Tiptoe Through the Tulips

While having two days off during the week due to school closing-I spent a lot of time on the couch with a blanket pulled over my head. But those rare times when I did surface I got a great view of tulips out my front window. Well, not really tulips. I just can't bring myself to say the "i" word and I'd much rather think of them as tulips. Constantly berating myself for not enjoying the full beauty of winter -I decided to take tulips by the horn and do a little research. Did you know that there is a pop group, sunglasses, a vacation chalet in France, a ski club in Australia, and even a software program for Emacs, named Tulips? I never realized tulips were so popular. There's a pitcher named Tulip Reeder who pitched for the the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1884. Even comics have their own tulip. In the DC Comic version, the Tulip escaped from the Green Lantern by diving off of a 20 story building into the Gotham River. I never realized there was so much going on with tulips. I always thought they were just another pretty face: pretty to look , pretty dangerous, and pretty destructive when hanging from the eaves of our house. The next time I pull my head out from under the blanket I will look with new appreciation at our tulips. (However, I am eagerly awaiting the real thing in May and June!)

Thanks to Blog Idea Guest- "BIG" Chuck for his help coming up with a topic -my brain is still frozen!

The Power of the Pen

The snow and frigid temperatures have turned my blood to ice and my brain to slush. I haven't been able to focus on reading a book since the Arctic freeze began a couple of weeks ago. I've just been slogging through life. So, to cheer myelf up- I decided to treat myself to a CD from the Great Courses of The Teaching Company. They have all sorts of university courses on CD. I can listen in the car. I don't have to thaw my eyeballs out. Acknowledging my desperate need to go far, far away I picked "Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations" . It covers early civilizations in the Near East from 3500BC to about 500BC. The course goes thru the first cities in what is now Iraq, the rise of society, and the invention of the written word. The instructor was commenting on how the ability to read, write, and pass information changed the world. It is intriguing to the think that language evolved partially due to laziness. People must have gotten tired of carrying all those clay tablets around- and sought ways to shorten the information. They wanted to get their point across in the least amount of words. They went from using pictograms to represent a concrete object to using pictograms to represent ideas. The instructor pointed out that by using the written word they had created a time machine. And I thought "Yes"- a time machine. Literature is a time machine. Without it -we'd be stuck here in the present in our (hopefully) ordinary lives. But, open a book and voila! New time, new place, new experiences. With renewed hope- I plan to climb into my time machine and set the dials to Anywhere But Here and Anytime But Now and take off.
Talk to you next week... maybe.

"Celly" Mystery Pics!

I know you're screaming, "Nooo! Not another cell phone story." And , yes, it is - so with that said- read on if you must-or- I'll catch you next week. Santa brought Chuck and I picture phones for Christmas. Chuck is very proud of his phone number- since out of everybody he knows - he has the largest digits- only 308 away from a new city exchange. I'm thrilled with them because for the first time in my life-I have a technological wonder toy- BEFORE- my kids! ( * Disclaimer- except for one son-in-law. Thanks- Josh -for ruining my record. You loved that picture of Beckett, didn't you?)
Over the holidays we used our phones a lot. I took pictures of the girls, the pets, the Christmas trees and shared them all with Chuck. Now that our life has settled down my picture taking has turned into a "GUESS WHAT THIS IS?" experience. During the day, I take pictures and send them to him. He's so lucky -I'm sharing my daily experiences with him. Just this past week he received a picture of the &*^#^* truck that almost killed me on my drive to work (if I died- he could find the sucker and sue his pants off), the rodent strip that my ADD/HD kid had plastered to his foot and is now stuck to the middle of my floor. (Don't ask how that happened!) and another picture from my "closet" - a goldfish bowl with a dead goldfish. The only problem is- I haven't quite figured out how to use all the extras on my phone. Despite my daughters' attempts to teach me how to text- I'm have a classic case of text-exia. I haven't yet learned to attach a text message to the photo. So, during his day at work his phone beeps, and beeps, and beeps-nicely reminding him that he has a message-until he checks it out. Then he has these mystery pictures that come up. I don't quite know how his mind works- (it's only been 35 years). How does a dirty fishbowl with a dead fish in it turn into a middle-finger salute with a ring on? Hmmmm- maybe cell phone images will be the Rorshach test of the future. After reading this blog -I'm hoping the rest of my family will run out and get camera phones.
You, too, can get "Mystery Pictures from Mom". After all The Family Thats Clicks Together-Sticks Together.