Sandra Dodd

The symposium was good; I'm tired

2012-01-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm exhausted, still, and today Joyce and Carl leave. We've been going, going, going and having houseguests and friends still at the hotel and tomorrow will be my first day of "just us" since Christmas.

Tomorrow I'm going to the hotel to create a contract for a symposium next year. The Daniel family intends to come back again, from England, and Joyce and Carl Fetteroll intend to return as well. I hope when they get home and recover from their own exhaustion they still feel that way. :-)

The feedback forms were very positive, but had suggestions I hope to implement, about having more panels or roundtables. Rather than three presentations per day I'll probably schedule four, but I still plan to have long breaks for lunch and dinner so that people don't have to rush away or rush back.

We can't guarantee beautiful weather next year; it might be colder. We hit 60 degrees one day! I saved it:

My plan for 2012 is December 27-30, which will be Thursday night through Sunday morning, and people can go home for New Year's.

This was a surprise

2011-12-28T18:45:00.002-07:00

The voice is Holly Dodd.

Trees without a tree

2011-12-24T20:40:00.001-07:00

For a few years we had a kind-of-tree-like arrangement of lights, on a wooden platform that's in our front room (used to be a tiled base for a wood stove, long ago).

We put the gifts inside it.

This year, Holly had an idea to wrap lights around a banister sort of fence on the other side of the room, fastened at a center point on an eye hook. Keith set that up for us.

The coolest thing is that we could stick most of the gifts inside the fence, so they show decoratively from the stairs and (also Holly's idea) we put Christmas cards on the outside, so those who enter the house can see the cards and gifts.

Because I took this with a flash in a dark room, the metallic paper projected its pattern onto the wall above and the hardwood floor below. I didn't plan that. It was a Christmas surprise from my phone's camera.

I'm not philosophically opposed to having a Christmas tree, it's just hard to rearrange for one, and every year we seem to be busy with other things (this year, an unschooling symposium starts December 28).

But meanwhile, in another house around here, the mom didn't want a pine-needle-shedding tree anymore, and had for a while had an artificial tree. But it was shedding artificial pine needles, and so she asked her son, who's an artist, to come up with a tree that wasn't a tree.

Holly helped a little, around the ~~purchasing thrift-store lamp shades part, at least, and~~ painting, ~~maybe.~~ The artist is her boyfriend, Will.

Ghosts and Ghost Signs

2011-12-09T11:16:00.001-07:00

Recently, somewhere in Texas, I took a photo. It will be the second photo below.

Today on the Shorpy blog, was this photo. If it seems at all interesting, click it. On the large image, you can see details of the little car to the right of the truck at the loading dock. You can see the pigeon on the roof, and the blurred ends of trees, so you can know the wind was blowing lightly when the photo was taken.

The photo I took was of a brick street and a building with a coca-cola sign painted on the side. Some of those old signs have been painted over, and re-appeared, over and over since they were first painted. They're called "ghost signs" and if you go to google image and put that in, you'll see lots that people have collected in photos.

What I like about having seen the Washington DC example above is the people's clothes, and the cars. So I can picture some people around "my" building, though mine would've been Texans so some aspects of the autos and clothes might have been different.

This was in Coleman, the town where Keith and I stopped for hamburgers on the way to Austin on November 19, 2011. Whoever painted that sign probably could not have imagined, nor believed it if we could have told him, that in 2011 someone could take a photo of it with a little pocket-sized digital camera and somehow show it all over the world without ever touching paper or chemicals to develop it. I'm pretty sure whoever painted that sign wouldn't have believed it would still BE there in 2011. :-)

So if you see ghost signs, maybe take a photo and think of the artist, of what it might have looked like the first day when the paint was still wet, and of the ghost cars and people who might have been there 100 years ago.

Here are some I took in Bimidji, Minnesota, when Holly and I visited the Traaseths there in 2007.

You can click to enlarge.

Wood-rich, charge-crazy, acoustic night

2011-12-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

We got two cords of wood yesterday. I don't mind advertising the place we got it. They were quick and efficient and it wasn't very expensive, and the guy managed to back into our yard a bit and dump the whole pile on our property!

Probably if I owned a dumptruck and a wood yard, this wouldn't be so exciting to me, but I love the sound and the sight and all the cedar dust and the smell.

I would've stayed out longer, but my cellphone was playing music box in my pocket. It was the charge card company asking whether I had charged $7,000 on my card, and then $10,000. No, I hadn't. What about this'n'that other lesser charges? Yes, yes and yes. So... the card needs to be replaced. That's fine. I missed the end of the wood show, but for a good cause.

It made me feel oddly good to know that I could have (potentially) charged $17,000 (a car or some such) and said "yeah, I did that!" when they called, and they would have said, "Okay, then! Just checking." It didn't make me want to do it, but just the thought was fun. :-)

I helped stack until my back hurt, and then came in and made banana pancakes and bacon to reward the others who worked until it was done.

What really makes me feel rich, and always has, is a big pile of wood. So we're temporarily fuel-rich. I'm glad it's luxury (hot tub and fireplace) rather than life-and-death cooking and water-heating necessity. If the electricity or gas go out, though, we won't freeze.

Last night I went with Holly, Alex and Will to "the new Amped" (I don't know how long they will call the new location new before it's just Amped) for acoustic night. People signed up for fifteen minute sets, and we were there from 7:00 (it started right on time; Will went first with a ukelele solo) until 10:45 or so. The last set was half an hour of Reagan Motels, doing acoustic ska. Two guitars, trombone and trumpet, vocals. Sometimes they have one or two other people, Holly says. Usually it's electric guitars and drums, but this was their acoustic night permutation.

I sang Frankie and Johnny, Johnny be Fair and The Titanic. I think I'll go again. I started a song list in my pocket while I was thinking about it, but the songs were too much the same, that I thought of. Tramp on the Street, Both Sides Now, and Little Rosewood Casket. All too similar in speed and mood. So one or two of those, and something silly, or fast, or both. Maybe in January.

Holly took pictures of me.

The Virgin Mary in a lightning bolt

2011-12-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Or vice versa.

Sometimes when people come touristing here, we take them to see this tree, or they find it on their own, or someone shows them. It's behind the rectory of San Felipe de Neri church in Old Town. Someone carved The Virgin of Guadalupe (a local favorite) being supported by an angel, in a dying tree a long time ago, and it's repainted occasionally.

On the news a few days ago, they said it had been struck by lightning, but it might have been wind knocked the top of the tree off. The carving is still okay, they said.

I went looking for an image and found this, which is even more interesting:

Bee Rescue, Cottonwood Madonna and Miracles
A local beekeeper saved a bees nest that blew down with it.

Here's a local news story:
Religious icon OK as wind splits tree
There's a video of the downed tree, with some commentary.

Texas State History Museum

2011-11-22T18:54:00.001-07:00

Photography in displays or movies prohibited. DOH.

Well... four hours of being surrounded by schoolkids eight to ten years old. Very tiring. Some history of Texas is fascinating. Some is fascinating and vile. Nice museum, though, for sure, and high-quality movies with great musical scores.

Stars everywhere. There was a coin, first coins struck in what is now Texas, by Mexico, and they have a single star on the back. Small. And their first flags had a star. So that star is old, for Texas.

There were designs on the floor that reminded me of those in the Phoenix airport that Holly and I saw on the way to San Diego. But these weren't tile. They were sections of poured floor between brass dividers.

I read the Texas declaration of independence all the way through, in a reproduction of the original. I liked a lot of the wording. One of their charges, though, was that Mexico hadn't provided schools.

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.

So there we were, surrounded by a few hundred public school students of 175 years later. Each had a checklist of questions and they were zipping around trying to find the answers. On kid popped up between Kirby and what he was trying to read. Then two others did. Totally obscured what he was looking at. Then a teacher said "If there aren't any answers, move on." They took that as a clue that they were looking in the wrong place, so they stopped reading and zoomed off.

Another time two girls were reading something I was reading. Their teacher said "[Name. NAME!] Come here, right now!" They stopped reading and went to the group. The teacher said for everyone to take a slow, deep breath, and they did, and she said to focus on the fact that they had nothing left to do now but to go down and leave. The teacher was stressed; the kids weren't. It seemed cool to her that it was over. The kids (at least those two) were more interested in reading about the history of Texas.

Bottom Dollar String Band

2011-11-22T18:28:00.001-07:00

The other day we saw a little old-timey/bluegrassish group called the Bottom Dollar String Band. I'm sad that I accidentally deleted a video of part of a happy song, but the still images are here. Kirby liked them especially, so might try to catch them again sometime, somewhere.

Oh hey... someone else got them that day. DARN I wish I had my video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxVOnrHOahg

They hav a facebook page with music: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bottom-Dollar-String-Band/178848978837296

A few images of West Texas

2011-11-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

We're all the way to Austin now, but I saved some things to share, from early this morning. In Muleshoe, I found a sort of "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle for you all:

Turning the other way, was a large array of things, all made of steel. Most of it was old steel, but there was one new green girder, and the building just past the International pickup was newish.

That black speck is a big bird; crow, or raven.

In Lubbock, we passed a couple of places that probably had internet (Denny's and a large, local cafe), figuring we would get gas in the car and then find a breakfast place with internet.

Further on I saw a little burger joint about the size of a billboard. :-) I thought the menu might be fun for people outside the U.S.

"HB" would be hamburger and "CB" cheeseburger.

There was also a very current drive-in theater in Lubbock, showing double features of new movies on three screens. I thought of Julie Daniel. This one wasn't set with slanted rows in the old classic style, but was just flat. The screens were set in a triangle, and I we didn't pull close enough to see how the cars were to have been arranged.

We drove and drove and finally saw a truck stop with a cafe called: Tech Cafe

Keith was going to the bathroom, and I stayed out to take photos of a very cool looking piece of farm equipment with which I was unfamiliar, and a special sort of church. It was a non-mechanized something; the wheels turned freely by hand. What's it for??

Having grown up attending a Southern Baptist church, I know exactly what THIS is for:

In case it's too small to read, the smaller print says "We teach 'Jesus Saves'," and "A Ministry of Redbud Baptist Church."

The mail box was for prayer requests, and the blue sign to the left of the door is Romans 6:23, but it's not the King James translation.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Wheelchair accessible:

I wanted to post all those photos above so people could see these things before we got to Kirby's house, so I got my computer out of the car and went into the Tech Cafe to meet Keith.

"The Tech Cafe" has a smoking room, all sealed off from the other part.
The Tech Cafe has no internet.
The Tech Cafe doesn't take charge cards; only cash or check.

The food was traditional, unadorned, and presented without any artistry, but it tasted great!

Compost parfait

2011-11-16T06:00:00.001-07:00

I love these layers! There's a third matching "parfait" on the other side of the yard. On a base of the summer's weeds and kitchen scrap, Keith added brown leaves from the trees that turned early, and when it froze last week the mulberries dropped their leaves green.

The Sandias from here

2011-11-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today Marty's jeep wouldn't start when he was at CNM, so I took the jumper cables over there. There was a picturesque tumbleweed, some pickups, the mountains, and Marty.

There's snow at the crest. Don't know if you can tell. It was halfway part of last week.

Yesterday, same mountains, all pink with the sun going down, the other direction from our house:

Some mentions of me here and there

2011-11-13T19:40:00.001-07:00

http://theitaliandyes.com/on-education-sandra-dodd
A quote with illustrations.

On a blog about infants and sleep,http://parentingbabytosleep.blogspot.com/:

"At the moment I am reading Sandra Dodd...just google her (I'm learning how to mobile blog sorry no links yet). But she talks about unschooling...might be a bit much for some who cry it out but wow good stuff."

There is a 118 page book about me in India. Huh.
Looks like it's between $53 and $58 dollars American, though. It might be a nice souvenir. I asked Hema to order one for me. It looks to be all stuff lifted from online. I give it away anyway.

http://www.bookadda.com/product/sandra-dodd-lambert-surhone/p-9786136214177-6136214172

That's way too expensive. If I were in India, I would order a C.O.D. copy and bribe the delivery guy to take back a letter from me saying "I'm Sandra Dodd; I'm not dead; I've been in India just lately, and I'm not payin' for this book."

Oh well. :-)

I had forgotten about this interview:
http://sandradodd.com/interviews/successful
The original site is linked there, but I've lifted a copy to my site. It's been there for two years now (and is still there) but my readership doesn't need to provide advertising revenue for a general homeschooling site.

I had seen this one before, years back:

First it was in Zen Habits:
http://zenhabits.net/education-needs-to-be-turned-on-its-head/
and then reprinted:
Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
Written by Leo Babauta

Quotes me, Agatha Christie, John Updike, and John Holt, in that order.

And in Chinese (Jihong confirms it's Chinese) http://fanyi.edu2do.org/page/2
On THAT page, there are things by Joyce Fetteroll and Pam Sorooshian, too!

Shadow Cat

2011-11-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

This cat hardly ever lets anyone touch her, and I've picked her up a couple of times this week, and she's let me hold her. This time we were close enough to the computer that I could catch a photobooth shot of her beautiful eyes. Poor old crazy Shadow...

UK Style, at Sears, for Christmas?

2011-11-09T09:30:00.004-07:00

Holly and I went to Sears to look at jewelry boxes, but found this:

These guys weren't blamed on the UK, as those other things were:

We didn't buy anything there, but had fun wandering through.

Big mountains, and bigger sky

2011-11-08T19:14:00.002-07:00

Today Ashlee sent me a photo of the Sandias from a little distance. This morning the whole area was gray with odd little snow in the air, and then noonish the sky was clear and there was snow on the mountains. It's beautiful:

Our house the other day

2011-11-08T19:13:00.001-07:00

I love waking up and finding an art project to examine. Marty is making a t-shirt having something to do with Fallout.

Holly had friends over in honor of her birthday, on the first Saturday past Halloween. It's hard scheduling a party when one's birthday is so near Halloween. First they met at Blake's for a milkshake, and then came to the house for games. There was some Picture Picture, some Apples to Apples and some Wise and Otherwise. (Click to embiggen.)

20th birthday (Holly's), confusion (mine)

2011-11-03T11:05:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we had a late lunch on Holly's birthday, with 3/5 of the McNeill family. The empty spot at the table was mine. There might be another photo later from Jasmine's camera. The light wasn't the best, but the evidence will help us remember (and be something for Helene and Sophie to see). They can be enlarged.

The table from my point of view, though, up the left and back down the right, is Marty, Keith, Holly, Jasmine, Darwin, Leon, and Ashlee.

This morning I dressed a bit more warmly and walked over to Kinko's (now FedEx) to copy two book chapters I intend to transcribe (and the books won't lie flat) and an article from unerzogen to send to Wolfgang. As the copy machine was passing its lovely green light over one page, I realized my printer at home is a copy machine. If I were making a large number of copies, or needed two-sided copies, walking in the cold to Kinko's would've been fine. So I made my black and white single-sided copies and walked home in 38°F degree weather, feeling old.

The other day, Marty looked old:

He was being a mad scientist, and I guess Ashlee was his devilish assistant.

Holly tried looking like her boyfriend, Will:

...and had planned to reproduce his tattoo, when the day came she decided other things were a better use of her time. But it's a good tattoo—his band's logo.

When a BB hits a window....

2011-10-25T09:01:00.001-06:00

AHA! I looked for this video, and found it in an old folder of photos, but I thought I had put it online. I had, but on The Lyrics Game, on the word "brake/break." I was recycling old words, and found it. (I'm glad I looked rather than just marking it "draft" where it might never be seen again!) The note was written in August 2008.

This is from my birthday in 2007. Most of us were upstairs playing Encore. Marty was outside seeing if a BB (from an old Daisy BB rifle recently inherited from his uncle) would dent the steel on the tailgate of our old Dodge truck. It wouldn't. But he discovered that if he missed the tailgate, it would do a slow-motion job on the back windshield. The camera was handy. I didn't know about it until very late that night. Marty paid for the replacement.

A cool graph

2011-10-24T14:08:00.002-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I looked at my site stats. I don't usually look, but I usually get between 1000 and 2000 site views at SandraDodd.com.

I like that it was pointy and then round. That's all. And that it never went below or above the 1000-2000 range.

I looked again just now to see what happened next. Yesterday, October 23, ended up going to 1636, so that messed up the design, but it was pretty there for a while yesterday.

Just Add Light and Stir gets about 500 visits a day, not counting what goes out by e-mail. That's nice, but the graph there is straight-line-ish, and not as artsy. :-)

Gina's little ponies

2011-10-23T09:14:00.000-06:00

When Gina was little, she had a world of ponies in her room, with a queen, and a culture and history and relationships. She moved, and lined them all up in a new way. Holly and I visited yesterday.

All these can be viewed in more detail with a click.

So we ate in Española...

2011-10-23T07:44:00.000-06:00

Holly and I went to visit Gina (my sister's daughter, the oldest of the six of this set of close-in-age cousins who fold in this way: Gina, Elijah, Kirby, Joshua, Marty, Holly). I'm bringing four images involving food.

We didn't go for Frito Pies.
We went to Jo-Ji's Sushi and Teppan Grill. It was really good!
We had a good time with Sonya and Gina.

We got there just before they closed, but if you're passing through there at lunch or dinner time, consider it. They're at the far north end of town (on the way to Taos), in front of the Lowe's, behind the Taco Bell... six grill tables and several other tables. Really nice.

1508-B North Riverside Dr. 505-747-4113

(I know this because the chopsticks come in a beautifully printed paper package.)

Clouds like mountains

2011-10-09T14:48:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid, I once saw clouds over and behind the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and it made them look as high as the Alps (like an illustration in a book I had as a child, of an Alpine village).

Yesterday there was a cloud behind the Sandias that looked like another mountain, and I remembered.

The cloud-colored roundness is cloud. Sky-matching mountain.

Images from Albuquerque to Chama (and a bit north)

2011-10-03T12:46:00.002-06:00

Keith and I went to Chama this weekend to hear my sister perform. On the way, Keith stopped every time I wanted to take a photo, and even backtracked sometimes, and got out and scouted angles for me. We went north on I-25 to Santa Fe, on 84 up to Española, across the river, north to Abiquiu, on up through Chama, and a few miles into Colorado.

The birds on the wires are doves we could see outside of Denny's, early, near our house. It was the first morning of Balloon Fiesta. we drove out Tramway to get to I-25, and the balloons were starting to launch. The river is the Rio Chama, and the fancy dark-and-light photos are at Echo Ampitheater. The yellow trees near the river are cottonwoods. Later in the series, those on the mountainsides are aspen.

Anyone who wants to see a few hundred pictures instead of 45 can look here: http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Albuquerque/2011/October/

Surprise Lily!

2011-09-19T09:49:00.000-06:00

Yesterday when Holly and I got back from the thrift store, I saw a little red thing in the yard. Woohoo!! It was TWO surprise lilies (or storm lilies, or hurricane lilies):

Today they surprised me again, when I went out to feed the birds. :-)

They're more open than yesterday, but this photo isn't clear.

I went to find where I had first posted about these. It was on this blog, in September 2005: http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2005/09/moonflowers-and-mystery-flower.html I bought ten bulbs, but they have never bloomed (not yet; might someday). The ones today are where that first one was, so it has divided, but it's taking it's sweet long time. That's okay. It's a gift.

I went looking for images. There are other flowers if I look up surprise lily, storm lily, hurricane lily, but because someone had said they're called "naked lady" I used "lily naked lady" and found (among other not-the-sames) this, which is exactly that, and taken with a great camera:

Because it's on a commercial site, I bought three cards and that makes this a review. What a beautiful image! It's by Eric McQuiston. I wish he had gone to the edges and gotten every bit, but still... you can see the details and imagine the edges. His other photos are really beautiful, too.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/emcquiston/art/5131263-naked-lady-lily

Things I didn't buy at the new Goodwill

2011-09-19T09:30:00.001-06:00

There's a new Goodwill near our house, in the SE corner of the strip malls at the SE corner of Menaul and Juan Tabo. Holly and I went yesterday. She got some Rocky Horror costume bits, and we got a few other things, but here's what I collected in images only. There was a time I'd've brought them home, but I need to stop collecting games and boxes. Or at least slow down. :-)

Keith has a wooden Senet game. This one was missing its "dice" (split sticks or ivory sticks) but had four markers (two for each player). The box that looks like a house had a little opening in it, and I don't know the purpose of it. It was an arched door, like a mouse hole, in the bottom. If I had a mouse in a cage I would have bought it for him.

Then I saw a wooden box from India. I have always loved those. It had a design of leaves, and I'd never seen one like that. I was tempted.

Then I opened it and someone had lined the lid with Italian stationery in a design I also love (and have used lots over the years, and still own a bit of something similar). I would have taken that as a sign to BUY IT, years back. This time I took it as a sign to think warm thoughts, take its photo, and leave it for someone else.

These reminded me of Kirby (and thoughts he expressed last weekend about a planned tattoo), and of Sarah Tynker.

A year ago I was planning a trip to India, and one of the things on my list to take was candy corn. While I was there, I bought some flowery little electric lights, in Bangalore, but I haven't gotten an adaptor and transformer for them yet. So this reminded me of India, and how much time has passed since I was there, and about getting lights over the hot tub, which I'm planning to clean and heat tomorrow. It's seeming like fall now, and not summer. It's time.

"Maybe it's you."

2011-09-18T10:43:00.001-06:00

"Maybe it's you," Holly said when I pointed out that Will gave me a look, and Marty gave me the same kind of look in the very next photo. :-)

We were at the High Country Restaurant hearing my sister perform. More photos of that weekend outing are here: http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2011/09/chama-this-weekend.html

Chama this weekend

2011-09-18T00:04:00.001-06:00

That wasn't Marty's beer; the can was already there.

This is just part of one song Irene wrote; I was shy to record a whole song, but this gives an idea of the sound and motion of it all.

Good Vibrations Conference, some Friday

2011-09-10T01:00:00.001-06:00

Speakers, some other people, some Ninja Turtles, a spoon:

Medieval steampunk religious mystery art

2011-09-10T00:40:00.000-06:00

There was a very cool display at the San Diego airport. I saw it back to front, and had fun trying to figure out whether it was steam punk, medieval, fantasy, or what. The technology wasn't medieval, but many of the artistic motifs and styles were.

A link to the artist's page follows my imperfect images. There are other images there, but I liked the installation—book-page backgrounds and such. I didn't have time to stand and read or examine, unfortunately. I was in a hurry to get two computers from a luggage carousel (not knowing that's where they would've ended up... and before long the electricity went down at the airport, but I didn't know what was going to happen, so here's the art, which seems a good match for unexpected quiet and darkness.

http://www.jeffsteorts.com/

Broken things getting fixed

2011-09-09T11:15:00.000-06:00

I'm in San Diego, listening to Ronnie Maier, sitting between Holly and Kirby, near James and Robyn Coburn, behind Pam and Rosie Sorooshian.

I got an e-mail this morning saying the paypal button wasn't working at the Big Book page, but I think it's fixed now.
http://sandradodd.com/bigbook/order

If it's not working, please let me know.

We've braved the big power outage of San Diego.
We're enduring the beach closure (sewage spill, related to the big power outage) that caused the cancellation (or rescheduling) of the surfing lesson.

Books can be ordered even while I'm here, though, because Keith is home and so are some already-packed-up books!

I hope everyone's having a good time, wherever you are, and thanks for keeping up with my web page updates. :-)

Sandra

Birds, Hanuman, Holly, Onions

2011-09-04T13:27:00.001-06:00

This week we've been getting ready to go to San Diego for the Good Vibrations Unschooling conference. Holly and I are going, and meeting Kirby at the airport in San Diego on Thursday.

The pictures aren't about that, except that you can look at one project here: http://sandradodd.com/magnets We have some ready to sell at the conference, but aren't quite prepared to do mail order until we get back, tweak the page a bit, and see whether we have magnets left or need to get more.

The birds have been happy and pretty. This is out the window of Holly's old room.

Hanuman was dancing when I got home from the post office the other day.

Because I have a page on the Egyptian onions my sister gave me, which have survive and thrive (more or less) these many years later, I got a phone call from a stranger. It was from a nice lady at a nursery in Oregon. Theirs had all died from too much rain. Mine were mostly dying from too LITTLE rain, but I had just not long before tended the sad plot (not the one in the photos/ they're in a better place in the yard now). I had a batch of new babies coming up. They do two cycles a year.

So I sold some onions to a nursery. :-)

Here's Holly with her car wash signs. (I helped.)

What those photos have in common is that they were taken in the past week, in or right outside my house. I like my life.

Error pages

2011-09-01T12:01:00.000-06:00

When someone clicks a link that doesn't exist, sometimes they get an offer to buy that website. That's always irritating. Or sometimes they get a default page. It's called a 404 error page. They can be customized, but most sites don't know or don't bother.

I've always liked mine. I figure most of the time people get there, it's my fault because some link is broken, so I use it to get messages from readers. But sometimes readers send me a broken link without saying which page they were on. That doesn't help me.

On another blog there is a great collection of artsy pages. Some make me sad for insulting the person who landed there. It's probably the webmaster's fault they're there. One insults the reader for having guessed, while mine compliments them on having guessed (because I'm trying to make mine guessable, for the most part).

Here's one that's very pretty, but you need to put the mouseover on it. I got it from the comments of the blog post I'm going to list in a minute.

https://github.com/404
(Move your mouse around it a little.)

Here's mine:
http://sandradodd.com/whateveryouwrite

Here's the collection at noupe.com
http://www.noupe.com/showcases/showcase-of-creative-and-entertaining-404-error-pages.html

Cup less than half full

2011-08-30T06:53:00.001-06:00

I was looking through some ten-year-old discussions, and this surfaced. It's an old story about someone I called "Joe," whose real name I have forgotten, so it's best if my kids (if they remember) don't tell me who it was. Mostly it's a story about my kids and my house, with "Joe" as the "light" that shone on it once so I could see it more clearly.

After the italics, it's me, in April 2002:

In a message dated 4/15/02 8:12:55 AM, rumpleteasermom@..... writes:

The one that confuses me is Wyndham. His taste is so . . . varied,
for lack of a better word. He can go from Cinderella to Die Hard to
Into the Woods to Operation Petticoat. There is no pattern I can see.

That's the way my kids are, for definite sure.

Holly usually doesn't like violence, and usually avoids it (I tend to wander out when the fistfights start) but she really liked Fight Club, for the personality stuff and the mystery of it. Marty and Kirby can join any tough guy discussion about John Wayne movies or Mad Max, but can also be heard singing to themselves from the Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella OR the Disney. They were as glad to go to the theatre to see Mulan as they were to see The Matrix.

I think it's healthy and a GREAT way to "see the world" and connect all kinds of things, places, times, actors, literary forms, composers, dialects... Little Shop of Horrors (the musical, which they all know) is written by (and similar to in many aspects) the guys who did The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast (and in part, Aladdin, I think). They're conversant in a lot of comparison/contrast ways on those subjects.

One of my favorite things about my kids, and what makes unschooling easy with them, is that they're not cynical or critical about the interests of others in the family, or of the neighbors, or of their friends. They assume that everything has the potential to be interesting and good.

There is one mystery kid, though. Kirby has complained that except during D&D games, he seems to have nothing to say. He was here this weekend. He's sixteen and he does go to school. I'll call him Joe (because that's not his name). He was up waiting for several other houseguests or my boys to wake up. I offered him cereal if he didn't want to wait for waffles; he fixed some. He wandered downstairs. Holly was in the den, where maybe 100 bought videos are visible, and two gaming systems. We have a dog and a yard. We have books, games, and toys. He told Holly "This house is really boring in the morning."

If we hadn't been being quiet for sleeping people, I probably would have had music on, but we were being quiet.

I was amused, and repeated it to Kirby as I drove him to work. Kirby said "OH, Joe--Nobody even invited him! He just showed up. He's ALWAYS bored."

So Joe showed up again the next afternoon (having gone home a while), and I said "Hey, Joe--I heard you said our house is boring."

"Well, it was ten o'clock in the morning and nobody was up."

"We have all [description kinda like above] to do here."

[the back pedalling starts]: "Well I really like your house."

"Apparently a LOT of people do." (there were two other visitors in the room) "So don't be telling Holly her house is boring."

"Okay. Well, I didn't mean anything by it."

[And without even getting to the philosophical ideas of meaning and utterance and whether words spoken can be retracted or covered Kings-X style...]

I said (which made sense to him and the others more than it can here, but the statement was:) "When I had the former owner of Starbase 10 in full medieval costume with a hurdy gurdy, you didn't want to see THAT. I don't know WHAT will entertain you." There was enough polite laughter and facial/eye acknowledgement that indeed it probably WAS him, and touche.

Starbase 10 was the fantasy/gaming shop specializing in Star Trek which occupied the building before the previous owners and Active Imagination, where all these guys met and still hang out. The owner of Starbase 10, the first to establish that as a gaming store many years ago, was my husband's squire in the SCA before he was knighted, and one morning he was here in a GREAT full costume, having stopped on his way somewhere else to show me his new Romanian hurdy-gurdy, when Joe and his brother came downstairs. "Do you want to see a hurdy gurdy??" I asked enthusiastically.

They didn't even look at it, though they were in the same room! One of them mumbled, "Uh, we have to go."

My kids would have just been a little late and said "We're late, because there was this guy in a costume with a hurdy gurdy," and I would have said "I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND!"

So varied interests make life rich, and Joe's boredom is making him just... boring.

When I made grilled cheese sandwiches on home-made bread with some really good cheddar cheese, the other kids were saying "Oooh, good!" but Joe said, "If you had some tomato soup, these would be perfect."

His glass is more than half empty.

Sandra

Back to now.
Sometimes it's hard to see what we have or what we know or are doing without an occasional contrasting reminder. In the time since April 2002 I have seen my kids continue to be open to and fascinated by the world around them.

Today in Albuquerque

2011-08-28T14:54:00.003-06:00

For my part, a quiet day. A cloud looked kind of like the reflection of the building to me, when I took the picture, but looking at it later, it looks like flying Hanuman, a bit. If it had a tail it would, totally.

Sample other images (only my cloud Hanuman is facing the other direction):

Holly being very Hollyesque, holding a quarter, wearing an ALL Unschooling t-shirt, and I was glad to be with her:

Something you don't see in India, or the UK, just homely plain local things. We were waiting for a table at the Range Cafe, and I was taking pictures of things I could see without getting up:

Pine needles peeking out over the edge of the roof. Looked cool.

A car wash with singing

2011-08-27T14:07:00.000-06:00

Checking on babies in the middle of the night, 20 years later

2011-08-27T04:56:00.001-06:00

This morning I was responding to a late-night note from an unschooling dad, and wrote some things I thought sounded quite bloggish, so I lifted these parts, knowing I had photos to go with them. (No photo for the first paragraph, which is best for us all.)

I'm up too early because my husband fell asleep two hours early, which means his "I don't need an alarm clock" self was up in the bathroom two hours earlier than usual, and I woke up too awake to go back to sleep. Nice to have the options, and a quiet house.

Holly has joined a music group (a capella) and they're having a car wash this morning. On short notice she's supposed to lean toward 1940's pinup, rather than 2011 girls. She has the lipstick, shorts and a polka-dotted scarf. I helped her with cardboard signs and a bucket of old towels. She's asleep.

Marty and his girlfriend were out at an armored-combat practice. They're asleep. I like this kind of very-busy, very peaceful life with young adult offspring.

Kirby is at work in Austin for another three hours, inspiring his overnight team at Blizzard. I think I'll lift some of this to my blog, because I have a couple of photos I could match to it.
end of the quote

Holly and I will get to see Kirby at the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego September 8 and thereabout, and we just got to see him for his birthday the end of July!

I have a warm feeling of contentment knowing that they're all grown enough to take care of themselves if I weren't around, and yet glad for me to know where they are.

This amused me (about truth's relationship to me)

2011-08-26T17:08:00.002-06:00

On Facebook there's been a fair amount of jackoff nonsense on a couple of unschooling discussion pages, with people stirring up 100+ response topics and then deleting all or some of the discussion. So I'm bringing this here before it goes down someone's drain. The guy I quote and was responding to already pulled all of his stuff after being a butt to many nice unschoolers who were voluntarily offering years of experience.

a guy wrote: ‎-=@Sandra. Just because you say it does not make it true. -=-

Sandra Dodd: You're right. If something is true, it isn't true *just* because I say it.

A dusty slice of the west

2011-08-23T19:03:00.004-06:00

Today Marty and I drove out of town specifically for the purpose of my taking some pictures for possible use in Just Add Light and Stir. Some of them are no good, and there were two dust devils (miniature whirlwinds) that I didn't even try to photograph. But because I was snap-snappety-snap-snap while I was in the UK, I thought I would try to take pictures of things I might have taken pictures of if I was a tourist here. I don't think it works quite the same way, but some of these are fun, and as a group they might be interesting for people who don't live in desert places.

There's a road I hadn't seen, off of Coors Road, and I took a photo for Ravi, Hema, and anyone else who might appreciate it:

That's Marty sitting in the jeep in the shade waiting for me to cross the road again.

There were some little tumbleweeds in the median there. They don't have time to get very big before it's too cold for them. So they will end up stunted and ratty like the one below that (leftover from last year, and miles from there). That's okay. Really, it's better than fat, healthy tumbleweeds that plant a thousand babies.

None of those were any good for Just Add Light. And pretty much there was PLENTY of light, and 95 degrees or so. Marty's jeep has excellent air conditioning.

There's one place where a car had been doing donuts, and some close-ups of junk, but the worst ugly thing is something Georgia O'Keefe would NOT have wanted to paint, that would NOT be put into a western movie. It's a cow skeleton, some of one, but cut with a bandsaw, or something, down the spine, so maybe was in a butcher's shop, and then... I don't know. It's by the side of old Rt. 66 now, with yucky tendons and all. So that's nasty. Welcome to the west on a normal day. Maybe it was the by-product of a beef ribs bar-be-cue. DOH! Sorry, Hema and Ravi. Namaste.

Maybe some of the photos will show up in Just Add Light and Stir sometime. Or not. :-)

Chris in Iowa send me a note, and because it has a photo, I'm just going to add it in here (with her permission):

Sandra,

Your blogpost with photos of the desert reminded me of something Holly said when she was visiting us two summers ago. We had picked her up from the airport and we were driving home. We exited our freeway and in Iowa we have pretty long exit ramps. As we approached the end of the exit ramp, on the right side of the road was a grassy corner with trees. Holly looked at it and asked, "Is that a park?" It struck me as funny because to my eyes it was just a small area of grass and trees which are plentiful on hundreds of corners around here, but to her it looked like a park. I told her, "No, it's just a corner."

The photo below is the area that she thought looked like a park. It's not a very good photo (google maps) and it was definitely greener the day Holly saw it. The pavement you can see on the other side of the trees is a road leading back to a residential neighborhood.

Seeing it through a desert-dweller's eyes, I could definitely see why she might've thought it was a park. It is a fond memory I have of Holly's visit. -- Chris

Kirby, Kirby, Kirby

2011-08-08T10:35:00.003-06:00

Kirby sent a note:

While I was in ABQ, my desk was filled with pink "kirby" balloons. It took my team three days to fill the cubicle. =)

He sent a little video. That can't go here because of company policy, but his cubicle was filled with round pink (to look like Nintendo's Kirby character) balloons, in a corral made of tape, with tape over the top so they couldn't get out. Kirby ducked in and popped up, and was wearing a "Got Kirby?" t-shirt.

The shirt was a birthday gift from a friend in Albuquerque, and it was the perfect outfit to be wearing back to work to receive that very cool "gift."

I don't know how he popped them all, but the sword from his birthday party might've helped. (There's an abiding story that fixed blades over 5.5 inches are illegal in Texas unless accompanied by a fishing license, though... Some wild west is taming down.)

Holly in the Tent

2011-08-07T22:44:00.001-06:00

Because Keith might go to an SCA campout in a car that won't hold a big tent, he dug out a smaller tent we made years ago. We figured out how many years ago, we think: 26 years.

We left it up hoping for rain so we can see how badly it's misting in there. We think that's why we stopped using it. It hasn't been used for six or eight years or more.

Holly hadn't been in it for a long, long time. I took the first two photos, but after those it's Holly's photography.

Nobody had *ever* taken a computer into it, that's for sure. There has been food, and now there was food again:

That bench was made by Wendy (a copy of a bench I bought at a Catholic charity shop in Española in the 1970's), and has been in that tent before. Just today I put up some photos of a recent woodworking project of Wendy's: Maud's Toy Horse

Here's kind of a timelapse of Holly's disappearing lunch:

Music, flowers and an arrow

2011-08-06T23:14:00.000-06:00

Irene Adams, my sister, singing a song she wrote that made Holly cry a little. (Me too, nearly.)

Ashlee made her first arrow. The photos are fuzzy, but still I'll remember seeing it. Very nice fletching.

Holly arranged and distributed flowers this week:

Keith and I went to a concert with Holly and Will. They were seeing OnQ for the second time.

Holly and I went to a funeral where they played video game music and Beatles, but I didn't take a photo. It was standing-room only, even though they opened a side room. Kieran Archuleta, 16. I've known his mom for 30 years.

Kirby's birthday, part 2

2011-08-01T22:47:00.000-06:00

I just finally finished uploading the photos. There were movies and meals and people between then and now. And clean-up. :-)

The cake said "Kirby is the Bomb" because we had candles that were shaped like bombs and dynamite. Just so happens the Tynkers (three of them were here) had a prop cartoonish bomb in the car, and put it out as a decoration, but I don't think I have a photo of it.

It was a very nice (and huge) group (57 people, Kirby listed the next day) and clean-up was pretty easy considering all that went on. As Bo described it on Facebook, "Swords and friends and shots and naked people, haha." The nakidity was a race between Brett M. and Josh A. from the back gate to a nearby (closed) business and back. Brett warned me, so I didn't go down to watch. It wasn't a main party activity, and it had a history, and there are no photos. Good.

Ben in Action:

Will and Ryan at rest:

Kirby's birthday, part 1

2011-07-29T18:12:00.002-06:00

Another batch of people are here. Some had to leave for Friday night obligations, work shifts, etc., so Kirby cut the smaller cake, which is carrot cake. The big one will be saved a bit. It's nearly his birth hour/moment. But he's involved in big conversations about games and costumes and things they've all done. There are people here who used to be over here once or twice a week (or more), and it's interesting to see them as grown men, not teenagers--more confident, better dressed, muscular. :-) Facial hair that's intentional rather than awkwardly accidental. Kirby has some very nice friends.

These are the photos from the set above that I like best:

Jeremy cutting; Kirby, Joey, Holly and Katie watching.

Mikey Hale cutting; same audience.

Holly, Katie, Mikey

Elijah, Holly (behind), Marty, and Bo, acting out some celebratory thought.

Elijah Trujillo, Kirby's four-months-older cousin, cutting water. Josh watching.

Keith, Elijah with beer, Kirby in front, Bo, Marty, Ashlee

New blog template, and what I'm doing

2011-07-28T22:22:00.001-06:00

My blog hasn't opened well for a week or more, so I stripped it down gradually. Nothing helped. Following some random suggestions in discussions of blogs-gone-slow, I changed the template. I'm sorry not to have the "minima lefty stretch" I was used to, but it's no longer offered as a new option. This will do for a while, then.

Tomorrow is Kirby's 25th birthday. I've been a mom for a long time now.

Things I've been doing online lately are Just Add Light and Stir and information on several pages (still building) about the ALL Unschooling Symposium here in December 2011.

This afternoon, Brett Henry, Kirby, Keith and Marty Dodd at Dion's on Montgomery:

Sights, no sounds

2011-07-27T23:12:00.000-06:00

Today Holly and I went on errands and I picked Kirby up from the airport. He's the out-of-focus guy in the black t-shirt. The bicycle is a descanso. Holly in the chiton is from yesterday.

Birthday report

2011-07-25T11:37:00.002-06:00

I'm fifty-eight years old, as of yesterday. The "party" unfolded thusly:

Just before midnight Saturday, Holly and her boyfriend Will picked me up at the airport and took me to the Waffle House on Yale, where we sat and talked for a fairly long time and then took me home. I looked at e-mail enough to know there was an overwhelming amount of Birthday stuff, and so I went to sleep, 2:00 a.m., and slept until 8:30.

That's a photo of Will and Holly taken by Will's brother, Doug, when there was a forest fire in the Gila that was smoking up Albuquerque. Will has shorter hair now.

8:30 a.m., I turned on CBS Sunday morning, a favorite show I haven't seen since May, to watch what I thought was the last half hour of it. Happy Birthday to me! They've changed the broadcast time so now it starts at 8:00 and ends at 9:30! I got to watch it an hour's worth.

Got up and came to read birthday greetings. There were some very, very touching wonderful sweet things, and some plain ones from people I really liked seeing in my box, and both were wonderful. Keith brought me two actual-paper-in-the-mail cards I had received. Holly got up, and Will. She hadn't taken him home. So in discussing what was up for the day, I said nothing for me; just be. (Daniel Wooten, nice guy but not always a great speller, created the greatest phrase. He wrote "Happy be day." And now I want that to be IT, what birthdays are. I'm 48 and I still am being.)

I said to Holly that we maybe go and see Justin Timberlake pretend to have sex with the chick from "That 70's Show," and she seemed interested, so turns out Will was willing to go to the movies with us, too. "Check the High Ridge," Holly said. The High Ridge is close, and tends to have little old ladies at many of the showings. It's less expensive and less fancy than some other theatres. It has eight screens, but not the giant, theatre, new-carpet 24 screen extravaganza that young adults in Albuquerque usually opt for. We joked about that, but I was already looking, and the next showing was in eight minutes. They were willing to grab and go, and we made it, WITH popcorn and a soda to share, before the previews were done.

It was fun. I really liked it. And it was peaceful, and calming, and I really liked that. We took Will home on the way, came back, Holly said she was going to sleep, I read birthday greetings until I fell asleep, and that was most of my birthday. I woke up at 7:00 p.m., ate two hotdogs, and read e-mail and facebook until I FINALLY caught up, just before midnight. Posted to Just Add Light and Stir, and went to real bed.

There was more I didn't know about.

This morning when I was straightening up around the bed, I picked up the jeans I did NOT wear yesterday, to put them up somewhere, and they were oddly heavy. My phone was in the pocket. That means that my WHOLE BIRTHDAY (after 2:00 a.m.) I was without my phone, and didn't even notice. :-) Two months in the UK without the phone got me out of the habit. And there was a sweet message from Kirby in there. I get to see him Wednesday night.

And that was my birthday, and it was a good one, even though maybe the quietest one ever. Marty was at Rebecca Tynker's birthday. She's had the same birthday I have for her entire life. She might be half my age about now, but when I first knew we shared a birthday, I think she was six or so. :-)

All photos are lifted from other sites. I didn't take any pictures yesterday. The good photos I found of Rebecca were rudely copyrighted and blocked, but she's pretty and you would have enjoyed seeing a photo of her. Sorry.

Albuquerque sights today

2011-07-20T01:30:00.002-06:00

Spider warning.

Some photos are out and about, and others are in our yard. A sunflower grew in our compost pile. There's a trompe l'oeil bunch of cars (with interesting cars near it, today) right behind our house. An interesting spare tire cover on a jeep.

The theme seems to be yellow. :-)

I left the fuzzy spider image so you could more easily distinguish the shadow from the equally black spider, in the better photograph.

In the video below, when I said "him" I knew it was a female but just said "him" because it was big and dangerous. I had killed eight of them, and decided to let this one go so you could see it move (you who watch my blog). One I killed was a small male. One was nearly as big as this one (and is in the photos above, but didn't get away). The others were smaller females.

Mostly I was out stepping on and swatting the big black water beetles (cockroaches, they call them, but they're not the little brown cockroaches that live in houses sometimes). Lost count of those. Fifty or seventy. Each one will fail to reproduce from tonight on.

No one in my family does these late-night raids on obnoxious fauna, so the population was up because I was away for two months.

The moon out back, the dawn in front

2011-07-17T10:30:00.000-06:00

About 5:30 this morning, the moon from my back deck:

Half an hour or so later, in the front yard:

The importance to me today is that it's so familiar and dry and warm and so unlike the skies I saw in the places I've been since May—England, Scotland, France, Northern Ireland.

For others now, and more in the future, the cars might be the most interesting part. They'll get older and older as long as the video survives in a viewable format.

Some of Holly's friends

2011-07-16T11:06:00.003-06:00

Last night I went with Holly to a show at The Gasworks. It would have been at the old Amped, but they closed before the month was up, so it was moved. The space is still being set up, but some of the sitting-around stuff was interesting, too.

Will on the left, David in the middle, and Holly.

The rest of my photos and two more videos from last night are here:

(The other video; sorry I left it out before:)

Home in Albuquerque

2011-07-14T12:45:00.002-06:00

12:40 p.m. Thursday, July 14; home in Albuquerque for the first time since mid-May. NICE!!

Don't stop 'til you get a duck

2011-07-12T05:55:00.004-06:00

(I'm going to add to the to of this list until I get tired of it.)

♫ Silver threads and golden needles cannot mend this duck of mine.

[In Alan-Rickman voice:] By Grabthar's duck, you shall be avenged.

♫ Hey! Teacher! Leave them ducks alone.

♫ And the rocket's red glare / the ducks bursting in air

♫ I would stay young and chipper / And I'd lock it with a zipper / if I only had a duck

Be gone, before somebody drops a duck on you

♫ Changing my duck with a wave of her hand

♫ St Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go / I owe my duck to the company store
or
♫ You load fifteen ducks, whaddya get..

Shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus ducked.

♫ Happy trails to you / until we meet a duck

♫ Oh what a beautiful morning / Oh what a beautiful duck

♫ Started swearin' to my god and on my mother's duck / that I would love you 'til the end of time

♫If you've got the money, honey, I've got the duck

♫ I got married to the widow next door /She's been married seven times before / and every one was a duck

(♫ ABBA, "Fernando* ♫) And I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me duck #replaceawordinafamousquotewithduck

Nasty ducks, back room, beaded curtains over it, must be 18 or older to enter: Don't even look.

Ducks in the air, on the phone

2011-07-11T04:01:00.000-06:00

After we left Portstewart, Julie and Sarah texted back and forth their best and some of ours. I was taking notes, too, and thought of some more in the plane. Obsessions end, eventually. Or they become the collections of eccentrics. Oh. DOH!!!!

Enough duck, let's fight.

An unexamined duck is not worth having.

There is no "duck" in team.

♫ All we are saying is give peace a duck.

♫ Fat bottomed ducks they make the rocking world go round.

♫ Get on your duck and ride.

Sooner or later you end up with the duck you deserve.

♫ Mama, I just killed a duck...

No woman, no duck.

♫ Get up, stand up, stand up for your duck.

Blessed art thou amongst ducks.

When one duck closes, another duck opens.

♫ Ruby, don't take your duck to town.

A man loves the duck in his youth that he cannot abide in age.

Live duck, die young.

Don't let your duck take you from behind.

I am the god of hellfire and I bring you... duck

♫ The biggest kick I ever got was doin' a thing called the crocodile duck

♫ Don't stop 'til you get a duck.

Eyes on the duck! Eyes on the duck!

♫ Raindrops keep falling on my duck.

With this duck, I thee wed.

Once upon a duck

♫ Then I saw her face now I'm a duck
Not trace of doubt in my mind.

Once a duck, always a duck.

The further adventures of Ducks

2011-07-10T04:45:00.002-06:00

Explanation (if you think that would help) is here.

The spirit is willing, but the duck is weak.

♫ Yesterday———
all my ducks seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay...

Red duck at night, shepherd's delight

Bring out your ducks

♫Imagine there's no heaven / it's easy if you try
No hell below us / above us only ducks

♫... but Mama said, 'You can't hurry ducks, no you just have to wait...'

♫ A kiss on the hand might be quite continental
But ducks are a girl's best friend

Look like the innocent flower but be the duck under't.

I don't know a symbol for finger snapping, but imagine one here.
♫ When you're a duck, you're a duck all the way...

♫ I see a red duck and I want it painted black

♫ It's a hard-knock duck for us

♫ So good-bye yellow brick duck
or maybe better
♫ So good-bye yellow brick road where the ducks of society howl

Though that might not be a good one, as we made guidelines here last night. If not funny, if not bird, if not "dog" or "dock", then duck (maybe). But the one above has been adjudged an allowable exception.

Elementary, my dear duck.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ducks.

It ain't over 'til the fat duck sings.

In case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, ducks will drop from the panel above you. Pull the duck toward you, place it over your mouth and nose, and breathe normally. Please insure that your own duck is secured before assisting others.

Notice that the nearest duck may be behind you.

In case of an emergency landing on water, your duck is to be found underneath the seat in front of you. Take the duck out of its container, place over your head, pass the straps around your waist and secure with a double knot in front. Ducks for children and ducklings for infants are also available. Do not inflate your duck until you are out of the aircraft. If your duck does not inflate automatically, blow through the tube.

Duck jokes

2011-07-09T17:14:00.004-06:00

On Twitter, people are replacing words in famous quotes with "duck." That's fun, but Twitter isn't easy to search or read, and repeats started coming quite a bit. Those I saw the most were good ones, and obvious, and fun, though:

I did not have sex with that duck.
Houston, we have a duck.
and
You want the duck? You can't handle the duck.

My favorite was "Don't cast your ducks before swine." (Craig Good had contributed it; I don't know him.)

I played some I liked.

Send her victorious / Happy and glorious / Long to reign over us / God save the Duck

Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican duck.

For the benefit of Mr. Kite / there will be a duck tonight / on trampoline

What's in a name? That which we call a duck, By any other name would smell as sweet.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his duck for his friends.

But here at Sarah's house, at dinner we were brainstorming others. If you want to see what's happening at Twitter, it's here:
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23replaceawordinafamousquotewithduck

Things from Sarah, Conchur, James, Julie and me, in various combos and singles:

If you can keep your duck while all around you are losing theirs...

♫ Don't you step on my blue suede duck

Joseph and his technicolor dream duck
♫ I wore my duck of many colors...

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's duck.

Be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a duck.

I'll get you, my pretty, and your little duck, too!

♫ Ding dong the duck is dead...

♫ There is a green duck far away

♫ You're my brown-eyed duck.

♫ I will not cease from Mental Fight / Nor shall my Duck sleep in my hand...
(goes with:) How do you solve a problem like Maria/how do you hold a duck in your hand?

A medium-dry duck—shaken, not stirred

[We considered equal-time in potential offense of religions, but... gave up.]
Blessed art thou, oh Lord, who has not made me a duck.

There is but one G-d and Mohammed is his duck

For God gave his only begotten duck...

In the beginning was the word, and word was with God, and the word was duck.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the duck.

Rise, take up thy duck, and walk.

Give us this day our daily duck

Take, eat, for this is my duck

It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a duck.
We hold these ducks to be self evident...

...life, liberty and the pursuit of ducks

Duck will out
out, damned duck

I find you curiously attractive, young duck.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage duck.

We few, we happy few, we band of ducks.

♫ When the night is over, like a duck out of hell I'll be gone, gone, gone

♫ Hey (hey), you (you), get off of my duck.

♫ Baby, baby, where has our duck gone?

♫ Billie Jean is not my duck

♫ Oh daddy dear, you're still number one, but ducks just wanna have fun

The boy stood on the burning duck...

A fool and his duck are soon parted.

Do or do not; there is no duck.

If the duck fits, wear it.

For the want of a duck, the kingdom was lost.

♫ You change your mind / like a duck changes clothes.

♫ Blue moon, you saw me standin' alone / without a dream in my heart, without a duck of my own

♫ I don't care too much for money / Money can't buy me ducks

(I was taking notes by hand. There are more, but I need to go to sleep.)

Little errors big differences make

2011-07-09T11:22:00.000-06:00

Found on facebook:

Gluten free at the market :)

An insult that wasn't:

You have a brain the size of a moron.

Breath taking beauty

watch the thunder clouds
rising into the night skies
breath taking beauty

Small World Coincidence

2011-07-02T17:37:00.000-06:00

In a charity shop in Stroud, I bought a hat.
I came back to the house. Bartek said someone had skyped, and so I called Holly, in Albuquerque. She said what are you wearing just as I said look at my new hat, I guess, or something like that, and she left the screen and came back with HER new hat. I tried to get an image of it, but I don't show well. Here's Holly, though, and the black outline of me:

The reason Holly went so quickly to get her new hat is that this is what MY new hat looks like:

Adam and James Daniel

2011-06-26T17:41:00.001-06:00

I took over 300 photos today, and many will be thrown out, but I like this one. It was a quiet moment in a long, loud, busy day at a steam engine museum, Hollycombe Steam in the Country, near Liphook, Hampshire. It's not a place tourists could find or get to easily. I read through eight pages of the guest book and except for one "Switzerland," everyone else seemed very local but me. It's kind of down small roads in the relative middle of nowhere. But if you get a chance to go, it's pretty wonderful. I'm grateful to Julie, James and Adam for taking me to such a cool place.

Other photos will eventually be on my travel blog (some) and here (the full collection, which you can view as a slideshow, when they're there, which they aren't yet): http://s26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Europe/Sandra2011/June26%20Hollycombe%20Day/

Little peeks, have to go

2011-06-21T03:32:00.003-06:00

On the little manila envelope in which I keep my most important cards (which was lost for a while yesterday, but was found in "a safe place"), I have written (not all at the same time):
Zidane
worm kefir
Hatton Cross
Later I might come back here and defend those writings.

Here is part of a McDonald's in Staines (click it), and below is a portrait of a Jaffa Cake milkshake—an awesome thing.

James and Adam Daniel are in the background.

Elvis lives. We saw him at Jack's fish'n'chips shop last night in Ashford. He performed two sets, with a costume change. You should've been there. But no, it was all sold out! (You might've could've peeked in the windows; this is the second best thing.)

http://sandraeurope2011.blogspot.com/2011/06/sold-out-elvis-show.html

We're going to a duck tour (not to tour ducks, but to tour part of London in an amphibious vehicle) and to ride on the London Eye. We need to make the 11:11 train. Sounds like a good train. So I need to go now, and I'll be back to share some more of my wild adventures far from home.

Schuyler in Hennebont

2011-06-18T12:08:00.003-06:00

Schuyler, on the medieval wall in Hennebont today. David was taking a photo of her at the same time.

I haven't been able to upload videos here in Baud, but I will when I get back near London. There have been other photos added at the travel blog here: http://sandraeurope2011.blogspot.com/

Our hostess, Helene (Helena the Fortunate, for my SCA readers), went into the hospital Friday afternoon for pneumonia. There's been a little cold going around here, but it hit her hard and fast, and she'll be in until at least late Sunday. So the Waynforths and I will go back to the UK without having said goodbye to her. I got to talk to her sister, Veronique, today when she called and Leon wasn't home. The Waynforth and McNeill kids have gotten along really well.

Ancient history, in the moment, for the future

2011-05-28T08:54:00.000-06:00

Some other American commenting on some other history, and present moment.

Schuyler found this link and brought it to Always Learning for a reason unrelated to my blog, which is always cool.

It is possible this guy knows something about "bellfry" I don't, and it's as or more likely he just has never heard it pronounced. Still, nice ideas and images.

Logic and Literature (or something)

2011-05-26T03:33:00.000-06:00

I lifted this from Gina Trujillo's facebook wall. There's a lot to think about here (but it won't take long).

Mismatched assortment of images

2011-05-23T14:31:00.002-06:00

These are Edinburgh bits, from Sunday/yesterday. More and other images collected on my out-and-about adventure are here: http://sandraeurope2011.blogspot.com/

Car boot (flea market) juxtaposition of something from Colorado with something very local:

The biggest billboard I have ever seen, and the small on on TOP of the biggest is huge, too:

A pretty door outside St. Mary's. We had gone to hear music in a beautiful huge cathedral. The choir was perfect. Unfortunately, the music was Benjamin Britten, and not a match for the building or the formal, historical outfits of the choir.

Sunday I spoke in a Buddhist center. The day before had been in a church with a big cross behind me.

A beautiful stile

2011-05-16T15:25:00.001-06:00

Here is one of the most elegant things I've ever seen—a stone stile, over a low stone wall, from a churchyard to a lower-level meadow or field.

Today we were in West Wittering, to go to the beach. On the way, we went to the Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. It was built in the 12th century, but the sign said "worship has been offered to God on this site for about 1,300 years."

Other things I'm seeing and doing in England are being collected here (sandraeurope2011.blogspot.com), and I'll add some more tomorrow.

The tile job is finished.

2011-05-13T18:11:00.001-06:00

I wanted to announce this a day and a half ago, but blogger wasn't working. My plane to London is boarding but I figured if I didn't do this, I might not remember.

I have a video of a closeup of it all before the grout:

Crossroads

2011-05-09T12:28:00.000-06:00

I have a #4 for my collections of unschoolers' milestones. Kelli Traaseth, here: http://sandradodd.com/milestones
And I'm mere days from leaving for England, where I love seeing real milestones.

The insurance company (one of them; it quit mattering which one after a while, as they'll tussle it out without us) will give us $3000 for a signed title to our sadly totalled ten-year-old Ford Taurus. That will go in on a sedan Keith and Holly will choose before long, while I'm gone.

This afternoon we are signing many papers, for a re-finance on the mortgage. I'm glad Keith understands and pays attention to these things. He's a good house-provider.

Then, related to his house-providing ways, he's going to Phoenix for three days, on Honeywell business. He'll arrive home Thursday night, and I leave for my Big UK/France adventure the next day.

The tile will be finished before Keith gets back (meaning grouted and aged enough for installation of the fixtures). Here are some older in-process photos, not in order, probably.

I double checked, and yes—hippie-art IS required to have a sunburst.

The scanner and copy machine both helped in various ways in getting that design from the table to the wall. Masking tape wasn't really strong enough. Box tape stuck to the latex gloves. and then for a reason I can't figure out, the designs on the paper were bigger than the space on the wall. So I put in my favorite bits, the corners, the edges, and sometimes made custom pieces to fill in odd gaps, and kept messing with honest scraps from other cuttings to go in where they could.

I think I'll be happy with it, but right now I'm kinda tired of looking at it. AND it will match the brown-with-white-details shower right above it in Holly's (Kirby's-old) room. But nobody can see them both at the same time. :-)

Holly, the Taurus, Tuesday, April 26

2011-04-29T20:41:00.003-06:00

For the record, for when we check back someday wondering when this happened.

Amanda Espinall was with her. Neither was really hurt, past scared and headache. Holly had a head bump/scratch that didn't bleed. Both felt a little achy the next day, but not enough they wanted to go to the doctor about it. They were on Carlisle going ~~north~~ south just past Constitution, when a truck a few vehicles up stopped to turn left. Not a good plan. The road had just gone to one lane there on the way to Lomas, and the cars stopped quickly. Holly stopped and didn't hit the car in front. The car behind her, though.... hit Holly, who was slammed into the one ahead of her, which bumped the one ahead of that. So four cars, our car the worst off. The woman in back had a cut on her forehead and the paramedics bandaged her but didn't take her away.

Insurance got us a rental car two days later, but Holly's too young to drive it so she and I are sharing the minivan, and Keith's driving the rental until more is known and settled.

I wrecked the Saturn two years ago this month. Our collection of sedans has dwindled to nothing. Keith has an old convertible Plymouth Valiant that's been gradually restored, in theory, I hear, and there's talk of stepping that up and Keith and Holly will share that some.

In other for-the-record news, Marty, Ashlee, her friend Veronica and I watched the wedding of William and Catherine last night, and then I fixed breakfast for us, we watched the balcony kiss(es), and then all went to sleep. (For me, back to sleep.)

Today in Old Town

2011-04-23T19:27:00.000-06:00

Holly went to a long fundraiser yoga session in Tiguex park across from the house the McNeills are going to rent for the next two weeks, while they're here from France.

I walked around to take some photos for Just Add Light and Stir, and this happy music was happening on the plaza.

Earth Day 1970

2011-04-22T07:00:00.003-06:00

That is a scan of the armband I still have from the Earth Day in 1970.

I wrote about it a few years ago in a blog post called Ten things I've Done You Probably Haven't, and that's probably when I made that image. I love scanners.

I mentioned attending a rally on the first Earth Day to Holly this morning and she jokingly said, "Well where is it? You don't seem very proud of it."

Proud of being that much of a packrat!?

When I went to look for it, I found this mention from last year at Good News Network, in the intro to this article: 40 Victories Since the First Earth Day: 40th Anniversary Timeline

As a senior at Snohomish High School in Washington, Cheryl Pearson organized a highway cleanup on that first Earth Day Day. Sandra Dodd of Albuquerque persuaded the principal of her high school to allow her to skip school that day to join a celebration 25 miles away on the Santa Fe Plaza. "There were speeches, there was singing. I still have the green arm band they gave me."

Well, cool! Only I wasn't in Albuquerque then. I was at Española High School, north of Santa Fe. And I cannot remember who else went. I think it was Jon Tsosie driving that white truck he drove for a while maybe. Not sure anymore. I think there were three of us who went. I remember sitting on a curb on the plaza listening to speeches and seeing the people walking all directions, because it wasn't perfectly organized. I remember the 3H0/Sikhs serving free bowls of black beans.

Finally an iris opened

2011-04-19T08:33:00.002-06:00

Our house faces north and our yard is shady. I've seen sunny-yard irises open already, but here is our #1, early this morning, with my dark van as a background.

International Goat Cheese Day

2011-04-17T08:12:00.000-06:00

I'm sure it's only from my own perspective, but this morning I got up to read my current-favorite blogs. Beth Full wrote at weouiblog.blogspot.com

It was finally warm enough to enjoy our lunch outdoors. We had a fabulous lunch at a cafe near Les Halles that was perfect for people watching while we ate. We shared an appetizer of crispy goat cheese drenched in honey served over salad. So delicious! Emma had a ham and cheese crepe and I indulged in a fabulous quiche. Dessert was strawberries for me and a sundae for Emma.

At Brenna McBroom's reports on her travels in India (brendia.tumblr.com/)

Blake asked what kind of cheese our teacher was using for the Spinach cheese dish, and Lhamo replied earnestly ‘cow cheese’. He went on to reassure us that we could use ‘any kind of cheese’, including ‘cow cheese, sheep cheese, goat cheese, yak cheese’. Mmmm.

I went with Keith to Costco the other day. He usually goes, but just as he was walking out he asked me to go and I went. They had a stand of imported cheeses, and I picked up some goat cheese with figs. It is WONDERFUL, and I made some bread just to go with it.

I didn't save the label, so I looked it up. When I bought it, I was told they probably weren't going to have it there always. It's from Canada.

No wonder it was difficult!

2011-04-10T06:01:00.000-06:00

Pictures don't lie, they say. "They" hadn't seen this one.

CLEARLY it will be difficult to tile this shower, NO WONDER I gave up near the top. (OH WAIT... not "gave up." Quit for the day.)

I need to line the bottom with something high class, and not an assortment of plastic scraps and grocery bags. This was not photogenic. But the tile that's up looks good. I've procrastinated for years. I feel a little better. I hope I don't lose all steam.

Finally tiling, but needed a break

2011-04-09T11:36:00.000-06:00

Dear diary... (I think I'm mostly writing to and for myself here, so others should feel free to skip it for sure.)

Tiling isn't like riding a bicycle, I guess. Maybe safer (Ray M. had a fall yesterday; Karl F. last year). But I've forgotten my "technique." And I don't remember what I used for a mixing tray the last time, and when I found the directions for my tile saw, they had caustic, noxious, bubbly by-product of some paint that had escaped the bottom of its can. (I love the internet, and printed out a new manual for the wet saw, but the internet can't tile the shower.)

I know it's not going to be a fast job. I have a half-futzy plan, and have been collecting found and broken tiles and bits of pottery I've dug up in the yard, and a few other hard-as-glass (some are glass) things for a stripe of crazy-quiltish mosaic), and I have a plan. And there's going to be a lot of cutting and piecing around the bottom where the new tile meets the old tiled pan (a custom job done with concrete and an offset drainhole, so I'm leaving that all there).

This is one of those activities that causes me to think about my interests and personality. I WANT to do tile. This will be the fifth tile job in my life, so I do it about every ten years. Twice I made the tile myself, too. That was really fun. Those were counters for bathroom sinks, though, and not a big old shower (little old shower, actually, this one is). I can think it and I can (eventually) figure out more efficient ways to do this and that, and I can enjoy the progress, but I don't like working by myself. And I get restless and want to go and do something else.

I'm using Thinking Sticks for spacers. (Kind of. I'm using the blanks I use to make the fancy colored and sparkly ones.) I'm using a "sawed off" plastic milk gallon for a water bowl. A plastic coffee "can" for mixing bucket. Paper food trays for a tray. That part's not right. I should go look for a paint roller tray. Yeah. That would be better.

Okay, I'm fortified and off to do it again.

Gratuitous photo completely unrelated:

First logo art for Unschooling Symposium

2011-04-07T13:13:00.004-06:00

I'll add to this as more images come in.

Click here for The shirt Holly colored, to give away, and links to art to use (electronic coloring is no problem!).

Delicious, malicious nachos

2011-04-06T09:01:00.000-06:00

Last night I played a game called Wise and Otherwise with *all* my kids and their friend Zack, and a "not your" (nacho) cheese joke came along.

This morning on twitter there were two similar stories by two different friends:

bonnyglen Melissa Wiley
4yo, singing: "I'm delicious, mean, and scary." 12yo: "Um, sweetie, you mean MALICIOUS."

hahamommy diana Jenner
Hee hee, random 20 year old memory: the Deaf kid who signed Macho Man as Nacho Man for talent show :D

and also from Diana:
hahamommy diana Jenner
Making Na'chos for the Boy. Spell it like that because my brain signs "Not Yours" every.time.

So there. Proves nothing except I know interesting people and that I am merrily and easily amused.
I need a photo to go with this. Just any photo.

Kids in a good mood

2011-04-05T18:40:00.000-06:00

I've got mail!

2011-04-04T14:25:00.001-06:00

Today I got a charge card in the mail, from Australia. MY charge card.

Several weeks ago, I knew I had misplaced one of my two charge cards. I looked all in and around my desk, and the floor, and the shelves near enough for me to have possibly flipped it into. Didn't find it.

I asked Keith to check the charge card records online, to see if it had been used since the online purchase I had made that caused it to be out on the desk. Nope. Checked again in a few days. Nope. So it wasn't worth cancelling it. I figured it was either under the desk or I had accidentally knocked it in the trash.

It came wrapped in pink construction paper, in a greeting-card kind of envelope, with a beautiful stamp of Cape Tribulation, Queensland. No return address, no note.

I must have packed it with a book someone ordered. I could check that charge card record again, and see who ordered a book that day from Australia, but as the person chose anonymity, I'll leave it at that. The person also chose generosity and honesty. THANKS!!! Thank you very, very much.

Gratuitous, unrelated photograph. A monkey I did not see in India, but Brenna McBroom did! (Blake Boles took the photo.)

Twenty-seventh Anniversary (and a lizard)

2011-04-02T14:06:00.000-06:00

First, the lizard. Holly was showing Keith a yoga stance she had learned, and while she was looking at the carpeting upside down, she came face to face with this guy. He did not run away, but hadn't been there long as he was still... lifelike in many ways. I won't say "warm," he being a reptile and all, but we didn't do CPR.

Keith and I were able to celebrate our 27th anniversary dinner with Kirby (visiting from Austin), Marty and his girlfriend Ashlee, and the lovely Miss Holly Dodd.

There is no one great photo, but everyone looked good in at least a couple of them.

Interesting review of my book :-)

2011-04-01T15:41:00.001-06:00

This is a good sort of review, from a mom named Heather:

Austin and I went to the zoo the other day. We ran into several parents ignoring children as they walked behind them crying or saying things like, "Hurry up! Or I'm going to leave you!" Austin was getting very frustrated and feeling really sad for these kids. He said to me, "Mom I really think when we leave the house you should have a backpack full of Sandra Dodd's book and when people are being mean to their kids you should hand them one."

I wanted to share this story with you and say thanks for the impact you have made on me. I've changed and Austin sees that and wants it for other people.

Oh! Eight minutes after posting this, I saw a comment on an Edinburgh home ed site:

Sandra's Big Book of Unschooling changed our family life in so many positive ways I'm really looking forward to hearing her speak in person.

(I'll be speaking there May 21. ***)

Holly and Ljuba in the not-very-wilds of New Mexico, looking at tumbleweeds and prairie dogs.

Note for future photography: To take a photograph of someone holding a single tumbleweed, avoid having 180 tumbleweeds in the background. (No, I didn't count them.)

What Chicago looks like (a little bit of it, today)

2011-03-28T16:28:00.004-06:00

Kim was our tour guide, photographer, and lender of gloves and cap.
I hope New Mexico is much warmer than this when we get home!

I love the mix of old and new, and the blue building fading into the blue sky.

The angles were already fun, and the shadow made it moreso.

A red and white cement mixer was outside the window, and Holly pulled out a red and white shirt she had just bought. I'm sorry she got in front of the truck. :-) Every bit of the truck was red with white decoration. But they matched.

Lines and designs are everywhere here:

I was after the designs on the lamp post next to the designs on the booth (the cover for the stairs an escalator from the underground parking), and didn't see the lamp's reflection until I was home.

Another lamp, parallel to the buildings, but not to that wooden phone or power pole in the alley.

The green mailbox is nice with the store sign painted on the wall past it.

Holly, knots, soup

2011-03-24T22:17:00.000-06:00

The other day I complimented Holly on her necklaces. She showed me that one was a string with a fancy knot in it, one was a piece of lamp chain with a different kind of knot, and her bracelet was also string, knotted.

Here's the onion soup from dinner, and then the onion soup in larger context. We're having fun.

I'm in for the night. Holly's out visiting. We're all set for tomorrow, attending others' sessions in the mornings and doing one together in the afternoon, and then Holly has one herself (and wants me to be there in case she gets stuck). My main bit is the last time slot tomorrow.

Attractive outside and in

2011-03-21T09:14:00.000-06:00

Usually the phrase "attractive outside and in" is used of people. I've met many lately who were attractive outside and in. But this time, I'm thinking about little nooks and crannies of the world, of automobiles, of books, of games and their boxes and the game play and the camaraderie.

Looking around, and thinking.

An Albuquerque Image

2011-03-20T09:00:00.002-06:00

This truck just happened to be between me and this house, when the house was right between me and the Sandia Mountains. I like how the chimney is sticking up "over the mountain." It was a stunning frame for that nice truck. The truck bed's frame matches the white bumper and the windows of the house.

I have no idea whose truck or house that is; on Edith north of Osuna. The art of a moment.

Same truck, different photo.

Holly did some stuff

2011-03-19T21:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Holly did this:

She bumper-bumped another car at the credit union. The whole thing fell off. It was made of plastic and styrofoam. It was fastened on with plastic bolts of some sort, it seemed. 2004 Malibu Classic. Just sayin'.

But Holly was at fault, and our insurance company will take care of the other family, who were also very nice. We waited for the husband of the woman to come from Bernalillo (20 miles north) with the pickup, to get the fallen-off parts. Holly was sweet to him, and he said "Nice running into you!" when we were leaving. The insurance agent took statements from Holly and the other driver, and so we don't need to go file police reports. Yay!

This morning, Holly went to volunteer at a hippotherapy event (horse therapy). That's her standing on the left. Her job was to blow a whistle (and she got a sunburn).

Then she came home and we got into an argument. That wasn't fun.

Then a few hours later we made up. That was good.

Now she's off bowling with Marty and some other friends.

Keith and I are going to sit in the hot tub in a while, and then watch Saturday Night Live, and wake up and watch CBS Sunday Morning, and then I'm going to make Holly a good breakfast so she can go to a six-hour event called Women & Creativity.

St. Patrick's Day fashion moments

2011-03-17T19:49:00.001-06:00

Holly and Marty in green, before they both left. Holly's going to the birthday party of the friend of a friend. That means new friends.

Marty goes to role-playing on Thursdays, but one of their regulars works at an Irish pub so is doing a double shift. Because they can't do the regular game without Ben, Ashlee went with Marty, and Ryan is taking Beth, to the gaming evening, and they'll play board games.

Holly's wearing a dress that was mine in 1970, when I was first in college. I was seventeen, and had it hemmed up shorter. Styles change. It looks really cute with Holly's hair and all. Nice.

The silver churidor (?) pants are from the mall in Bangalore. She's also wearing a nose ornament I got for her in India.

Holly's learning to play guitar, and got a new case for the Ventura guitar I got when I was a teen, too. Very nice case. She's learning quickly and seems to be having fun with it.

Last night she got to help record some backup for a group she likes, for a performance she'll miss because...

Holly and I will be together for a week, going to the InHome conference in Illinois. I'm looking forward to that. She's pretty jazzed that there's a dance Friday night of the conference, and a yoga session.

Soon after we get back, Kirby will be here for a week.

Keith goes back to work on Monday, after six weeks home following shoulder-replacement surgery. He's making progress that impresses the doctor and the physical therapists, but he's still frustrated at not being as good as new yet.

Both of our cars were in the shop yesterday. The van was making an increasingly irritating sound, and though it was hard for them to find, it was a piece missing from the brakes. It's fixed. And the Taurus that Holly's been driving got new tires, so we're all strongly mobile again, though we're still sharing two vehicles among three drivers. Marty and his jeep are fine. :-) We'll need to share with Kirby, too, because he's coming by car, with his housemate.

Most of this I'm writing for my own benefit, so I can look it all up later.

First flower of Spring

2011-03-16T17:44:00.000-06:00

Not a bad first flower, for New Mexico.

Time marches on at PayPal

2011-03-12T21:34:00.001-07:00

input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="8913968

A year and a half later, I go in to make a similar checkout button, and the number now is something quite like HEQUACKV4B6GL. I used to have a seven-digit number. Now I'm on into 13 alpha/numeric places. Wowie.

But anyway...
What I meant to say was that after tweaking and twirling things all day, registration is open for the Always Learning Live Symposium. Registration and information are here.

Today I sent a copy of The Big Book of Unschooling to someone in Greece! I wish I had kept a list of all the countries I had sent them to. It's past fifteen, I'm sure, but this was the first to Greece.

Poop

2011-03-09T19:15:00.001-07:00

For the past couple of days, various people in our house have reported smelling poo. Keith thought "cat pee." I thought poo. Marty and Holly thought maybe dead mouse behind the fridge, but nobody could get anyone else to smell the thing they had smelled, where they had smelled it.

This morning I reached down to pet one of the cats, and she was matted, on the back. This is a young, healthy cat. Gross. Aging poo all over the back of her (?!) and her legs. She let us wash her in the sink, twice. She sat quietly, wet, wrapped up in towels. Twice. She has two odd scrapes on her haunches, some hair missing, but no cuts or punctures.

In news I hope (I REALLY hope) is entirely unrelated, this afternoon as I walked through the back yard picking up trash to put in the hot tub fire (because things blow through out back gate from the alley and businesses out there, and the wind has blown hard lately), I found toilet paper with poo. And another one, in our yard, toilet paper with poo.

Later Keith found a third.

It's bad enough to sneak into a person's yard to poop, but I certainly hope no late-night stranger rolled our cat in it! We didn't find anything but the paper. Where's CSI when you need them?

the cleaned-up cat

NEWSFLASH: While I was uploading the cat image, Keith found the, uh... other evidence. No photos will be forthcoming. The deed was done outside the gate. Either the paper was chucked over the wall, or it blew through.

This dark and dirty sort of thing does NOT get reported in Just Add Light and Stir

Doc Holiday's Hock Shop

2011-03-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid and lived 90 miles from Albuquerque, I liked the TV commercials for Doc Holliday's Hock Shop. They would talk about jewelry and musical instruments, and the announcer was enthusiastic, and the storefront looked cool.

Later when I lived in Albuquerque, I never even went in. It was just another pawn shop.

Years passed. The business has changed its name (probably from a change of ownership), and "Doc Holiday's Pawn Shop" has none of the alliteration or cool internal rhyme. They've moved into an old Grandy's building down the road from our house. Holly and I were passing by tonight, and turned around to get this little video of part of the series on their electronic sign. I mostly thought our Brit friends might be amused, but there are other states where it would be just about as unlawful as in the UK.

NOTE: This isn't a commentary on law or guns, just a little pointer to the real differences in where people live.

Hanuman's shadow

2011-02-28T08:00:00.001-07:00

1, 2, 3

2011-02-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

The new turquoise license plates here can clash with some car colors, but on this VW it was really beautiful. And there was another beautiful blue car between me and there. And it had a cool lizard.

Portraiture (of food)

2011-02-21T21:44:00.001-07:00

Portrait of my Thai food, with me in the background.

(photo by George Mahowald)

Yesterday and Today in Redding CT

2011-02-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today in Hartford CT

2011-02-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

I'm missing two or three people on the left, and three or four on the right. Sorry.

Here, up front, are Joyce Fetteroll and Erika Davis-Pitre:

Winding down afterwards:
Mary Draper, George and Eileen Mahowald, Joyce, me and Erika

"pretty good for an unschooler"?

2011-02-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

Thinking and thinking, after ten days of meeting with and talking to other unschoolers, I have a couple of things to save for future use.

One is that my kids didn't do well for unschoolers. They're doing well for anyone. They're doing well as people. I think 'Pretty good, for an unschooler' is kind of an insulting thought.

And the other is about "screen time"—a term I've heard too many times in the past week. I posted this on Always Learning:

"I wasn't pro-TV..."

I'm not pro-TV, I'm anti-anti.

I didn't make that response verbally, but the next time someone talks about not being pro-something, I hope I'll remember it.

The negativity added to the equation of a mom (especially) declaring that she is not for, or against, (something) is always (I think) negativity.

And here are some gratuitous photos, all from Philadelphia on the 16th.

a little confusion about "the light"

2011-02-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

The other day I was talking to Holly on the phone. I was standing in the entryway of Emily Schnarr's house, pacing back and forth and talking. I saw my shadow, and told Holly I needed to hurry and do something before the light changed. Or maybe I said I needed to take a photo before the light changed.

There's the photo I took with my phone, and immediately mailed it to Holly, who responded

When you said 'light change,' I thought you meant traffic light lol!!

Then a few days later I was walking around "south Philly" with a special secret-route map Amy Childs gave me, and saw this:

win, win, win or lose, lose, lose

2011-02-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, there may be sensible extenuating circumstances. There's my disclaimer.

In the plane to Atlanta a baby was crying. Bigger baby--one year old, maybe as old as two. Screaming after a while, and the mom was saying shh, shh, shh, and trying to comfort her but the baby was louder and insistent, and it wasn't pain and it wasn't air sick. It could have been boredom. But it seemed a repeated attempt to appeal to the mom.

After a while I over heard her say to someone "She wants to nurse." So I hoped the person she was talking to was advising her to just DO IT already. But it got worse, and after a while she said louder "She wants me to nurse her." So nurse her! Oh, that was my voice. Three rows up on the other side looking back, into the faces of people agreeing with me, nodding at me and saying, Right, why doesn't she just nurse her? So others said too, "Nurse her," and "poor thing." I said "Nurse her! Nurse her! Nurse her!" like a chearleader, and though others didn't take up the cheer, they were cheered by it. I asked if she needed to borrow a blanket, but I don't know if she heard me.

After maybe ten more minutes of the same sad, repeated scream, the baby got quiet. I didn't look back. I wanted to imagine that the mom had given up and nursed her, rather than that the baby gave up asking.

I've nursed babies in airplanes. Three of them. It's the wonder of biology that a child can be nursed to sleep with happy hormones and the mom can feel content to sit for an hour or two or three. And as moods are contagious, the peace of a sleeping baby can spread.

As moods are contagious, today that child's frustration, indignation and increasing confusion and fear spread. I don't see any downside to nursing a baby. Maybe she was trying to wean her. Okay, not a good day for it. Maybe she wasn't wearing clothes that made it easy to nurse. Mom-problem, then. Maybe she was on medications she couldn't nurse the baby with. Then she should've had a bottle.

If anyone reads this who knows the mom and wants to explain or defend her, there's the comment field. Go ahead. I DID feel sorry for her, but I felt sorrier by far for the daughter. And next, I felt sorry for the others in the plane who had no control over the situation at all, and were helpless. At least the daughter was trying to help. She was trying to reason with her mom.

I hope she's not on the connecting flight. But more than that, I hope she found a place and let her daughter nurse herself into a peaceful stupor. The problem is that some of the peace of their dyad is harmed now. That much screaming isn't good for a baby even in the total absence of witnesses or passengers locked in the same very small cabin.

Be nice to your babies, please, everyone! It really does add to the peace of the world.

Thanks.

snow like sand, ice like glass, Marty's beautiful jeep

2011-02-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

Candid hospital food, New Mexico style

2011-02-07T17:14:00.002-07:00

This is nearly a week old, but this is a report on the hospital food they brought Keith when he was still mostly unconscious. I thought of friends in India, and England.

Chicken quesadilla (the tortilla had cheese and grilled chicken bits, and hot sauce to dip it in). Spanish rice (rice cooked in tomato juice, or some such). Corn. The two brown containers are cream of chicken soup and iced tea. The one in the front, in a coffee cup, was cold tea. The pink thing was strawberry sorbet.

That is a LOT of food. Creamy, spicy, irritating kind of food. Oh. And the radish and the onion:

Maybe Day 3 it could've been good, but three hours after surgery!? Day 3 he was home, anyway. :-)

Holly objected to this sign. She figures if they don't know that, they're not really professionals.

Bus Bench Beauty

2011-02-03T22:17:00.001-07:00

Not beautiful to sit on, but nobody was attempting to sit there. Holly took these photos of the bus stop nearest our house yesterday:

That's my van behind, in the second photo.

Snow and surgery

2011-02-01T10:12:00.002-07:00

I'm home, but Keith is in surgery having his right shoulder replaced. I've been to the hospital twice today, once to take Keith at 6:00 a.m., and then back again to take the fancy foam and velcro sling. He had one from last year (shoulder surgery on the left, not as extensive as this one) and they're expensive, so I went back out into the snowy, icy world to deliver that.

When they call, I'll go back again, to see him into his room and hang out a while. He will be there perhaps two days, maybe a little less.

Snow is beautiful from inside a warm house. It's wonderful to walk in, just for fun. But to drive in when one is nervous and afraid because a spouse is unconscious and being cut upon by strangers, snow is not friendly. It took me an hour to get there, drop that sling off 30 feet from the door, and get home. It's five and a half miles.

I wore a scarf I bought in India, and driving home 20 mph on very icy roads, there was Hanuman swinging happily. I guess orange plastic Hanuman (or as ours is known, "HanumanTana") isn't much used to snow.

Hanuman on a warmer day

(not the photo I was looking for, but him in Texas, and a song Keith likes) That "HanumanTana" was Holly's word sculpture.