A Gale of Scattered Impressions
Grant is right. This wind tests the limits of ordinary endurance. The forecast this morning called for gusts to 44 mph. The forecast seems to have been on target.
At noon at school Norma and I decided to declare use of the south kitchen door off limits, since the last time it opened, it bowed out the closed heavy folding "curtains" in the serving window and created such a whoosh of air in the crack underneath that it rattled papers on the supervisor's desk ten feet away in the next room.
Before our Food Production class members walked across the road to the check the growth stage of the neighbor's lilacs (our phenology project), I specified that the ladies would walk at the back of the group. A previous walk outside to look at the flower beds had convinced me that this would be necessary if any kind of modesty was to be preserved, long skirts notwithstanding. While I was out there I remembered that a class was in session behind the window in front of me. Bummer.
Jacob lamented the assault on his newly planted and carefully tended seedlings. I sympathize. I have often pitied the defenseless plants trying to grow in my spring garden. Too many times plant protectors I had placed them in blew away and ended up in a fence row.
I looked at the pie cherry tree and the apple tree in bloom in our yard and wondered if the pollen was moist enough to stick where it belonged. Bees are more active in dry sunny weather, but if the pollen dies too soon, the bees can't do much about it. As I understand it, that's why grapes don't ripen here in nice uniform clusters. Green ones and ripe ones appear in the same bunch because of scattered pollination.
************************
Shane and Dorcas were here last weekend. They, along with Lisa, arrived around 1:00 AM on Friday, and quietly put themselves to bed in the places we had prepared for them. Lisa left the next morning without my having met her. I had been up for some time, but must have been in the back part of the house when Randall arrived to pick her up. I was sorry to miss learning to know her.
Dorcas left again around noon to fly to PA for a wedding. Some friends of hers had bought a ticket for her.
Meanwhile Shane worked furiously to tile a bathroom in his rental house, load three cords of firewood on the humongous trailer he was pulling on this trip, load a large riding mower and a large piece of heirloom furniture to take back to CO, and take down a large tree that was growing next to and over the top of Loren's house. Does that sound like a two day job to you? Even Shane, who has lots of INITIATIVE, couldn't get it all done. One complication was that the big machine (Telehandler???) that he was using on the tree removal job had the misfortune of sinking one of its wheels through the lid covering the septic tank. So Shane had to repair/replace the lid as part of the project. Joseph came to the rescue with some spare "parts" he had left over from a previous project.
I think Shane is coming back this weekend again. He's hoping to get the house ready for the next renters very soon.
The previous ones got freaked out when someone broke in while they were gone, and they started looking for another place to live.
Dorcas' flight back to CO was delayed about 24 hours, and she ended up spending the night in Chicago. It's a good thing they had decided to delay the start of their work week by one day.
***********************
Dad saw the neurologist again today. He did not diagnose TGA. He did not diagnose anything. He says he doesn't know what was wrong. At least he did not prescribe something for the "nothing" that he found. Kudos to him for that.
He did deliver a bit of a sermon on diagnosis by internet. Well yes. But I notice that he didn't have a diagnosis without the internet either. He says Dad's symptoms are a little different than typical TGA. I say that the stories I read of people's experience (many of them diagnosed by doctors as having had TGA) show a great deal of variation in episodes. I daresay that the 3 TGA cases a year Dad's neurologist sees are about 1/20 of the number of "cases" whose stories were recorded on one particular internet site I saw.
I feel about the doctor the way I think my students would feel if they asked me for help with solving a problem, and I answered by saying, "I have no idea how to help you with your problem. I don't know what causes it. Under no circumstances, however, should you go ahead and try to solve this problem on your own. No one else out there is likely to be able to help you. In fact, to protect yourself from misinformation, you should believe only what I tell you." Lame.
***********************
My "highly refined" aesthetic tastes are unsettled, offended even, whenever I observe a fairly recent phenomenon among the veiling wearing crowd. Granted, we're not talking about sin and sanctification here, but, ohhhhh, I never did think those wide skirts spread over 19th century bustles created by wire hoops were a becoming style. I don't like the style any better on the neck than elsewhere.
Caboose. That's another image that comes to mind. Even the upbeat "I think I can, I think I can" tones that ring in my ears with this image don't quite right this "wrong" image of a trailing, partially concealed appendage, struggling to stay attached. I'm still expecting that someday I might walk past someone and hear a faint I think I can, I think I can.
************************
I find myself wishing I knew more about French history. We're reading Les Miserables at school, and I'm having trouble piecing together what I know about the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louis xv (or was it the xvi), who had the Versailles Palace built. I'm recalling fragments that I learned when we read A Tale of Two Cities, a smattering of other history studies, and a humanities class I took in college. Wes gave me a crash course today, and I think he plans to do it for everyone tomorrow.
Along with that he showed me where Les Miserables fits into the various literature styles. This is another of those times when I wish I had had a chance to learn in high school what our students have a chance to learn.
I read the book mostly in one day last week, and then promptly started re-reading it. I don't really think it's the best way to read, but I find myself racing along to get the big picture in a story, after which I'm prepared to slow down and absorb more of the details on the second reading.
***********************
At school Marvin regaled us over lunch yesterday with stories of his spring break activities. He painstakingly planted radishes and carrots in his food production garden--one seed at a time. To hear him tell it, this was a Herculean task.
Arlyn suggested that this would have been a good time to strike a bargain with his little brother Wesley, who might have agreed to help him if he had asked.
Further explanations followed. Marvin had stayed outside all he could, because he knew if he went inside his Mom would find a job for him. He even shared this strategy with Wesley, who several times threatened to quit helping Marvin and go inside. But each time, all it took to get him to return to the gardening tasks was a reminder to Wesley that if he goes inside, his mom will find a job for him in there. Sneaky. No positive rewards for Wesley--just the avoidance of undesirable consequences. It was cheaper for Marvin this way, of course.
***********************
Hiromi is on a quest to extend his voice range upwards. He wants to be able to sing some of the songs people sing to shamisen accompaniment. He has to learn to play the shamisen too, of course.
He ordered and received a tape and textbook in Japanese that tells exactly how to do this. So several times a day he goes downstairs to Victor's old room and sings just like the guy on the tape sings--alternating between falsetto and natural voice singing, and learning to integrate the two ways of making sounds. At least he tells me that this is the strategy.
Tonight he's comparing the notes in his lesson book and the notes in Pavarotti's "O Sole Mio" and rejoicing that if he learns his lessons well he can sing "O Sole Mio" like Pavarotti. He says this tongue in cheek of course. He's got his sights set on a high "F." He's dubbed Victor's room My Studio--Pavarotti Studio.
***********************
I saw an ad today in the Bee from Tea Celebrations for tea ceremony instruction on the 24th of April--for 3 hours. I read it aloud to Hiromi. He hadn't seen it, but he already knew all about it. He's the tea master giving the instruction.
Can you tell he's really enjoying retirement?
************************
Hilda is getting into a quilting project in Bangladesh, despite feeling under-prepared for such a task. She's the answer to another lady's prayers--someone who desperately needed someone to help the 70 or so girls who she oversees in a youth hostel while they attend college. When she spied a Mennonite at the American club in Dahka on Easter Sunday when the place was open to non-members, she latched onto the opportunity--someone who surely was born knowing how to quilt. Not quite, Hilda informed her. The hostel keeper sees this as a way of helping them earn money to pay their way now, and later also, when they need to make their own living. Hilda's giving herself a crash course, and hoping for the best.
***********************
Today we got the poetry anthology from Creative Communications--the contest sponsors who published seven poems submitted by my composition class of eight students. (Lest you feel too sorry for the one whose poem was not selected, you should know that he was one of only two winners from the class in another contest.) I haven't had time to read through many of the poems, but it's really nice to see these familiar poems in print. The poet's name is published, along with the school name and state. This copy was free to the school because we had at least five students with published poems from our school .
**********************
There's a chance for rain tonight. I hope the roof is on on Lowell's house. I haven't heard.
**********************
I'd better go do some more planting before I go to bed. Last night I soaked the peat pots. Tonight the seeds need to be poked in. Tomorrow I need to be at staff meeting at 7:30. This is shaping up to be a short night.
At noon at school Norma and I decided to declare use of the south kitchen door off limits, since the last time it opened, it bowed out the closed heavy folding "curtains" in the serving window and created such a whoosh of air in the crack underneath that it rattled papers on the supervisor's desk ten feet away in the next room.
Before our Food Production class members walked across the road to the check the growth stage of the neighbor's lilacs (our phenology project), I specified that the ladies would walk at the back of the group. A previous walk outside to look at the flower beds had convinced me that this would be necessary if any kind of modesty was to be preserved, long skirts notwithstanding. While I was out there I remembered that a class was in session behind the window in front of me. Bummer.
Jacob lamented the assault on his newly planted and carefully tended seedlings. I sympathize. I have often pitied the defenseless plants trying to grow in my spring garden. Too many times plant protectors I had placed them in blew away and ended up in a fence row.
I looked at the pie cherry tree and the apple tree in bloom in our yard and wondered if the pollen was moist enough to stick where it belonged. Bees are more active in dry sunny weather, but if the pollen dies too soon, the bees can't do much about it. As I understand it, that's why grapes don't ripen here in nice uniform clusters. Green ones and ripe ones appear in the same bunch because of scattered pollination.
************************
Shane and Dorcas were here last weekend. They, along with Lisa, arrived around 1:00 AM on Friday, and quietly put themselves to bed in the places we had prepared for them. Lisa left the next morning without my having met her. I had been up for some time, but must have been in the back part of the house when Randall arrived to pick her up. I was sorry to miss learning to know her.
Dorcas left again around noon to fly to PA for a wedding. Some friends of hers had bought a ticket for her.
Meanwhile Shane worked furiously to tile a bathroom in his rental house, load three cords of firewood on the humongous trailer he was pulling on this trip, load a large riding mower and a large piece of heirloom furniture to take back to CO, and take down a large tree that was growing next to and over the top of Loren's house. Does that sound like a two day job to you? Even Shane, who has lots of INITIATIVE, couldn't get it all done. One complication was that the big machine (Telehandler???) that he was using on the tree removal job had the misfortune of sinking one of its wheels through the lid covering the septic tank. So Shane had to repair/replace the lid as part of the project. Joseph came to the rescue with some spare "parts" he had left over from a previous project.
I think Shane is coming back this weekend again. He's hoping to get the house ready for the next renters very soon.
The previous ones got freaked out when someone broke in while they were gone, and they started looking for another place to live.
Dorcas' flight back to CO was delayed about 24 hours, and she ended up spending the night in Chicago. It's a good thing they had decided to delay the start of their work week by one day.
***********************
Dad saw the neurologist again today. He did not diagnose TGA. He did not diagnose anything. He says he doesn't know what was wrong. At least he did not prescribe something for the "nothing" that he found. Kudos to him for that.
He did deliver a bit of a sermon on diagnosis by internet. Well yes. But I notice that he didn't have a diagnosis without the internet either. He says Dad's symptoms are a little different than typical TGA. I say that the stories I read of people's experience (many of them diagnosed by doctors as having had TGA) show a great deal of variation in episodes. I daresay that the 3 TGA cases a year Dad's neurologist sees are about 1/20 of the number of "cases" whose stories were recorded on one particular internet site I saw.
I feel about the doctor the way I think my students would feel if they asked me for help with solving a problem, and I answered by saying, "I have no idea how to help you with your problem. I don't know what causes it. Under no circumstances, however, should you go ahead and try to solve this problem on your own. No one else out there is likely to be able to help you. In fact, to protect yourself from misinformation, you should believe only what I tell you." Lame.
***********************
My "highly refined" aesthetic tastes are unsettled, offended even, whenever I observe a fairly recent phenomenon among the veiling wearing crowd. Granted, we're not talking about sin and sanctification here, but, ohhhhh, I never did think those wide skirts spread over 19th century bustles created by wire hoops were a becoming style. I don't like the style any better on the neck than elsewhere.
Caboose. That's another image that comes to mind. Even the upbeat "I think I can, I think I can" tones that ring in my ears with this image don't quite right this "wrong" image of a trailing, partially concealed appendage, struggling to stay attached. I'm still expecting that someday I might walk past someone and hear a faint I think I can, I think I can.
************************
I find myself wishing I knew more about French history. We're reading Les Miserables at school, and I'm having trouble piecing together what I know about the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louis xv (or was it the xvi), who had the Versailles Palace built. I'm recalling fragments that I learned when we read A Tale of Two Cities, a smattering of other history studies, and a humanities class I took in college. Wes gave me a crash course today, and I think he plans to do it for everyone tomorrow.
Along with that he showed me where Les Miserables fits into the various literature styles. This is another of those times when I wish I had had a chance to learn in high school what our students have a chance to learn.
I read the book mostly in one day last week, and then promptly started re-reading it. I don't really think it's the best way to read, but I find myself racing along to get the big picture in a story, after which I'm prepared to slow down and absorb more of the details on the second reading.
***********************
At school Marvin regaled us over lunch yesterday with stories of his spring break activities. He painstakingly planted radishes and carrots in his food production garden--one seed at a time. To hear him tell it, this was a Herculean task.
Arlyn suggested that this would have been a good time to strike a bargain with his little brother Wesley, who might have agreed to help him if he had asked.
Further explanations followed. Marvin had stayed outside all he could, because he knew if he went inside his Mom would find a job for him. He even shared this strategy with Wesley, who several times threatened to quit helping Marvin and go inside. But each time, all it took to get him to return to the gardening tasks was a reminder to Wesley that if he goes inside, his mom will find a job for him in there. Sneaky. No positive rewards for Wesley--just the avoidance of undesirable consequences. It was cheaper for Marvin this way, of course.
***********************
Hiromi is on a quest to extend his voice range upwards. He wants to be able to sing some of the songs people sing to shamisen accompaniment. He has to learn to play the shamisen too, of course.
He ordered and received a tape and textbook in Japanese that tells exactly how to do this. So several times a day he goes downstairs to Victor's old room and sings just like the guy on the tape sings--alternating between falsetto and natural voice singing, and learning to integrate the two ways of making sounds. At least he tells me that this is the strategy.
Tonight he's comparing the notes in his lesson book and the notes in Pavarotti's "O Sole Mio" and rejoicing that if he learns his lessons well he can sing "O Sole Mio" like Pavarotti. He says this tongue in cheek of course. He's got his sights set on a high "F." He's dubbed Victor's room My Studio--Pavarotti Studio.
***********************
I saw an ad today in the Bee from Tea Celebrations for tea ceremony instruction on the 24th of April--for 3 hours. I read it aloud to Hiromi. He hadn't seen it, but he already knew all about it. He's the tea master giving the instruction.
Can you tell he's really enjoying retirement?
************************
Hilda is getting into a quilting project in Bangladesh, despite feeling under-prepared for such a task. She's the answer to another lady's prayers--someone who desperately needed someone to help the 70 or so girls who she oversees in a youth hostel while they attend college. When she spied a Mennonite at the American club in Dahka on Easter Sunday when the place was open to non-members, she latched onto the opportunity--someone who surely was born knowing how to quilt. Not quite, Hilda informed her. The hostel keeper sees this as a way of helping them earn money to pay their way now, and later also, when they need to make their own living. Hilda's giving herself a crash course, and hoping for the best.
***********************
Today we got the poetry anthology from Creative Communications--the contest sponsors who published seven poems submitted by my composition class of eight students. (Lest you feel too sorry for the one whose poem was not selected, you should know that he was one of only two winners from the class in another contest.) I haven't had time to read through many of the poems, but it's really nice to see these familiar poems in print. The poet's name is published, along with the school name and state. This copy was free to the school because we had at least five students with published poems from our school .
**********************
There's a chance for rain tonight. I hope the roof is on on Lowell's house. I haven't heard.
**********************
I'd better go do some more planting before I go to bed. Last night I soaked the peat pots. Tonight the seeds need to be poked in. Tomorrow I need to be at staff meeting at 7:30. This is shaping up to be a short night.
posted by Mrs. I at
4:06 PM
4 Comments:
"My 'highly refined' aesthetic tastes are unsettled, offended even... I think I can, I think I can."
I laughed out loud! Priceless description! I so agree with you, Miriam!
-Karen H. in Ohio
By
Anonymous, at 4/14/2010
I am so out of the loop as to what is "in" right now--I am having a hard time picturing the veil scenario.
By
Dorcas Byler, at 4/16/2010
Picture a thick bun low on the neck. The veiling hugs the head everywhere except where it abruptly encounters the bun, at which point it bulges dramatically--it and the tail of the veiling extending far out behind. The aesthetic problem is that the veiling appears to hang from the bun instead of hanging from the head, and it makes the balance look way off--like, well--use your imagination.
By
Mrs. I, at 4/16/2010
heh, heh. Be thankful that it only is seen in those wearing veils - it is much more unsightly when it is paired with a covering.
I haven't gone extreme, but have discovered that when I do place my bun lower, my veil hangs better - that is what the newest fad has contributed to my life.
By
Anonymous, at 4/19/2010
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