A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep

Movin' On Up ...

2011-08-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

... or over, or under, or through, whatever. I am moving my blog to WordPress since that is where my work blog is hosted and I've found it a little easier to work with. So, farewell to amilewide on blogger.com and hello to amilewideandaninchdeep.wordpress.com. Follow me over to the other side (or the bottom, or the top, or ... well, you get the picture).

The Cat Scan

2011-08-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

The Cat Scan

Wow. I stumbled across this site today and all I can say is: I want to do this! The problem is, I don't think any of my cats would cooperate by sitting/standing on the scanner long enough. If I didn't want them on it, they would be on it 24/7 but as soon as I ask them to do it, they will refuse just to be contrary. Such are cats ...

Speaking of cats, I recently read a wonderful book: Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, about a remarkable cat who had to have his eyes removed at a very young age and therefore never learned to see. Despite this "handicap," Homer learned how to navigate his home, catch flies, climb EVERYTHING and make humans fall in love with him. Homer survives several moves, a flight from Miami to New York, 9/11 (living just blocks from Ground Zero) and his Mommy's marriage to a man who (supposedly) doesn't like cats.

The Answer

2011-06-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

As all good Douglas Adams fans know, the Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is 42. Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of my 21st birthday, which means I have achieved the Answer ... and yet, I am no wiser than I was before. So apparently, the Question itself is NOT "How old does one have to be to understand everything?" Although, it could be "On which birthday should one eat immense quantities of cornbread and ollalliberry pie?" because the answer to that question is definitely 42. :)

I borrowed this photo from another website, but this is basically what my pie looked like last night :)

Don't Quote Me on This ...

2011-06-08T19:01:00.002-07:00

I haven't posted in ages; just another dry patch in my writing life, I guess. I have been busy, though, if that's any excuse. Work is done for the school year (yay!) but I am working a few hours a week doing some cataloging at Citrus College Library. I've also been busy doing some long overdue spring cleaning in anticipation of my sister S's visit in a couple of weeks. Today I sorted through a vast quantity of books and sold a few online to Powell's, with the rest going straight to the Goodwill donation center before I could change my mind!

While sorting and dusting and sneezing, I discovered my commonplace book: a small journal in which I have written quotes that spoke to me. Since I can't think of anything exciting to write about, I'll share some of my favorite quotes on a variety of subjects:

NATURE
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. -- John Muir

I go to Nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in tune once more. -- John Burroughs

The world we are told was made especially for man, a presumption not supported by all the facts. -- John Muir

Extinction is not something to contemplate; it is something to rebel against. -- Jonathan Schell

There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. -- Aldo Leopold

WOMEN/MEN
A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. -- Jane Austen

Men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts, and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them. -- Heywood Brown

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. -- Charlotte Whitton

CATS
There is nothing so lowering to one's self-esteem as the affectionate contempt of a beloved cat. -- Monica Edwards

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr. -- Lewis Carroll

BOOKS
Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. -- Kathleen Norris

Five years from now you will be pretty much the same as you are today except for two things: the books you read and the people you get close to. -- Charles Jones

A room without books is like a body without a soul. -- Cicero

Men may come and men may go, but books go on forever. -- Henry E. Huntington

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore? -- Henry Ward Beecher

HORSES
Far back, far back in our dark soul the horse prances. -- D. H. Lawrence

A lovely horse is always an experience ... It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words. -- Beryl Markham

I think the smell of horses is the most exciting smell in the world. -- Zilpha Keatley Snyder

FRIENDSHIP
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice. -- Samuel Johnson

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

MISC.
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. -- Gertrude Stein

Nothing every seems interesting when it belongs to you -- only when it doesn't. -- Natalie Babbitt

It is a curious thing that people only ask if you are enjoying yourself when you aren't. -- E. Nesbit

Don't Quote Me on This ...

2011-06-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Ear, ear!

2011-04-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting month. Basically, my right ear has been plugged up since April 1st and will be until May 12th (at least), which is when I finally have an appointment with an ENT. Health insurance is great but sometimes it's a pain in the (ear) getting to see a specialist.

What with the constant "Sorry, can you repeat that?" and vague feeling of disequilibrium (is that a real word?) I've not been feeling entirely up to par. Throw in some rather dismal weather and the month of April hasn't been terribly exciting for me.

I did attend two fundraisers for The Second Race, despite suffering from an ear infection, which ended up netting over $5,000 to help the horses. Hooray! I can now add to my resume "can set up and monitor a silent auction" and "can decorate tables with plastic jockey helmets and horse-shaped confetti."

To top it all off, one of my cats (Harry) has been sneezing; another (Pippin) has a swollen lip; and a third (Timothy) had an irritated eye -- all in the same week. Do cats have allergies? It would certainly make sense, considering that none of the three seemed particularly bothered by their afflictions and nothing nasty came out of anyone's orifices. Which is more than I can say for myself a few weeks ago ...

Japanese Thunder

2011-04-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

I know that I promised Japanese drummers and dancers earlier in the week but I have a very good excuse for being late. No, really, I do! I lay all the blame on whatever virus has invaded my head and caused me to spend the last 4 days in bed feeling like crap. I haven't had a cold in a long time, so I'm not entirely surprised that this one is hitting me hard. Blah.

But, as promised, here are the Japanese cultural delights. Last Saturday was Tokyo City Cup Day at Santa Anita Park. In conjunction with the running of the Tokyo City Cup race, they hold a Japanese cultural festival at the track, which is probably as close as I'll ever get to Japan. It was especially poignant this year, coming just a few weeks after the earthquakes and tsunamis that devastated Japan. Last year, there were traditional samurai horseback riders who performed, but they couldn't make it this year because the town they are from was hit hard by the disasters.

It was still a fun day of Japanese culture and food. Earlier in the morning (which was Saturday night in the United Arab Emirates) Japanese horses ran 1-2 in the $10 million Dubai World Cup, the richest horse race in the world. At Santa Anita, there weren't any Japanese horses running but there were lots of performances by taiko drummers and folk dancers.

First, there was a performance by a small trio (which consisted of four people; they must have been reading too much Douglas Adams) of taiko drummers on the stage in front of the grandstand. You can only see three of them in the photo, but trust me, there were four. I had trouble getting a good photo of them because we didn't realize they were there until they started playing and I had to squeeze in around a tall man with obnoxious elbows that kept getting in my way.

Trio of taiko drummers

After that performance, we went to the festival area behind the grandstand to get something to eat but got distracted by these colorful dancers with huge lotus-flower headdresses. The colors were incredibly vibrant and each dancer had a little pair of clackers in each hand, which they clacked in time to the (very slow and fluid) dance steps.

Crazy lotus-flower headdresses

I had some delicious chicken curry for lunch and two cups of iced barley tea (my sister decided that it tasted "funky" so I ended up with hers as well as mine) before we wandered back to the festival area to see some more dancers.

First there was a pair of dancers who were incredibly petite and reminded me of Japanese hobbits. :) One carried a basket and the other had an oar or a cricket bat or something of that sort. I'm sure there was a story behind their dance but I just enjoyed their precise, stylized movements and big smiles.

These dancers were so TINY and CUTE!

The last group of dancers we saw wore red, purple and white outfits that, I'm sorry to say, immediately made me think of the Red Hat Society ladies. They were very graceful, though, and their dance was reminiscent of the hula, with the hand movements and swaying hips.

Before and after the main race (the Tokyo City Cup) the L.A. Matsuri Taiko performed on the front stage. They used two different drum configurations. We had a better spot to view them this time and I took roughly a million photos. If you've never seen or heard taiko drummers, it's something you really should do. These drums are HUGE and you feel them as much as hear them, but not in that obnoxious way that you feel the bass from the car behind you at the stop light that is blasting out rap music from a crappy sound system. The sound of the drums is such an organic sound; the drums are made of wood, metal and hides - all natural materials. It's more like thunder or a rockfall ... something you'd hear in nature.

L.A. Matsuri Taiko drummers

The second drum configuration

This drummer looked like she was just having the BEST time!

Pickles, Pineapples, Alligators and Turtles ...

2011-03-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

Spring Break is almost over (I have to go back to work tomorrow) and the weather has been uncooperative. Most of the time, it's been raining or overcast and cold, and when it hasn't been, I've had various appointments and errands to take care of. I did get out in the sun on Tuesday, for a trip to the Botanic Gardens at UC Riverside. The weather was perfect and I got some lovely photos:

No, they're not alien trees, they're aloes

You've got to love a plant called "little pickles"

Cactus topped with pineapples??

Me and a giant plant

Alligator lizard basking on a rock

Spring-time hill and the Box Spring Mountains

Cool patterns in the mud in the streambed

Rock formation or giant fossilized turtle head? You decide!

Tomorrow: Japanese dancers and drummers!

Spring Break? Are You Sure???

2011-03-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today is the first "official" day of Spring Break for those who work in my school district. It has rained, on and off, for three days. The mountains are getting pounded with snow, the Grapevine (I-5 through the Tejon Pass) was shut down and we had thunderstorms during the night. Welcome to spring in California ...

I had an exam for my Psychology 101 class that had to be taken on campus, and I needed to take my friend S. some tickets for an event we are going to on Saturday, so I drove over to Citrus this afternoon. When I left the house, the clouds were breaking up. This lasted until I got halfway to Glendora, when the heavens opened and POURED rain for about 30 minutes. The rain tapered off just as I got to campus, a bit frazzled from driving in such crazy weather.

In theory, the exam should take about 30 minutes from check in to finish. I checked in, was assigned a computer and began the online exam. Not too bad. I whizzed through the first 15 questions in about 10 minutes ... and then the computer stalled on question 16. I clicked the button to go on to the next question. Nothing happened. I waited a couple of minutes and clicked the button again. A message popped up telling me that this function was already in process and to leave the computer alone (well, that last bit was sort of implied). So I sat there for a few more minutes. Nothing happened. I asked the testing assistant what to do and she clicked the button again, only to get the same message (basically, "you already did this, you twit, now leave me alone!"). She went to talk to her supervisor. Meanwhile, NOTHING HAPPENED. She came back and said they were going to try to contact the professor to get a hard copy of the exam. So I sat there even longer while nothing happened. Eventually, we tried logging out of Blackboard and back in, but all that did was inform me that I had completed the exam and to please go away (again, I am paraphrasing the computer). So, there I was, with only 15 (or possibly 16) of the 25 questions answered, which meant that even if I had gotten them all right, my score was a measly 64.

By this time, I had been there for an hour and had accomplished NOTHING. The attendant assured me that I could retake the exam but they had to contact the professor first; that I would not be penalized because it wasn't my fault, but could I come back tomorrow? Grrr ... Before leaving the testing center, I emailed the professor about what had happened, prepared to make the same drive AGAIN in order to retake the exam.

When I got home, however, I had a email from him allowing me to retake the exam from home. Hooray! This time I was able to access ALL the questions and completed the exam in about 10 minutes. And I got 100%. Thank goodness for happy endings! :)

The other half of my errand went much more smoothly. I gave S. the tickets, we chatted about work for awhile (you can take the girl out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the girl ...) and she gave me a crinkly cat sack she'd gotten from her BFF on a recent visit. Here is a picture of Pippin enjoying the sack:

"I am the sack master of the universe!!"

Here Timothy, Harry, Billy and Jasper (counterclockwise from top left) confront the intruder:

"What's that? Let's kill it!"

Even scaredy-cat Tim checked it out:

"If I stretch my neck out real loooong, I don't have to actually get close to it!"

But only Billy was brave enough to go inside:

"Hmm, what's in here? A mouse? A catnip toy? A portal to another dimension?"

And when he came out, he was curiously changed:

"Does this sack make my head look big?"

And that's what happened on my first day of Spring Break!

Happy Pi Day

2011-03-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Today is 3.14 which is pretty close to the value of pi. I'm not much of a math geek (I really don't like math, although I did make it all the way through calculus in high school and even got a 4 on the Calculus AB AP Exam) so I'm not going to talk about pi today. I will, however, talk about pie.

I was never a big fan of pie until I discovered Polly's Pies in Norco. My big problem with pie has always been the crust. I don't really like it, but plain pie filling can be too sweet. Polly's makes their own crusts right there in the restaurant and it is divine. I still won't eat the thick bit around the edge but the rest of the crust? Nom, nom, nom!

Ollalieberries in their natural habitat

My favorite pie is the fresh ollalieberry pie, which just happens to be in season right around my birthday. This is a one crust pie filled with whole berries and just enough glaze to make it scrumptious, not sickly-sweet.

This berry is a cross between the loganberry (a cross between raspberries & blackberries) and the youngberry (a cross between blackberries & dewberries). It's a bit like a boysenberry, but not. I get the feeling that all those berries are a promiscuous lot and it's best to just call them "berries" and eat them up because they are so yummy.

Are You More Attentive Than a Baboon?

2011-03-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading My life as an experiment: one man's humble quest to improve himself by A. J. Jacobs. I've read his previous (and hilarious) books, The Know-It-All (in which he chronicles his quest to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica) and The year of living biblically (in which he tried to follow all the rules in the Bible for a year, despite being agnostic). In this book, he attempts to stop multitasking, outsource his life to India, always tell the truth, live by George Washington's code of conduct, and be perfectly rational, among other lifestyle "experiments." Not only are these intriguing ideas, but Jacobs has a knack for being a complete idiot and irritating his wife to no end in the process, which leads to much merriment and laughter on the part of the reader.

Here's a little sample from the chapter on "unitasking":

Multitasking costs the economy $650 billion a year, according to the Institute of Pulling Numbers Out of Its Ass. (That's a real estimate, though not the institute's real name.) Whatever the actual total is, I'm starting to think this isn't a problem along the lines of love handles or bad cell service. This it the Eleventh Plague.

And another:

Baboons have a better attention span than I do. This is true. My favorite theory about attention comes from a baboon study. Male baboons, it argues, evolved attention partly so that they could guard the female baboon for a good long time after sex, to make sure that no one else conducted any monkey business that might interfere with their sperm. (My question: If this is true, why are men so opposed to cuddling?)

In my dream-world, I would write stuff like this (but funnier, or at least more profound) and make boat loads of money while being able to indulge my interests in just about everything that exists. Except NASCAR. I really have no interest in NASCAR, except for the movie Talladega Nights, which was pretty funny. Except for Will Ferrell running around in his underwear. No one needs to see that. Not even a baboon.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Fruits

2011-02-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

Yummy yummy Cara Cara navel oranges

This afternoon I went to the California Citrus State Historic Park for the citrus tasting event. They grow just about every variety of citrus known to man there and had a long table full of samples: pummellos, grapefruits, navel oranges, blood oranges, valencia oranges, kumquats, lemons, tangerines, tangelos, mandarins ... several varieties of each type of citrus, enough to put anyone in citrus overload. And yet, after leaving the park, we stopped at the Gless Ranch stand and bought a 25 pound bag of Cara Cara navels for $6.

If you've never tried a Cara Cara, run out and buy one right now while they are in season! They are sweeter than the more common Washington navel oranges and have a deep red/pink flesh that is a beautiful as it is delicious.

I also enjoyed tasting the different types of blood orange (Torocco was the best) and mandarins (the satsuma and Tahoe Gold mandarin were my favorites). The pummellos were a little too grapefruity for my taste, the lemons were (of course) very tart and the kumquat was, well, a kumquat. :) As you can tell, I prefer the sweeter varieties of citrus!

And now, I'm off to eat a Cara Cara, just in case I somehow didn't get enough Vitamin C today ...

A Cat and A Duck Walk Into a Bar

2011-02-23T19:57:00.000-08:00

Look -- a duck!

This is the story of a boy (cat) and his duck. When my sister and I went on vacation last summer, we stayed at the Chuckchansi Casino in Coarsegold, CA just outside Yosemite National Park. One of the little perks in the room was our very own mini rubber ducky, who came home with us. Most of the time, he lives on my sister's dresser but the other day he ended up on her bed, where Timothy discovered him. Once I demonstrated Ducky's little squeaky function, it was love at first sight.

Soon Tim was tumbling Ducky around on the bed, having a good old time. I'm not so sure if Ducky was enjoying it, though.

No, really, he LIKES being upside down!

They paused for a few photos, as you can see. Just look at the LOVE on Timmy's face! There's nothing like a cat and a duck to warm your heart.

A cat and his duck

Finally, they posed for this lovely portrait, which I like to call "Cat and Duck." I could call it "Timothy and Ducky" or even "Timmy and Chuck" (short for Chukchansi) but I like the more classical, timeless quality of the generic "Cat and Duck." They could be any cat and duck, at any period in time, just enjoying the wonderfulness that is the bond between a cat and a rubber duck.

And I'm sure that if they did walk into a bar, something hilarious would ensue. Tim's just that kind of cat, you see, and Chuck, well, he did grow up in a casino ...

E-reader Envy

2011-02-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

Dreaming of a shiny new e-reader

When I got to work today, the librarian showed us her new "toy," which she'd bought over the weekend with her winnings from a trip to Las Vegas: a Barnes & Noble nookcolor. One English teacher, who was in the library with her class doing research, was raving over her brand-new Kindle; another, who came in later in the day, showed off her Literati e-reader. And now I am suffering some severe e-reader envy.

I know I don't need an e-reader (I have more than enough "real" books to last me a long, long time) but gosh, darn it, I want one! I want to be like the rest of the cool kids and carry 1500 books around in one hand. It doesn't have to be the swanky nookcolor; just a plain vanilla Kindle would make me quite happy. But I just can't drop $139 or more on a "gadget." So, I have devised a little scheme that will solve more than one dilemma:

I am going to sell as many books as I can online and once I have made enough money, I will buy myself a shiny new Kindle. I just shipped a box of books off to Powell's Books last week, which netted me a little over $15, so I'm on my way. Between Powells and Amazon.com (and possibly eBay) I'm hoping that I will (a) get rid of a lot of the books taking up space in my bedroom and (b) make enough money to buy the Kindle, thereby (c)eliminating the need to buy as many physical books in the future, which will (d) keep me from getting buried in a future avalanche of books.

For right now, I'm going to log off the computer and spend some quality time with Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and the latest issue of O: the Oprah Magazine. Both of them printed on good, old-fashioned paper.

Rainy Day Randomness

2011-02-19T22:11:00.000-08:00

Jasper loves Mommy!

They say it never rains in California but it's sure coming down right now. At least it stayed dry this morning just long enough to run some errands: buying a new type of cat food for Jasper. Our vet diagnosed him with small intestinal disease (which seems to be a form of irritable bowel syndrome) and switched him to a different Hill's formula. Fortunately, he LOVES it ... unfortunately, he loves it so much he and his brothers chowed through most of the partial case they sold us and they didn't have any more in stock today. We bought a bag of the dry formula and got a prescription and referral to another animal hospital that did have a case of the wet food in stock, which meant driving to Rancho Cucamonga. Now Jazzy is happy, we don't have to worry about running out of cat food for a while and my sister and I got home just as it started raining.

It was one of those curl-up-with-a-blanket-and-a-good-book afternoons and soon morphed into a curl-up-under-the-blanket-and-take-a-nap afternoon. After a busy week at work, I probably needed it!

After dinner, we watched the film Inception on DVD. All too often, when I pop a movie in the player, I end up simultaneously reading or using the computer, but I'd heard that this movie required full attention, so I mentally cleared the decks. I'm glad I did, because this was truly a movie that engages the mind. In fact, when it was over, I felt a measure of mental exhaustion, like I'd just finished reading a really good, challenging book. Just like books, movies come in all degrees of complexity and merit. There are the guilty pleasures you watch just for entertainment or laughs, the lush historical pieces you can lose yourself in, the beloved classics you can watch again and again and again, and the "literary" works that take some effort but leave you feeling like you really learned or experienced something important.

In today's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (our local newspaper) there was a copy of Inland Living magazine, which contained an article about the Madonna of the Trail monument in Upland. Now, I've seen this statue all my life and I never knew that there is a rattlesnake hidden in the grass at her feet, or that she is made of algonite (a poured mixture of crushed rocks). I did know that she is one of a series of identical monuments placed along the National Old Trails Road highway back in the 1920's. Ours is the westernmost statue; the other end of the chain of Madonnas is in Bethesda, Maryland. And just like Lady Madonna in the song, she has children at her feet (and, apparently, a rattlesnake!).

I love learning about history, local or otherwise, but it's always more interesting when I've been to the location I'm learning about. Right now, I'm reading A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California by Laura Cunningham (published by one of my favorite publishers, Heyday Books) and my favorite images in the book are the re-creations of landscapes I've been to as they might have been hundreds or thousands of years ago. What I wouldn't give to be able to actually see the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley when it was one vast marsh/lake complex with the snowcapped Sierra Nevada clearly visible though the (non-polluted) air! Or to see a grizzly bear roaming the grassy hills above the San Fernando Valley. From a safe distance, of course!

Junk Sculpture : Awful Library Books

2011-02-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Junk Sculpture : Awful Library Books

I love the website Awful Library Books. So I was delighted when I stumbled across a potentially "awful" book when I was shelf reading at work last month. Apparently, the keepers of the Awful Library Books website agree with me, because my find is featured in today's post!

Check it out (and try not to look too closely at the "Clown with Hat" - I don't want you to have nightmares) and while you're there, browse through some of the past "winners" of the coveted title of Awful Library Book.

On the Effects of Budget Cuts on Education (and Me)

2011-02-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

I think I've realized why I don't blog that much at home: it's because I'm busy blogging at work! Check out my "other" blog Montclair High School Library News and let me know what you think. I try to keep things interesting by matching books in our collection with wacky holidays and sometimes I just plain get silly (like today). In fact, I am writing THIS blog post at work, which I know is probably unethical, but I'm just sitting here waiting for the bell to ring for first lunch, at which point I will be INVADED by a mob of needy teenagers, so what else would I be doing right now? Reading? Well, at least that would pertain to my job, since I really should be familiar with the books in our collection so I can recommend them to the kids, right? Right.

Last night I stayed late for Incoming Freshman Parent Night, which I've never done before, because we've always had a full-time Teacher Librarian until this year. It was fun but I am SO tired today ... getting older isn't always fun. Especially when you realize that EVERY SINGLE KID was born after you graduated from high school. How is that possible? It just seems like a few years ago that I was a student myself ... oh, wait, I actually AM a student right now!

I just registered for an online Introduction to Information Technology class ... the only class with an opening for Spring Semester that isn't auto technology, cosmetology or nursing. Apparently everyone and their brother is trying to take classes at community college right now because it's so much cheaper than the state universities. Couple that with an open admissions policy and you get too many students trying to take too few classes (because of budget cuts). Luckily I have an inside track at Citrus, which proves the maxim "Always make friends with the librarian." Unluckily, my inside track disappeared when the English 103 class I was planning to take was taken away from the professor (who had promised to add me) when the college added some lower-level English classes and gave them to him instead of the 103. So, I really am lucky I was able to get the computer class.

At least we have some (fairly) good news at work. Even if the legislature and/or the voters reject the tax extensions Governor Brown has proposed, our district will not be issuing any layoff notices this spring. It's comforting to know that we may not have any money in our budget next year to buy books, etc. but at least we will all have our jobs. The last two springs were incredibly stressful, as we waited first to find out which technicians would be laid off, and then last year to find out which librarians were going to be laid off or sent back to the classroom. The dust is finally settling from those two bloodbaths (yeah, I know that's a mixed metaphor, but cut me some slack, I'm writing this while simultaneously checking computers out to students, troubleshooting said computers, handing out textbooks and looking up books in the catalog -- all the while thinking fondly of the Subway turkey sandwich waiting for me in the fridge -- oh, and watching an adorable little flying beetle thingy crawl around on my keyboard!). Wait, where was I? Oh, yes, the dust is finally settling and things are starting to feel (semi) normal around here. Or as normal as things can be in a library. :)

Happy ... Whatever

2011-02-14T19:52:00.000-08:00

It's Valentine's Day. Normally, I wouldn't really notice it but I work at a public high school and it's kind of hard to ignore 50,000 mylar balloons and teddy bears and chocolate roses wandering around attached to teenage girls. You might think I'm a little cynical because I'm single and single people are supposed to hate Valentine's Day because it is just a reminder that they are alone, yadda yadda yadda...

No, I'm cynical because I just finished reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman and I'm really sensitive to displays of senseless consumerism right now. Yes, I'm in Sustainable-Living-Girl mode and apt to look askance at anything that's wasteful and silly (at least to me). Spending money on plastic doo-dads and cheap chocolate that was probably grown in degraded rainforests just rubs me the wrong way. Teenagers don't see it this way, of course; they are easy marks for advertising and suggestion (we all were at that age, and far too many of us still are).

Now I am feeling guilty about my own less-than-green actions like that frozen meal that was so convenient to throw in my bag and microwave for lunch, instead of a home-made organic meal. Or the moral quandary of whether it's okay to spend $99 for two days at the Disneyland Resort (which I haven't been to in well over 10 years, since they were still building California Adventure the last time I was at Disneyland) or if it's just a frivolous waste of money that could be better spent on something concrete and useful. The little kid in me wants to go to "The Happiest Place on Earth" during spring break and have fun; the responsible adult in me rebels against the giant marketing machine that is Disney.

Why do I have to over analyze everything? Please, tell me! Unless you think it's best that I don't know ...

History and Horses

2011-02-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted (so what else is new?) and in typical fashion, the first thing I did when arriving at the Blogger website was start playing around with templates. Maybe no one will notice if the blog posts are old if the site looks all shiny and new!

I've actually been pretty busy lately. I finished my online History of California class at Citrus College this week, our online fundraiser at work is going well, I hung out with my friend Sarah after work, and spent Friday helping move horses around at The Second Race's foster facility so everyone had a chance to spend some time turned out in a paddock. I now know more about opening and closing gates than I ever thought possible!

Here is a closeup of Devil on the Roof, one of the lovely Thoroughbred ex-racehorses who is waiting for a new home. I just love the soulful look in a horse's eye, especially an intelligent horse like this guy. And those eyelashes! We should all be so lucky. :)

Oooh, Shiny!

2011-01-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite books is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, so I was understandably excited when I found out that the Folio Society was publishing an edition this year. The problem was, I wasn't very excited about the free volumes offered in the renewal offer this autumn, so I held off on buying anything for several months. Finally, along came an offer I couldn't resist: the (incredibly heavy and incredibly lovely) 8-volume The Times World Atlas Collection for only $20, plus a free Moleskine journal and a Thames & Hudson book on great explorers if I purchased 2 books now and 2 more before 1 March.

The boxes arrived yesterday and once I managed to get Jasper off of them so I could open them, the treasures within were revealed. Of course, the first book I un-shrinkwrapped was HHGG. I slipped it out of the slipcase (because what else can you do with a book in a slipcase but slip it?) and ... it was sparkly! It's a little hard to see in the image that I have shamelessly stolen from the Folio Society website, but all those little lighter blue spots on the dark blue background are sparkles. So not only do I have a fine edition of one of my favorite books, I have a SHINY edition of one of my favorite books!

My other purchase was The Metamorphosis and other stories by Franz Kafka. Also strange but in a less sparkly, hilarious way. Because that's how I roll ... depressed robots, giant cockroaches, bureaucracy in all its forms ... it's all good.

Yet Another Scheme to Get Me Writing More

2011-01-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Zenyatta: Champion Racehorse ... And Blogger? - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

Just for the heck of it, I've signed up with Associated Content from Yahoo!, where I can publish articles and (with luck) get paid (a little bit) for them. This is my first "published" article, about (you guessed it!) Zenyatta. Check it out and let me know what you think. :)

One think I like about this site is that you can opt to retain the rights to your work. They won't pay as much, of course, but the option to re-sell or re-publish an article is worth it. Needless to say, this all means something in my fantasy life where I sit at home all day, writing amazing things and getting paid for them. In reality, right now, it's not so important, but if it gets me to write a little more than usual it's worth it.

I have been writing quite a lot this week and last, because my online class started. So far I've written two essays and several discussion board posts on California history and there are 5 more essays due before the session ends in about 4 weeks. It's fun but I'm glad I chose a class in a subject I'm already familiar with as my first foray back to school, because I can literally feel my brain working harder as I try to process the extra info (on top of the thousand things that are already being jammed into my head on a daily basis at work).

But tonight, I've already done the readings for the discussion board post that's due tomorrow, which I can work on at work tomorrow while I'm chained to the front desk, so I'm going to relax with a little pleasure reading. I am bound and determined to finish the last issue of Audubon tonight, since I got the new issue yesterday!

The Yosemite Marching Band on Vimeo

2011-01-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

The Yosemite Marching Band on Vimeo

I am still laughing over this video. If you like Monty Python or Beatles movies or anything else that is bizarre and strange, you will enjoy this "documentary" about the late, great Yosemite Marching Band ... and there's some beautiful scenery, too.

Enjoy!

First Book of the Year

2011-01-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

And the first book read in 2011 is ... The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, a companion volume to Oryx and Crake, which I read last year and absolutely loved. Neither one is exactly a happy book; they deal with a dystopian future and the aftermath of an apocalyptic epidemic. Atwood is such a brilliant writer; she jumps back and forth in time and from narrator to narrator to slowly snap together the pieces of the puzzle so that the reader goes from knowing nothing about what's going on to knowing ... well, not everything, but quite a bit in the end.

The Year of the Flood is not a sequel; it parallels the action of Oryx and Crake with glimpses of the characters from the previous book. The ending, like that of Oryx and Crake is ambiguous and left dangling, leading me to believe that at third book is in the works.

Books, Books, Books!

2011-01-02T19:08:00.000-08:00

I read 103 books in 2010. In 2009, I read 110. Can I really feel bad about reading fewer books this last year when I'm reading more than a hundred books a year? Yes, I can, because I am a book geek! :)

Some numbers:

65 fiction
38 nonfiction
29 young adult novels (borrowed from work)

I read nonfiction books about the sciences, philosophy, food, libraries, natural history, novels, the cut flower industry, noise pollution, birds, schools in Pakistan, retired racehorses, geology, evolution, biography, European history, neuroscience, the Golden Gate Bridge, taxidermy, and language. I read novels about apes, Scottish philosophers, talking mice, paleontological expeditions, vampires, fairies, teenagers with terminal illnesses, farm dogs, dystopian futures, German professors, autistic children, bookshops, Jane Austen, gods, lady detectives in Botswana, horses, fictional countries, pirates, and teenage witches.

Highlights of the year were:

Shades of grey by Jasper Fforde
The evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
This book is overdue! by Marilyn Johnson
The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley
Three cups of tea by Greg Mortensen
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The ancestor's tale by Richard Dawkins
Blackout by Connie Willis
The gates by John Connolly
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Rose in a storm by Jon Katz
At home: a short history of private life by Bill Bryson
Ape house by Sara Gruen

Here's hoping 2011 brings more mental adventures and great characters to learn about and from!

Resolved: Clutter Shall be Banished!

2011-01-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

It's New Year's Day, a time for new beginnings and fresh resolutions. Believe it or not, I actually accomplished something today, which is reason enough for celebration! I got up (just) in time to watch the Rose Parade live on TV, took care of my grocery shopping for the upcoming work week, and went through a backlog of magazines, tearing out the articles I want to keep for future reference and dumping the rest into the recycling bin. I sent a check-in email to the professor of the class I am trying to add on Monday when the winter session begins, and I already have a copy of the textbook, so if I get an add code I will be ready to go (I've even done the initial reading assignment but haven't started writing the essay yet just in case I don't get the class).

It's really rather scary... I am fairly organized at work but all my organizational skills seem to flee my body when I get home. I pay most of my bills online simply because it's harder to lose an e-mail from my inbox than an envelope on my disaster of a desk. Oh, now and then I shovel it off and toss half of it into the recycling, but I can't remember the last time I was able to actually use the desk. The chair ends up hidden under a couple of sweaters that never seem to make it back to the closet; the writing surface disappears under those ubiquitous free address labels that every charity mails out once a month and a clutter of papers I mean to file "later."

So, my big hope for 2011 is to get more organized, reduce the clutter in my home and brain, and thereby reduce the level of stress in m life. I'm off to a good start so far, but the year is only one day old. Here's hoping the momentum will continue!

Art, with Squirrel

2010-12-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

If you look closely at this photo of part of the art installation Radiant Light at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens, you will see a Western Gray Squirrel perched on the artfully draped textile. Aw, how cute! you might say. Until you take a closer look and see exactly what this little rascal is doing:

Yep, he (she?) is chewing up the graceful willow's scarf! I can only assume that he wanted the fabric as nesting material. Still, one has to wonder: does the squirrel and his antics add to the art or deface it? Is this static art display now performance art?

Today was the first day WITHOUT RAIN in almost a week. The sun made a brief appearance in the morning, then hid behind the clouds most of the afternoon but at least they were light grey clouds instead of dark rain clouds. It was wonderful to get outside and interact with the world again, and even more wonderful to be at a botanic garden rather than a crowded shopping mall!

Tomorrow will be busy, getting ready for Christmas Eve tea; Saturday will be busy with gift exchanging and a tamale dinner; Sunday will be spent at Santa Anita Park for Opening Day. Today was all about a pause in the frantic pre-holiday swirl, a moment to commune with nature. And watch a squirrel vandalize art.

The Longest Night of the Year

2010-12-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a while since I last posted. I will take the coward's way out and blame work. That doesn't explain the past six days, when I've been off for Winter Break, but for that I'll blame the weather. It has been raining since Saturday and we have at least one more day of rain in the foreseeable future. It does rain here in California but usually not for days and days at a time. The sun has become a distant memory and all I seem to want to do is sleep and read.

I need to finish up my Christmas shopping, and wrap gifts, and buy food for Christmas Eve tea and Christmas Day lunch, and get some more candy canes, and meet my friend Sarah for lunch and ... whew! That's a lot to do in three days, and tomorrow is supposed to be rainy as well, which really gives me two days. No wonder I feel tired, it's anticipation! :)

Today is the first day of winter (actually the first evening of winter, as the solstice occurred at 3:38 pm this afternoon). I had meant to do something special to celebrate the solstice but with the rain coming down I don't want to go outside. I take great comfort in the rhythmic cycles of the natural year, especially when our contemporary holidays and celebrations coincide. In our urban and suburban lives, we are too often divorced from the natural world, and taking a moment now and then to honor the rhythm of the year is both grounding and uplifting.

Bread and Circuses

2010-11-28T18:31:00.000-08:00

I've been on the Weight Watchers program for almost two years now, and recently reached my goal weight and achieved Lifetime membership (which means I don't have to pay to go to meetings anymore, as long as I stay within 2 pounds of my goal weight). This morning, WW launched a brand new program, which is both exciting and a little scary.

In the old system, the points values of food were calculated using the total calories, fat grams and fiber grams. Now, with the new system (which is called PointsPlus) the points are calculated using four nutritional factors: total fat, protein, fiber and total carbohydrates. Calories don't "count" anymore, which is a bit scary. I do like the new emphasis on nutritional value of food rather than strictly how many calories are in it. Higher amounts of protein and fiber lower the value; higher amounts of carbs and fat raise the value.

The one thing I don't like is that now breads are higher in points than they used to be! Of course, high-fiber breads (which are what we all should be eating) will have fewer points but still ... I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that the meat in a sandwich may "cost" me less than the bread!

On the plus side, all fresh fruits and most vegetables are 0 points each (that got a big cheer from the group at the meeting!). So even though the point values of most foods went up, it will still be easy to stay full and satisfied with all that "free" fruit and veg. We do get more points per day under the new plan as well, so it should all work out in the end.

I'm sure it will take some time to adjust but I'm hoping that I'll be able to maintain my weight AND be healthier following these new guidelines. Wish me luck!

Beauty treatment or torture? You decide.

2010-11-20T20:16:00.000-08:00

I got my eyebrows threaded today. I have thick eyebrows and I am terrible about plucking them, partly because after I pull out one or two hairs, my eyes start watering and I suddenly decide that inflicting pain on myself is stupid and who really cares how bushy and scraggly my eyebrows look, anyway?

So, when I finally look in the mirror and think, "Where did those woolly bear caterpillars on my face come from?" I break down and pay someone else to inflict pain on me. I've had them waxed a couple of times but it hurt and I didn't really like the way they looked. I tried threading, which is supposed to be less painful (and if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you ...), but at least is over fast and does not involve hot melted wax being applied to my delicate skin.

I'm not exactly sure how threading works, since I can't see what's happening immediately above my eyes, but it involves a nice Indian woman holding the end of one piece of thread in her teeth, wrapping another one around it and using the two threads to quickly (and painfully) rip the stray hairs from my face. By the end, my eyes are watering but my brows are neatly trimmed and shaped, and it only costs $10. Not a bad price to get rid of those woolly caterpillars ...

Vertigo is More than a Hitchcock Film

2010-11-11T19:43:00.000-08:00

I have neglected this blog for a couple of weeks but I have a good excuse: Zenyatta! In the weeks leading up to the Breeders' Cup races on November 5-6, I was utterly obsessed with Zenyatta's run at history. She didn't quite make it, losing for the first time by just a nose, but she did prove her greatness. Instead of writing this blog, I was reading articles about Zenyatta, watching videos of Zenyatta and even creating a little tribute website featuring some of my photos of the big mare.

Okay, the race is behind us and it's time to move forward! I've had some problems with vertigo for several years but it had almost disappeared until the last few months. I went to the doctor today and she thinks I may have Meniere's disease, given the symptoms. Fortunately, the attacks are short-lived and so far I haven't had more than about one a week (or even less often). My allergies may have some bearing on it, so she gave me a prescription for Flonase (a nasal steroid spray) and suggested Sudafed in addition to the OTC Zyrtec I've been taking. I will also be taking a small dose of a mild diuretic that seems to help with Meniere's, most likely by reducing pressure in the fluid in the inner ear. I'm supposed to reduce my sodium intake as well, and avoid caffeine, alcohol and stress. I don't drink much, so that's not really a problem, but I do enjoy my tea and right now my job is pretty stressful ... This is going to be interesting!

Cats vs. Crows

2010-10-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

This is Pippin

This is a crow

Last night, I was watching a fascinating program on PBS called A Murder of Crows. About half way through, Pippin got up on the back of the couch and started watching with me. He knows the sound and sight of crows; one of his favorite pastimes is watching birds out the window and we have quite a few crows around here.

By the end of the episode, he had jumped up on the TV stand and was sitting right in front of the screen. We have a 42" flat screen HD TV, so the screen image was pretty big and Pippin looked like a 3-D part of the picture. My sister and I were cracking up when a promo for next week's episode came on and suddenly there was a giant snake heading right for Pippin! It was even funnier because he was busy watching a little spot down in the corner, and so was oblivious to the huge python about the swallow him whole.

Now, Pippin is a pretty smart cat but I am inclined to think that the crows come out better. After all, Pippin cannot make tools and does not have a vocabulary of hundreds of calls. He cannot fly, and cannot tell other cats to avoid dangerous areas (knowing him, he'd hide and laugh at them as they discovered it for themselves).

What do you think: cats or crows?

The Craziest Thing I've Ever Done

2010-10-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

By popular request (well, at Mother Theresa's request) here is the video of the book cart drill team I participated in at the CSLA conference last November.

Apples and Horses

2010-10-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a rainy week here in Southern California. We had an earthquake drill scheduled at work on Thursday (part of the state-wide Great California Shake Out) but because of the wet weather, it ended up being just a duck-cover-and-hold instead of a full evacuation drill. I discovered that I fit quite nicely underneath the ancient metal desk that squats behind the Circulation Desk. I rarely get to use it as a desk, because I'm always having to jump up and help a student, but I'm glad to find a use for it. Let's just hope I don't have to use it any time soon!

My weekend plans are still in flux. Some friends had suggested several weeks ago that we go up to Oak Glen to buy apples this Saturday, but I haven't heard anything since. If we don't go to Oak Glen, my sister and I are going to Santa Anita (where they are not currently racing) to get a free ceramic stein with Zenyatta's picture on it. Yes, we really would drive all that way to a track that is only hosting simulcast wagering just to get a piece of mass produced pottery with a horse on it. Because this isn't just any horse, this is the QUEEN we're talking about!

The short version of why Zenyatta is the Queen of Racing: She's never been beaten. Ever. Her record is 19 for 19. She beat the boys last year in the $5,000,000 Breeders' Cup Classic, the biggest race of the year. She always leaves the gate slowly and makes one big final run in the stretch to take the lead within strides of the finish line. She loves to dance and show off to her fans; the more we cheer, the more she struts her stuff. She's HUGE (17.2 hh, which is 70 inches at the withers) and beautiful and her owner is friends with Sting. She is named for a Police album. Her colors are pink and green, which look lovely on all ladies and even on her jockey, Mike Smith. She has not one but TWO official websites, her own Facebook page and Twitter account. She is on Oprah's 2010 Power List and has a spread in W magazine.

I could go on (and on and on ...) but I'll stop there and hope you are still paying attention. And if you are intrigued by the Queen, her next race will be this year's Breeders' Cup Classic on November 6th, which you can watch on ESPN. Yes, she's taking on the boys again and going for her 20th win. GIRL POWER! :)

So, tomorrow I will either be buying apples and trying to resist the freshly made apple donuts, or paying my way into the racetrack to get another Zenny souvenir. Either way, it's going to be a great weekend!

The Sunshine of the Random Mind

2010-10-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the title of my blog and have come to the conclusion that I really do have a random mind. If you were to browse my bookshelves, you would discover that I am interested in: bears, Maxfield Parrish, horse racing, Jane Austen, geology, Geoffrey Chaucer, carousel horses, nature photography, Icelandic sagas, English country houses, art nouveau, wolves, Broadway musicals, food politics, fairy tales, writing, medieval history, snowflakes, Yosemite, equine art, evolution, neuroscience, literary criticism, California history, green living, cats, birds, African American jockeys, yoga, linguistics ... well, you get the idea.

That's just the nonfiction stuff; we won't go into my fiction tastes because honestly, I don't know what kinds of fiction I don't like. All of which leads to my point (if, indeed, I have one): my mind is like a giant pinball machine, with the shiny ball of my attention ricocheting from topic to topic at sometimes astonishing speed. Part of the reason I have so many books in my "to-be-read" pile (well, technically it's a bookshelf, plus a couple of piles on the floor, plus a list of books at work I want to read, and ...erm, this is getting embarrassing) is that at any given moment I could be torn between plunging my head into some serious lit crit or a history of England during the Dark Ages or an overview of art nouveau or a huge tome of myths and legends or the natural history of California or ... it's almost paralyzing sometimes. As the Brits would say, I am "spoilt for choice."

For all it's drawbacks, though, it's fun to live inside my random mind. For one thing, I are rarely bored, because I can be fascinated by almost anything. And I love being able to pull random facts out of the blue during a conversation (although I am sometimes asked, "How do you know that?"). My standard answer to that question is: I read a lot. It's kind of like having a little library inside my head, or my own private Google.

And now, randomly, my post is done. Bye!

It's not as cool as a Foofy, but here it is ...

2010-10-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

The gauntlet has been thrown down. My bud has started her neglected blog back up, and now I must do the same. Of course, I don't have amazing home improvement projects to write about like the Foofy, but I'll do my best. :)

One of the reasons I have not been keeping up this blog is because I have been doing a blog for work and that seems to be siphoning all the creativity out of me. Either that or I'm just lazy ... take your pick.

So, if I haven't been blogging, what have I been doing? Besides working (of course), I have been worshiping Queen Zenyatta whenever possible, helping out at The Second Race foster facility, trying to keep up with the deluge of magazines that seems to pour out of my mailbox every month, and being slowly talked into resuming my aborted college education. Yes, I have taken the first (baby) step and applied for admission to Citrus College. If I can get a class during the winter session, I can begin "getting schooled" in January.

My goal is an AA in Liberal Arts which could (possibly) lead to a transfer to a four-year school for a BA in something (probably English or Communications or some other non-mathy subject). If I get really crazy, I might go for a Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) but who knows. For now, I just want to get registered for one class and see how that goes. Since I work full-time, I'll have to do mostly online classes; all this messing about on the Internet might actually have some use after all!

A Very Short Story

2010-07-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Another creative writing assignment: Using the first line as a prompt, write a story.

The Last Letter

The mail truck headed down the coast, carrying a single letter. Such a shame, thought Rodney, as he shifted gears. All this time the postal service had endured and it came down to this. He'd dreamed of being a mailman ever since he was a little kid; other kids worshiped firemen or policemen, but he'd known that the ones with the real power were the postmen. Who else could bring happiness or sorrow right to someone's door?

The traffic slowed for a construction zone and Rodney sighed. Glancing in the back of the truck, he saw the plastic mail bucket sitting forlornly on the floor. He couldn't see in side it from this angle, but he knew exactly what was in it: a pale green envelope, addressed in a spidery hand, the blue stamp slightly askew. Heck, everyone knew what it looked like. There were pictures of it all over the 'Net and on television.

Rodney shifted in his seat, peering ahead for the exit sign that should be coming up soon. A small grey car kept pace beside him; probably someone selling the video footage to the highest bidder. There had been a television news van or two filming him leaving the post office, but not much else since. As annoying as it was to be on camera, he felt a little less sad knowing that someone else cared about the letter, even if it was just as a means to make a little extra cash.

He exited the freeway and headed west into the sunset. It was a main road, and full of cars, but after a mile he turned off onto a side street and left most of the traffic behind, except the grey car. Rodney checked the GPS and turned left onto a narrow, winding road that led through a dense forest of pine trees. It was kind of beautiful, and he would have enjoyed the drive under different circumstances.

Just before the sun went down, he arrived at his destination. The brakes squealed a bit as he came to a stop in front of a sprawling ranch-style house with acres of green pasture behind it. Three horses lifted their heads from their grazing to watch him, curious but not frightened. Rodney turned off the ignition and pulled on the emergency brake. Thankfully, the little grey car parked down the road a bit, giving him at least the illusion of privacy.

He reached behind his seat and pulled the mail bucket forward. Carefully, as though it was made of fine porcelain rather than paper, he picked up the letter and leaned out the window. With a practiced ease, he opened the mailbox, slipped the letter inside and flipped the door shut. On a whim, he aimed a salute toward the grey car before he settled back down in his seat. There was nothing left to do but start the truck and drive it back to the post office, where it would be ceremoniously retired from duty. So would he; the last mailman had just delivered the last letter.

A Horse of My Own

2010-07-03T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is a mini essay I wrote on a childhood memory for an online creative writing class I am taking:

Like almost every little girl since the beginning of time, I loved horses. And like many girls, whose family couldn’t afford a real horse, I had to make do with substitutes. I had stick horses, a “Marvel the Mustang” ride-on toy and books full of photos of horses, but my favorites were my Breyer horse models. They not only looked like real horses but they were just the right size to play with and fairly sturdy. Except for the unfortunate Appaloosa who broke his leg when I accidentally sat on him, they held up well for indoor and outdoor play. Later on, when I learned the collectible value of these popular models, I cringed to think how I had “ruined” some of them. Looking back now, though, I see that their value to me as playmates was far greater.

I wasn’t an only child, but I was the youngest by a long way (sixteen years, to be exact) and spent a lot of my time in solitary play. The horses were perfect playthings; I could make up stories about them and act them out. I had several family sets: a stallion, mare and foal of a particular breed. My favorite set was the Andalusians. The mare was dapple grey and posed in a trot with an arched neck. Her thin legs meant I had to be a bit careful with her, so most of the time she stayed in the box with her little bay foal. The stallion, on the other hand, was pure white and posed in a gallop with his head and tail high. He was just the right size for my hand to fit right behind the withers, where a saddle would go. With my thumb on one side of his barrel and the rest of my hand on the other, I was riding a swift horse through all sorts of adventures.

Most often, he was Shadowfax, the mystical white steed ridden by Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Even before I was old enough to read the books, I knew the stories of Middle-Earth, which my eldest sister had read to me. My little Shadowfax could gallop across the floor, climb the steep sided mountain of the couch and then leap down again to the vast plains below.

Sometimes, my Andalusian raced against one of his stablemates. He was always in my right hand, rocking in a beautiful gallop, while his opponent was held in my left hand, awkwardly trying to keep up in an ungraceful galumphing gait. Of course, he always won. I played with the galloping white horse so much that the oils in my skin discolored the plastic on his shoulders, turning it an odd shade of orange. This made him “worthless” from a collectible standpoint, but priceless to my childhood self.

2010-05-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have neglected my blog. Now that my summer break is about to begin, I will TRY to write more, but it remains to be seen how well I will do.

I do have some goals for the summer, which hopefully will give me something to write about:

1. To take a beginning yoga class and get back into practice. My long range goal is to find a class right after work next fall and go once a week.

2. To catch up on my reading - magazines & books. I brought a bag full of books home from work today, plus I have far too many books in my to-be-read pile (I am ashamed to admit it's more of a bookcase PLUS a couple of piles). If I at least post a review of each book I read, that should get the blog going.

3. To go to the mountains at least once.

4. To be more active. I am much more active at work than I am at home and I don't want to stall my weight loss/maintenance because I am not burning as many calories. This goal ties in with #1 and #3 but conflicts with #2.

Zenyatta the Dancing Queen

2010-02-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

Zenyatta the Dancing Queen

This is my first Animoto video, using photos of my favorite racehorse, Zenyatta. I chose the song "Dance" because not only is Zenyatta a great racehorse but also a great dancer. Animoto is quite easy to use and I will definitely play around with it some more. I haven't been taking many photographs lately because of the rainy weather; as spring progresses I hope to get some great photos of horses and wildflowers.

For the Birds

2010-02-24T19:56:00.000-08:00

On the way home from the chiropractor this evening, I saw a large red-tailed hawk stoop into an empty field near the airport. I often wonder, when I witness one of nature's little dramas, how many of the other drivers on the road are even aware of the event. How often I see crows playing in the wind, cattle egrets prowling for insects in parkways, turkey vultures kettling over thermals, hawks perched on street lights watching for prey; and wonder, am I the only one?

I have seen kingbirds perched on fence wires, starlings swarming in the sky like flying schools of fish, mountain bluebirds swooping in front of the car, road runners next to a freeway onramp, common egrets standing like statues in empty lots, pigeons dancing and black phoebes hawking for insects. Have you?

Why Are They Hating on Libraries?

2010-02-17T19:29:00.000-08:00

"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries." -- Anne Herbert

I wish the "powers that be" realized the truth of this statement. School districts across California, including my own, are considering eliminating Teacher Librarians from their schools, even while paying lip service to the fact that the library is the heart of the school. As a library media tech, I can attest to another fact: that the Teacher Librarian is the heart of the library. We techs are highly skilled at our jobs, but we don't have the training or credentials to do what Teacher Librarians do. They are educators and innovators and the driving force that propels our public schools into the 21st century and beyond.

The library should be a sacred place, the last thing touched by such tawdry things as money and politics. The school library in particular is extremely important, especially in lower income areas. So many of our students have no access to the public libraries because they have no reliable transportation, or their parents do not have the time or inclination to sign them up for a library card. But every student has access to the school library, not just for research but for pleasure reading. For many of these students, the school library is the ONLY source of books. How can we instill a love of reading and books in our children if the library is treated like a disposable item? How can we expect them to respect books and learning when library staffing is slashed, in the case of my district, by 50%?

The Cross-Quarter Days, or How to have a holiday every six weeks

2010-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, the North American incarnation of the old Celtic holiday of Imbolc, one of the cross-quarter days that fall midway between the solstices and equinoxes. As the seasons divide the year into quarters of 3 months each, so the cross-quarter days divide the quarters into segments of 1 1/2 months. If you recognize the cross-quarter days as well as the solstices and equinoxes, your calendar will have a holiday every 6 weeks.

All of the major Celtic holidays fall on cross-quarter days, with the most important one -- and the beginning of the Celtic year -- being Samhain, better known today as Hallowe'en. This was the beginning of the dark half of the year in the Celtic calendar and the night that the veil between the worlds was the thinnest. All of our Hallowe'en traditions trace back to this ancient holiday.

Roughly six weeks after Samhain is the Winter Solstice, which has been or still is celebrated under the names Saturnalia, Yule, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwaanza and likely many more. All of these holidays involve light, symbolic of the shortening of the days ending and the prospect of more light returning to the world. The Solstice marks the beginning of Winter.

Next comes Imbolc, later known as St. Brigid's Day, Candlemas and Groundhog Day. Coming six weeks after the beginning of Winter, Imbolc marks the halfway point of the season, which is why the Groundhog is always correct in his prediction that there will be "six more weeks of winter."

The Vernal Equinox marks the first day of Spring, when the length of the day equals the length of the night, as it does twice a year. Halfway through Spring, we have Beltane on May 1, more commonly known as May Day. In medieval times, "going a-Maying" and dancing around the Maypole were important celebrations of springtime, but today May Day is more associated with worker's rights and the Soviet empire.

As the days lengthen, they reach their longest on the Summer Solstice, which boasts the shortest night of the year. Summer reaches its midpoint at Lughnasadh, on August 1, which was the Celtic celebration of the sun god Lugh. Lughnasadh later became Lammas, but isn't much noted these days, the only cross-quarter day that doesn't have a modern holiday associated with it.

The Autumnal Equinox again brings us an equal day and night and leads into Samhain, which is the midpoint of Autumn. (Interesting side note: the season is called Fall only in the United States; Brits know only Autumn).

And there we have it: a holiday every six weeks and a good way to keep yourself connected to the cycles of the natural year.

Heyday Books

2010-01-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

You know you're a book geek when you not only have favorite authors and genres but favorite publishers as well. One of mine is Heyday Books, which publishes books about California culture, history and nature. They are also the publishing partner of the Yosemite Association, of which I am a proud member (ha, I almost ended that sentence with a preposition, but managed to catch myself in time!)

Among the wonderful Heyday books in my personal library is Nature's Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy by Bonnie J. Gisel with images of Muir's plant specimens by Stephen J. Joseph. I'm not much of a botanist, although I do love wild plants, but I could not resist this beautiful volume with its images of plants that Muir himself actually collected.

Looking at Heyday's Nature page, I realize that I own 19 of the 37 titles listed (and plan to buy at least two of the not-yet-released books on the list). I only have 5 of the titles on the Literature page, but give me time! Heyday does some wonderful anthologies, and I am a sucker for those, as they are a wonderful way to experience new writers and types of writing.

Whenever I go to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I make a point of stopping by the Heyday booth to pick up a book or two. Or maybe three ...

Serendipity

2010-01-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

At work, we write a wacky holiday on the white board near the entrance to the library every day. Yesterday was Squirrel Appreciation Day, which seemed liked just another silly made-up day designed to make people laugh.

Today, I opened High Tide in Tuscon to the next essay, "The Forest in the Seeds" and came across these quotes from Henry David Thoreau's journals:

Consider what a vast work these forest planters are doing! So far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially the squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors.

But what is the character of our gratitude to these squirrels? ... Are they on our pension list? Have we in any way recognized their services? ... We should be more civilized as well as humane if we recognized once a year by some symbolical ceremony the part which the squirrel plays in the economy of Nature.

Lo and behold, the idea of Squirrel Appreciation Day can be traced to one of our greatest thinkers and naturalists. And what are the odds that I would stumble upon both these facts on consecutive days? Is it merely coincidence or some manifestation of a higher intelligence in the universe?

Most likely, this is an example of the human tendency to make connections where there are none, our brains hardwired to look for patterns that might help us survive. We tend to notice the one time out of a hundred when the phone rang at the exact moment we were thinking of the person on the other end of the line. Our minds are not configured to recognize that 99 times out of a hundred we think of that person and they don't call.

This little moment of serendipity can probably be written down to the vast lumber room of my curious mind, where I squirrel away (ha ha) all the random facts and ideas that strike my fancy. Like a magpie, I collect "shiny" things and as they jumble up together sometimes things fall into juxtaposition by chance.

And so now I know not only that January 21st is Squirrel Appreciation Day, but that Henry David Thoreau would be one of the first to wave the (squirrel) flag.

The Silver Lining

2010-01-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

I have been reading High Tide in Tuscon, a collection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver. In one essay, "The Vibrations of Djoogbe," she visits friends in Benin and during the course of her stay attends a vodoun festival in the port town of Ouidah, the point from which most of the slaves sold from West Africa were sent to the New World. The following passage struck me:

Back at the street fair, in the smoky heat among vendors of souvenirs and street food, a flock of kids danced around a boom box playing Lionel Richie. In the shadow of the Portuguese fort, the history of slavery, and the dark thunderclouds attracted by too many fetishers in one place, this carnival atmosphere struck me as bizarre, if not outright glib. I had a beer at a makeshift cafe and met a university student, Soulemaine Moreira, whose last name came from the Brazilian family that owned his grandparents. I asked him, "Don't you think about the people who got sent out from this port?"

"We think of them, of course," he replied. "We couldn't forget. Slavery was a terrible tragedy. But look at how it contributed to the cultural development of the New World."

Lionel Richie picked up a new beat, and a woman grilling meat nearby began to dance, elbows out, her fork in the air. Like the Moreira family, this music had made a long, circular trip home. I tried to imagine an America without Michael Jackson or Magic Johnson, without jazz, Motown, break dancing, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Taj Mahal, George Washington Carver, James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou. I couldn't picture it -- anymore, I'm sure, than Soulemaine Moreira could imagine a Benin without Peugeot taxis. The legacy of colonialism is a world of hurt and cross-pollinated beauty, and we take it from there.

On a day when we honor a great American, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I think this is an appropriate concept to consider. Yes, the slave trade was a great evil; yes, millions of West Africans were displaced, sent unwilling to another continent; yes, racial tensions have caused much sorrow in our culture -- but as with all dark clouds, there must be a silver lining, some ounce of redemption for past mistakes.

Had these millions not come to these shores, how different, how impoverished would our culture be. Without the rhythms of West Africa there would have been no jazz. Without jazz there would have been no rock and roll. Without rock and roll there would have been no Elvis Presley or The Beatles. Our musical landscape would be vastly different, in ways we cannot begin to conceive.

Were there no slaves in the southern states, we would (most likely; there were other tensions between north and south that had bearing) have been spared the trauma and horror of the Civil War, but then again we would not have great works of literature like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird. Or if we did, they would be far different books. What purpose would Huck and Jim have to travel north on the river if that were not the only direction in which Jim could find freedom and safety? Would Atticus Finch's principles be put to such a test by society?

I feel that we can regret the past, but must by necessity accept it. Past mistakes are, most importantly, in the past. As Kingsolver says, we must take it from there. And always look for the silver lining.

Long Live the Queen!

2010-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

I opened the L.A. Times this morning and, as always, turned first to the Sports section on the off chance there was an article on racing. There, just below the masthead, was a teaser for an article on page 10: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dwyre-zenyatta17-2010jan17,0,2904380.column?track=rss

For a moment, I could not believe my eyes: Zenyatta was going to race again! It's hard to explain why this news made me so happy. It's not just that she is a champion racehorse, undefeated in 14 races (so far). Her popularity with fans far and wide, including me, rests not so much on what she does during a race as in what she does before and after. Her running style is dramatic and breath-taking, dropping back to the tail end of the pack early in the race and then simply inhaling her opponents with a stretch run that is second to none, but even if she raced in a less eye-catching style she would still be a fan favorite. Why? Because this big beautiful athletic mare radiates with joy each time she walks over the the track.

In the paddock before the race, she struts her stuff, showing off to the other horses and the people gathered at the rails. "Look at me," she seems to say. "I am beautiful and graceful and made to run. So hurry up and let's get out there and have some FUN!" While the other horses walk sedately in the post parade, Zenyatta is practicing her dressage moves: the Spanish walk, piaffes, side passes and other intricate steps that some horses take years to learn to do under saddle, which she does naturally for the sheer joy of it. This is a horse who loves to run, whose sole purpose in life is to show off her talents and be adored. She is happy, and her happiness rubs off on all those around her.

After the race, she canters back to the winners' circle, hardly drawing a deep breath and looking ready to take part in the next race on the card. She is led into the winners' circle to have her picture taken and suddenly the pawing hoof stills and she poses, stock still for the first time since she has left the barn. As soon as the photos are done, she begins to move again, so full of life and boundless energy that she can't keep still any longer. Then she walks back to the barn, with a spring in her step that is usually lacking in a horse who has just run a race.

So, this is why the news that this mare will continue to race thrills me to the bone. I will get to vicariously experience her joy again. Long live the Queen of Racing and long may she reign!

Doing the Dewey

2010-01-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

I work in a library, so of course when I think about how to categorize my blog posts the first thing that comes to mind is the Dewey Decimal System. (What? It never occurred to you?)

This is how I will label my posts -- with the appropriate Dewey "hundreds" as follows:

000 - Computers, information and general works
   Technology, trivia, general randomness
100 - Philosophy and psychology
   Pondering the great questions of life and observations on human nature
200 - Religion
   Spirituality, mythology and religion
300 - Social Sciences
   Culture, folklore, human rights, law, politics ...
400 - Language
   Grammar, words, language theory
500 - Science
   Natural history, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, math
600 - Technology
   Cooking, food, domesticated animals, machinery, medicine and health
700 - Arts and recreation
   Art, music, sports, games
800 - Literature
   Writing, poetry, musings on literature
900 - History and geography
   Travel, biographies, genealogy, history

Here We Go Again

2010-01-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

A new year, a new beginning for my oft neglected blog! To reflect my wide-ranging interests, this blog will be a place to collect links to sites I've discovered or read about, and to ramble on about what's going on in my life.

What inspired me to restart the blog instead of just giving up? All of the student TAs at work are creating blogs as part of the Web 2.0 component of their library experience and it made me want to play around with Blogger again. So, here I am. We'll see how long I stick around this time ....