Happy Halloween

Another little trip coming up. David's Mom and Dad will be staying at the house.

For Halloween, some professional-level pumpkin carvings. And a Catholic priest talks about the current vampire craze. Whoa. An artist carves Tigerhawk's face. Scared the kids, he says.

Update: We didn't get any trick-or-treaters. Too far from other (inhabited) houses, I guess. Tonight we "fall back" to standard time. An extra hour of sleep, which we will lose in spring.

Back to Nature

Victor Davis Hanson has thought, taught and written a lot about big issues like war and peace and the rise and fall of civilizations. He believes that when a culture loses its connection to the land - when not many people know what it is like to grow food, etc., that culture starts to lose touch with reality. He sometimes writes about the unreality of the academic world in comparison to the world of farming, for example. He works in both.

Similarly, Stephen R. Covey writes about working in "natural systems" - working a farm or caring for infants, for example, where people must pay attention to the cycles of nature and/or the needs of babies who cannot speak in order to be successful. He contrasts this with working in "artificial systems" such as academia or politics. People who understand "natural systems" have an edge in understanding how the universe works. Bluffing works better in artificial than in natural systems. Attractive, but erroneous, ideas are quickly exposed in natural systems but may retain respect in an artificial system for a long time. This can allow problems to build up longer than they would in a natural system. Reality can be displaced by wishful thinking without too much difficulty in an artificial system.

Most people in our culture spend a lot of time in "artifical systems" - especially those who spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games, for example. People substitute short, on-line contacts for time with people, or post messages "to the world". There are some real advantages to "being connected" in the digital world. But balance is in order. Lack of focus on the non-digital world may reduce our ability to understand what is "real".

I like this post concerning Amish proverbs. If there's any group of people in America who still live in a mostly-natural system, it's the Amish. Proverbs mean something to them. Most of the rest of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about proverbs nowadays. We're too busy. Maybe we need a few Amish proverbs to bring us back to earth once in a while. Think about some of those proverbs and how they might apply to your life.

Jumping for joy is good exercise.

Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

A task takes as long as it takes.

At Stake Conference yesterday, one of the speakers recited her mother's favorite saying (or proverb, if you will):

Knowing is not doing.

This seems to me to be a proverb well-suited to the modern world. We know a lot of important things. But we are distracted by even more things. We distract ourselves from doing what we know is important. I have a suspicion that the Amish don't have as much need for this proverb as some of the rest of us do. Some people in the modern world have learned how to lessen the distractions in their lives. I'm still working on this.

In personal news, we learned Saturday that David's early retirement papers have been processed. A little less worry for us. We've been too distracted by the drama of David's whole irrational work situation. Time to get back to some activities which are a little more grounded in reality. Keira suggested pouring a small commemorative slab of concrete somewhere in the yard to mark the occasion.

For people who are newly unemployed or who are still really worried about future income, one of my favorite thinkers, Richard Fernandez, has some practical, low-cost tips for staying connected and approaching job-seeking on the web. Because it's hard for people who have had "real" jobs to get a new job without entering the digital world nowadays. Unless maybe they're Amish.

I went to Jathisa's wedding yesterday afternoon. She looked as pretty as I've ever seen her. Families were happy. Friends were happy. That's the way we like weddings.

We heard that little Julia is out of the hospital following possible H1N1 flu, which was a big relief. Still praying for friends and family struggling with illness.

My connection with "natural systems": Our late plums and early pomegranates. Also some remarkable bug photos.

Filling in a Picture of Life

On Sunday, we had two interesting messages at church. The first was about learning to take "Joy in the Journey". Something I need to think about more deeply and plan for more carefully.

The second speaker used a story about his neighbor who likes to work on jigsaw puzzles as part of her quiet, meditative times. He noted that when working on a puzzle, she first put together the framework. I think of "frameworks" in life as principles and related rules for behavior. Without a framework, we are likely to get chaos. It is almost impossible to reach for the higher aspirations in life while mired in chaos. We really do need a place of at least minimal order in our lives if we want to make much progress.

On a more secular level, I thought of the famous "no guardrails" essay from the WSJ.

Back to our Picture of Life: As the speaker's neighbor worked on the puzzle, she placed odd-looking, sometimes ugly, pieces together to form something beautiful. In our own lives, working within a proper framework, we can fit difficult events, circumstances and often even difficult people into a beautiful picture if we work mindfully.

More bureaucracy this week. David seems to have caught whatever I had a couple of weeks ago (or something similar). He has been quite sick for a couple of days, but is starting to feel a little better, with an antibiotic, etc.

As a diversion, I've posted cookie recipes - traditional chocolate chip cookie bars with notes on getting the best texture, chewier big chocolate chip cookies or coconut bars and Oatmeal/Coconut cookies - for making ahead of your event. I wrote about Jujubes, too.

Over on the "Perplextities" blog, there's a post about blogging and a balanced life, featuring a link concerning Kristi Yamaguchi and one on how good men and good women can minimize the hurt they cause each other. My first attempt at "liveblogging". I am not particularly fond of "liveblogging", as a rule.

Mom's 80th Birthday Party

Not everyone throws a party with dancing when they turn 80. But Mom did, of course. It was a wonderful idea and I think everyone had a good time.

We had a hectic afternoon last Saturday, but I managed to get a few pictures. I haven't figured out how to get any of them on this blog page yet. All of Mom's kids were there. Jeanine flew in from Oregon. We had lots of other relatives and friends, there, too. Many people with wonderful memories of past times together.

Mom planned the colors for her party around a tablecloth her sister, Claudia, had given her. The roosters on the tablecloth had a little lavender in their tail feathers. She had lavender flatware, plates and napkins, lavender M&Ms and a lavender hydrangea as a centerpiece on the refreshment table. She ordered chocolate and carrot cakes and bought nuts at a specialty store where they keep nuts fresh. We prepared cheese and grapes just before the party. David bought dates to go with the nuts.

It was one of those relaxed kinds of parties with old-time country dancing. You could hear yourself over the music. Which was a good thing, because there were a lot of interesting people to talk to.

Mom's friends who played for the party included musicians who played at the driveway dance at our wedding reception. Mom arranged that, too. Jeanine joined them for a few pieces.

Last Saturday, Julie taught and called the Virginia Reel - more like this one than this one. My foot stuck to the floor when I was sliding (nephew David was my partner, and he was enthusiastic). I fell but was not injured, thanks to the floor in the cultural hall which is built like the floor of a basketball court. Note to self: Get some dancing shoes. No more rubber soles when dancing.

I taught some of the nieces, nephews and others a rudimentary Varsovienne and a simple Schottische. Not nearly as fancy as this one, danced in a square. It was the elementary school version, sort of a partnered line dance. It's a very old, genteel dance. Some new steps for the Sweetheart Schottische here. Never considered doing the Schottische to Reggae until I read the Wikipedia entry.

You could dance the swing to many of the pieces played at Mom's party. More people knew the Swing than many of the older dances. And there were waltzes and polkas. It was the kind of a dance where Betty could become a boy to teach the Virginia Reel to a little girl, and where the young father of a disabled little girl did not need to feel self-conscious about taking her to the middle of the floor to dance with her, in her wheelchair.

A lovely evening. It started to rain as we got home. A brief downpour, with thunder, started as soon as we had unloaded the car. Dramatic. David, in the kitchen, thought he heard gunfire. Jeanine, in the living room, discovered that it was fireworks after the football game at the university. So we watched fireworks from the front door. Not everybody rates fireworks at the end of their birthday party. But Mom did. She deserved it.

I'll write more about our little trip later.

When things aren't where they're supposed to be

A while ago, David decided that it was time to tackle the imperfect finishing of the walls in the house. Most people wouldn't notice, but he did. It has bothered him for years. In preparation, we moved things from the bedroom and bathroom to the shed. We moved the furniture into the media room and the closets (except for the bed). No pantyhose for church one week. The blankets went in the living room.

David started re-doing the bathroom walls. He used an oil-based primer and everything. Then we went to Utah.When we got back. David's Mom had tidied up quite a bit, but things were still out of place.

Laundry stacked high (at least is was clean). The dogs had dug a little hollow under the Iceberg rose. Things took longer to do. Sometimes I couldn't remember where an item of clothing was. We had to unpack from our trip, too. Soon there was dust from drywall mud everywhere. I got strep throat (which responded quickly to penicillin) and we got colds which lingered. We cleaned a lot of the mess up, put the dressers back and . .

The dogs went into the bedroom to inspect. Lucky grabbed a pair of socks and laid on the bed on his back. Little Buddy started chewing on the nightstand. Troy the Giant Dog hid under the bed with only his tail sticking out. When he didn't come out for a biscuit, I tried to make a space for him to back out. He worked his way all the way under the bed to where we could see his face, and his big, brown eyes were mournful. We moved the bed and he was free at last!

The bedroom walls look better, especially to David. We'll have more shelves in the closet and the towel racks in the bathroom are more secure. We have little constellations of paint spots in the corner of one set of sheets. One looks like the Big Dipper. Whew. A lot of work. I was inspired to start throwing away old magazines and such.

Now David's started on the living room. We moved the table and laid drop cloths. One of the dogs found an old stain on a drop cloth and pooped on it. I just caught Little Buddy eating a ballpoint pen. Dust everywhere indoors. Outdoors, there's a gopher under the apple tree.

Here we go again. So much for getting normal things done. But we'll get a few big things done. In other news, we're still dealing with some very bizarre bureaucracy, and it's the anniversary of 9/11. Which puts our mundane problems in a little perspective. Lots of things, and people, aren't where they're supposed to be. Andrew Klavan has a piece up about the power of ideas. A clear, poetic presentation, though not everyone will agree with all the ideas in it.

Like all real things, ideas have qualities, characteristics. There are true ideas and false ones, practical and impractical, good ideas and bad. According to their qualities, ideas exert a force on human action. . .

Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior—and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history. . .

Memories with Marilyn

It was wonderful to see my cousin Marilyn at the family reunion. My memories of her go way back. When she was a preschooler, she became famous in the family for her ability to identify the makes and models of just about any car on the road. She got some coaching from her Dad. I wasn't famous for anything at that age. I wondered if I would ever develop a skill comparable to her mastery of car recognition.

We are about the same age and once lived only a few blocks apart. We played together. Marilyn and Carolyn. Once in a while, we also hung out with our more sophisticated cousin Marie. Marie's older sister, Lynne, even put up with us. Marilyn and I reminisced at the reunion about an early memory of the mystery disappearance of the little moths we had caught. They vanished from the little plastic purses in which we were "saving" them. I can't imagine Marie doing anything like putting little moths in a purse, even when very young.

Despite our joint insect experiences, Marilyn never developed much of a tolerance for spiders. Once, when she and Dana were newlyweds living in the Farner's basement (at least, I think it was the Farner's house) she called me and I walked up to catch a spider that was in her house. It was quite a big one. Ever seen a picture of a woman standing on a chair because of a mouse in the house? It wasn't quite that bad. I think fear of spiders or snakes is just built into some people.

Growing up, I had bad dreams about black widows. I developed little rituals for jumping down stairs which I imagined would protect me if there were a black widow in the corner of the bottom step in the basement. But I was usually not too upset by other spiders. Mom told stories about watching spiders spin their webs above her head on the sleeping porch in the summer when she was growing up - including Black Widows. I fell somewhere between Mom and Marilyn on the "fear of spiders" scale.

I also have a fragmentary early memory of something to do with Marilyn's sweet younger sister Suzie and an earwig. I tried eating ants once, Suzie. And I think Suzie once drank perfume, too.

I remember their Mynah bird. Too cool. Later, Marilyn's mother, my aunt Marlene, adopted an orphaned (by its previous owner) caiman. Not everyone's aunt adopts a caiman. They take some specialized care. If someone had arranged for a dozen strangers to mingle with all my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, and then asked the strangers which of my relatives they thought had a caiman at home, I don't think many would have chosen Aunt Marlene. But I really don't know who they WOULD have chosen.

Marilyn and I sometimes visited with Grandma and Grandpa together, too. When we were little, Grandpa taught us to sing Ach du lieber Augustin in German. Somewhere along the line, I also picked up the first verse to this song. Lyrics here. Sing along.

When I still thought I was too young to be a fan of a popular music group, Marilyn was already a fan of the Kingston Trio. We listened to their records in her basement room. I always think of them in striped shirts, for some reason. I remember the banjo snd guitars, as well as the singing.

Somehow, all these years, I have missed Steve Martin's banjo career, however. I thought of the Kingston Trio again when I came across a Steve Martin Banjo video today.

When we were teenagers, I remember Marilyn and Suzie's younger brother Jeff, Lynne and Marie's younger brother Brad and my younger brother Brent as sometimes being kind of ornery or mischievous at family gatherings. They've all reformed now.

It's nice to have extended family.

Desert Tourist Traps

On our way up to Utah, we stopped at Barstow Station, an improbable jumble of buildings and old train cars built in the former parking lot of the "biggest McDonald's in the World". It's a well-designed trap for tourists heading to and from the biggest tourist trap of all time, Las Vegas.

The proprietors know what people en route between California and Vegas want: "The Cleanest Restrooms in Barstow". Plus, the "historical" interest of old train cars (not really in a very historical presentation), fast food (even Chinese), candy, ice cream, tourist trinkets and Ex-Lax. There are "quick" lines for cash only at the McDonalds, for people on a limited break from a bus.

Normally, I'm not really impressed by "touristy" places, but I thought this one just fit the bill for a quick stop. Wouldn't want to stay for long, though.

Down in the low desert, past Baker and before Las Vegas, is a failed tourist trap. Someone in a little town apparently thought it would be a good idea to build a water park in the middle of nowhere in the desert. But who wants to go to the low Nevada desert just to swim? Or to fish? Who wants to go on to Vegas in wet clothes after a "swim stop"? This enterprise failed. But I imagine that this little town could have been a welcome stop for the men working on the railroad to Las Vegas. It succeeded the 20-mule teams hauling borax from Death Valley to Mojave. I can hardly imagine what this trip must have been like on rough dirt roads from the low desert to the high desert.

Life is hard in the desert. You need a good plan to survive. If you have a business, you really need to know your potential customers.