Stories

I am a canvas of my experiences, my story is etched in lines and shading, and you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach.

~ Kat Von D

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I created this art with AI and sent it to Kirk and told him it was a new tattoo I had gotten. He paused a while before responding. When I told him I was kidding, he was very relieved.

He doesn't want me to be close to my nephew, I guess. I don't know why.  

Kids

Photo by Richard Boettcher

Encourage your child to have muddy, grassy, or sandy feet by the end of each day, that's the childhood they deserve.

~ Penny Whitehouse

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And then if they also have manure-crusted feet that they track into your house, don't yell at them. That's what you deserve for having so much manure around.

Mask

It's under the mask of fiction you can tell the truth.

~ Gao Xingjian

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If you are too afraid to tell the truth unless you're wearing a chicken mask, that is super ironic, isn't it? 

Yep.

The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.

~ Anthony Robbins

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This card made me think of a few people I know. Maybe you know them, too. They come with issues, challenges, anger. They flip tables and drop microphones and then run out the door. They make accusations and then - once they are done saying what they have to say - they walk away and say they don't have time to talk more.

I would like to give them this card, but then I'd have to walk my talk and talk with them about it. I don't want to. It's too bad because I am really good at finding the right cards for people.

Sunset

It is easy to keep secrets by being honest in an ironic tone of voice.

~ Andrew Solomon

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It is also easy to keep secrets if you don't tell people who are blabbermouths. You know who you are.

 

Mom

(photo by Richard Boettcher)

Even though there are rivers and creeks, the gather at the end of one thing called the sea.

~ Kamaran Ihsan Salih

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This is a photo of my mother... literally up a creek without a paddle. Such was not an isolated incident.

BEAR!

(photo by Richard Boettcher)

He admired bears because everyone was afraid to disturb them while they slept, and fish were so in love with bears that they jumped right into their mouths.

~ Robb Todd

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You know what I said yesterday about the moose? Same is true for this bear. WTH, Dad?!

 

Why??!

(Photo by Richard Boettcher)

Sometimes an alien would stand with a moose, not because of solidarity, but because of accidentally doing it.

~Tao Lin

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My father was the kind of person who would tell you not to do things and then he would do them. For example, we had to go to the basement during tornadoes while he would stand in the carport and watch for them.

And, my oh my, the number of times he would tell us, "Don't get out of your car to take a photo of a moose! They could charge you!" And then look here at this photo of a moose he took, apparently outside of his car.

And the number of times he told us that - about not getting out of the car around a moose - well, that number was zero. However, I remain confident that if I asked him if I could get out of a car to take a photo of moose he would say, "No!" Only later would he say, "What was that moose doing in Iowa, anyway?"

Shelter

Her children had people, and that was important. Kinship systems.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

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Hey, kids. So over here is the fallout shelter. We'll use this when it is fall out.

Communication

Dogs, like us, are individuals and have their own likes and dislikes, comforts and discomforts. So it is everyone's responsibility to learn how to interact safely with dogs.

~ Nayla Garcia

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Lily is a wonderful communicator. When we go to the dog park, she will hang out for a while. However, if there are too many dogs or if we have been there longer than she wants, she just comes over and gives me a look. I ask her, "Are you ready to go?" and she confirms that, yes, in fact she IS ready to go. She is extroverted in that she likes to meet people, but introverted in that, eventually, she'd rather just hang out at home.

Families

Appealing to families, [Richard] Hollingshead advertised his drive-in as a place where "The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are."

~ New York Film Academy

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Some families think that they and their noisy children are welcome everywhere. They are not. But I do like eavesdropping on them sometimes. Little Billy speaks the truth, Aunt Jean. You know it, he knows it, the rest of the family knows it, and now I know it, too.

 

Trees

All of our wisdom is stored in the trees.

~ Santosh Kalwar

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And some people have clearcut their wisdom forests. I'd say, "You know who you are," but they probably don't.

Judging

Dr. Teal sounds like a quack.

~ Leslie Lewis

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For a librarian, whose culture is based in part on "Don't judge a book by its cover," to judge a foaming bath product based on its name seems contrary.
 

Power

Last week your screen time on this device was down 77%.

~ My phone

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I am lucky in that I have a lot of power to control my time. I don't always make wise decisions with that power. It is power I have over myself. Just a little power, but it matters.

Fortunately, with little power comes little responsibility.

Reflection

Everyone gets the ME they deserve. I am just the mirror.

~ The Bat Wolf

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Lily is a very reflective dog. She sits and thinks and watches and thinks a LOT. More than any dog I have ever known. More than any person I have ever known. 

I don't always know what she is thinking. Maybe I never know what she is thinking. That's not true... I know what she's thinking when she is in another room and then randomly runs down the hallways. She's thinking, "I bet they won't realize I have this sock in my mouth!"

Reading

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

~ George Bernard Shaw

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One time when I was teaching, we took a break. I saw a student reading diligently during the break. It looked as if she was reading her textbook - completely absorbed. I was excited to have chosen a book that she was focused on. I asked her what she was reading - curious about which chapter was holding her attention.

She wasn't reading the textbook. She was reading the lid of her food storage container.

(pause)

As long as kids are reading, that's the important thing.

Repose

When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you.

~ Leonard Cohen

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I have been overtaken by a sense of repose a few times in my life. The other times, I left it in my dust! Take that, repose!

 

Figure

"The woods are a good place for talking." She winked. "Nothing like a tree to keep your secrets."

~ Valerie Dunsmore

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What we see depends on who we are and what we celebrate and what we fear. When we saw this figure in the woods, Leslie thought it was Bigfoot. Lily thought it was a tall dog. It was a deer. 

Later that night when the phone and the internet went out, as I was a falling asleep, I thought maybe it was a serial killer. 

(pause)

It either wasn't or else we weren't that particular serial killer's type.

Doll

Nothing scares me more than people with some doll collection.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

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The doll waved me over. I wasn't about to be fooled, though. That doll was inhabited with the spirit of a housewife from the late 1940s. You could see it in her eyes. And her hairstyle. 

I just kept walking. 

 

Judgements

Photo by someone with my dad's camera

Make no judgements where you have no compassion. 

~ Anne McCaffrey

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The women stared at the bride-to-be. They didn't like her. They didn't like most of her family. The biggest problem, however, is that they were her family. It was bound to be a doozy of a wedding when the day cam.e

 

Dog

Properly trained, a man can be dog's best friend.

~ Corey Ford

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 The other day Lily was running around like a doofus with two toys in her mouth.

Me: (laughing) Lily, you are a silly dork.

Lily stares. Wagging her tail. Waiting to see if I chase her.

Me: If they made a show about you, it would be called "Dorkdog."

Lily stares. Wagging her tail. Waiting to see if I chase her.

Me: I woud totally watch that show.

Lily stares.

I begin chasing her.

Dreamland

Sleep, baby, sleep. Thy father's watching the sheep.

Thy mother's shaking the dreamland tree, and down drops a little dream for thee.

~ Elizabeth Prentiss

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I have to say that if you dream about a traveling carnival named "Dreamland" your chances are at least  50/50 that it will be a nightmare.

Words

To learn to read is to light a fire.

~ Victor Hugo

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I was listening to a story on the radio about pivotal things that different people read or saw or watched that changed their look on the world. They listed lots of interesting things. It got me thinking about what I read when I was young that changed my outlook on the world. I wasn't a huge reader when I was younger, but there is one book that had a pretty strong impact on me. It was called Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist by James M. Brussel, M.D.

Happy International Literacy Day.

Adventures

My grandmother administering the Heimlich is her at her most affectionate.

~ Glen Nesbitt

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It is important to go on adventures with your grandma. You learn about your family and history, you learn about olden times, and you learn to walk slowly because your grandma is so old.

Status

Your status really improves when you die.

~ Liane Moriarty

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Why is it that we try to remember the dead fondly? Is it about them or is it that we want people to remember us fondly when we are gone? The idea that it is in bad taste to "speak ill of the dead" is weird to me. That is maybe the only time they do not care at all what we say. 

So, do we say nice things about them in deference to the people they leave behind? It's important to exercise caution there, too. Have you ever tried to say something like, "I'm sure you have happy memories to reflect on..." or "There must be some special stories you have about them..." And then you're met with a blank stare in return?

Sometimes, when you ask people about good memories they have, they don't have any. I've seen those conversations and it is awkward when someone says, "Nope. I'm glad they're gone." 

It is especially awkward if you are a defense attorney and your client is asked those questions by police officers investigating whether or not your client might be a murderer. I mean, for goodness sake, help yourself out a little bit, suspect!

 

Regrets

(photo by Richard Boettcher)

Emails get reactions. Phone calls start conversations.

~ Simon Sinek

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One of my biggest regrets about my mom's passing (today is her birthday) came about eight months after she died. I came across a text Mom had written me checking in. It was then that I realized how I had squandered an opportunity to do something really important. Something that it was then too late to do. 

I should have kept my mom's cell phone and number going so that I could randomly text Kirk in the future.

Rats.

Breakfast

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in pubic. It's too controversial.

~ Erma Bombeck

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 At my Grandma Boettcher's house she always had little boxes of different cereals. I loved that. We get them for Camp GoGo, otherwise I don't really think about them that much. However, I did see a commercial the other day where one cereal company suggested serving whatever type of cereal it was with "ice cold milk." What a stupid idea. Ice cold milk would be frozen.

Fun

Jiffy Pop: As Much Fun to Make as it is to Eat

~ Commercial Slogan

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I think we have to come to terms with the possibility that Jiffy Pop is even more fun to make than it is to eat. 

Dogs

Names have power.

~ Rick Riordan

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I was at the dog park one time and there was a woman there whose dog's name was Prozac. I thought that was a strange name for a dog, but maybe it meant that the dog made her happy and boosted her mood and helped her out in terms of her happiness and well-being. 

I later realized the dog's name was actually Rosa. 

I guess the dog wasn't that helpful to the woman's well-being after all, since she didn't name it Prozac.

Working

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is good work today. 

~ Elbert Hubbard

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Good work is good, but you also have to rest sometimes. And the best preparation for good rest tomorrow is good rest today.