. From no place in the time
of present places, within no boundary
nameable in human thought,
they had gathered once again,
the shepherd, his sheep, and his dog
with all the known and the unknown
round about to the heavens' limit.
Was this his stubbornness or bravado?
No. Only an ordinary act
of profoundest intimacy in a day
that might have been better. Still
the world persisted in its beauty,
he in his gratitude, and for this
he had most earnestly prayed.

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.

~ Sally Field

AKA "Taps" (The whole thing): Breathe deep . . . .

Il Silenzio from Brandon Noonan on Vimeo.

If the movie was more like this, maybe it wouldn't have put me to sleep . . .

Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind from Marc Bullard on Vimeo.

Lincoln allegedly writes to mother of Civil War casualties

Legend holds that on this day in 1864, President Abraham Lincoln composes a letter to Lydia Bixby, a widow and mother of five men who had been killed in the Civil War. A copy of the letter was then published in the Boston Evening Transcript on November 25 and signed "Abraham Lincoln." The original letter has never been found.

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.

~ Billie Holiday

Children with SB typically have trouble with their eyesight. Naturally, it is one of the many functions that the doctors want to watch closely. The first time Annie went in to be checked, they said that they thought she would need glasses sooner rather than later. Let's just set aside the whole question of "HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU CHECK AN INFANT'S EYESIGHT?" It's not as if they can hold a spoon up to one eye and read the "third line down". But anyway . . . .

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

~ Norman Vincent Peale

by Sharon Olds

By the time I was six months old, she knew something
was wrong with me. I got looks on my face
she had not seen on any child
in the family, or the extended family,
or the neighborhood. My mother took me in
to the pediatrician with the kind hands,
a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel:
Hub Long. My mom did not tell him
what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed.
It was just these strange looks on my face—
he held me, and conversed with me,
chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother
said, She’s doing it now! Look!
She’s doing it now! and the doctor said,
What your daughter has
is called a sense
of humor. Ohhh, she said, and took me
back to the house where that sense would be tested
and found to be incurable.

"This traditional casserole made with cut green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and French fried onions is the perfect addition to your holiday table."

The darkest hour has only sixty minutes.

~ Morris Mandel

Walt Whitman

O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Ummm . . . . I don't think so . . .

LINK HERE

"Quick and easy way to cook turkey in the slow cooker. With only two ingredients, the only hard part is waiting."

RECIPE HERE

LINK HERE

by Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Which Reminds me: Dead Poet's Society: The O Captain My Captain Scene:

(After returning to the office after a false fire alarm)

In Michael Perry's book "Coop", he writes about his brother Jed and the time Jed's little boy drowned:

This picture is loaded with meanings for me. First of all, when we were pregnant, more than anything else, I wanted our baby to have a set of wooden stackable rings. No real reason - I just think they are one of the all-time classic baby toys and I wanted to pass on the tradition. I bought that set at a wooden toy shop in Seaport Village before Annabelle was born. She has just started playing with it in the last two weeks.

Annie has also just started to explore her feet. I can't imagine what must be going through her head as she examines her legs and feet even at the same time that (so far as we know) she does not have any feeling in them.

The sippy cup is a HUGE deal in our house right now as Annie rejected her bottles long before she took to a sippy cup. In the intervening time we had to resort to giving her liquids one strawful at a time. She has just now started drinking from a sippy cup all by herself. Dat's my big girl!

And last but not least, you may have noticed the wheels. This is Annie's first "wheelchair" - on loan to us from the PT folks. It is a homemade jobby that someone donated because they don't make wc's for infants. Annie is just starting to get the hang of it. If I were to compare her progress to that of a child who walks, I would say she is at the hold onto the side of the crib and stand-up phase of wc ability. We haven't actually gotten to the point of covering any distance, but she does swivel herself back and forth in it. I have been meaning to post some sort of 1st wc extravabonanza posting but the inspiration has eluded me so far.

A picture really can say 1000 words . . . .

by John Engels

A pound of ripe cranberries, for two days
macerate in a dark rum, then do not
treat them gently, but bruise,
mash, pulp, squash
with a wooden pestle
to an abundance of juices, in fact
until the juices seem on the verge

of overswelling the bowl, then drop in
two fistsful, maybe three, of fine-
chopped orange with rind, two golden
blobs of it, and crush
it in, and then add sugar, no thin
sprinkling, but a cupful dumped
and awakened with a wooden spoon

to a thick suffusion, drench of sourness, bite of color,
then for two days let conjoin
the lonely taste of cranberry,
the joyous orange, the rum, in some
warm corner of the kitchen, until
the bowl faintly becomes
audible, a scarce wash of sound, a tiny
bubbling, and then
in a glass bowl set it out
and let it be eaten last, to offset
gravied breast and thigh
of the heavy fowl, liverish
stuffing, the effete
potato, lethargy of pumpkins

gone leaden in their crusts, let it be eaten
so that our hearts may be together overrun
with comparable sweetnesses,
tart gratitudes, until finally,
dawdling and groaning, we bear them
to the various hungerings
of our beds, lightened
of their desolations.

I love this stuff:


Colonel Sanders with Ali Treki, president of the UN General Assembly

If I were president of the UN General Assembly and something like this happened to me, my buddies would never let me live it down. I would be getting daily deliveries of Extra Crispy for weeks.

The next time I tried to have a serious discussion about world affairs, one of my friends would interrupt and say, "Hey! Aren't you the guy who met the Colonel?"

And the next time I got into an arm-waving-podium-pounding tirade and stopped to take a breath, from the back of the room I am sure I would hear "Brrrrrrrrrrrraaaaawk, brock brock brock brock brock BECAULK!"

Love it.

Which Reminds Me: (language warning at the end)

Moby-Dick published

On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: "Call me Ishmael." Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a flop.

I was reminded of this video this morning.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Now bare to the beholder's eye
Your late denuded bindings lie,
Subsiding slowly where they fell,
A disinvested citadel;
The obdurate corset, Cupid's foe,
The Dutchman's breeches frilled below.
Those that the lover notes to note,
And white and crackling petticoat.

From these, that on the ground repose,
Their lady lately re-arose;
And laying by the lady's name,
A living woman re-became.
Of her, that from the public eye
They do enclose and fortify,
Now, lying scattered as they fell,
An indiscreeter tale they tell:
Of that more soft and secret her
Whose daylong fortresses they were,
By fading warmth, by lingering print,
These now discarded scabbards hint.

A twofold change the ladies know:
First, in the morn the bugles blow,
And they, with floral hues and scents,
Man their beribboned battlements.
But let the stars appear, and they
Shed inhumanities away;
And from the changeling fashion see,
Through comic and through sweet degree,
In nature's toilet unsurpassed,
Forth leaps the laughing girl at last.

Examined the menu; looked for the patty melt. They did not have a patty melt. Well, they moved the patty melt to its own page, then: something that would honor its unique place in comestible lore. But there was no patty melt page. There was a new type of melt that had bacon and onion rings – and came with fries. Also sauce. This would not do.

“You didn’t cancel the patty melt, did you?” I asked the waiter.

He said it was gone.

They say you see the flash of the atom bomb before you feel the heat and the wind. This was like that.

- Lileks

I can't believe I haven't seen this until now . . . .

The wife has a new blog showcasing some of her artwork.

"These are the most tender and succulent pork chops you've ever had. My fiance absolutely loves them! Serve over noodles or rice."

RECIPE HERE

by Robert Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying... And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive-
How else? They are not known to send the dead-
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, and ask,
"What was it, dear?" And she had given all
And still she had all-they had-they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear?"

"Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest, and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again." The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.

Of course, I bake mine at 400 degrees for 20 min now . . . only amatures fry it in a pan anymore . . .

A laid-off book editor chronicles unemployment by the numbers.

Jeepers. One only thing worse than having a job is not having one . . . .

by Lawrence Raab

When something bad happens
we play it back in our minds,
looking for a place to step in
and change things. We should go outside
right now, you might have said. Or:
Let's not drive anywhere today.

The sea rises, the mountain collapses.
A car swerves toward the crowd
you've just led your family into.
We all look for reasons. Luck
isn't the word you want to hear.
What happened had to,

or it didn't. Maybe
the exceptional man can change direction
in midair, thread the needle's eye,
and come out whole. But even the hero
who stands up to chance has to feel
how far the world will bend

until it breaks him. He can see
that day: the unappeasable ocean,
the cascades of stone. A crowd
gathers around his body. He sees that too.
someone is saying: His luck just ran out.
It happens to us all.

We’re preparing for Thanksgiving, already! I can’t believe it. How can it already be so close? My goals are to get my house cleaned so the company doesn’t think we live like real people, but like hotel guests….

- TTS

Thank you

Dawgs welcome their masters home from the battlefield

Just in case you think it is a gimmick.

World War I ends

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.

So. One of the great gifts we received when Annie was born was her infant bather.
So far it has worked wonderfully. But as Annabelle grows larger, she is also growing more and more fond of the water. She has started flinging herself forward to splash in the bath but she does not have the trunk strength to prevent herself from going face down in the water. AND SHE REALLY LOVES TO SPLASH IN THE WATER. So lately, it takes one of us to hold her and one of us to bath her.

The PT suggested that we look into whether or not our insurance covers pediatric bath equipment. She pulled out a catalogue full of bath chairs with seat belts etc. that would not only make bath time easier - but less death-defying as well (estimate cost - $400)

The good news is that our insurance covers $5000 worth of durable medical equipment per year. The bad news is, bath equipment is not necessarily considered "medical".

So we need to wrangle our pediatrician into wrangling with the insurance company over whether or not the bath chair might be covered.

I must say, that so far we have had almost no trouble getting what we needed for Annabelle and have not been denied once. Here's hoping that we can keep the streak alive!

LINK

VFTW has a great post about a sad day.

by Margaret Atwood

It was my father taught my mother
how to dance.
I never knew that.
I thought it was the other way.
Ballroom was their style,
a graceful twirling,
curved arms and fancy footwork,
a green-eyed radio.

There is always more than you know.
There are always boxes
put away in the cellar,
worn shoes and cherished pictures,
notes you find later,
sheet music you can't play.

A woman came on Wednesdays
with tapes of waltzes.
She tried to make him shuffle
around the floor with her.
She said it would be good for him.
He didn't want to.

If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you'll be going, 'you know, we're alright. We are dang near royalty.'

- Jeff Foxworthy

The NYT has an interactive map plotting the unemployment rate. You can control for race, gender, age and education to find out the unemployment rate for people similar to you.

Mine turns out to be about 4% - significantly lower than the average.

And all along I thought I was special for still having a job . . .

LINK HERE

After the hot, sticky afternoon, storms have begun working either side of the valley and pushing a cool breeze before them. It's nice, all of us out here together, eating and talking, laughing with the baby. I get going on the pigpen, or the garden fence, and from some imaginary omniscient perch i look down and see a man toiling on behalf of his family, forgetting that sometimes what the family needs is a man sitting still.
Buy The Book - proceeds to benefit ACF

40 Years Ago Today

Sesame Street debuts

On this day in 1969, "Sesame Street," a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut. "Sesame Street," with its memorable theme song ("Can you tell me how to get/How to get to Sesame Street"), went on to become the most widely viewed children's program in the world. It has aired in more than 120 countries.

234 Years Ago Today

Birth of the U.S. Marine Corps

During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress passes a resolution stating that "two Battalions of Marines be raised" for service as landing forces for the recently formed Continental Navy. The resolution, drafted by future U.S. president John Adams and adopted in Philadelphia, created the Continental Marines and is now observed as the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.

This morning the wee one was up at 4:45 – IN THE AM. I drew breakfast duty but let Annie play in her crib for another 30 min or so until she started getting fussy. I rolled my feet to the floor and mumbled over and over ”It’s too early baby, it’s too early baby . . .”. I follow the same circuitous route through the darkened house each morning:

1) Dawg jumps up from his bed on the wife’s side and staggers down the hallway
2) I pick up one end of the dawg bed and drag it through the house behind the pooch whose nose is dragging an inch off the ground “It’s too early, it’s too early, baby.”
3) Down the hall, through the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen
4) Punch the button on the coffee maker as I stumble by (if I set it up the previous evening) “Too early, too early . . .”
5) Through the family room where I drop the dawg bed while the beast heads out his dawggie door for his morning business
6) Back through the dining room, living room, hallway, to the nursery.

Some days I move the dawg bed, start the coffee, let the dawg out and make my way to the nursery before I even wake up. On those days walking back to the kitchen to find the coffee brewing is like finding money in the laundry.

The little one was in rare form this morning. Squealing and hooting and hollering with delight. Everything was hilarious! Life was grand! Can you believe it?! Another glorious day! After about 30 minutes of Annie’s O-dark-thirty celebration extravabonanza the wife was compelled to stumble out of bed just to see what in the world was going on. There I was at the computer quietly working away and there was Annabelle in her high chair laughing and jibber jabbering to herself at the top of her little lungs.

Annabelle did eventually quiet down and the wife fixed some left-over Cranberry-Orange loaf for breakfast. As the wife and I sat across from each other at the table in relative silence I looked up and said, “Monday”. She said, “Yeah”.

I took another slug of coffee . . .

“Here we go . . .”

Nazis launch Kristallnacht

On this day in 1938, in an event that would foreshadow the Holocaust, German Nazis launch a campaign of terror against Jewish people and their homes and businesses in Germany and Austria. The violence, which continued through November 10 and was later dubbed "Kristallnacht," or "Night of Broken Glass," after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments, left approximately 100 Jews dead, 7,500 Jewish businesses damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards vandalized. An estimated 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, many of whom were then sent to concentration camps for several months; they were released when they promised to leave Germany. Kristallnacht represented a dramatic escalation of the campaign started by Adolf Hitler in 1933 when he became chancellor to purge Germany of its Jewish population.

Annabelle wears her AFO's 21 hours a day. We take them off for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. We are sort of "over" the whole "my daughter has braces" thing. It's really not a big deal.

Now the issue is more one of fashion. It doesn't matter how cute the outfit may be, it always ends in AFO's. You can find shoes that go over the AFO's but the braces are still so big relative to Annie's size that wrapping a shoe around them would just look silly.

So lately we have been trying to coordinate our trips out with the couple of hours we can go without AFO's. So the decision to put on shoes goes something like this:

-What time is it?
-Has she had her boots off yet this morning?
-How long will we be out?
-If I put shoes on her, should I bring the AFO's along if we are going to be out more than 2 hours?
-(Keep in mind we haven't even gotten to the pick out the outfit and match the shoes part yet . . .)

But the end result sure is cute!

by Stephen Dunn

After the teacher asked if anyone had
a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all
said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth
had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
and how far away
a car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key
in having a key
and putting it in, and going.

The wife and I watched it the other night. Simply fantastic.

I do my best to include Annie whenever I am doing chores - dishes, laundry and from time to time some yardwork. My usual schpeal goes something like this:

"Oh Annie, filling the bird feeder is SO. MUCH. FUN. But only big girls get to fill bird feeders and only if they are good and keep their rooms nice and tidy. One day YOU will get to fill the bird feeder and YOU WILL LOVE IT!"

It's worth a shot . . .

This is standard fare around here. When you lay Annie down and give her a blanket, she immediately whips it up against her cheek and there it remains all night long. It also serves as her default reaction whenever you give her a fluffy stuffed animal . . .

It gets better the longer you listen!

WOW. I can't believe I never heard of this story before . . .

“Quick and delicious!”

RECIPE HERE

Sorry about the thin gruel around here lately.

That's a Good Boy!


I LOVE MY DOG

- Thanks Gillian!

Oh, hell, it's Hump Day, which never lives up to it's name in the manner that you are thinking.

This buttermilk pancake mix has Vosges Mo Bacon Bar Chips - a chocolate we've featured before on RBF. It's chocolate that has bacon made right in it. Mmmm, a yummy combo of salty and sweet.

LINK HERE

- Thanks Gillian!

"In the first place God made idiots; that was for practice; then he made school boards."

- Mark Twain

Just Brilliant

by Unknown

my love is over, its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
well my love is over, its underneath, its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting, the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
im there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
im there through your heartache, im there in the storm
my love i will keep you by my power alone
i dont care where you've fallen, where you have been
i'll never forsake you, my love never ends

by Gary L. Lark

I learned to walk stud walls
setting rafters when I was six.
I straightened nails for my father
to re-drive, piecing a home together
after work or on weekends.

We were called Okies by some
when we moved to the valley,
putting up our tar-papered shack.
Two years later a house was rising
to face them across the pasture.

The only plans were sketched
on a six inch pad, but all the corners
were true. The septic tank hole
was dug with pick and shovel.
Lumber carted home from the mill.

The only time help came
was when we poured the foundation.
Guys from the mill rode springing planks
to deliver tons of wet concrete by wheelbarrow,
tamped down with shovel handles.

My father beveled the molding,
drilled and set each piece of hardwood flooring,
not a nail would show. I crawled insulation
into tight places above the ceiling
and helped with rolled roofing.

Nobody mentioned our low rank
when my mother joined the garden club.

So I received a disk of photos from some friends and they had these two gems from a couple of years ago on it. First of all, could there be a more handsome canine?:



And second of all, WHATEVER I DID I AM SORRY! It's funny because my first thought is, wow, she's really pretty and my second thought: I feel really sorry for whomever she is upset with (of course the wife was mugging for the camera - but still - probably going to have bad dreams about that one):

Martin Luther posts 95 theses

On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar Martin Luther approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.

Sorry but blogger is not cooperating this morning - go to the link. You won't be disappointed!

"This is a delicious soup that is even better reheated the next day. Easy to make too. Serve with a garnish of sour cream and toasted pumpkin seeds if desired."

RECIPE HERE