1606 Shall we gather in the kitchen

There's nothing like sitting around the kitchen table for a little chat. Here we are with my brother and sister.

The last thing I'd consider

is going back to school for a PhD, but if I were so inclined, here's what I might do, according to this quiz.

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

1605 Enjoying the trip

A rainy fall week-end in Lakeside for the Fall Festival, but on our way Sunday we drove into sunshine as we got into Indiana. After stopping to see Carlos and Michelle on the way, we rolled into Oregon, IL about 3:30. My sister had gathered together the relatives for a family dinner Sunday evening. I met with friends on Monday for coffee and chit chat, and then visited my 90 year old great aunt for some help with genealogy. Today I met with the former wife of a first cousin once removed to catch up on her children and grandchildren, and then stopped by my aunt's to look through some clippings and old photographs. We've also made a trip to Franklin Grove and visited with my brother and stopped at a new park in that area that has a rebuilt mill. Now our lovely fall sunshine is gone. We walked in Oregon's nice city park system, visited the train station that is being restored and looked at a new sculture at the entrance of another park on the river where people fish. Tomorrow we're taking a little boat ride on the Rock River with lunch. Should be home Thursday evening after a stop in Indianapolis to visit with my husband's sister.

1604 Heading out again

We'll be visiting family in Illinois soon, so we'll be on the road again. Our cat is getting very confused about where she lives. When we got back from Arkansas and Oklahoma she refused to enter the bedroom for weeks. When we got back from Germany and Austria she decided she liked to sleep on my pillow, since the cool reproof didn't change our behavior. Hard telling what's next.

Hoping to see my two siblings, niece and family, my aunt, my cousins, my great-aunt, and a few high school friends at the local greasy spoon. We practically go past Carlos and Michelle's place (Germany tour), so we hope to pop in and say hello.

Lots of these in my home town

1603 Banking Boo Boos

Mess up. Blame someone else. That's what Felipe and Racheli Vidal do. The USAToday did a story on overdraft fees by banks and picked sort of a bad example. This couple had been charged $926 overdraft fees for spending $1,248 more than they had in their accounts. Slow learners.

I had a $20 overdraft charge once back in the 80s--when I had two checking accounts and had absent mindedly put my paycheck into the wrong account and then went on vacation, thinking I had plenty of resources. I think I was more embarrassed than mad at the bank with which we had a squeaky clean 20 year record. So I linked the checking account to the savings account and closed the second checking account. See how those fees can change behavior--for some of us? Yes, and I had a speeding ticket once, too.

My advice to Felipe and Racheli would be to go cash only for a couple of months and learn to live on what they earn. It will clean up that messy habit of blaming others and give them a closer relationship with their resources.

You are Ephesians.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

1602 One of the newest things

going around the internet, sort of self-centered and narcissistic, is to type your name into Google followed by the word "is" and see what sort of a list you come up with. "Norma is" will bring up 1) the opera, 2) Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard), and 3) a hurricane, and apparently some really, really boring people, because here's what I got.

Norma is an opera in two acts

Norma is a distorted reflection of Swanson

Norma is a constellation of the southern sky.

Norma is winning her war with meningitis

Norma is sincerely concerned about people

Norma is the person I would want working with me on a project

Norma is a sweet and patient person

Norma is moving to the northwest at 7 mph with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph.

Norma is the wife, and in certain episodes, she isn't much

Norma is working hard to be the best person she can be

Norma is a great author, and writes about realistic, but exciting subjects

NORMA is an old brand name

Norma is so stunned by what he's just said, she feels out of focus

Norma is detailed, organized, and tense

Norma is snoring softly

Norma is going to be a “globe-trotter” from May 25 –June 12

Norma is fabulous! I only recently discovered her

Norma is a flower that continues to blossom, one that gets more beautiful

Norma is there and she is dressed in a black jumpsuit

Norma is sputtering, speechless

Norma is the last person you expect to be standing at the end.

I've been told my father named me. After a movie star.

1601 Who's the victim

A.C. Cargill is a columnist who blogs and recently has asked why we continue to encourage people to live in dangerous places with government bailouts. I wondered about this as I watched the fires in California in areas that should have had more dead wood cleared, and listened to state officials plead for people to return home after the devastation of the hurricanes in August and September. Return to an area that is unsafe, and unable to provide them with good jobs and good schools, incidentally.

"Thanks in large part to FEMA, founded in 1979 by Jimmy “I’m a Peanut Farmer” Carter, almost 50% of the U.S. population lives on our coasts, per a report on CNBC Monday 26 September 2005. People can now live in harm’s way because FEMA will be there to

“lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of ‘A Nation Prepared.’” (from http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm)

Feed Me FEMA

1600 The Nose have it

Samantha is taking a very significant poll. Let her know how you blow your nose.

1599 Clothes hanger fertility crisis

In the old days I could open a closet and find 5-10 empty hangers. They multiplied like rabbits. My theory was that after laundry day, the missing socks morphed into hangers. They were everywhere. Not anymore. Now I go into the closets and drag out the rejects--the ones that are rusty, or the fragile plastic ones that break under the weight of a synthetic blouse.

About four or five years ago my favorite dry cleaner, the one that made my clothes look better than new, was sold and the stores that now use that name don't do a good job. Plus the clothes reek. My first experience with the new folks required leaving four winter coats in the garage for three months to "gas out." The blazers that I put in the coat closet so my other clothes wouldn't stink ended up making the whole ground level smell funny.

And I think that's probably the source of the hanger shortage. I've started washing all those "dry clean only" items (except my husband's suits which are rarely worn anyway). I took a bunch of sweaters and blazers to a different dry cleaner last spring, and although the odor wasn't awful, it was strong. Then I tried a new "old" dry cleaner and there was no odor, but the spots were still there and the pressing was a whole new wrinkle.

I guess I'll just have to break down and buy some matching, non-rusting hangers. It's time.

1598 How often do you change your towels

That was the poll on the RR front page yesterday. So I clicked "twice a week" and it turns out I was in the majority, but only by one percentage point, and I doubt if the poll has closed. Actually, it's a bit more often than that because I have two matching* towels hanging by the shower, and I use one for 2 days, then switch to the other. My husband uses two towels, but uses both each time. It's a good idea to buy 2 washcloths for each towel when giving a gift (someone told me that years ago).

Pillow cases I use only 2 days. About five years ago my "decor" changed and the pillow cases now show above the coverlet, so I bought a bunch all in the same color, and just keep changing them. I've had fewer colds--but my husband has had more. I suspect there is no relationship. But it gives you that fresh sheet smell without all the work.

*Our home was formerly owned by two guys--very successful decorators who liked heavy, dark fabrics and dark walls and ceilings. After getting over the shock of and repainting orange ceilings and 7 layers of brown and gold, I decided I sort of liked the bathroom wall paper and didn't change it. It looks like massive swirls of beige and cream satin with bright fuschia tassels near the ceiling. So the towels and floor rugs are fuschia, and sometimes deep green. Sort of wakes you up of a morning.

1597 Listen to the Bennett segment in context

suggests LaShawn Barber. She thinks it might change your thinking. I doubt it. He says what he says (based on research by liberals that increased abortions by black women would reduce crime), but only after showing his skepticism of some other economic and political theories about abortion, some promoted by conservatives.)

"If you haven’t heard it, please do so now. Here’s is a link to the edited segment in question. Are your impressions the same? Does actually hearing it in context change your opinion one way or another?"

She's expecting conservative bashers to act responsibly and sensibly. Although Democrats can have former KKK members as their Senators, and liberals and feminists can do the "abortion can serve a good end by eliminating poverty, disabilities and crime" research, a Republican can't refute ANY race based research without coming off as a jerk and a racist. Don't confuse us with facts and context, please. It's the rules of politics. Just don't call him a "water buffalo" because we know that's not proper use of free speech.

1596 Dancing on the Danube

Carlos e-mailed me these photos today taken on our Danube Cruise. He is the Director of the Office of Publications at Northern Illinois University and took over 1800 pictures. What a guy!

1595 The Worriers' Guild

This poem appeared in the latest issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases. I thought it a bit odd for Bush to bring up an avian flu pandemic so soon after Katrina and Rita--like we need another reason to panic? The poem looks better over there, since I can't reformat it.

The Worriers' Guild
Philip F. Deaver

Today there is a meeting of the
Worriers' Guild,
and I'll be there.
The problems of Earth are
to be discussed
at length
end to end
for five days
end to end
with 1100 countries represented
all with an equal voice
some wearing turbans and smocks
and all the men will speak
and the women
with or without notes
in 38 languages
and nine different species of logic.
Outside in the autumn
the squirrels will be
chattering and scampering
directionless throughout the town
because
they aren't organized yet.

From How Men Pray, copyright 2005 by Philip F. Deaver.

1594 Blogs redistribute power?

That's what this librarian thinks. Here's a paraphrase of a presentation by Danah Boyd (I have no idea who this is) at LITA (Library and Information Technology Association) on October 1. And Michael Gorman is still out to lunch at lunch and doesn't like Google. I saw this item at www.LisNews.com.

I'm a blogger. I don't feel terribly powerful. Do you?

1593 Oh, that Mr. White

For some reason I didn't know that the White in "Strunk and White" was the writer of Charlotte's Webb.

"E.B. White, the author of the children's books "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little," published "Elements of Style" in 1959 as an edited and expanded version of the handbook written by his English professor, William Strunk. With its classic commandments such as "Omit needless words" and "Keep related words together," "Elements" (now in its fourth edition) has been praised by the New York Times as "as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility." " Nathan Bierma, in this week's Chicago Tribune's On Language, in which he reviews the latest edition.

1592 Alexander Hamilton's Oct. 5 love letter

October 5, 1780

"I have told you, and I told you truly that I love you too much. You engross my thoughts too intirely to allow me to think of any thing else. You not only employ my mind all day; but you intrude upon my sleep. I meet you in every dream-and when I wake I cannot close my eyes again for ruminating on your sweetnesses. 'Tis a pretty story indeed that I am to be thus monopolized, by a little nut-brown maid like you-and from a statesman and a soldier metamorphosed into a puny lover. I believe in my soul you are an inchantress."

Alexander Hamilton to Elizabeth Schuyler, October 5, 1780, two months before their wedding

Not sure why she was "nut-brown."

Hamilton and the Supreme Court
Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr at age 49, and so we will never know what other great things he might have done. However, Chief Justice John Marshall probably extended his influence for almost another 35 years, which is why what is going on right now with Roberts and Miers is so critical.

Ron Chernow writes [p. 648] : "He now rivaled [after Adams nominated him in 1801] perhaps even superseded, Hamilton as the leading Federalist and had contempt for his distant cousin, Jefferson. . .[He] revered Hamilton, having once observed that next to the former treasury secretary he felt like a mere candle "beside the sun at noonday." After reading through George Washington's papers, Marshall pronounced Hamilton "the greatest man (or one of the greatest men) that had ever appeared in the United States. Marshall considered Hamilton and Washington the two indispensable founders, and it therefore came as no surprise that Jefferson looked askance at the chief justice as "the Federalist serpent in the democratic Eden of our administration."

During 34 years on the court, John Marshall, more than anyone else, perpetuated Hamilton's vision of both vibrant markets and affirmative government.. . Many of the great Supreme Court decisions he handed down were based on concepts articulated by Hamilton."

So it is possible that Roberts, who is only 50, could extend George W. Bush's ideas another 35 years. Blog that!

1591 Happy Birthday

Two years ago for my sixth blog entry, I wrote about my oldest son on his birthday. So this is a reprint.

A perfect October day.

The sky is an October color--a blue you see in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio this time of year, bordered in my side and lower vision with brilliant hues and just enough green left over from the wet summer to make a lump in my throat. But the lump is already there. Today is his birthday and I'm probably the only person who remembers.

As we drive past small towns and corn fields on a familiar route, I say to my husband, "Stanley would be 42 today." It takes a few seconds for him to pull up a memory of that plump, blonde toddler and reconstruct him as an adult old enough to be a grandfather.

"I wonder what he would look like," he says. I can't see his eyes behind his sun glasses.

"Probably just like you. Your baby pictures look so similar, except your hair was more red."

"Maybe he'd be bald by now--mine really started going after 45," he recalled.

I have little memory of what he actually looked like. I've browsed the photo album so many times that all I see when I try to recall his face are black and white and fading color snapshots and a color portrait taken at the department store in Champaign, Illinois. I do remember the way he looked when they placed him on my abdomen in the delivery room with that "what's happening" expression and the way he looked in that little casket in a new blue suit. No photos at the beginning and the end to blur history.

"We wouldn't have the kids now," he says, mentioning they'd be stopping by later to see the DVD of our trip west.

We are quiet. The harvest ready fields roll by and I think again of my favorite Old Testament verse, "Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten. . ." Joel 2:25

1590 Downshifting: inefficient fun

The only reason to downshift to slow down your car is that it is fun, writes Jonathon Welsh in today's car column in the WSJ. So the little woman was right all along! It's a lot cheaper to replace your brakes than your clutch and transmission.

In high school I dated a guy from another town--Woosung*. He wore cowboy boots, silver jewelry, a fringed leather jacket and tight jeans and didn't have a burr haircut--which made him about as noticeable as the kids wearing Black Goth and tattoos today. And what a car! I could stand in our front yard on a Sunday afternoon and hear him coming down Lowell Park Road when he was at least two miles outside of town (I think that's the name of the secondary blacktop road to Dixon, but I'm not sure). He had a great set of dual pipes on his dark blue Plymouth (I think it was either a 1953 or 1954), and he'd let up on the gas, downshift going around a curve, and I'm sure everyone between Polo and Oregon could hear him. I have yet to hear a car that sounded sweeter than that. Fun, but not good for the brakes or gas mileage. Don't you hate it when your mother was right?

Along Lowell Park Road at Stratford, but my title for this painting is "Ogle County Mall"

*Yes, it's a Chinese name. Samuel Brimblecom constructed the first house in Woosung in 1855. The community's name means "haven of rest," and Woosung was named after a town on the Yangtzse River in China.

1589 Dinner party conversation

Dr. Sanity comments on dinner party conversation, one you could hear in any university town, I suppose, even this one.

"At a dinner party this weekend I listened to a German professor who was talking about the arrogant United States and how they were "failing" in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost all of the people at the party nodded sagely, agreeing with his assessment of their country (this is Ann Arbor, after all).

"Yes, yes it is a complete disaster," said an American professor. "Look at all the Iraqis dying because we are there.

"Bush is a moron," said another, as they all tripped over each other to agree that their country was arrogant; stupid; and evil.

One woman's statement also betrayed the underlying attitude that America was consistently in the wrong. She said to the German Professor and said, "Just remember that 49% of Americans agree with 99% of the rest of the world."

I'm sure she would agree that Bali brought these horrible murders upon themselves. That their foreign policy decisions in supporting Israel and America in Iraq and Afghanistan....oh wait. They didn't, did they? They are a predominantly Muslim country, aren't they?

Well, I'm almost certain that the policies of George Bush are behind the senseless and horrific murders of those innocent people in Bali. Aren't you?"