Earth Day 2013

Earth Day 2013, a beautiful sunny warm spring day here in Central Illinois.  I spent the morning on my deck, grouting small mosaics that some of the women at the NCC Women's retreat made this past weekend.

I love me some women's retreat weekend!

I spent the afternoon running a few errands, then enjoying a short visit to a used book store.  Where I found "The Facts on File Dictionary of CLICHES"  (second edition.)  It's delightful and full of useless information about the origin of clichés. 

Because it is Earth Day, I looked under E to see if there were any clichés involving the word Earth.  Indeed!!  There is a cliché originally from Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940, which is...

"But did thee feel the earth move?"

  Really, Ernest?!  That is over the top. 

On Earth Day here is a sad message on our state of affairs in 2013:

Random Facts

Fact number one:
I worked so hard to get a pair of pantyhose on this morning that I broke into a sweat. 

Fact two:
I just got a new Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM to those in the know.)  I have a little sensor just under the skin of my ample tummy and a receiver that I wear like a pager.  It tells me my (approximate) blood sugar all the time.  I will change the sensor weekly.  It has an alarm if my blood sugar gets too high or too low.

Fact three:
On the CGM I can enter "events"  like eating carbs, taking insulin, or exercise.  Exercise is listed as light, moderate, or intensive.

Fact four:
I think the pantyhose episode counts as at least 5 minutes of intensive working out.

Fact five:
I saw a barn owl yesterday while hiking at Parklands.  No photos of the bird, but here are a couple photos of things I did see on my hike (60 minutes of moderate exercise).

Some kind of puffer-necked bird?

 

Not much greenery yet unless you get down on the ground and look very closely.

 

River nymphs must be sculpting.

 

 

Find the snail shell in this picture...squint...oh there it is!

Fact six:  I love Parklands. 

Fact seven:  Removing pantyhose counts only as 4 seconds of no exercise at all, unless that deep exhalation of relief can be included.  Then it's about 30 seconds of moderate joy.

Fact eight:  That's all folks!

Have Finkle Will Travel

I don't know what a Finkle is, but this semi driver definitely is dedicated to his, or is one, or is transporting one.  Saw this on I-70 in Ohio.

 

A couple other highlights of the trip included:

 

1.  Great views of the pandas at the zoo...just two days before the female went into estrus and the indoor part of the exhibit was closed for hanky-panky or artificial insemination.  Depending on the quality of the hanky-panky.  Those zoo biologists have such good jobs!

 

 

 

 

2.  Seeing one of Sisi's heroine's airplanes:

 

Now it's quiz time:

 

Which of these is from the Zoo?  Which of these is from the National Gallery?  And which of these was waiting for us when we got home?

 

A.

 

B. 

 

and finally C.

 

 

Good luck! 

 

We arrived home safe and sound.  I will probably not choose to drive 13 hours again straight through until at least one of the kids can share the driving.  Since they couldn't share the driving, they got a chance to share in the clean-up:

 

 

and there was some of the 9" of snow still left for us to see, though it was a bit of a let-down:

 

 

at least the kids didn't have to shovel when we got home!!!

 

 

 

The District of Washington

License plate from DC seen today with motto on the bottom edge "Taxation Without Representation."  True.  But is that the district motto, for real?  Inquiring minds want to know.

The kids think that DC should be called DW instead, not wanting any homage to Cristobal Colon, a.k.a. Christopher Columbus, to be present in our governmental monikers.  Washington, D.W. just doesn't sound right to old ears, though.  Just sayin'.

We have visited the Air and Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the National Zoo, and the Natural History Museum in the past 3 days.  We are all somewhat overstimulated.  Today J-dude reached a new level of overwhelmed crankiness from which he is now recovering.  Sisi is still soaking stuff in like crazy.  I just have sore feet. 

Tomorrow, our last day of sightseeing, is still up for grabs a bit.  It looks like we will go back to the Zoo to see a few exhibits we missed.  And then...who knows.  Certainly we will watch some more of March Madness on our 7000 TV channels at the fancy schmancy hotel where we are staying.

Speaking of this hotel, it is a cut above my usual price-range and service level, and kind of a fun treat for me.  We have a little studio with kitchennette, king bed and sofa bed.  Free breakfast and 4 nights of free dinner as well!  Indoor pool, a kids room with ping-pong table, and very friendly staff.  I feel happily spoiled.

Friday we will head home to The Player, Three-Point, and Samarra.  And maybe some snow still on the ground!

Testing testing one two three-point-one-four

On Pi Day a scrawny hungry cat arrived at our kitchen door meowing for all his scrawny hungry self-worth.  He was invited in, fed, and decided to stay.  Once fed he seemed to immediately triple in size.  He summoned all kinds of energy to fend off our nosy and playful Samarra who barked and jumped and pestered him to chase her. 

So finally he did with hissing and claws and ears back.

She loved it. 

The humans haven't been quite as thrilled with the noise level of the play-territory-establishment-fights, but we decided to give it a chance.

We gave him a name (Pi, of course).  He got his bonbons removed (Sisi's term for neutering).  He got his rabies and distemper shots.  He is recuperating here in the lower level of our household while the playful and nosy canine is kept upstairs.  If they can eventually learn to get along then he may be a keeper.  If not, we have a very adorable cat with a great name who has all his shots to share with a lucky family.

The Surface Area of a Family

It's been an interesting time here at the Hummus Household.  Cold viruses are living here among us.  The dog is having some kind of crazy shadow-and-light chasing phase that seems worse at dusk.  We miss our cat.  The kids have tolerated standardized testing beyond what would be allowed by the Geneva Convention. 

J-dude is trying to figure out the surface area of various bizarre shapes.

I think being one of the youngest kids in your class, getting put in a math class that essentially skips a year of math and throws you forward (based on previous years' torture test results), adjusting to junior high, adjusting to having laptop computers of your own for school, and having an old mom who is a math whiz....well, that just has to stink.

He's struggling in lots of ways.  I wish I had a magic wand.

By the way, it's Pi day...3-14, as in 3.14 the value of pi (rounded to 2 decimal places of course).

He's also sneezing, a sign that the cold virus is thinking of taking up a vacation rental property in his schnozz.

We are learning as we go.

Hard to Watch

This weekend we had a veritable film festival at our house, due to 2 of us being too sick to do anything except lie on the couch and stare at the TV screen.  We watched a favorite oldie (A League of their Own), a kid-appropriate homage to horror films (Frankenweenie), the latest popular kids film on DVD (Wreck-it Ralph).  And we watched a documentary called Bully. 

Bully is a film that everyone with kids in junior high or about to go to junior high should watch.  It is painful to watch.  And yet very important to watch and to discuss with your kids. 


The film follows the story of 5 families who have kids that are or were being bullied.  Two of the kids committed suicide.  One of the kids tried to committ suicide 3 times.   One of the kids fought back and ended up in jail because of it.  One of the kids and her family decide to move to a bigger town/city to avoid being bullied because she is gay.  One of the vice-principals interviewed is so clueless as to be dangerous.  The film-makers had to stop making the documentary and show footage to a kid's parents and school system to protect him.  Kids bullied one boy on the school bus even with the filmakers right there filming.


Here is the trailer:

Bullying seems to be accepted as normal behavior in some schools.  I am grateful that I live where that is not the case, at least not yet.

But I will definitely be keeping my eyes and ears more open from here forward.