50 year old matron Fools All of the People Some of the Time

by rachel tsunami

I spent a really neat day, yesterday, on the U of M campus---had some coffee and danish in the university bookstore, business in the Art Dept., business in the Bursar's office, and spent some time watching people as they traversed the campus between classes. I saw Molly, Kathryn, and Beka some, but mainly stayed busy just trying to look like a hip, young, 2o something college student, which effort was largely unsuccessful I am sure.

It took me back a little; I had fun in college. But I didn't have anyone on campus that I shared the really important things with. So I also enjoyed knowing that today---somewhere out there---were Beka, and Andrew, and John, and Seth, and Ryan...(am I leaving any-UofM-one out?) attending their classes, and just plain ol' being there for Moo and Multi. And not just for the safety-in-numbers factor, but for the fellowship, support, and plain ol' fun they'll all have together.

What a great year this will be! Viva la!

Word of the Day for Monday, August 28, 2006

aegis \EE-jis\, noun:1. Protection; support.2. Sponsorship; patronage.3. Guidance, direction, or control.4. A shield or protective armor

It is this ideal of the human under the aegis of something
higher which seems to me to provide the strongest counterpressure against the
fragmentation and barbarization of our world.-- Ted J. Smith III (Editor), In
Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver,
1929-1963

What a great word. I wonder if Ted Smith and I have the same "something higher" in mind?

Lots of luck to you and yours!

SHADES OF GREEN WISHES MOO A VERY MERRY BIRTHDAY!

We love you, Molly. May you live all the days of your life!

Now is Now

by rachel tsunami

Last week we turned a corner in our family. On Friday we sent our two oldest children off to college. We don’t think it’s unique or novel. Parents have been doing it for decades. But it’s a first for us, and a ‘passage’ that we have looked toward with mixed emotions.

Molly and Kathryn have moved to Memphis to attend University Of—only 1 ½ hours away. It’s a familiar place, with familiar people—family, and other people we love—people who love them, and they’ll even be living with some of those lovely folks. All in all, it’s a huge comfort zone, and I’m glad for that. It’s a school they could easily have chosen for its advantages even if it had been farther away, but it also has the delightful advantage of being near home. And they expect to be home many weekends (when they can afford the gas).

But it’s a passage nonetheless, and being the predominantly sentimental folks that we are, the whole “leaving” thing has been fraught with tenderness, and meaning, and tradition, and excitement, and a not a little circumstance (as in “Pomp and”). For in spite of all the perks, and the peace we feel about this step in their lives, we realize that things will never, ever be the same for us again. Not really. It’s a bit of a wistful feeling, mixed with courage and faith, at once thrilling and bittersweet, with concentric circles of “if-ing” and “then-ing” swirling about us, and coming back around to land squarely in front of the throne of grace.

The thing is, life is full of many things that can result in the same phenomenon of making things Never Be The Same Again. Many of them are not nearly so pleasant or so filled with positives aspects. I’m grateful.

Fittingly, RoBear finished reading aloud the first Little House book early last week. We had forgotten the poignancy of the very last page, but you’ll see why it touched a deep place in our hearts.

When Laura and Mary had said their prayers and were tucked snugly under the trundle bed’s covers, Pa was sitting in the firelight with the fiddle. Ma had blown out the lamp because she did not need its light. On the other side of the hearth she was swaying gently in her rocking chair and her knitting needles flashed in and out above the sock she was knitting. The long winter evenings of fire-light and music had come again.
………
Then Pa began to play again the song about Old Grimes. But he did not sing the words he had sung when Ma was making cheese. These words were different. Pa’s strong, sweet voice was softly singing:

“Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,
And the days of auld lang syne?”

When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, “What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?”
“They are the days of a long time ago, Laura,” Pa said. “Go to sleep now.”
But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa’s fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.
She thought to herself, “This is now.”
She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.

Reading Little House in our Big House...

When I was a little toddler and my sisters quite young, Papa read through the series of The Little House on the Prairie Books. I don't quite remember it, but growing up, I've read through them a number of times. You can't ever grow tired of these books. The way Laura Ingalls writes and describes every little detail on a younger level is most entertaining. I don't think that even grown-ups could ever grow tired of hearing about the life and adventures of the little 'half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up'.

The most comforting parts in all the books are when Pa gets his fiddle down to play, with Ma sitting by the fireside knitting and the little girls tucked snug in their bed while the winter winds blow and howl outside. And Pa's fiddle sings...

"'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

This summer, ham'n'cheese had Little House on the Prairie on his summer reading list, so we decided to read the series as a family again. It's so comforting to sit as a family in our living room that Mama has made so beautiful and homey, while Papa reads aloud and you color or...

You should read them. Have you?

a comma by any other name...

In her highly popular book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, obsessive-compulsive punctuation policewoman, Lynn Truss, quotes Nicholson Baker in his book Room Temperature as he muses poetically on the shape of the comma. It recalls to his mind...

"the pedals of grand pianos, mosquito larvae, paisleys, adult nostril openings, the spiraling decays of fundamental particles, the prows of gondolas..."

"adult nostril openings..." Man, that's great! I wish I'd thought of that first.

Okay. Now, if you'd like to have a little fun with how they're used instead of what they look like, go here http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ESLquiz.html for a little game to see how savvy you are with commas and apostrophes. I'm "a 92% stickler."

Well? How did you do?

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Happy 19th! from all of us here at Eddings Hill


He has many faces...








brother,








nephew,








double-first cousin,








friend,









tent maker, Master-Mind player,
prince when we played royalty,
daddy when we played house,
tree climber, tag-a-long, fisherman,
candy eater, candy seller,
scheme contributor, interpretive opera singer,
Shark player, cartoon watcher,
Uno player, Blind-Man's Bluff player,
dress-up artist, cowboy, cop or robber,
stowaway in our van, spend-the-night-lobbier,
pasture explorer, barn explorer,
thumb sucker, nose picker
and much, much more...Bo-Doo

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Eleanor!

1. The air around Eleanor is superheated to about five times the temperature of the sun.
2. Eleanor can use only about ten percent of her brain!
3. Eleanor is 984 feet tall.
4. Eleanor will give a higher yield if milked when listening to music.
5. A Eleanorometer is used to measure Eleanor.
6. Eleanor never said 'Play it again, Sam'.
7. Eleanorolatry is the mindless worship of Eleanor.
8. There are now more than 4000 satellites orbiting Eleanor!
9. Apples are covered with a thin layer of Eleanor.

Words, words, words....

by rachel tsumani


~Hamlet Act 2, Sc.2

Y'just gotta love Dr. Dictionary and his Word-for-the-Day. A new word magically appears in your inbox every day. You can read it quickly then drag it to a file to save for reference later on. (Or not.)

Maybe it's a word you've never heard before, and you flag it, determined to add it to your vocabulary [bombinate 5/21]. Lots of times it's a word that you have heard before but forgotten, only to have it turn up like a well-loved stuffed animal that you haven't seen in years; an old friend that you welcome back into the circle of your thoughts [imbroglio 7/16]. Occasionally it's a word that you've always loved, just for the way it looks on the page and the way it sounds when it falls "trippingly on the tongue,"...a word that's just downright pleasurable to say [incontrovertible 5/22, and agog 4/23]. Or a word whose definition is so perfectly descriptive and choice that you can't resist finding opportunities to use it [hubris 7/6].

Consider patronizing Dr. Dictionary. Where else will you read random words like forfend and supercilious. Compunction, corroborate, and concatenation. And not only do you get the definition, he always gives 3 sterling examples of the word in the context of a sentence or short paragraph.

Okay, maybe the idea of learning a new word every day doesn't float your boat. Maybe it's not your idea of a good time, (although I dare you to say scuttlebutt [7/19] and not enjoy it). Even if you delete 2/3rds of them, I guarantee you'll read one occasionally and learn something that could come in really handy sometime when you need to sound smart. Hey, it's free education!

A good vocabulary builds self-confidence and helps fool people into thinking you're smarter than you may or may not be. (Kind of like that old trick of sauteing an onion with some garlic just to make the house smell great and and boost your family's morale while you buy yourself some time---frantically trying to come up with supper.) Before long, whadya know...you are smarter.

Ah, Monday. Today's word is fatuous. Come now, can you really resist a word like fatuous? http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/ Look for the sign-up in the upper right corner.

Next time Dan Bruce, attorney, throws around phrases like prima facie [8/1], I won't have to pretend. I'll actually know what he means. Thank you, Dr. Dictionary

Got any favorite words? Throw us a few.

In the face of all you cat-lovers, I post this quote...

Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods.
- Mulliner Nights; P.G. Wodehouse

A Prophet Indeed

regarding The Constitution...

"I do indeed believe in this cause. This cause it right, it is just, it is good, it is true. But I must, never the less, confess a great fear: there may one day come a generation, rooted not in the principals that gave rise to our liberty, who will take these phrases and these articles which we have so carefully drafted, and twist them and make them into something that we could not have imagined."

-George Washington
in a letter to Alexander Hamilton

magnetic poetry

imagine lazy summer

your feet dance
meander in our thoughts
hot rain murmers
play in the puddles
plump petals swim
sun shine lounge
cool luscious moonlight
smooth delicate sleep
dream beneath eternity
it blows music above
a thousand whispered nothings
rose red bare skin
sweet smells of color

summer

We Are Americans

"We are Americans, and as Americans we must live or die by liberty, virtue and the call of almighty God upon our lives.
Should we betray any of these causes, then lay at our feet the shame of the world and let the nations mock us.
We must be the beacon light, for we were sent on an errand into the wilderness, and therefore are called to be a light to the world."
- Samuel Adams

From the first speech made in the first meeting of the First Continental Congress.



(serendipity)