live and learn!
Or: Inside a Young Mind
From Village with a Thousand Rules: “Subject: What do you mean we live outside Earth?
“We were sitting on the stairs leading to our sidewalk, the first time I remembered that my mom thought I was a real person rather than a child. My siblings were playing in the street, and I was on mom’s lap. I sat waiting for Dad to come home. It was a foggy day, and I could see the sun filtering through the clouds, and on the other side of the sky I could see the moon rising. I looked at mom and Said: ‘The sun and the moon and your eyes all look the same shape.’ He gave me a big squeeze and said: ‘You’re a smart little girl.’ I’ve never wondered why he thought so, but what do I know: that was the moment my love for astronomy began.
“My sister Ruth helped with this when she came back from a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago with Uncle Bob. She told me about the fascinating orrery she saw in the planetarium and made me a picture of her. ‘What? We’re inside the earth.’ Don’t live?’ I knew the Earth was round, but I thought the Sun and the Moon and the stars above us in the sky were encased in this ball we call our Earth. He took the Book of Knowledge’s astronomy book off the shelf and gave me a Showed a picture of orrery so that I can understand it better.
“My sister Eleanor was the next to add to my knowledge when she told me that the Moon was responsible for the tides on Earth. It was the most laughable thing I’d ever heard. She insisted that it was true and was not due to gravity. tried to explain. hanging out in space all along, only with a thing called gravity to keep us from falling away. I spent a few days clinging to furniture and walls when the gravity she was talking about was true .
our own ‘tree’
Spaceships and robots and stars, oh my! the division
From Gregory J. of Dayton Bluff: “There’s a dearth of tree-decorating holidays between Independence Day and Halloween. After all, what’s anyone going to use for the ornaments on a Labor Day tree? Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19) is charming , but finding enough decorations will be a real task.
“However, that period includes the first Moon landing day (July 20, 1969); Sputnik Day, aka the Birth of the Space Race Day (October 4, 1957); and the birthday of NASA Day (October 1, 1958), And this is the time when many science-fiction summer blockbuster movies related to space have been released over the years.
“Put them all together, and what do we get? We get a mash-up of space, science, and science fiction that yields more than enough ornaments to fill a tree, which would have been heavy on science-fiction.” that will fill the gap until it’s time to make the Halloween tree.”
then and now (responsible)
Lakeville’s triple-the-fun: “lately happy medium” [Sunday BB, October 3] Told about his father and how he cut ice from the lake for his icebox.
“It brought back memories of my father, who also cut ice on the local lakes. However, my dad didn’t cut snow for personal use, but as a part-time job all winter long. In today’s jargon, I guess you could say it was his side, although in the ’50s, it was a work, pure and simple.
“Here is a picture in which I have shown my dad cutting snow. I believe it was around 1950 on Phalene Lake.
“By the time I arrived, my family had a refrigerator, so we didn’t have to get ice for the icebox. I remember our refrigerator in the form of a small, squat animal with a rounded top, which, perhaps at best, There was 2 or 3 cubic feet of internal refrigerated space. And the small freezer compartment had to be defrosted regularly, or it would become a solid block of ice. Gone are the days!
“Thanks, Happy Medium, for bringing back some childhood memories.”
see the world
Contains: Unrecognized Quotations
HINDSIGHT writes: “I’ve told my kids: If you want to know how Grumpus and I thought about things, check out the quotes we saved. One source of those powerful little ideas is Wordsmith, which is about words. I have a blog recently I saw Ann Beatty, a novelist: ‘People forget years and remember moments.’
“That same day, I went out on the deck to deadhead some of the flowers in bloom. A Grandiflora petunia, a striking beauty of purple with white fringe, had become so flower-heavy that Grumpus planted tomatoes in large pots. We put it on the bench. I could wrap the plant through the wire frame so that the flowers could be displayed lavishly.
“As I worked to clean the plant, removing the spent flowers, I heard a familiar humming. There a hummingbird landed on the top rung of the cage. Standing there, my face was only 18 inches away from this delicate, gleaming little bird. I didn’t say anything, and neither did the bird. We looked at each other intently. It wasn’t scary. He showed off his long probing tongue, pushing it out an inch or so beyond that special flower-tipped beak. Up close, I could notice the layers of bright green feathers, delicately ruffed along their throats and chests, with no iridescent rose color showing on the throat. (Maybe it was a teenager.) I was very close to a splendid living jewel.
“For a few minutes, the little bird and I were frozen in time, sharing a moment. Finally, he was gone. The silent communication was the bird saying thank you to me for the meal,” Grumpus said. And I was saying thank you to the birds for this lovely moment.
now what
Or: Highfaltin’ pleasure ‘n’ resentment
Auction Girl of Pine Island: “Subject: New Phone.
“The Auction Girl of Pine Island delights in the vintage, simple and functional machines that made modern life—like the old radio, the 50-year-old toaster someone got as a wedding gift, and, of course, the beautiful and indestructible rotary- Dial desktop phone.
“Of all the things in life, that phone was perfect; It worked smoothly.
“About seven years ago, an employer required an auction girl to ‘already got a smart phone’.” So instead of returning to big-box-retail purgatory, she reluctantly agreed to get the monthly paying 3G Motorola from Target.
“It was hard to get a good signal. AUCTION GIRL then went too far back and tried it everywhere from Redwood Falls to McGregor.
“The camera, compared to its luxurious Nikon, was sorely lacking.
“Battery life was iffy, especially in subzero temperatures, when you might need to tow.
“Recently, the phone attempted to commit suicide by overheating – in his pants pocket – during a shift at ‘Little Shop on the Prairie’.
“Time for a real phone. Who knew it would take two hours at the store and three more hours at home to ‘migrate’ the data?
“Auction Girl prefers to listen to Dvorak’s ‘Songs My Mother Teat Me’ rather than a general buzz or the ‘Marimba’ clunk of the iPhone when it ‘rings’.
“It is strange to see the time and temperature being displayed without asking. Anyone remember the time and temperature to call on a rotary phone to do something?
“So many passwords to hide a lifetime’s worth of data in a cigarette case like this. Should someone tell her phone so much?
“The auction girl never wondered if the rotary phone rang after her bites to gossip with her friends on the party line.”
a joke for today
Cathy S. of St. Paul: “Subject: A very childish joke.
“A fellow passenger on an elevator today felt he had to share this joke:
“Why is the six afraid of the seven?
“Because seven ate nine.
“Note: I didn’t make this a joke. I only punched buttons on floors seven, eight and nine.”
Pleasure of Engagement (Responsible)
Jerry Tjader writes: “Reading the note about Four Roses bourbon from Cathy S. of St. Paul reminded me of an old set of jokes, of which I can only remember one: ‘Your breath is like a rose’— Four roses.'”
hmmmmmmmm
Leading: Hmmmmmmmm (Responsive)
OTD from NSP: “The sock that disappeared in the dryer now has a Tupperware lid in the cupboard that doesn’t fit in any container you might have.”
Counsel of St. Paul: “” That’s not quite right. No Tupperware lid fits any container.”
Band Name of the Day: The Living Jewels
