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Showing posts with the label Index H

In Honor of Banned Books Week...

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A Banned Book Is a READ Book ________________ “I can’t bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd.” – D. H. Lawrence

Hjalmar’s Saga (a poem by Jerry Siegel)

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Photo by Richard Bartz* Wikipedia ________________ “A forest bird never wants a cage.” – Henrik Ibsen __________________ Jerry, my husband, wrote this poem many years ago. “Hjalmar’s Saga” carries very special personal meaning for me, but it is also very accessible on a surface level, which is why I am sharing it on this blog. This is the poem’s first publication. __________________ Indeed, Henrik, you’ve made your point about Zoology. The male wild duck survives When in captivity, grows fat, appears Content, remains quite placid, resting in boxes Or on pillows. Paired with suitable tame stock He may, with proper fostering, be induced To nest, to mutter happy quacks, to father Ducklings captive from the shell. He will, Of course, not fly, but rather waddle, box To nest and back in endless circuits, like Some feathered friar, lost in thought. He never Knows passion, wit, or blue horizons – curls Restive, his family close, and sleeps m

The Human Race: Its Inevitable Extinction?

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Extreme Weather Life is a Brand Meme ______________ If extreme weather is a punishment from God, then why does most of it  occur in the Bible belt? – Life is a Brand meme _____________________________ Climate change deniers would insist that climate change does not exist; instead, when extreme weather hits, such as the recent tornadoes down south, they play the “God as punisher” card. Quite frankly, if God exists, I don’t think she really cares about our transgressions. She’s too busy being omniscient and creating other messes, uh, universes, trying to perfect that “In Her Image” stuff. (Note: she hasn’t succeeded yet.) Honestly, I don’t know if the recent storms are climate-change related or just a temporary force of nature – I’ll leave that to the scientists who have the tools to extrapolate weather patterns. I do believe that we are rapidly destroying ourselves as a human race, and I’m not sure we can do much, if anything, about it. I see our downward spir

Hey You, Sexy!

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Hey You, Sexy! Remixed photo -- Wikipedia Commons Lazy Lightning _________________ .Sexy can be cool, .Sexy can be cute, .Sexy can be hip, .Sexy can be neat, .Sexy can be sweet, .Sexy doesn't have to be Triple Three D or X!

How to Make a Perfect Hard-Boiled Egg

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Brown Egg Photographer: Sun Ladder Wikipedia __________ “The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.” – Alexander Pope. Are you tired of eating rubbery hard-boiled eggs that have that yucky-looking gray ring around the yolk? The hard-boiled egg is one of the easiest foods to prepare, but if you want your egg to come out perfect, you have to cook it the right way. Here is the fail-safe recipe for tender and grayless hard-boiled eggs: 1.   Fill a medium-size soup pan with cold water. 2.   Place 4-6 eggs in the pan, making sure that you use enough water that the eggs will float without touching the bottom of the pan. 3.   Bring water to a boil, but don’t allow the water to actually boil. 4.   Just before the boiling point (you’ll see bubbles beginning to form), take the pan off the burner, cover, and allow to sit for 20 minutes. The steaming, hot water will cook the eggs the rest of the way. 5.   After 20 minutes, immediately drain the water from the pan and

Heads Up to Sears Repair Department

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Sears _____________ So, yesterday, after washing a load of fussy whites (socks, undershirts, sheets), I discovered that my eight-year-old Kenmore dryer was dead, dead, dead. “Ugh,” I thought, considering what to do with the rather large load sitting inside the dryer like a soggy lump. Having lived overseas without access to a dryer, this was not a big deal, but my very American house is not set up for air drying clothes, and, besides, I was feeling kinda lazy after having shoveled snow earlier. How to call Sears? I couldn’t remember where the warranty info was, which was moot, anyway, but I needed to find the phone number and (I thought) all the model and serial numbers. So I looked on the dryer itself. Hark! The 800 number (which is 1-800-4-My-Home, by the way), and everything else I needed was right on the front inside, near the door. When I called, I did get the phone tree, but it was based on voice recognition and only required me to answer a few basic questions,

Hook, Line, and Sinker--A Day at the National Aquarium

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Jennifer, Rhia, and Jerry ________________________ Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children. --Alex Haley Jerry and I spent the day at the National Aquarium in Baltimore with our granddaughter Rhia. What fun! We saw sharks, dolphins, jellyfish, and a rain forest, among other sights. We saw Dora the Explorer and her friend Diego in a 4-D adventure film, the 4th dimension having to do with smells, vibrations, and splashing water on the audience, which Rhia did not appreciate. Her exact words: "This is NOT acceptable!" Ease up, sweetie. It's just water... But, overall, it was great fun, and by day's end everyone was duly worn out. The hook, line, and sinker of the day: we actually bought the above photograph along with an entire photo package, no doubt overpriced. Gotcha! How can you say "no" when the photo includes your precious grand baby? Later!

Happy Father's Day! Remembering Harley D. Semple (1901-1974)

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Harley D. Semple, circa 1972 ______________________________ My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. --Jim Valvano Harley D. Semple, my grandfather Dee-Dee, was a very special man. Not only did he and my grandmother Mo raise me, but they did so at a time in their lives when they should have been retired and free of child rearing. Taking me in must have been a huge sacrifice, but I never got the sense that I was a bother. Still, I was always a bit at odds with Mo because, even as a child, I had a suspicion that she was the one who made the final decision to leave Robin, my baby sister, with my stepfather’s family. In our family, Dee-Dee never made those kinds of decisions, but, in my heart, I know he would have been more than okay with having Robin around. Indeed, Mo, in her last years, admitted that leaving my sister behind had been one of her greatest regrets. My relationship with Mo and Dee-Dee was complicated; as I grew into my teen y

Thought for the Day--May 15, 2011: "How Did _______Get SO Fat?"

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... Instead of beating myself up for being fat, I think it's a miracle that I laugh every day and walk through my life with pride, because our culture is unrelenting when it comes to large people . --Camryn Manheim Other variations on the title question, often asked by both the well-meaning and the just plain mean: "How could she let herself go like that?" "Doesn't she know that she looks like a horse in that outfit?" "Why doesn't he do something about his weight?" "She has such a pretty face, but..." "He's such a smart guy, but..." We have all heard such rude comments, usually about other people, although if these people are tsk tsking about others to us, they are probably doing it about us behind our backs. Not much what we can do about it. It is what it is... However, I can explain to those who have never seen a fat day in their lives how fatness can creep up on us like a stealthy thief. Have y

Thought for the Day--May 8, 2011: Happy Mother's Day to "MO" and to ALL Moms

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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. --Mark Twain My grandmother, Katherine Olive Quirk Semple (known in the family as "Mo") acted as my mom; she raised me for most of my life, stepping in for her daughter, my mother. As I grow older, I really appreciate the sacrifice involved: Mo was 57 when she and Dee Dee, my grandfather , took me in for good, and 61 when they formally adopted me as their child. Jennifer, age 7, on her way to a temporary custody hearing, Los Angeles Courthouse. Photograph by Olive Semple, the Queen of the backside photo _______________________________ I can't imagine what it must have been like to take in a child when you're facing your Social Security years. Mo was forward-thinking in that she pushed the adoption into motion years before applying for Social Security. She also knew what adoption might mean to me--my mother would legally become my sister (How weird is that?) and would lose all parental rights-

Thought for the Day--April 11, 2011: How to Build a Fatter Body (For Slim People Only)

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Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. --Lord Byron Today, I am going to show you how to build a fatter body. 1. Eat whatever you want and in any quantity. Eat until your gut bulges and that you eat enough so that you from suffer, in the middle of the night, acid indigestion and acid reflux. What fun! 2. Skip meals. Better yet, starve all day, and eat only one large meal a day, and that should be at night, the later the better. Be sure to snack all evening. 3. Never exercise. Walk only when you have to visit the fridge or go from your car to your favorite fast food place. (Better yet, use the drive through). 4. Make sure that you're sleep deprived. Four hours a night is quite enough, but I'm sure that you could function with a lot less. 5. Eat nothing but junk food, the higher the fat content, the better. Don't even go near a carrot. 6. Work, work, work, and never play. Stay connected to all your technology. 7. Panic and then go on a starvation diet, the more extreme,

Thought for the Day--March 28, 2011: "Habituation", aka "Virtual Eating"

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According to Livescience.com , it is possible to lose and maintain weight by "habituation," also known as "virtual eating." What is "Virtual Eating? Before eating a favorite food or even a meal, you first imagine eating it. As you virtually eat, you "see" its color, "taste" its sweetness or saltiness, hear the sound of it as you slowly chew, and feel its texture. The premise: If you virtually pre-eat (in the sense of imagination eating, not eating a 0 food), you are likely to eat less of it because you have already enjoyed the sensual part of eating. Crazy? I don't know, but I plan to try it. We all know that there is a powerful mind-body connection, so it does make sense. I will let you know how it works out for me. I think this is a cute cartoon, and oh-so-realistic: Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy, March 28, 2011 ____________________

Thought for the Day--March 22, 2011: Heavy

If you haven't already done so, check out the A&E show Heavy . The participants in this docudrama are incredibly brave and inspiring; I'm not sure I could put myself "out there" like that, revealing my weight on national TV and showing my body in motion on the treadmill or on some other exercise machine. I have a great deal of respect for these people who are working hard at getting their lives in order and in shape. The odds are steep, as anyone knows who has tried to lose weight and keep it off. It will be interesting to see where these participants are in a year or two--I'm rooting for them! I believe that there is much about weight and metabolism that is not fully understood. Why do some people have difficulty knowing when to stop eating? Why do some people gain weight easily, while others pig out and never seem to gain an ounce? If I knew those answers, I'd be rich.

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment