Merry Christmas

Photo by Matt Carbone used with permission, mcarbone@aiacolumbus.org
This lovely photo of Matt Carbone's black lab, Mr. Cooper, will remain at the top through December 25. Scroll down for current entries.

'Twas the day before Christmas
and all through our house
all of us were bustling
even my spouse.

Our children are adults now,
happy and busy
with final shopping, all
in a tizzy.

With potatoes and cole slaw,
cranberries, pork roast,
apple bacon stuffing,
dinner we'll host.

Silent Night, Joy to the World
the carols we'll sing
9 p.m. service to
Jesus our king.

I ponder all my blessings,
read each Christmas card,
and thank the good Lord as
I pray so hard

for all my loved ones who will
gather around our tree,
in two thousand and eight
happy will be.

Second day of Winter

It is black as pitch at 7 a.m. in central Indiana this time of winter! We left our hosts still snuggled in bed (they leave for Florida tomorrow) and made our way down a windy 38 on to Mt. Comfort Road and the Rt. 70 exit.

"Oh, look at the lovely RVs," I sighed, as the bright lot lights lit the whole exit with the fancy paint designs of a huge RV sales lot. "Maybe we should spend $80-$100,000 and just take off across the country visiting little RV parks."

"If you're ever a widow, ask your next husband," he said, and a strong tail wind pushed our little mini-van home by 10.

A sober diet

Although I said I wouldn't browse when I returned my books to the library, I lied. Poor Richard's Almanack [Ben Franklin], December 1742, had this to say about eating a sober diet:

"A sober Diet makes a Man die without Pain;

it maintains the Senses in Vigour;

it mitigates the Violence of the Passions and Affections.

It preserves the Memory,

it helps the Understanding,

it allays the Heat of Lust;

it brings a Man to a Consideration of his latter End;

it makes the Body a fit Tabernacle for the Lord to dwell in;

which makes us happy in the World,

and eternally happy in the World to come,

through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour."

Today's 10 Tasks

1) Return 3 volumes to the OSU library on Ackerman Rd. DO NOT STOP TO BROWSE!!!

2) Pick up the dry cleaning.

3) Make dessert to take to Indiana.

4) Walk at least a mile. It's NOT cold.

5) Read my health care plan.

6) Open up the box with the new computer and read the instructions.

7) Clean my desk top.

8) Let everyone know the Monday-Tuesday schedule and check supplies for dinner.

9) Type VAM minutes.

10)Go out for dinner with friends and swap Ireland stories (they've been there many times).

Huckabee's Merry Christmas

The hysteria about Huckabee's "Merry Christmas" ad is amusing--is it political (yes), is it about Jesus (yes), are there cross shapes in bookshelves, venetian blinds, floor tiles, building plans and airplane wing spans (yes), does the birth of Jesus Christ come before his death on the cross (yes), are there pagan, non-Christian elements in the ad, such as a yule tree (yes), do other religions have celebrations that involve light (yes), is Huckabee wearing a red sweater which could possibly symbolize his party, his faith, or the Christmas season (yes), is he a former Baptist minister (yes), is he a candidate for President of the United States (yes), is the U.S. a nation where the majority of the citizens report being Christians (yes), are the media looking for reasons to bring him down (yes), do the media and the entertainment industry regularly look for ways to demean Christians and their faith (yes), is this controversy a way to sneak the word "Christmas" back into the winter holiday (yes)?

Thursday Thirteen--13 Employment Strategies

Although I'm retired, there was a time in my life 25 years ago when I worked in the employment field. Yes, I was unemployed, couldn't find a job in my own field (libraries), so I went to work for the state government of Ohio, using federal funds (JTPA), helping other laid off or unemployed people find jobs. A sweet deal for me, although my colleagues and I in the program may be the only unemployed people who actually benefited. I loved my co-workers and the tasks--I did research, wrote publications, put on workshops, travelled, wrote speeches for bureaucrats, learned a lot about government, and was on a steep learning curve, something that has always been the joy of working in libraries. Your tax dollars and mine hard at work.

So when I saw this in today's Wall St. Journal in Sue Shellenbarger's column, I just couldn't resist. A recent graduate with an MA in Art History can't find a job in the Memphis art community. I immediately attacked the problem with my own on-the-job training of 25 years ago, plus my 23 years in the library field, and 18 years of hands-on parenting skills dumping loads of unheeded advice on my own 2 children.

1. Although it's too late now, don't pursue a degree in art history. And you certainly shouldn't have gone on for a master's. Do your parents have a money tree in the back yard? This degree is for rich kids who just want to say they went to college or average income, scholarship students who get bumped from their first choice when it's time to declare a major. This field employs no one except the faculty who teach it.

2. Move away from Memphis. If there ARE any jobs in art history, you have to go where the jobs are. They don't come to you. This also applies to librarians, lawyers and linguists. Just don't come to Columbus. We have a terrific art college here (CCAD), plus OSU, Franklin, Otterbein, Capital, and Columbus State, and their graduates are looking for work, too.

3. Whatever computer classes or skills you have now, get more. If you're lucky, the left and right sides of your brain are on speaking terms. If they're not, get used to hating this aspect of your career because it isn't going away. Deal with it. No one said life is fair.

4. Spend 40 hours a week looking for a job. That was the primary take-away I learned from my own JTPA contract in the employment field. Your job today is getting a job. If you can't bear the thought of one more interview or sending out one more resume, you're sunk. (Keep in mind, however, that most people get jobs through people they know who know people. So make part of that 40 hours telling everyone you know that you're looking.)

5. Research each place you apply to, and that includes the "culture," especially (if you're female) what they wear to work. Sounds trivial, but if you show up looking like a bank executive and the boss is in a t-shirt and ball cap, you won't put on your best performance, even though he probably won't notice your outfit. Green or purple hair and tongue studs almost never work on an interview. Drool is so tacky. Wouldn't hurt to know what they do to please their board of directors and donors, either.

The next suggestions are from the WSJ column, but I have to tell you, if these worked, no one would be getting the tougher degrees, they'd all have art history degrees. Shellenbarger suggests expanding the job search into these fields--

6. marketing and advertising
7. design
8. photography
9. web-site architecture

(these are all art related, but look what CCAD expects of high school graduates to have in their portfolio)

10. publishing
11. teaching
12. writing

and then

13. hiring a job coach to work on your interviewing skills.

Pork Cracklings

Whether you call them scrunchions, scratchings or cracklings, they are fried, salty, fatty bits of pig skin. And Congress loves its pork.

"President Bush signed into law historic energy legislation Wednesday that will shape U.S. energy policy for decades to come. The law seeks to dramatically reduce U.S. energy consumption over the next 25 years by applying the AIA's 2030 carbon-reducing targets to federal buildings, increasing fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, and establishing new energy efficiency standards for appliances." AIA Angle Dec. 19, 2007

Not much new here. Move along.

Emergent or emerging, we were doing this EC stuff 35 years ago at another church--before we were believers. We sat in the dark, stared at candles, listened to strange music with no theology, and talked churchy-talk and psycho-babble. Nothing or little about Jesus. Just churchiness. Community. Feel-good service. Relevancy to the culture. I'm really surprised that young Christians (although their Pied Pipers aren't all that young--aging boomers) are falling for this. PBS seems to get it better than some evangelical pastors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZ14Sk9u9Y

Oldie but goodie

This has been around the net many times, but it popped up in my e-mail this morning, sent by a friend of my husband from his high school years. I got a chuckle, maybe you will too.

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below.

She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degree s, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."

The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

Can WSJ writers find a real victim?

I've complained here many times about the "news" stories in the Wall St. Journal, WaPo, and NYT. Most of the "social concern" stories belong on the editorial page, except that's what intelligent, well educated people read. But the one on Dec. 6 in the WSJ titled "House of cards; how the subprime mess hit poor immigrant groups" written by Jonathan Karp and Miriam Jordan really takes the cake for biased, bad reporting. What school graduated these incompetents? We really do have a subprime mess--but using one woman, Naira Costa, to make a blanket statement about immigrants, and she an illegal immigrant who used someone else's credit card to inflate her credit score, gets a home loan for $713,000 (on a cleaning job salary of $2,000/mo), never made a payment, and she's suing the broker? Oh PULEEZE! Just for good measure, they throw in her Pentecostal church as one of the bad guys, and in today's WSJ reader section, the pastor says she wasn't a member and besides he has no control over what members do. Karp and Jordan must have really been trolling the dregs to find this story.

I'm a Mandarin!

You're an intellectual, and you've worked hard to get where you are now. You're a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world's problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you're determined to try.

Talent: 49%
Lifer: 38%
Mandarin: 54%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

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Bad dreams

We rarely see Law and Order in a current season, so we didn't see the 2005-2006 season finale until last night. It was really awful. I left the room and went to bed it was so brutal and vicious. Checking the show blogs and story lines this morning, I see that in April, 2006, Annie Parisse, who was playing Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Borgia, gave her notice because it looked like the show wasn't going to be renewed--or possibly, she was just tired after 34 episodes of the dumb lines and ugly clothes they always write for the ADA who does all the grunt work for McCoy, no matter who plays the part--Jill Hennessey, Angie Harmon, Carey Lowell or Elizabeth Rohm. Like a lot of series where women play the second banana, they are expected to look good if they peel. I never thought Elizabeth Rohm (the ADA before Parisse) was a very good actress, but she was stunning. I'm sure it was a surprise to her in her final episode to discover she was a lesbian--sure was to me. Smack her around a bit, Mr. Wolf; make sure the audience will always remember that just in case anyone casts her in a romantic lead. Sam Waterston and Jerry Orbach aren't pretty guys, how come they don't have beauty standards for men?

Annie Parisse (whose brother married Sam Waterston's daughter, according to Wikipedia) is not just brutally and graphically murdered in the final 2006 episode, but is found in a dumpster, not unlike the usual opening scene, mouth duct taped, having aspirated her own vomit and with her face bashed in. I hope they used a mannequin, because if it had been me, I would have refused that scene. Man, they were really mad at her!

I think it is time for Law and Order, all versions, to close up shop. Women, conservatives, anyone religious but especially Christians, and all honest and ethical law enforcement personnel should change channels; those are the folks either ridiculed, besmirched or written off as evil. No more reruns for me.

Everybody knows

that diets aren't the answer; that it's a lifestyle. Or do they? I was reading through the comments at a blog the other day. Both the blog writer and reader were commenting on their own obesity. The reader said she had successfully lost 60 pounds, kept it off for six years, been a counselor in a commercial weight loss program, and then gradually all the weight returned as she realized that without spending all her day thinking about what she would eat, there was no way she could maintain her weight.

And the thought occurred to me that most people of "normal" weight probably do just that--think about what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat, and how the calories will be expended if overeating does occur. I do. So do others who are not overweight. I just finished breakfast (fruit and walnuts); I'm already thinking about lunch (4 or 5 vegetables). In fact, my husband is the only person I know who seems to have built-in signals that keep him from over eating, but if he does decide he's "packed on" 5 lbs., he stops eating crackers and peanut butter in the evening, and in a few weeks, he's back to normal (ca. 155 lbs.)

My great-grandmother Nancy (1833-1892) had nine children, as did her mother-in-law Elizabeth (1791-1878), who lived with her after her husband's death. You don't think these ladies spent most of their day figuring out how to bake enough bread or slaughter and stew enough chickens to feed a bunch like that? This is nothing new for women--what's new is abundance instead of scarcity, choices instead of physical labor, and we haven't learned the new game plan.

We went out to eat Friday night with friends we've known (but not well) for about 30 years. She's thin and toned. She's probably in her early 70s, but has looked this way to me since her 40s. For dinner she ordered a turkey wrap and a salad. She took half the wrap order home. The next day she was going to be biking 20 miles to have breakfast with friends. The temperatures here were about 30 degrees, and it was windy. She's also a swimmer. We then went to their home where she served a wonderful warm pumpkin tart made with Splenda topped with sugar-free Cool-Whip. You don't think she plans, computes and calculates everything that goes in her mouth and how many calories are burned in biking and swimming?

Oddies, Endies, and Undies

Yesterday I noted that my husband squeaked through on registration to tour the new Dublin Methodist Hospital to get 3 credit hours in health, safety and welfare for his continuing education requirements. At supper last night (homemade pizza) he couldn't stop raving about the design, creativity and planned well-being for patients. So it is definitely a winner, all around. You folks who live in Dublin and surrounding areas are going to have one super community hospital.


As I was settling in for a nap (one of my favorite events of the day) about 2 p.m. I heard a loud crash. I was a bit groggy, but realized the roof was not above me--the master bedroom is there. So I walked upstairs carefully, thinking perhaps a mirror or painting had fallen. When I got to the master bath, I saw that all the marble trim tile had fallen off the edge of the vanity. If anyone had been standing there in bare feet, he would have had a broken toe. I walked downstairs and told my husband (he uses that bathroom), and he said he wasn't surprised, that it was noted in the inspection in 2001 when we bought the condo, but hadn't been fixed.

So I settled in again for my nap. The phone rang and my husband picked it up from the kitchen. I opened an eye and looked at the TV screen. A name and phone number appeared. The conversation was with the buyer of one of the condos that has been for sale for a year. My husband is president of the association, and this purchase has involved many meetings of the board. When he hung up he said the purchase was final. I asked the buyer's name, but he couldn't remember. Was it--and I mentioned the name that had appeared on our TV screen, and he said Yes. Now that's weird. We assume it is something in her phone, because to our knowledge, this has never happened before. Has this ever happened to you?

A nap was definitely out of the question after two interruptions, so I decided to go Christmas shopping. I had four cards from Macy's. Two for $15 off a $50 purchase, and two for $25 off a $100 purchase. The problem was Macy's was also having a one day sale--something like "take another 20% off the already 50% markdown." I'm math challenged. So when I got my carefully totalled gifts (in my head) to the head of the check out line (waited 10 minutes), they only came to $82. So I'm refiguring what we'd agreed on, and go back and pick up an item that was $18 (although the $9 would have done just as well). See, that's how they trap you. In my head, I'm deducting the $25 off my son's gift, so it evens out with my daughter's and son-in-law's, but the receipt shaves each item--and actually totals $26 and not $25. I'll stick with my head on this.

I still have two cards left, so I browse the ladies lingerie department--not for a gift, but for me. My favorite brand of undies (which always seems to be on sale) has a buy 3 get one free (ca. $18), although because of the sale, I have no idea what it will be when I get to the register. So I go down stairs and look at shoes to see if there's something in 8.5 AA, and I select 2 Naturalizers and take them to the desk (no one comes to you these days). You would have thought I'd asked for the moon. "We have no narrow sizes in any style," she sniffed (She was quite large, and I think that's why narrow sizes are disappearing). You see, I thought if I bought a pair of shoes I didn't really need, I'd get the panties I didn't really need almost for "free." Saved from consumer hell by a shoe width.

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 37. What is your score? Get it here.

That was close!

As an architect, my husband needs a certain number of continuing education credits each year to keep his license, and he has plenty, but was .5 short in one category--health, safety and welfare. One of the problems with finding anything out is that he doesn't use a computer, and all his newsletters have gone to e-format. So I'm the one who glances through them, and mentions things to him. (Like the architect his age who died when he fell off the ladder cleaning gutters.) But because he didn't know until 2 days ago about the 1/2 missing credit, I haven't really been paying attention. So yesterday I scanned the last few issues to see if we missed something, and at 4 p.m. an e-mail popped up about "only 4 spaces left." I thought maybe it was spam because I didn't recognize the sender's address, but I clicked on it. There it was: 3 credits for something today at 3 p.m., near-by, and inexpensive! I hollered downstairs, "I found something, but it's tomorrow!" I printed it off, he called, and the office was closed. So this morning about 9:15 he called--got an answering machine. She calls back in 5 minutes, and said she'd just had a cancellation (it was full). So he's in, and should have a good time previewing a new hospital in Dublin, Ohio.

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Books are such wonderful things

My mother wanted to be a librarian. She worked in the library at Mt. Morris College when she was a freshman there in 1930-1931 (the college had a disasterous fire in the spring and closed the next year). The Depression, then marriage and motherhood ended any career dreams, but she briefly worked as a clerk in the town library in the late 1950s. She was quiet, well organized, determined and tenacious; if anyone ever said a negative word about her, I never got wind of it. She drove to Rochelle to teach migrant workers to sew, held Bible studies in her home for years, ran a retreat center on her family's farm, and looked after innumerable relatives. For the most part to fulfill her dreams, she just read, researched and collected. We always received books or magazine subscriptions as gifts at Christmas from my mother and grandmother. Shortly before she died in 2000 she was still walking to the town library, which had become a public library while she was in college, and she had card #14. When she was in high school, she won an essay contest at the Dixon, Illinois public library, the nearest library to their farm. I think this was written when she was 15 or 16 and was published in the paper, so I only have the clipping and not the date.

Books are such wonderful things
There is one place, above all others, that holds a fascination that is not to be dimmed by frequent explorations. That place is a library. Rows on rows of books reaching to the ceiling. Some are nicely bound, clean and little used; others are shabby, worn out by loving an d unloving hands. They are there waiting for me, quiet and orderly from the outside, as they rest in neat lines on the shelf. Inside of the multi-colored covers is action, teeming life, successes and failures, tragedy and comedy.

To prepare for a trip is a different task, especially if it would be a journey that would reach around the world, turn back the centuries and allow me to live with the world from the earliest time to the present day. Such a journey is, of course, impossible, although extremely pleasant to dream of taking; time has never been known to stop or turn back. Out of the years has come something better for men. People of all times have written or recorded their thoughts on stone, parchment and paper. Only the best is left to us, and we may have a microscopic, yet comprehensive view of the world.

Only a slight motion of the hand is necessary and the cover of a book is opened; a kingdom waiting to be explored. Perhaps in this lies some of the wonder of a book. One need not leave the room to enjoy adventure or learn what is going on in other countries. What has happened hundreds of years ago is as close at hand as the present day. We may know more about Mary, Queen of Scots, than the “first lady of the land.”

A book is for relaxation of tired minds and bodies, inspiration through the actions of some ancient hero of mighty deeds. It has the power to lift the reader from surroundings that are familiar to places of dazzling splendor or trouble or squalor. A book will take you farther and faster than Mercury’s wings.

One summer day I sat down to read. The air was heavy with heat; only by reading could I forget the uncomfortable weather. My book was an Alaskan story. I climbed snowy mountains and crossed bleak valleys with the lone traveler. As the story proceeded, the traveler crossed a supposedly frozen lake but disaster came upon him. The ice was thin and gave way. I sailed through the icy waters with no hope of rescue, with the unfortunate man. It was terrible for life to end this way--no friends to weep, just lost. I shivered as the awful desolation of the north held me in its power. With a dry throat and my heart pounding wildly I stopped at the end of the chapter to find myself shaking with cold under the rays of a scorching sun.

A book is so wonderful, if it is truth from the author’s heart. It can do more than dazzle the brain with facts and fancies. It will reveal the vision of life as the author sees it. It may be ugly or it might be beautiful, joyous; it might be merely silly. Through the thoughts of his characters will run his own thoughts, their actions, what he himself might have done. Their philosophy of life is his, though it may not appear so on the surface. The author cannot keep himself hidden no matter how he tries.

Through the ages, men have attempted to tell realistically of the actions and lives of others. No matter how they failed or succeeded, they left a true picture of themselves--an example of the real feelings of that time more exact than any attempted story. That is why books are such wonderful things.

Monday Memories--A special Christmas

Christmas is a time to bring out the memories, isn‘t it? This one is quite fresh--last night, in fact. It is so easy to let special times slip by without mention--we think we'll always remember. That’s why a diary (this blog) is so useful when the memory track becomes so jumbled, scratchy and full--and a thesaurus might help too, because some superlatives can be overused.

Our couples group from church, called SALT (Serving and Learning Together), met for dinner at members’ lovely, traditional home in south Arlington. Treasures collected over many years of marriage--through lean and plenty--decorated every room. Nothing splashy or over done, but lovingly displayed each year--a framed needlepoint, tiny ceramic Santa Claus, an angel. Each one precious with stories to tell. Our hostess provided a delicious pork loin, and the other couples brought appetizers, salad, potatoes and dessert. Every morsel was prepared lovingly and to perfection--the wonderful smells wafted throughout the house. However, it was the Christian fellowship that made the night so special. The five couples sat around the dining room table, beautifully set with seasonal treasures, with just the right touches of holiday greens and red candles, china, silver angel napkin rings and goblets.

After catching up on our activities since we last met in November, the talk easily flowed to Christmases past and what was special “in the old days.” Many of us had parents born in the early years of the 20th century (my parents were born in 1912 and 1913, as were those of several others), and we told what modest celebrations they had--perhaps an apple or an orange, a plate of cookies or a new outfit. In the case of my mother, nothing, because Christmas wasn’t observed in her family when she was small except to go to church. Then we moved along the years to our own childhood Christmases, then our children’s, and now the grandchildren’s--with the bag of gifts growing with each year. It’s probably our age, but we all seemed a bit nostalgic for a time when we had less! There were funny stories, too--one man told of carefully slitting the wrapping, peeking inside the boxes, and then meticulously rewrapping the presents; another recounted the time his little brother unwrapped all the beautiful presents their mother had so artistically wrapped and placed under the tree--the day before Christmas. One woman told of an uncle who would come by with sleigh bells, circle the house, jingling them outside while the children were in bed (but still awake), banging on down spouts if someone had already fallen asleep. Was it the laughter, the candles, the sharing--but something felt like a warm cozy blanket in that room.

Then we moved to the living room to sing carols--our hosts have a gorgeous piano and a room that complements it in color and size. One of our members is an accomplished pianist and church musician. I love to watch her play--the graceful hands, the studied, far away look on her face, so I stood by the piano (Oh, it was beautiful!). We shared more stories and then prayer concerns. I’ve been in many groups over the years, but this one seems the most spiritually mature, the most dependent on God for strength and comfort through prayer and service.

I was opposite the tree. The lights in the room were dim--or seemed that way--and as the evening progressed, the tree appeared to glow. The lights reflected against the silvery roped strands, sending reflected light from the ornaments into the room. I’ve seen hundreds of Christmas trees in my life, but on this special night with friends, celebrating the first advent of our Lord, this tree was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. About 9 p.m. we held hands and prayed, then moved out into the starry, crisp night. Yes, a wonderful Christmas memory to pack away and treasure.

Maybe there’s a volcano or other hotspots?

Scientists have discovered what they think may be another reason why Greenland's ice is melting: a thin spot in Earth's crust is enabling underground magma to heat the ice. They have found at least one “hotspot” in the northeast corner of Greenland - just below a site where an ice stream was recently discovered. The researchers don't yet know how warm the hotspot is. But if it is warm enough to melt the ice above it even a little, it could be lubricating the base of the ice sheet and enabling the ice to slide more rapidly out to sea. “The behavior of the great ice sheets is an important barometer of global climate change,” said Ralph von Frese, leader of the project and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. Read the news release at Ohio State University Research