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Our Daily Thread 8-23-14

Good Morning!

The weekend has arrived! 🙂

On this day in 1838 the first class graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, MA. It was one of the first colleges for women. 

In 1904 Hard D. Weed patented the grip-tread tire chain for cars. 

In 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty.

And in 1979 Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York City. 

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Quote of the Day

“We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

Oliver Hazard Perry

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Today is Tex Williams’ birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQ3zfuUZb4&feature=player_detailpage

 Today is Michael O’Brien’s birthday too.

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Anyone have a QoD?

57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-23-14”

  3. We saw Tex Williams years ago at Wolf Trap. I thought I was going to lose Elvera to him
    But then I would have to run away with Anita Carter. At the end of Tex’s song, on the lower left. there is an option to hear Hank Snow and Anita sing the same song. It’s better.
    After that, lots of good selections, if you like the genre.

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  4. Good morning, Chas & Aj. Evening, Jo.

    L. went to the One Direction concert last night. She didn’t get home until almost one. (She went with a group of girls and a parent). She now has to attend a volunteer training from 7:30 to 1:00 for an organization that offers therapeutic horse riding lessons to persons with disabilities. Hubby volunteered to drive her this morning; I’ll pick her up. She must be exhausted.

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  5. Good Morning all….oh the air is crisp and wet this morning….fall is in the air!
    Jo I am glad to know you enjoyed that book…I must get myself a copy now…I have been so confused as to whether Davis Bunn and T. Davis Bunn was one in the same!
    Ann…oh the energy of youth…just like the Energizer bunny. As we grow older…we just kind of just hop along 🙂
    AJ the photo of the bird is just delightful…he/she seems to be posing for a photo shoot!
    Mornin’ Chas!

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  6. That bird photo deserves to be on a card!

    I pulled out that book by Davis Bunn recently. I have a pile of books to review, but hope I can read that one before too much time passes. Glad to hear your recommendation.

    One of our tax preparers has a horse farm. I don’t get to see her too often. I think she has rescue horses. I have wondered if she might ever use any as therapeutic horses. She has a background in nursing.

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  7. Catbird. I got several photos of them at our family reunion in North Carolina, including a cute photo of one between the “squares” at the bottom of the volleyball net.

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  8. I’m glad it’s cool and crisp where you are, Nancyjill. Today is going to be a scorcher according to the weatherman. But then, yesterday was supposed to be and it turned out hot but not unbearable. Our school let out at 11:30 since the forecast was so hot. Well, I’m off to mow the lawn before it gets any hotter.

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  9. It’s supposed to get up to 90 in H’ville.
    Do hornets communicate with each other?
    When I first started cutting the bank behind my house over ten years ago, I was always attacked by hornets that nested in the ground. They would fly out in a swarm and attack me. I always wore heavy clothing and a hat & gloves. When they attacked, I would stop, go and get some wasp spray and destroy their nest. That ended the attacks for the year. But after about three years, I haven’t been attacked at all.
    They must have learned something and passed it on.
    1. Don’t build a nest here, or
    2. Don’t attack that loud beast. Leave it alone and it will leave you alone.
    In any case, I haven’t been bothered in years now.

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  10. I’ve wondered something similar, Chas, but about lizards. Annie used to bring dozens of lizards into the house, a practice that went on for about 2 years. Then, nothing. No lizards. Ever.

    I find it hard to believe she’s reformed. I rather think that the lizards all said ‘Enough of this’ and migrated en masse to someone else’s yard.

    We have a program here that offers therapeutic horseback riding (for both adults and kids), called Ride to Fly, it’s very popular.

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  15. The NCAA list for week 1 is in AJ’s in box. I suppose he’ll post it Monday or later today (preferably Monday so it doesn’t get as deeply buried in the post list.)

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  16. Davis goes by Davis, and T. Davis Bunn was how he originally published. Nice guy–he led my advanced fiction track at Mt. Hermon last year and was very excited about Poppy.

    The photo reminds me of Christmas!

    Lovely day here full of chores. I can laugh now without feeling a lot of pain, though my cheek is still swollen up to my eye. 🙂

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  18. Chas, you would enjoy the ‘Lion of Babylon’
    And… I got it at the everything sale for about 20 cents
    such a deal! I always look for his books

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  19. I’ve been on the road picking up dog meds, getting the work phone issues straightened out at the Apple store. My friend was hoping I’d also come visit her today in the hospital again, which I’ve been doing the past couple Saturdays, but I asked her if we could do a phone conversation this time instead as it’s another 30-40 minute drive away to get there. I think she was disappointed but I told her if she’s still there or in a rehab I’ll visit her next Saturday again.

    Talked to my other friend N today and she’s got a pretty heavy-duty decision to make regarding surgery. I’ll post something on the prayer thread, she needs clarity which might not come until she gathers some more information from one or more of her doctors.

    On the bigger-picture scene regarding Isis — saw this opinion piece on CNN and it dawned on me that this is exactly the kind of viewpoint one would have without a spiritual understanding of the reality of evil.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/22/opinion/dawes-isis-evil/index.html?hpt=op_t1

    ” … We can say they are evil people doing evil things for evil ends. Or we can do the hard work of understanding the context that made them, so that we can create a context that unmakes them. …

    ” … trying to understand evil is an offense. It is an offense to everything we hold dear, because understanding — that is, true and effective understanding — must bring us close to the other, must help us see the world through their eyes. That is a painful, offensive process, and that is exactly what we must do.”

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  24. We packed yesterday. All the china and crystal is packed and labeled A lot of the kitchen is packed. All of the wall hangings a packed. We are pretty much just camping out here now. I am more resigned to the situation. Not happy but resigned.

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  25. Rolling, rolling . . . 10 second earthquake?

    It was a big one! We’re a beautiful hour drive through Napa vineyards from American Canyon, but we do live within a couple miles of the San Andreas fault. Went on a “long” time, but no damage. We fell asleep once our hearts stopped pounding!

    Just yesterday, digging out the computer to pull up Chas’ photos, we shored up the slats in the garage rafter storage area and strapped down new shelving in case of an earthquake!

    Not hearing any problems from friends on FB. This is a credit to a generation of anti-earthquake building measures in technologically-savvy, California–and the unmerited grace of a God.

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  27. Off to church in a bit. Mr P is having a CTscan and a spinal tap tomorrow to find out what some of the problem is with his back. Once again he was just going to take himself over to Pensacola, have this done, and drive himself home. Don’t think so.
    Ever since he told me he was having a spinal tap….Well some of you can guess where my brain went, so This Is Spinal Tap

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  28. Kim, the mention of a medical spinal tap always brings to my mind the scene in The Exorcist …

    Interesting story by our sister paper to the north on the overmedication of kids in foster care in California:

    http://webspecial.mercurynews.com/druggedkids/

    ” … Psych meds the norm in group homes for troubled kids: More than half of the foster kids who live in California’s residential group homes — and as many as 100 percent in some counties with very small numbers in group homes — are authorized by juvenile courts to receive psychotropic drugs. These homes shelter some of the most troubled foster kids, about 3,800 annually, many of whom the system has been unable to place with families. Health care professionals say children are being medicated to sleep to keep them manageable. In these group homes, foster children who refuse medications are often punished, losing basic privileges such as visiting siblings or simply going outdoors. …

    ” … California spends more on psych drugs for foster children than on any other kind of medication. This newspaper analyzed Medi-Cal spending on the 10 most costly groups of drugs for foster kids over the last decade. The state shelled out more than $226 million on psych meds for foster children — an astounding 72 percent of the total. …”

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  29. Praying for Mr. P.

    With everything off the walls and packed, I’m guessing you’re probably “ready” now to blow out of that place. You’ll feel better once you’re on the other side of it and in a new place. Still, very sorry you’ve had to go through this.

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  30. Today is Annie Oakley’s (the person, not my cat) birthday: Born on this day in 1860, Annie Oakley gained fame for her unparalleled shooting skills, and later starring in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for 17 years. By age 15, Oakley paid off the mortgage for her mother’s home by shooting small game for a local grocery store.

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  32. Thanks for the article. Donna. We have never been given children from California, but we did get several on psychotropic drugs. They are all off now but the damage remaining is real. As mentioned in the article, taking the time to see the real child and the broken heart helps.

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  33. We had a very nice service today. During communion Nothing but the Blood of Jesus was played on the harp.

    Sunday school was good, too. We were doing Solomon’s temple study. For the main activity the boys measured four cardboard boxes to stack them according to sizes written in the building instructions. Then they had to measure a 36″×36″ square around the ‘temple’ for the wall made of Simply Juice bottles. It was a fun and engaging project for our all boy class today . They learned about God wanting people to be obedient to his exact plans.

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  35. As I have told you throughout this mess I have escaped into books. I discovered a new author last week and with my Kindle Unlimited account I have downloaded 3 of a series of books by her. The story is set in California but one of the characters is from Texas. They keep calling him cowboy, they talk about him wearing a cowboy hat–the character is a businessman! They keep describing Texan things and this morning as I was finishing it the author described the Texan sun. The sun isn’t a Texan! The sun is shining in Texas so it is a Texas sun. You wouldn’t describe a Californian sun would you?????
    Knowing how Michelle has gone through her books to take out unnecessary words I think a good chapter’s worth of paper could have been saved if the word “cowboy” was taken out.
    Do these authors not have an editor. Oh and the word “snuck”. It is “sneaked”, not “snuck”. Ugh!

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  36. If it’s by a female author, maybe she has a thing for cowboys.
    I don’t understand it, but it’s the least of things that I don’t understand about women.

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  37. Kim, Merriam-Webster lists “snuck” as an acceptable past tense. (It lists it second, so publishers would tend to prefer “sneaked,” but either is acceptable.) As to “Texan,” I’m inclined to think that would have been more common a few years ago. In one of my books of C. S. Lewis’s letters, he replied to a reader who mentioned something or other, let’s say a “Narnian menu.” He said something like, “Wonderful! I reader who actually knows how to use the adjective form of the word!” But our bird names (as just one example) are Canada goose (although people try to call it “Canadian”), Tennessee warbler, etc. So I suspect the adjective form in such cases is pretty rare these days. (Lewis, of course, died in the 60s and the Narnia books were published in the 50s, so that letter was written around the time I was born or sometime in the decade and a half before that.)

    I had a co-worker when I was a full-time editor who had a pet peeve of anyone saying such things as a “female reporter.” To her, that was vulgar, almost sexual, and she insisted on only “woman reporter.” Yet to me that sounds awkward, since “woman” is a noun and not an adjective.

    I guess the summary is that even editors vary greatly in how to use the English language.

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  39. And see, there is Chas just above me referencing a “female author.” But to my fellow editor, that sounded too much like “female dog.” I’m unsure if she was likewise uncomfortable with “male flight attendant.”

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  41. Women speak in Woman Voice. Men hear with Man Ears. I is truly as if we were speaking two didn’t languages. Once you accept that you can adjust. Ir you can pretend you really are in a foreign country where they don’t understand you so you just speak slowly and loudly. 😉

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  44. Kim, for several years in Nashville I lived next to an older couple (late sixties) who traveled a lot, but when they were home they walked around the neighborhood four times a day and I was welcome to go with them any time I saw them walking. About once a day I saw them head out in time to put on my shoes, grab my keys, and join them.

    I can’t tell you how often in those eight years of walking with them the wife would begin a story, telling it in “female fashion” (beginning with the prologue, with info such as “who these people are in the story I’m about to tell” or “where we were when this happened”) and the husband would cut in impatiently with a “get to the point” comment. He’d say, “But what happened at the restaurant?” Or “But what did your sister tell you?”

    It always struck me as funny because he already knew whatever story she was telling, so she was telling me, one woman telling another woman a story in womanly fashion. But it drove him crazy and as far as I know he never did realize why she told stories in such a way. (She ended up dying a year or so after I moved, so if he is still doing those daily walks, he’s doing them alone. I suppose it would be awkward if I were still living there and wondering if it was OK to walk with him, me a middle-aged single woman and him a widower next-door neighbor. But I do miss those walks with good neighbors!)

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  45. Cheryl, you know by now that men talk to each other differently from the way they talk when a woman is around. A woman walking into a room of men changes the tone of the conversation.
    Several years ago, I mentioned that to a woman at work. She said the same thing happens when women are talking among themselves and a man walks in.
    “It upgrades the conversation” are the words she used.
    It doesn’t have to be an important man to any of them. Just a male body.
    It instantly upgrades the conversation.

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  46. Newspaper reporters also tend to want to “get to the point” already. 😉 Occupational hazard.

    Our newspaper writing coach of a number of years ago used to say that writing an important news story (usually on deadline) was easier if you thought about how you’d tell it all to your roommate (or whoever) in a hurry. Spill the important stuff first.

    And keep it simple — think about the guy in the donut shop who has only a few minutes to scan the paper on a coffee break. (This was all before the internet, however.)

    Of course, feature writing is a different animal. As is a leisurely conversation while walking around the block.

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  48. At one point I knew a lady lawyer at church. She said her legal background made marriage difficult at times because she was trained in being argumentative. So with women, it can be a matter of their professional background. Being in sales, Kim is trained in the fine art of persuation, etc.

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  50. Chas, perhaps it was because I was raised in a family that was mostly male, but I’ve generally felt “cramped” in a roomful of women. One on one, I love talking with women, but I detest groups where women migrate to one area and men to another.

    In fact, I once commented to another woman that I had been in a conversation with two or three other women about my age (in our twenties, at the time) and one of them was about to get married, and over the hour or two that we all talked, her sole contributions to the conversation were salt-and-pepper shakers and curtains. (She kept returning to these subjects; it’s not that she mostly sat in silence.) My friend was upset that I thought this other woman trivial, not that I assumed that such subjects were all she was capable of discussing, but that I thought such topics tedious after several minutes of them. As a woman, somehow I was supposed to consider these topics feminine and highly edifying, and I was wrong to see them as boring. I see nothing at all wrong with discussions of such things; but they happen not to interest me.

    In college I found it really hard to be in a roomful of women my age, since the subjects invariably (90+ % of the time) turned to three subjects: boys, movies, and music. I could not discuss any of those subjects intelligently, nor did I find any of those subjects interesting. I found out at some point that in the men’s dorms, evening discussions often turned to theology, and I was jealous. (I wouldn’t have been jealous of discussions of sports!)

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  52. Congratulations, Kim! May you be richly blessed in your new home. Give yourself some time to settle in, & make it your own.

    Cheryl – I have noticed that a lot of people use the word woman as an adjective. Woman doctor, woman lawyer, woman president. Just doesn’t sound right. (I know that those are two incomplete sentences. 🙂 )

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  53. I have never gotten along with groups of women either. Ex husband had friends he had know since they were in diapers. The wives ostracized me. One in particular worked a block or so from me so I asked her to lunch more than a few times. She turned me down every time. Once she turned me down so I ordered something to go from a restaurant. When I went in to pick it up she was having lunch with another of the wives –they could have easily asked me to join them but didn’t. Many years later she extended a hand at friendship. We are acquaintances now and she is a very talented woman whom I respect but we never were friends. I didn’t understand it for the longest time and it hurt my feelings. We did supper club with that group of friends. The last few that George attended he went by himself. I fixed whatever food we were to bring and sent him on his way. After 7 years of trying to be their friend I had enough.
    George always said they were intimidated by me. I didn’t see that then and still don’t. I have come to accept who I am. I find it much easier to talk to men. They don’t want all the details and nuances. They just want the facts and everything stays very much on the surface. Much easier. I have several women friends (some here) to whom I can pour out my heart and receive encouragement. I would much rather have that than discuss salt and pepper shakers and who did what when where and how.

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  55. Good evening Jo. I hope you had a good day.
    What is Lion of Babylon about? i.e. What kind of book is it?

    I’m just waiting around to start the week.

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  56. I have read several books on recommendation from fellow bloggers. The most important one was God’s War on Terror recommended by JoeB. You know him as DrivesGuy. Some changed their names when we moved from World to here.

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