Kid-shorthand recipe

This is note-taking by a child of the recipe for making French toast. He wrote quickly, as the mom told him how to do it, went and made great French toast, and later the mom found his notes:



See if you can interpret it before you look at the full story. It's really cool.
Sam's Recipe

Quebec, and seeing Holly!

On the way it was almost nothing but clouds, but finally when we were approaching we flew low for a long time, in one of the little Canadair jets. I saw water, farms in unusual arrangements, flat and slow rivers with roads on both sides. Farm houses right at the edge of the St. Lawrence. A quarry, right in town. Trees as high as the fourth and fifth stories of buildings.

It's nice being with Holly in everyday ways. She said as soon as I got here it seemed normal. It's hard to describe, and we've been speaking on Skype so she had shown me most of the house, inside and out. We visited a little market and a park in the next town up, Hudson. There's a building with an American flag on it (in addition to Canada and Quebec). The people we were with didn't know why it was there, so if anyone here does, let me know.

The photos aren't really great or special, but they'll help us remember the day. It was darkly overcast all day and very comfortable. I got to meet one of the kids Holly's age that she's been hanging out with.



Meant to add these in the first place--kids playing at the playground.

Be a good person to be a good parent

Even if you're not a parent, being a better person makes you and all the world better.

A friend of over 20 years posted something negative on facebook and I responded "Negativity changes the world, but not in a good way." Someone criticized me for that, but I don't feel the least regret for reminding people to be positive. We have choices.

Another friend I've known for over 30 years wrote this yesterday, in an unrelated exchange:

One of my mom's favorite sayings was, "Brighten the corner where you are." As a young hippie idealist, I snorted at those words. It's taken me this long to realize how right she was, cuz that's the only way the world heals.

My response was

My dad told me, when I was 15 or so, "You just need to decide to be happy." I thought he must not be very smart.

As I got older I looked back and saw how many situations in his life had involve deciding to be happy and accepting and to make the best of situations. At 15, though, it made no damned sense.

My dad was my best influence. He was generous, helped others freely, smiled through adversity and made the world around him safer and better.

It's popular recently for some people to assert that there is no such thing as "good" or "bad," but that's nonsense. Without knowing the direction we want to go, how can we make choices at all? I think people confuse "there is more than one good choice" with "all choices are equal."

My dad didn't die in the war, though he was in the army during WWII. I was 24 when he died. He was buried in the national cemetery in Santa Fe. He was as good a parent as he could be, and made up for my mom's meanness and alcoholism by being kinder, nicer and stronger. It's not virtue that he wasn't an alcoholic; he just wasn't. Yes, it's a condition that some people inherit, but lack of knowledge and resolve do make it worse, and I'm glad people understand it better now than they did forty years ago.

Today can't be made better tomorrow.

Today you will make choices. Those choices will affect more lives than your own.

Holly, a reflection, and "photobooth"

(There was a flash video file that didn't transfer from photobucket to my site, but I'm leaving the note just in case someday it is transferred and restored.)

Holly... soon!

I get to see Holly in two weeks. I'm visiting at Bea's house for a few days on the way to the Great Big Happy Life Conference in New Jersey.

Holly has uploaded a bunch of photos to her photobucket account, and I'm going to share some of my favorites. They're clickable.



(well, everything is clickable, I suppose, but these will go somewhere)

Just the top end of me

This is what I looked like to Cheryl Etzel last time I spoke at the HSC conference. I should be careful not to look so much like that this year!

Her explanation:

In 2006, at the HSC Sacramento Family Homeschool Conference, I was
sitting very close to the front of the audience while you spoke on a
quite elevated stage, behind a large podium, obscuring you almost
completely from my view.

Normally, the obscured view of a speaker would move me to a new seat,
but your voice and passion moved me to sit still and carried your
message, perfectly. I found your face interesting in the half-sy
view provided by my too-close seat, and wound up doodling this drawing.

She gave me permission to share it. Here's part of my response:

In just a few lines, you drew something no one has ever mentioned to me, but I'm always aware of it. My cowlick is right at the front of my hair, and so one side goes up and one side goes down. I've known that since I was a teen, but the fashion for straight hair was parted down the middle, and there it still is. My mom's hair did that same thing, too.

Before Sacramento, I'm speaking in Montreal and New Jersey, but I don't expect a high stage and a podium.

Albuquerque, and The Ace Festival

Today I went to the grocery store, thinking of the ACE Festival. Adam Daniel (who is five years old) and I corroborated on a name. Adam did most of the work. It's the Albuquerque Chatting and Exploring Festival, planned for January 7-10, 2011.

Adam said that when his mom was younger, people would say "that's ace!" rather than "that's cool." Yesterday I was watching "As Time Goes By" (a British sitcom, or Britcom), and the character Alistair, who is usually modern-to-futuristic in his slang, said "that's ace." It was partly to show that he was slowing down and being more himself. And because of my correspondence with Adam, I knew that.

This morning at the store I saw this:

And going out to the car I saw the parking lot in such glory that it would have been perfect for out-of-town guests, but I was the only one there, so I whipped out the cameraphone and brought these images:













I didn't have to go out of my way. That's my cart in the first one. I was headed toward my car when I saw the old panel van, and the new delivery truck. The pickup for sale was parked right next to me.

http://sandradodd.com/ace There will be a logo but it's still in process.