On John McCain

John McCain was an adoptive parent. He adopted his first wife's sons, and he and his second wife adopted, Bridget from a Catholic orphanage in Bangladesh. She needed facial surgery and had deformed feet and hands. She would have had a very grim life, or could have starved,  if not rescued by the love of this family. And Bridget did her part for the McCains, too. Her health problems caused them to become involved in charities that help the poor and medically fragile. When Cindy brought Bridget back from Mother Teresa’s orphanage she also brought to the U.S.  a 2nd girl who also needed medical care.  That girl was adopted by one of McCain’s aides.

https://heavy.com/news/2018/09/bridget-mccain-john-daughter-adopted-cleft/

Photo from 2008 campaign when Bridget was 17.

The need for affordable housing in Columbus, Ohio

I just read yet another article in Columbus Business First “Stop being scared of people who need affordable housing”  on the need for low income housing in Columbus—this time to satisfy the need for workers by Columbus businesses and those businesses which might relocate here if there was a solid pool of workers. AFFORDABLE in government housing speak means money has been transferred from tax-payer abc to entitlement receiver xyz, but many in that chain are not poor--they are staffers in government backed programs and agencies (like HUD, USDA, HDAP, OHFA COHHIO) earning good salaries, with excellent benefits and job security, which is why the programs must be continuously expanded.  I looked through the list of agencies, non-profits and city employees who attended the meeting.  Then I looked back through my blog to 2008, when I’d written on this topic. Ten years ago the plea was that good housing transforms lives. And I said:

“Housing doesn’t change lives. Marriage does. Parenthood does. Faith in God does. Employment does. Education can. Art and music can. Pets might. Leisure activities don't. Substance abuse will definitely change your life downward. But not housing. Ask any landlord who turned the keys over to a careless, slovenly tenant. Housing doesn’t create safe neighborhoods; it doesn’t get transportation issues funded; it doesn’t improve health; it doesn’t pass bond issues. In partnership with the private sector, this kind of housing for low income people creates jobs and profits for the construction companies.”

Our first home was a duplex, purchased for $14,000 in 1962.  Our renters paid the mortgage, we borrowed from my father the down payment.  Then in 1964 we bought a second house in a better neighborhood and rented both units.  That paid for both houses and a car payment. If we hadn’t bought that first run-down, sweat equity duplex in a neighborhood on the way down, we wouldn’t be where we are today.  But being a landlord was the pits.  I wouldn’t wish it on any couple in their early 20s.  

My parents’ first home was a small, two bedroom with a down payment from my father’s grandmother.  My parents and the babies slept in one bedroom and 2 men rented the other bedroom, and also boarded there. I think one of my aunts slept on the living room couch.   But with 4 children, they sold it and bought a larger 2 bedroom one street over (3 girls in one bedroom and my baby brother in my parents’ room) and didn’t need boarders to pay the mortgage.  No grants, subsidies, tax credits, just a loan from a family member and a mortgage based only the husband’s income (even in the early 60s, a wife’s income wasn’t taken into consideration on what a mortgage applicant could afford).

According to my 2008 blog entry, The Columbus Housing Partnership (dba Homeport) was 20 years old then and had  developed over 4,000 affordable homes which had served over 23,000 people.  So CHP is now 30 years old—should there be any lack of affordable housing in Columbus?  When the original owners 30 years ago, moved out and up, shouldn’t new home owners have taken their place? The original owners would now be grandparents able to help out family members, right?  Other agencies mentioned in the Business First article were Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio (which was founded in 1974),  Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus and Franklin County, and Columbus Department of Development.

I’ve seen real estate ads for Columbus that are definitely affordable, and closer to public transportation than planting a development in the suburbs, but they are all in neighborhoods that need good city support—police, fire, schools, small shopping areas, decent utilities, etc. and none will qualify for various fancy loan vehicles.  I think they are looking in all the wrong places for affordable housing.

A friend accused Trump of showing tendencies to be a dictator. My response

Can you be specific?

He doesn’t even have control of the Executive Branch, over which he’s supposed to reign!

• Supreme Court appointees who will follow the constitution and not their feelings about social justice? 
• Cutting the red tape of long standing regulations that frees companies from the oversight and boot of Big Gov?
• Attempting to undo Obama’s Executive Orders, which is his legal right, and to have a low court stop him?
• Commending the ICE employees, and all law enforcement?
• Attempts to stop voter fraud (again, he’s been stopped by the courts)? 
• Proposing defunding sanctuary cities who won’t follow federal law?
• Taking away security clearances of employees who’ve gone to work for the media?
• Urging the building the wall that was voted on a decade before he became president? 
• Pulling out of a climate change agreement that was never a treaty and never approved by Congress? 
• Calling out the negative stories about him that appear daily/hourly at WaPo, NYT, LAT, VOX, HuffPo, Politico, Daily Beast, etc.?
• Eliminating the mandate to purchase an insurance product that destroyed the coverage for millions and lined the pockets of insurance companies? 
• Criticizing the millionaire NFL players for their phony protest against the police after sore loser Kaeppernick was radicalized by his girlfriend? 
• Being unfaithful to 3 wives? (which would point to many presidents, CEOs, faculty and administrators of universities, muffler repairmen and mountain climbers).
• Saying mean, uncouth things about McCain, Megan Kelly and Rosy O’Donnell?
• Resetting the clock for NAFTA, treaties or tariffs?
• Expecting loyalty from his friends and people who worked for him? 
• Bringing North and South Korea together for the first time since the end of hostilities in the 50s?
• Bringing home misbehaving basketball players, jailed pastors, and Korean American tourists? 
• For criticizing DACA, an illegal executive order by Obama after he assured the nation immigration was the responsibility of Congress?
• For complaining on Twitter that Obama had spied on him, and being right, and Clintons’ lawyer and Weinstein’s lawyer (now Cohen’s lawyer) Lanny Davis was the source of the leaks to CNN which Davis now had to walk back as inaccurate, aka lies?
• For supporting the military?
• For suggesting a space branch?
• For becoming excited about a military parade?
• For the GDP increase to 4.1% second quarter of 2018?
• Working to bring companies back to the USA after the last president assured us those days were gone?
• Criticizing chain migration?
• Moving the embassy in Israel as all other presidents promised but didn’t do?
• Getting a black woman pardoned from an unfair sentence?
• Medical choices for veterans?

This is just off the top of my head, but nothing sounds like a dictator (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez, Castro, Maduro, or even powerful crony capitalists like Zuckerberg and Bezos who control their people with threats of firing if they aren’t politically correct). If anything, the media, the courts, the entertainment industry, academe, lifetime employees of the federal government, departments within the Executive branch like CIA, FBI, DoJ, and the Trump haters in both parties have worked overtime to undo the election of 2016.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a published book listing his faults day by day as reported in the media every day since he took office.  I don’t know how many copies have been sold, but I saw it in a book store that did not have a single pro-Trump, pro-conservative, or even middle of the road title on the shelves.

How to read the new nutrition label

This is the final week of programming at Lakeside, and the director of education uses our own Lakeside "experts" who present fine programming. Yesterday was Wendy Stuhldreher a retired professor of nutrition and public health explaining the new labeling for food (she used a one page FDA graphic issued Jan. 2018 which I've been unable to find). My take away was, "just eat your vegetables." She said it many times, especially at Q & A. Her point was that although vegetables may not be high in protein or calcium, they perform with other nutrients as an orchestra, and all play their part.

She also stressed that vegetarians must find compensatory nutrition because they don't eat red meat. The audience was definitely in the osteoporosis/bone loss age group, so she also stressed calcium, but added that it was an investment we needed to make when we were young because the body starts making withdrawals from the bank of our bones by middle age. For a cheese good for protein and calcium, she recommended cottage cheese.

My mother's generation started that 2% and 1% milk trend (she was 5'1" and always watched her weight), and now my generation is probably low on the calcium reserves that needed the fat content for our bones. I think I continued with the 1% and skim until a few years ago.  Don't give young children skim milk as a replacement for whole.

When I first decided to attend Wendy’s lecture, I thought I knew how to read a label, but there have been significant changes, and we found out why, like Vit. D is now listed, but Vit. A & C have been removed because deficiencies in those are rare. Sugar is sugar on the new label. Fat is fat, and "calories from fat" has been removed. Potassium need has been added. (You can't get enough by eating a banana, which most of the audience believed).

The public health concern about sun damage and advertising about sunscreen has been so successful, we now don't get enough Vit. D and today's children don't play outside as much as the boomers and Gen-Xers. She gave the new thinking on sodium/salt--because more of us are eating out, we're not eating as many vegetables--and it's not the sodium, it's the lack of vegetables.  One woman (very thin) in the audience commented about addiction to sugar, and Wendy said that has not been proven and commented on the difficulty of using control groups for nutrition studies.  But one she did recall concluded sugar was less harmful than other sweeteners.

I know how we all love to read those organic and health food websites, but when doing an initial search, I add USDA or FDA to check the research, aka bibliography/footnotes.

Why would we change the Ohio Constitution to improve drug sentencing and treatment?

The 2018 Ohio Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment is a ballot initiative aiming to change Ohio’s constitution to achieve four goals:

(1) change drug possession felonies to misdemeanors,

(2) prohibit prison sentences for technical probation violations,

(3) expand the ability to earn up to 25% off a prison sentence through rehabilitative programming, and

(4) redirect funds saved from reduced incarceration to drug treatment and victims’ services.

Although it is easier to amend a state constitution than the federal, this definitely sounds like something that should be done by legislation and the court system, not by changing the constitution, especially the part that goes around prison sentencing, and part 3 about reducing the sentence with rehab programing. What an invitation for a cottage industry of poorly thought out programs, millions in grant money to be frittered away.

I attended the programming this summer at Lakeside (and read Quinones’ book, Dreamland: True Tale of America’s Opioid Epidemic) on the drug problems in Ohio. In the 70s and 80s we were active in a prison reform group and a teen rehabilitation program. I can see nothing in this proposed amendment that actually speaks to the problem of improper sentencing, nor which will reduce or redirect funding or reduce deaths.

https://ballotpedia.org/Amending_state_constitutions

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/constitution-amend-with-care.aspx

https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/documents/reference/current/guidebook/chapter1.pdf

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/08/23/proposed-ohio-constitutional-amendment-backed-by-facebook-founders-would-reform-sentencing-for-nonviolent-low-level-drug-offenders

I stepped on the scale today

It's adding up. Patio donuts—cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla are my favs; peanut butter on toast; cheese on crackers; honey on biscuits; fried potatoes, eggs and sausage for the breakfast special after Sunday services; the pie lady at the Farmer's Market; bowls of ice cream on the porch with friends; hosting a block party; going to the CIC club for brunch with John and Katie; invites to Arlene and Roger’s peach cobbler. Over my adult life I've lost about 130 pounds beginning in college, but usually 20 pounds here and there (1960, 1983, 1986, 1993, 2006, 2015). And the last time, 2015, it was 30 lbs.! and it's time to suck it up, pull it in, and stop having so much fun.

President Drake of OSU needs to step up

“According to the 23-page report, (see page 17, Section IV, B4, B5) Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith were not negligent in the overriding element of the origin of the investigation. The report also included Meyer telling Smith in October, 2015: “If you hit her, you are gone.” Gene Smith also told the assistant coach he would be fired if charges were fired.

Subsequently, Meyer and Gene Smith were suspended for reasons pertaining to their monitoring and discipline related to Zach Smith and for relying solely on the Powell Police department’s conclusions that domestic violence could not be proven in the first place. As Gene Smith’s lawyer, Rex Elliott, stated Thursday night, Gene Smith constantly communicated with the school’s Title IX compliance officer about the alleged 2015 incident and ordered the OSU police to monitor the Powell police investigation. He concluded that his client and Meyer were suspended solely “to appease the lynch mob.”

To cut to the chase, the six-panel report concluded, Zach Smith either never should have been hired in the first place or fired much earlier than his July 23 termination.

But it had nothing to do with covering up alleged domestic violence (there were no charges).

It’s time for Drake to act and stop the bleeding.”

Jeff Snook, from his Facebook page

Looking for jewelry at sales

For years I've been looking for a black and white or just black necklace. I rarely wear jewelry. I discovered that coral, teal and off white are popular, but black went out a few years ago. So yesterday at the antique sale at Lakeside I browsed all the costume jewelry booths. I found one for $8.50 and one for $20, but didn't buy them. I went back in the afternoon after the rain thinking I'd buy the cheaper one, but of course it was gone. $20 was still available. So I moved on to the soggy (we'd had a real downpour) $1.00 box out on the lawn and found 2 for $1.00 each.

Porch stories at Lakeside 2018

There’s a 20 year old movement of communities and neighbors getting together to tell stories.  The book, The Moth, has become very popular and many communities are forming around the concept of the old time story telling as a social event.

“The storytelling phenomenon the Moth — with a Peabody Award-winning radio show on more than 450 stations around the world and a hugely popular podcast — is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The Moth was founded in 1997 by the writer George Dawes Green — its name comes from his memories of growing up in St. Simons Island, Ga., where neighbors would gather late at night on a friend’s porch to tell stories and drink bourbon as moths flew in through the broken screens and circled the porch light. It has since grown into what its artistic director, Catherine Burns, calls “a modern storytelling movement” that has inspired “tens of thousands of shows worldwide in places as diverse as Tajikistan, Antarctica, and Birmingham, Ala.” “ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/books/review-the-moth-presents-all-these-wonders.html

Last summer, a Lakesider, M.A., decided Lakeside needed a way to capture some of the flavor of this national movement.  The first meeting of Porch Stories which was planned for one of the large gracious porches of our little community was rained out, so we met at the Lakeside Women’s Club—and had practically standing room only! I believe there were three last summer and four this summer. M.A. has her rules—pithy, no more than 15 minutes, created a significant change in your life or beliefs and no questions from the audience to interrupt the flow.

On Monday, August 20, my husband was one of the story tellers, speaking to 115 friends and neighbors at the Lakeside Women’s Club.  Several days later I’m still being stopped on the street with comments and questions. He told about his first year of going to Haiti on a short term mission trip and how that changed his life. The next night, all the story tellers from 2017 and 2018 met for a reception so all could get to know each other.  It was an amazing gathering, and we caught up on three stories we’d missed while we were in Columbus one week this summer and had an opportunity to discuss the “rest of the story.”

Michael Smith, guest blogger, on truth, facts, conspiracy theories and bias in politics

Interesting isn't it? How many people:

- Who can't stand the conspiracy theories of Alex Jones but believe the Steele dossier is real.

- Refuse to believe that the Hillary Clinton campaign was not connected to Russian "interference" when there is clear evidence they paid the law firm Perkins Coie to pay Fusion GPS who paid Christopher Steele.

- Believe Donald Trump committed campaign finance crimes, yet Hillary Clinton did not.

- Continue to insist that illegal aliens commit less crime than legal immigrants and citizens:

1) when every single illegal immigrant has already committed one misdemeanor if they have crossed the border once and a felony if they are repeat offenders, and

2) when illegal immigrants make up approximately 9% of the total population but 27% of the prison population.

- Believe if the Second Amendment was ignored and all guns were banned, there would be no more gun crime but don't accept that enforcing current immigration law to completely ban illegal immigration would end crime by illegal immigrants.

- Believe that one non-NRA member committing a gun crime means all NRA members are responsible, but one Islamist committing a terrorist act does not mean all Muslims are responsible.

- Don't believe a border wall will be effective, but build fences around their property and lock their doors.

- Believe "toxic masculinity," misogyny, sexism and sexual violence against women are problems, but importing people from cultures where these aspects are common is not.

- Believe the real issue in the Mollie Tibbetts murder is not that the murderer was here illegally, it was that he was a male.

- Claim to oppose fascism and racism while engaging in fascist and racist acts.

- Believe for speech to be free, it must be restricted or banned (for certain people).

- Believe it is totally intellectually consistent to say private social media companies can choose their customers, but a private cake bakery cannot.

- Believe that a scandal is only a scandal if the New York Times, the Washington Post, or CNN says it is.

- Believe sexual harassment is always real and the accuser should always be believed without question as long as the accusations aren't against #metoo members - then it was consensual and the accuser is a liar.

Of course, these are prominent features of our hypocritical progressive friends. For them, cognitive dissonance is a feature, not a bug.

None of this - not a single damn instance - is about the referenced situation - it is all about the political position of the person and how best to protect that political position. It's making up rules and crap "facts" as they go along just to keep their agenda alive and moving.

Guest blogger David on the Urban Meyer/Zack Smith domestic violence case

For non-Columbus, non-OSU Buckeyes catch up—the well-loved football coach Urban Meyer was suspended for not stepping into the marital mess of one of his coaches, who also happened to be the grandson of Earle Bruce, another football icon in our community. Gene Smith is the athletic director.

---------------------------------------------

The last thing I’m going to say. . .

1) If you haven't ever dealt with a sexual harassment/abuse case, don't be tempted to repeat the opinions of others who haven't, either. Unfortunately, I have had to deal with several over the years.

2) If you did have to deal with one, did you investigate it yourself? If you did, you're an idiot--that is unless you were trained and designated by the organization you worked for to do so. It is highly unlikely that conducting such investigations falls within the scope of either Urban Meyer or Gene Smith's job duties. They are required to report such incidents and then let the designated investigators handle it (I am assuming, If not, Ohio State is even more mismanaged than I thought).

3) If you are an investigator, were you able to question the victim if he/she wasn't an employee or, in the case of schools, a student of your organization? Unless you are in law enforcement, the answer is probably no. In my situation, having worked in a state agency, I had no authority to question an employee's spouse, significant other, or whatever unless that person also worked for my agency. Now, the Highway Patrol, which was our investigating body, could do so. And I could use whatever information the Patrol obtained.

4) When there is a criminal investigation, many organizations also conduct their own parallel administrative investigations because an organization rule might have been violated. Sometimes you wait for the outcome of the criminal investigation, but you don't have to because the standard is lower. I don't know if Ohio State did that in the Courtney Smith case or not. From what I have read, she did not allow the police to move forward on her complaints. I hope they at least referred her to a local battered women's shelter.

5) As far as Zack Smith's conduct is concerned, there are suggestions that Urban should have known about his visit to a strip club, his sending a lewd photo on his cellphone, etc. It would be interesting to know what kind of procedures the athletic department has in place for reviewing expenditures (it seems to me they should have caught that and dealt with it right away). However, I don't know of any organizations which routinely review what an employee is using his/her cellphone for, even when the organization has issued it.

6) The very fact that most of the witnesses questioned believed that any action taken against Zack Smith was dependent upon the outcome of any criminal charges--and there weren't any criminal charges--tells me that Ohio State hasn't done a very good job of communicating its expectations in such matters. Whoever is responsible for disseminating such policies needs to go back to the drawing board.

-----------------------------

https://www.businessinsider.com/urban-meyer-zach-smith-domestic-violence-allegations-ohio-state-2018-8

https://sports.yahoo.com/timeline-urban-meyer-zach-smith-saga-ohio-state-230126856.html

Since there are media sources and sports figures who hate the Buckeyes almost as much as they hate President Trump, finding credible sources to link to is difficult.  Since Mrs. Smith didn’t bring charges, and it is rumored she often called the police, I’d say Meyer was not responsible to babysit his coach.

How to trace an e-mail address

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-trace-your-emails-back-to-the-source/

“The first thing you do when you hear that email notification is check the sender, right? It is the quickest way to figure out who the email is from, as well as the likely content.

But did you know each email comes with a lot more information than what appears in most email clients? There’s a host of information about the sender included in the email header—information you can use to trace the email back to the source.

Here’s how to trace . . .” And some very detailed instructions.

The NFL protests—a big yawn

The original NFL  protest by trouble maker Colin Kaeppernick (who has 3 white parents and a white Muslim girlfriend) was about police violence against blacks which is a myth perpetuated by liberals, media and those who don't read Bureau of Justice reports. And of course, he needed media attention because he's a sore loser with a bad record and had been cut. How it became a flag and patriotism issue, I think was simply a slap in the face to the fans who pay those ridiculous salaries to watch grown men be violent and run around.

Using rates instead of numbers, a white man committing a crime is much more likely to be stopped/shot by police than a black man. Why is homicide for blacks at arrest out of proportion to their population? The offending rate for blacks is 34.4 per 100,000 compared to 4.5 per 100,000 for whites, yet 42% killed by police are white. Based on that figure, it looks like whites are more likely to be killed by police while committing a crime than blacks. (Bureau of Justice. Arrest related deaths, 2003-2009. NCJ 235385) But when a white man is shot breaking into Jim Little's Cleveland home, no one cares except Jim. If a black man committed the same crime, all Cleveland and Ohio and the east coast and west cost media would be talking about it, ramping up the racism to get more votes for Democrats.

“We are still here” The French culture in Illinois and Missouri—Sunday’s program

Instead of meeting in Hoover Auditorium at 8:15, the Sunday evening program is at 6 p.m. in the Steele Memorial in Central Park along the lakefront.  This week the performer was Dennis Stroughmatt of Albion, Illinois et L’Esprit Creole with music and stories from an Illinois culture I’d never heard of—the French Midwest Creoles who lived in southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and southeastern Missouri.  Stroughmatt  has been researching and preserving the language and culture of these descendants of French speaking Canadians who emigrated to work in the mines for about 20 years.

https://france-amerique.com/en/fiddles-french-and-the-quest-to-save-a-forgotten-dialect/

https://france-amerique.com/en/la-resistance-des-dialectes-francais-aux-etats-unis/

“Illinois French stands halfway between Canadian French and Cajun French. You can hear influences from all the settlers who passed through the area — French from Brittany and Normandy, Irish, Germans, and Native Americans. “

The language is called Paw Paw, but today only 30-50 people speak the 300 years old language. Even 60+ years ago when I took Illinois history in school, I’d never heard of it. Similar dialects are spoken in northern Maine and in Louisiana.

Daddies and babies

I love seeing the daddies and grandpas pushing the baby strollers in the dawn's early light at Lakeside. Someone drew the short straw when the little one woke up. But yesterday about 7 a.m. as I nodded and spoke to the 30-something dad, I could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothing (he wasn't smoking--we're a smoke free community, even on the streets). I could still smell it a block away as I walked where they had just been. Think about the house and car! And the baby's lungs! And think about how that sweet baby learns to associate the smell of cigarettes with hugs, cuddles and daddy.

Joan and her sister Carol, blogging and Facebook friends,  were both school teachers before retirement, and have said, “When I taught school, I could tell which children had parents who smoke because the smell of smoke permeated the children’s clothes.”

So I decided to look it up—if I were concerned, surely someone has researched it.   And yes.  “ Children’s Hedonic Judgments of Cigarette Smoke Odor: Effects of Parental Smoking and Maternal Mood” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783765/

“We hypothesized that children of smokers would like the cigarette odor and prefer it relative to a neutral odor more than children of nonsmokers. Moreover, we hypothesized that children’s preference for cigarette odor would be attenuated if their mothers experienced cigarettes in a negative emotional context. . . . The current findings suggest that early learning about the sensory aspects of smoking is anchored to children’s experiences at home and the emotional context in which their mothers smoke. However, it is not clear how variation in the timing and amount of exposure to cigarette smoke during childhood affects the formation and persistence of such olfactory associations. If these odor associations persist throughout childhood into adolescence, our data may suggest that children who experience cigarette smoke in the context of a relaxed mother may have more positive associations with smoking, whereas those who experience the odor with a mother who smokes to reduce tension may have more negative associations. Whether such associations (either positive or negative) affect children’s risk for smoking initiation is not known. The long-term effects of early hedonic judgments about cigarette odor are important areas for future research.”

Meeting friends at our age

I don’t know about you, but finding new friendships at our age is difficult. Everyone is set in their social groups or busy with grandchildren.   Except at Lakeside.  Tonight we enjoyed for dinner the peach cobbler Arlene sent back with Bob when he went over to chat with Roger, who’s been on the mend from various ailments.  We met them about 3 years ago when they bought their cottage after being long time Lakeside renters.  Ironically, we discovered that in the summer of 1967 we lived on the same block in Upper Arlington. 

Also today, Bob decided he’d just grab a few leaves out of the gutters (while I was napping and couldn’t stop him) so he asked Tom to help him drag the ladder out from under the house, so Tom did, and just ran up the ladder and cleaned the leaves out himself!  Last Sunday our neighbors John and Katy Martin invited us for brunch at the CIC club with other neighbors Richard and Rosemary who are here for 6 weeks as renters across the street. 

Then this morning as we sat down at a table for 4 at the Patio restaurant we invited Jim and Margie Norris of Olmsted Falls (or New Olmstead) who were waiting in line to share out table.  Normally, we would have never met them because they have 6 children and 12 grandchildren, but had come for the week-end to see Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.  We had the best time, then ran into them again in the afternoon outside the coffee shop and down on the lakefront where they went to watch Bob helping with Kids’ Sail, a free program to help young children learn about sailing. It turned out they’d also stayed in the past at the Idlewyld B & B with our friends Dan and Joan Barris whom we’d met about 8 years ago.

Friday night we invited neighbors Ron and Mary Ann Janke over for ice cream and then went to the evening program, Mike Albert and the big E Band, an Elvis tribute program that’s been to Lakeside to perform over 12 times.  We’d met them about 3 years ago, and the guys are in the Guys’ Club, but Mary Ann and I sat together at a volunteer luncheon recently and got acquainted. Friday there was an open house for the cottage across the street which is for sale.  We ran into more neighbors and chatted for awhile (from NC).  Our neighbor Dorothy Crutchfield was widowed last year, so we had her over for dinner last night.  Although she and Cleo had purchased their cottage in 1974, she’d never been inside ours, although we’d often been at neighborhood events together and they were at out 50th 8 years ago.

Yes, it only lasts 10-11 weeks, but it’s casual and easy to sit on a porch or fall in step on the way to a program. In 2 weeks we’ll all say good-bye until the next summer.

What’s bad is good, and good is bad

Do you ever have the feeling that "science" isn't very scientific? Wine. Chocolate. Coffee. Butter. Fat. All the things we were taught were bad, and now they are good. And now variety which we were all taught was good, might not be?

https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/dietnutrition/74498

The blog about a miracle baby

Nick wrote this in July 2016, and I just took a look at this adorable baby’s photo at his FB page.

“Here's the real story, in case you've heard. For the last nine months, my wife, Brooklyn has been pregnant with a very sick baby boy. Three or four months ago, we learned that the baby had severe hydrocephalus. Back in the old days, hydrocephalus was called, "water on the brain"....too much brain fluid. Ultimately, we were referred to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, where we were told, by several of the most highly regarded fetal specialists in the country, that his condition was dire. The baby's condition was "off the charts bad". It was so extreme, that the specialists stopped measuring and monitoring his brain's fluid level because, at that point, it didn't really matter. The MRI's were sickening to look at. We were told, pointblank, that there was over a 90% chance that the baby would either die shortly after birth or have such severe cognitive impairments that any quality of life would be hard to imagine. We had a meeting with palliative care regarding the use of life sustaining measures, and had detailed, awful, and emotional discussions about the ethics of when we might need to remove or cease such measures - which would result in the baby "passing away peacefully".

Brooklyn relocated to Cincinnati and lived in a hotel close to the hospital - in case she went into labor. I commuted back and forth, while trying to work and take care of Sophie and Lily at home. On July 8th Brooklyn did, indeed, go into labor. Literally, 15 minutes before they wheeled her back to start the C-section, we had another meeting with doctors regarding the use of a breathing tube and at what point we might need to remove that tube and let the baby go to heaven. Guess what?. .the baby came out crying - which was the sweetest sound I have ever heard.

In a nutshell, Charlie Edward Schnarr, stayed in infant intensive care until yesterday - when we all came home. He's seems to be a normal, beautiful baby doing all the things that babies do. He has mild ventricular enlargement, but we can deal with that with checkups. How did this happen??... The doctors said, "we do not have and cannot come up with a medical explanation for what we've witnessed here". Some how, his brain found a way to naturally "clear" the blockage or re-route the fluid that was causing the oppressive "back-up" of brain fluid. During the last week, I heard the word "divine intervention" and "miracle" more times than I could count. Nurses with decades of experience, and esteemed, nationally admired doctors were flabbergasted but jubilant. Because of the "domino effect" of friends, family, clients, colleagues and even strangers praying and asking others to pray for us, I do not doubt that there were thousands of people praying for us.

I'm a practical person that certainly believes in science and medical technology, but I absolutely know, from the bottom of my heart, that God was involved in this. I give ALL of the credit and glory to him. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers, notes of encouragement, cards, texts, emails, and outpouring of love. Prayer is positively powerful. God is real, and he still performs miracles.

God bless,
-Nick Schnarr (from Facebook post)”

Today’s smoothie

A few days ago I wondered if one could make a smoothie with a giant cucumber—regifted. Well, no one said yuk, so today I made one and it was delicious. I used carrot juice, a huge chunk of cucumber with seeds and skin removed, and a very large, over ripe garden tomato. Rather than push my luck and my digestive system, I didn't add onion, but did use some onion salt. It's fabulous. Probably more a cold soup than a smoothie, but it sure tastes good with the corn chips.

John Brennan and the resistance

Brennan has accused President Trump of treason for meeting with a world leader, Vladimir Putin, he doesn’t like and with whom the past 3 presidents have met. He is attempting to undo the 2016 election and destabilize the nation. He is definitely the “leader of the resistance” of the swamp. Why should he be allowed the privilege of a security clearance? It isn’t a right. I had to turn in my keys when I retired from OSU; I did not lose my right to talk about the veterinary library or to talk to the interim librarian or to discuss various things happening on the campus. I have used great discretion in not telling tales out of school—which the Trump haters are not doing. And neither has Brennan lost any rights. He lies. He misused his office and his privileges. Trump did the right thing.