Work

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.

~ Jonas Salk

- - - - -

I get a lot of random catalogs. I understand how some of them found me, but others... well, I have no clue why I get them. Anyway, I currently get a catalog that is toys almost entirely for children between 6-11 years old. I know some children those ages, so it's fine. However, why does a company exist that only makes toys for kids those specific ages?

That's not the point of this post, though. The point of this post is that one of the items in this catalog is a "Responsibility Chart." 

(pause)

No child wants that. 

Well, maybe there are a few children out there who would want it. They are also the children who need more toys than all the other kids because none of the other kids want to play with that child.

(pause)

I just thought of a new product. It's called an "Irresponsibility Chart." As a parent, THOSE are the memories you want to keep track of because they become awesome stories. I mean, do you want to talk with people at Endora's graduation party about how she always put away her clothes and how many times she emptied the dishwasher OR about she gave her cousin a bunch of medicine she found in the bathroom or the time that she mailed out invites to her birthday sleepover without checking with you? And also it wasn't her birthday.

Do you want to raise someone who values work more than adventures? I'm not the boss of you, but no. No you don't want to raise someone who values work more than adventures. Look what that's gotten us.

All that to say, I DID order the responsibility chart -- for Leslie. There's really a lot more she should be doing around here. I mean, someone has to, and I'm going to start going and doing that adventure stuff, so I don't have time.

Thanksgiving

I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Someone needs to tell the turkey, "Man, just be yourself." 

~ Mitch Hedberg

- - - - -

I believe that if you are followed by a turkey at any point in your life it means a lifetime of health, happiness, and wealth. I believe that because I was followed by a turkey one time, and I really want that to be true.

Traveling

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

~ Mary Oliver

- - - - -

Lily is so mellow. She is a great traveler. She is always ready to go even though she hardly ever knows where we are going. I do think she understands the word "school" and knows when she is going there. Other than that, every time she jumps in the car it is literally a leap of faith.

She is awesome. I would do better to try and be more like her.

Also, I know it looks like the car behind us is tailgating and way too close. However, we weren't moving at the time because there was a long line to get into the parking lot at the top of the mountain. I appreciate your concern, but don't get angry with the people behind us. At least not for tailgating. I don't know the rest of their lives. They may warrant your anger. It's your call if you want to hang on to that anger or not (though I've heard it is a bad idea to do that). I'm not the boss of you.

Cooking

Yes, I know the Muffin Man

Who Lives on Drury Lane

~ Nursery Rhyme

- - - - -

So, I have read that the Muffin Man was Frederic Thomas Linwood who was a serial killer who lured children into dark alleys with a muffin tied on a string.

I have also read that this is NOT what the Muffin Man is based on.

A question I have is, "Isn't a muffin on a string seems like a weird ploy?"

A question you have is, "Why is she reading all this stuff?"

A question we all have is, "Why does my brother have a book just called ladies?"

Disturbances

I just don't like my world disturbed without some warning.

~ Harper Lee

- - - - -

We have had some horrific weather this fall. I have been very lucky not to have been as horrifically impacted as others. If you aren't in the region you don't understand what happened. And for those of us outside of the areas most devastated, we don't understand how bad what happened was. 

And I know that one of my coping mechanisms is humor. And I try to know when to joke about a thing and when not to joke about a thing.  And I know that the universe has a sense of humor. It doesn't always choose to wait to joke about a thing. But then, it's the universe. It gets to (and always does) do what it wants to when it feels like doing it.

With that in mind, the universe decided to follow up Helene with two other disturbances. My personal disturbances.

Very funny, Universe.

 

Appearances

He was not what he seemed. Who is?

~ Zadie Smith

- - - - -

I think that sometimes two people can be looking in the same direction but one is looking at the past and the other is looking at the future. It's kind of beautiful.

And annoying because we are NEVER going to finish this game of Monopoly if they keep this up.

 

Rearview

To develop foresight you need to practice hindsight.

~ Jane McGonigal

- - - - -

When people let you down or dump things on you and make you angry, don't get angry. Just keep moving forward. One day, it will all be in your rearview mirror. THAT is when you seek revenge because it will be harder to connect you to the crime since all that time has passed.

Bread

How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?

~ Julia Child

- - - - -

Like the old marketing saying goes:

Clowns don't sell bread

They sell dread

No clowns on boxes, packages, or bags

Or anything else because clowns are awful!

Gardens

Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. 

I will meet you there.

~ Rumi

- - - - -

I wouldn't mind meeting someone in a garden. As long as it's not my dad because I know he's just going to try and pay me 60 cents an hour to pull weeds. And then, when I try to get fired by "accidentally" pulling up a carrot or potato plant or two, I won't get fired, I'll just get my pay docked. 

I think that is wrong. My dad thought that it was right. The garden wasn't quite beyond right and wrong because he was the boss of me.

Weird

The thing that convinced me to come to Clemson was the faculty. I thought they were going to be stuffy intellectuals, but they're not.

~ Rylee Bowman

- - - - -

What I think Rylee meant is that we, as a group, are not both stuffy and intellectuals. For example, I am not stuffy, but I am an intellectual. She probably also meant that we can be a it off-beat or unusual. Because who wants to be usual?

Anyway, that's what I think she was saying about ME. My colleagues on the other hand... Well, I don't know what Rylee was saying about them.

Spoiler: I do (and while it's pretty funny, it's not nice, so I won't repeat it here. I have to do what I can to protect Rylee.).

Dead

Our dead are never dead until we have forgotten them.

~ George Eliot

- - - - -

If you ran a business and were the boss of a bunch of medical examiners, I bet you would have the "coroner office" on the floor where you worked. But I'd avoid that career. It's a dead end job. This blog is pretty funny, it kills me. If you're imagining me saying all of these lines know that I'm doing it dead pan. 

Friendship

What kind of friend do you need me to be?

~ Jessica Aden

- - - - -

My friend Jessica taught me how important it is to ask people what they need when they are talking to you. Do they need you to be silent and listen? Do they need you to wallow in whatever struggle they are facing? Do they need you to affirm some injustice you are experiencing? Do they need you to discuss options for moving forward? Or maybe they need you to tell them it's going to be okay and you should quit whining and deal with it.

I am someone who usually tries to fix things, but Jessica taught me that isn't always what is best. So now, instead of starting by suggesting solutions, I start by telling the person talking to me to quit whining. 

Thanks for all those options, Jessica.

 

Sitting

Let's just sit quietly and listen to the secrets the rain wants to tell us.

~ John Mark Green

- - - - -

Sometimes you just have to put on your yellow galoshes and your rubber duck head mask and go sit on a dock. I'm not exactly sure when those times are, but sometimes.

Tuba

I played the tuba in high school. I wanted to be a member of the marching band. I thought, what can I play that has the most effect? What can I play to get people to laugh?

~ Patti LuPone

- - - - -

I think people who play the tuba have a deep connection to that instrument. I had a student in class who played the tuba. We were doing an activity with stickers in class. She asked if I had a tuba sticker. I didn't. But the next week I did. Because that's the kind of teacher I am.

Also, I now have some extra tuba stickers if you need one.

Cyclones

I didn't get into this profession to be somebody. I got in this profession to do something.

~ Matt Campbell

- - - - - 

I watch more football now than I ever have. Every Saturday - when I can - I watch both the Iowa State and the Army games. Sometimes they are on at the same time, but that's okay. 

Iowa State is having a very good year this year. So is Army, for that matter. My team lost last week, but they are still my team. I don't get mad at them when they lose.

I do get really, really mad at the other team when that happens, though. 

Trying

I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.

~ Georgia O'Keefe

- - - - -

All summer.

All fall.

This quote really was a bit of gut punch for me when I first read it a few weeks ago. I can relate to it. 

As the days get shorter, maybe it is easier or maybe it is more difficult to be ourselves. Or maybe we don't really care because whatever we are doing, we are doing it in the dark.

Or maybe we don't really care because we have a wonderful dog in our world.

(pause)

I think that dog part is the most right.

 

Move

Your phone's predictive text and autocorrect Markov chains update themselves as you type, training themselves on what you write. That's why, if you make a typo, it may haunt you for quite some time." 

~ Janelle Shane

- - - - -

On November 6th, 2024 (yesterday), I was searching the internet to find out if I could move a photo I had downloaded from my phone to my computer back to my phone. I figured the robots could help me with this question.

Me: (typing) Can I move

Predictive Text: to Canada

(pause)

Typos are not the only things that may haunt us for quite some time.

Punctuation

Whatever you know, or that you don't know, tell me about it. We can exchange tirades. The comma is my favorite piece of punctuation, and I've got all night,

~ Rasmenia Massoud

- - - - -

 The other day I was emailing a colleague who - fortunately - is also a friend. I closed my message with "Does that make sense!" I immediately realized what I had done and wrote back and said, "That was supposed to say, 'Does that make sense?'" not "sense!" 

I wasn't yelling at her. She thought it was funny - which is good.

(pause)

Otherwise, I probably would have had to yell at her.

People

If enough people stand behind you, you can start to believe almost anything that comes out of your mouth.

~ Fredrik Backman

- - - - - 

And, sadly, most everyone can find enough people to stand behind them. Or at least enough people who won't stop them.

As for me, I don't like it when people get in my way. Know what I hate even more? When they walk too close behind me. I don't like that one bit.

Hello

Hello?

HELLO?

 

Pumpkins

(photo by Leslie Lewis)

Way out in the country tonight he could smell the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the triangle eye and the singeing candle.

~ Ray Bradbury

- - - - -

So jack o' lanterns originated in Ireland. The o' might have given that away. Anyway, in Ireland they made lanterns to scare away Stingy Jack who roamed the land after tricking the Devil but then not being able to get into either Heaven or Hell. 

Except they didn't have pumpkins in Ireland, so they used turnips and potatoes. That, my friends, is how Mr. Potato Head became the patron saint of Halloween.

Photos

I delight in what I fear.

~ Shirley Jackson

- - - - -

Any photo in your home can be creepy if neither you nor anyone you live with hung it up, but there it is right in the middle of the wall. Slightly crooked. Which makes it creepy and annoying.

Shadow

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

- - - - -

Shadows, like truth and time, are distorted which means, literally "to twist apart." Truth twists us apart, like...

Okay, so I was going to look up torture devices and see if there was one that twisted people, but I started to do that and got grossed out. However, if there was a twisty torture device, I think that the campaign to get rid of it should have been, "Only twisted people twist people."

Anyway... shadows.

Bridge

Burning bridges behind you is understandable. It's the bridges before us that we burn, not realizing we may need to cross, that brings regret.

~ Anthony Liccione

- - - - -

"I don't know why people do that!" the old man grumbled.

"Why they do what?" his granddaughter asked.

"Why they go off and burn their britches!" he grumbled since he was always grumbling.

"I think it's 'burn their bridges', Grampa," his granddaughter chuckled.

"Really, girl?! Go ask Zeb Denheskins about that. He's got a big 'ol hold in his britches 'cause they caught on fire!"

That was one of many times that the girl realized she should collect more facts and that her elders were going to be smarter than her most of the time.

"Dear Diary," the old man wrote in his diary, "Got her! I forgot it was bridges, but I shut that girl up. Backtalk to me, will you!! I'm old, but I'm quick. That why they call me an express male."

House

Home isn't where you're from; it's where you find light when all grows dark.

~ Pierce Brown

- - - - -

The haunted house weirded out most people in the neighborhood. However, I used to love when the ghost family posed outside for their family photo. 
 

Honest

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does, too.

~ Khaled Hosseini

- - - - -

I have a friend who does mostly right things. She doesn't understand at all when other people don't. I keep telling her it's because some people are left-handed, but she just won't listen to me.

 

Broccoli

Some hate broccoli, some hate bacon.

I hate having my picture taken.

How can your family claim to love you

And then demand a picture of you?

~ Ogden Nash

- - - - -

Me: You can't believe a thing that broccoli tells you.

You: Funny. Ha. Ha. It's because it's called broccoli-LIE, right?

Me: No. It's because broccoli cannot talk.

(pause)

Me: Sheesh.

 

Messages

The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.

~Demotivators

- - - - - 

Sometimes I realize, as I'm reading motivational quotes like, "You are greater than your enemies" or "They are small people, don't sink to their level" or other quotes (way better than those), when I'm reading them, I realize that maybe my nemesis is reading the same quotes.

(pause)

But they are only true for me, not for them.

Running

The villain drives the plot.

~ Gayle Lynds

- - - - -

I have an idea for a bod guy in a comic book. I've been watching some things about Batman and then the Olympics were this summer.  I think that there should be someone who is an amazing track star, but then gets turned into a bad guy in some way I haven't figured out yet - probably something to do with electrolytes. Anyway, the bad guy's name is the Javillain.

(pause)

That's about as far as I've gotten.

(pause)

And this is probably someone who is going to be a pretty minor character.

 

Want

                              Mother: I've given up everything I've ever wanted --

                    Maddie: (sighs) -- yes --

                    Mother: -- so that you could have --

                    Maddie: -- yes --

                    Mother: -- what I didn't.

                    Maddie: Everything that you've always wanted. Yes. I've

                                  heard that. Every mother says that. But I don't 

                                  want what you didn't have. I want what I didn't 

                                  have.

~ Lady in the Lake

- - - - -

Having recently gone through Mom's house to determine the things I wanted to keep, I can vouch for the fact that the things she wanted were not all things I wanted. I wanted a few things, but I'm not very sentimental.

Sentimental comes from the Latin for "to feel." I guess maybe that means I'm not very feeling. 

Fruit

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.

~ Democritus

- - - - -

Orchard means "garden yard." And I just recently learned that there is such a word as "orchardist." It's when someone points out what they are growing. "Orchardist is apples." See also, "orchardat" as in "Orchardist is apples. Orchardat is apples, too."

 

Tone

I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.

~ John Steinbeck

- - - - -

For someone who gets told "Watch your tone!" a lot, Leslie hardly ever watches her tone.

Beauty

The beauty and the suffering are equally true.

~ Anne Patchett

- - - - - -

Know how Medusa turned people into stone because she was so ugly? I think sometimes really beautiful people make us freeze in our tracks, too. We can be stunned by anything extraordinary.

Also, I would like for Sharon Stone to be in a movie with Medusa and then she can be the first person turned to stone because that would be hilarious. 

She could also star in a Rocky movie. 

I have a lot of ideas for Sharon Stone's career. I'm a helper.

Door

Big doors swing on little hinges.

~ W. Clement Stone

- - - - -

You never know what you might find behind the doors you open. Like when we opened the door to a cabin we stayed in I said, "Oh, this is very 'Tuesday Morning,'" and Leslie said, "That isn't very nice." I don't know if she meant it wasn't nice to the cabin owners, or if it wasn't nice to Tuesday Morning. Regardless, I think it means she isn't going to be a spokesperson for Tuesday Morning. There goes another huge tub of money.

Sheesh, Leslie!

Unusual

A liar's goal is to make up one that's half as good as real life's usual unusual.

~ Allan Gurganus

- - - - -

What is this? A robot? A reel-to-reel tape recorder? A sushi?

Some weird dental pattern?

I don't know. 

I like that there are still mysteries in the world. 

Also, I the word "usual" comes from the word "use." I wonder if that means the unusual is unusable. 

(pause)

I don't think so, everyone. I've used some unusual things at times. 

(pause)

Of course I've probably used those unusual things to do unusual things.

(pause)

We don't need to discuss the details.

Interesting

Good marriages are never as interesting as bad affairs.

~ Anne Patchett

- - - - -

I think before you commit to a relationship with someone, you should ask to see their elementary school report cards. That way you have a sense of what you're in for. For example, on my first grade report card, Mrs. Martin wrote, "Prefers to work alone."

Truer words were never written upon any of my report cards. I feel like that might be helpful to know about me.

Tomatoes

I don't care what anybody says: Nothing is better than a tomato you grow. There's something about it that's different than a tomato you can buy. It's a great thing.

~ Tom Vilsack

- - - - -

We didn't plant a garden this summer. We have some asparagus, some wild strawberries, a boysenberry bush, and a pomegranate tree. However, we magically had some tomato plants start up - like we had the magical little watermelon last year. Unlike the magical little watermelons, we were able to harvest a LOT of the tomatoes. So many we had to get creative with what to do with them.

So, as fall approached, we made some cinnamon tomato crisp. It would be great with the tomato shake-ups my friend Demesia and I conceptualized after a visit to the fair a few years ago. 

Jumping

Might as well jump.

Go ahead and jump.

~ Van Halen

- - - - -

There's nothing like jumping with exciteness. 

Because exciteness is not a word.

 

Excitement

Get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire - you can smell it, taste it, and see it from a mile away.

~ Denis Waitley

- - - - -

I think maybe Denis is an arsonist.

 

Cars

All of those cars were once just a dream in someone's head.

~ Peter Gabriel

- - - - -

As I was driving home one day, I saw a man who had pulled over to check out a car that was for sale. It was parked near the road outside of the post office/grocery store parking lot. I only saw him for a moment before the light changed. What I saw him do, however, made me curious. The only thing I saw him check on the vehicle were the windshield wipers. 

(pause)

I am not and do not pretend to be a car expert. However, if I was considering buying a used car, I am confident that the windshield wipers would probably not be the thing I would prioritize. I probably wouldn't even look at them at all.

Perhaps he knows something I do not.

(pause)

Actually, I have to believe there are a lot of things he knows that I do not. We're not the same people, after all.

Bread

Without bread, all is misery.

~ William Corbett

- - - - -

I saw someone on social media the other day who said, "This sourdough bread changed my life." I was happy for her, and also I wondered what her life was like before.

Memories

Maddie: Why do you only have terrible memories?

Mother: That's why I don't tell you much.

~ The Lady in the Lake 

- - - - -

The quote for this post is from the Lady in the Lake on Apple TV. I don't know if it is in the book the show is based on or not. 

(pause)

The fact that I haven't read the book may be a terrible memory for the author of the book. Well, next time she thinks about it. The first time she thinks about it, it isn't a memory yet.

 

Found

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

- - - - -

The other day I saw a sticker that said, "I found the evil I was looking for!" It was perfect. 

Then I reread it and it actually said, "I found the email I was looking for!"

Sigh. In life you will find lots of disappointments.