I Believe in Weaving

My first experience learning to weave was a potholder kit. The loom was a metal square edged with teeth like the tines on a comb. The potholder material was colored rings of cotton that stretched on the metal tines of the loom. Stretch the cotton rings in one direction; weave the rings over and under in the opposite direction; slip the finished product off the loom and: voilà: potholder!

I made dozens – maybe hundreds of those potholders because they were fun to make and useful. We used them as coasters and dusters and small placemats – all kinds of useful things.

Later, I got a similar loom with lots more tines. These squares were woven with lengths of yarn and could then be sewed together to form small blankets or scarves. I happily sat for hours making little woven squares.

Consider a single thread and then consider your clothes. Before threads and the means of entangling them came along, our distant ancestors were naked or they wore animal skins. Want to kill an animal today so that you have something to wear tomorrow? I didn’t think so.

Here’s a bit of what Wikipedia has to say about weaving.

“Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling. (Weft is an old English word meaning “that which is woven”.) The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth.

Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band which meets this definition of cloth (warp threads with a weft thread winding between) can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back-strap, or other techniques without looms.

The way the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is called the weave. The majority of woven products are created with one of three basic weaves: plain weave, satin weave, or twill. Woven cloth can be plain (in one colour or a simple pattern), or can be woven in decorative or artistic designs.

There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Paleolithic era.

By biblical times, weaving was known in all the great civilizations, but no clear line of causality has been established. Early looms required two people to create the shed, and one person to pass through the filling. Early looms wove a fixed length of cloth, but later ones allowed warp to be wound out as the fell progressed. The weavers were often children or slaves.”

So weaving has been around for a long time.

Knitting and crocheting has always been a family activity. I have a table cloth that my grandmother crocheted and a bedspread that Mom crocheted, and I treasure these family heirlooms.

Now consider where thread comes from. Silk is created by insects. Here’s a bit more from Wikipedia.

“Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity (sericulture). The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber, which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles, thus producing different colors.

Silks are produced by several other insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been some research into other silks, which differ at the molecular level. Silks are mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, but also by some adult insects such as webspinners. Silk production is especially common in the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), and is sometimes used in nest construction. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders (see spider silk).”

Consider what that means. Your clothes come from insect fibers. INSECT FIBERS! If that does not astonish you, then I wonder what would.

We are all more familiar with wool that comes from sheep, although wool also comes from llamas and alpacas and goats and rabbits. Thread for your clothes comes from the hair and fur of these animals. In Alaska you can buy knitted goods made from dog hair or musk ox fur.

Cotton and linen comes from plants and these days, synthetic polyester is a type of plastic.

The thought of all these threads, interweaving, interlocking, entangling in myriad ways fascinates me. The colors, the patterns, the textures of threads made into every conceivable garment and blanket and scarf and decorative item.

But weaving isn’t just about threads. Weaving is about the entangling way our world works and how each of us, interacting with others, structures the world in new ways. No bees, no plant pollination, no food: famine. No teachers, no students, no learning: ignorance. No kindness, no charity, no compassion, no happy gatherings of people: war.

My weaving is the creation and teaching of art. Today I crochet hats and knit comfort shawls for hospital patients. I weave cloth on a four-harness loom and take quiet pleasure in the threads and colors and patterns I create. I teach students to draw and paint so that they have a new way to share and interact, and for their personal pride and satisfaction. It is a rush when they come up after class and say: “Thank you, I had fun and I learned so much. You are a good teacher.”

Yippee!

Whether we are weaving cloth or weaving a compassionate community of interpersonal relationships, we are weaving something of infinite value. This I believe. What positive things have you done today to create a unique and useful weaving?

I Believe in Earth

Pale Blue Dot is the title of a book written by scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan. (Great book by the way. Check it out. Mr. Sagan writes really interesting, easy-reading science.) The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a tiny dot (0.12 pixels in size) against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of Carl Sagan. (Information from Wikipedia)

Our lovely blue and white and green jewel of a planet is unique, as far as we know as of 2012. We know of no other planet in our solar system or anywhere in the known universe that has life. Considering the vast distances of space, we may never know if there are other planets like ours although in recent years, planet-hunters have found numerous planets in our Milky Way galaxy. I still remember the first photos of Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts from the moon. OH. WOW!

Whether or not our planet is unique, we ought to take better care of it. It is the only home we have. From oil spills to mining disasters and mining pollution, to various destructive methods for finding and extracting energy, i.e. fracking, we humans are quite good at making a mess. Cleaning up that mess can happen, but is often time consuming. The success of any given mitigation and restoration can be questionable.

When the BP oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, oil flowed unchecked into the Gulf for three months. Every day I checked the news to see if the spill had been stopped and every day that it wasn’t caused me a certain amount of physical and mental discomfort. I’ve seen the Gulf from an airplane and once from Florida and the Gulf is spectacularly beautiful. I live nowhere near the Gulf of Mexico but during that oil spill, it felt as though someone had broken into my home and poured tons of muck directly into every room in my house. I was OFFENDED. DEEPLY. It was like the Earth was bleeding and there were no doctors around who knew how to stanch and stitch the wound.

But let us focus on bits of Earth.  From tiny grains of sand to pebbles and stones to boulders, to mountains, pieces of Earth are amazing. I collected rocks from around my neighborhood when I was in high school and glued them to pieces of cardboard to make a display. It still amazes me how many different kinds I found. I did not know all their names but color and texture alone told me that I had real variety in my collection. I still find it difficult, when I am wandering around in the great outdoors, not to look for unusual stones. If you ever see me walking around, seemingly staring at my shoes, you will know that I am rock-hunting.

Even soil is amazingly varied. Avid gardeners learn that there are different types of soil. Consider this tidbit from the Colorado State University Extension library of gardening information.

“Texture refers to the size of the particles that make up the soil. The terms sand, silt, and clay refer to relative sizes of the soil particles. Sand, being the larger size of particles, feels gritty. Silt, being moderate in size, has a smooth or floury texture. Clay, being the smaller size of particles, feels sticky. “

“A coarse-textured or sandy soil is one comprised primarily of medium to coarse size sand particles. A fine-textured or clayey soil is one dominated by tiny clay particles. Due to the strong physical properties of clay, a soil with only 20% clay particles behaves as sticky, gummy clayey soil. The term loam refers to a soil with a combination of sand, silt, and clay sized particles. For example, a soil with 30% clay, 50% sand, and 20% silt is called a sandy clay loam.”

As an amateur gardener, I know that some soil is great for gardening and some needs work. Sometimes lots of work. I remember one spring day when Hubby had to get out the pickaxe and the spar bar and hack away at soil the consistency of  concrete mixed with steel to dig a planting hole for me. I know that adding mulch to soil, i.e. grass clippings, sphagnum moss, composted manure will eventually make soil softer and healthier for plants. This can take a while, sometimes years to really amend problem soil. Other plants, especially native plants, i.e. yucca will grow in the worst possible soil without the least special attention or care.

However when something I have planted roots and begins to grow, it is a thrill better than fireworks as far as I am concerned.  Happy soil equals happy plants equals happy gardener. Happy soil is not just sand and silt and clay. Healthy soil is home to all kinds of living organisms. The Colorado State University Extension library of gardening information says this about soil organisms.

Bacteria are simple, single-celled microorganisms. Bacteria inhabit a wide variety of habitats, including soil. In fact, a teaspoon of productive soil can contain from 100 million to 1 billion bacteria.

Fungi are a diverse group of multi-cellular organisms. Soil fungi grow as long strands called hyphae (up to several yards long), pushing their way between soil particles, rocks and roots.

Protozoa are microscopic, single-celled microbes that primarily eat bacteria. The bacteria contain more nitrogen than the protozoa can utilize and some ammonium (NH4) is released to plants There may be 20,000 protozoa in one cup of healthy soil.

Nematodes are small, unsegmented round worms. Nematodes live in water films in the large pore spaces in soil. There may be 100,00 nematodes in one cup of healthy soil.

Soil arthropods are small animals such as insects, spiders, and mites. They range in size from microscopic to several inches in length. Most live near the soil surface or in the upper three inches. There may be 50,000 arthropods in one cup of healthy soil.

Planet Earth: the entire planet or its parts is our nourishment, our pleasure, our foundation, our responsibility, our home. This I believe.

I Believe in Color

For many years, people have been submitting essays to a series call This I Believe. Radio broadcaster Bob Edwards regularly includes recent ones on his weekly radio show and the topics range from apples to zoology and everything in between. This seemed like a good idea for a series of blog topics so today I thought I’d ramble on about one of my favorite beliefs: color.

Remember tissue paper gift wrap, the kind that had glitter in it? I remember a particular piece of glittery tissue paper. I carried it around with me for a long time, fascinated by those little glittery bits of color embedded in the paper. I was so very sorry when I spilled a glass of milk on my favorite piece of paper. Only little kids can be satisfied with something as simple as a piece of shiny paper. So I quickly graduated to aluminum foil. It lasted longer.  It came in a big roll in a box so you could get more if food disasters occurred. And better yet, you could wrap it around coins to make them shiny. No great mystery why girls like jewelry because a love of shiny is part of our DNA.

Even aluminum foil gets torn up so it wasn’t long until I discovered colorful fabric. Mom liked to sew and there were always scraps of fabric in bags and baskets waiting to be used in quilts or as patches. My favorite fabrics were satin and velvet: shiny, soft, and best of all, they came in all kinds of colors. No mystery why decorative scarves have long been a fashion favorite: color and shine!

Now consider a man’s reaction to glitter from a fun story about our astronauts. Astronauts spotted glittery, colorful lights outside their spacecraft and wondered if this lovely sight could possibly be some form of outer space life. Until they realized that the shiny stuff appeared every time they dumped urine from the space craft. At least that speculation shows creative imagination.

From a young age, I was an artist. Still am. I love to slosh paint around to see what I can make of it. I like teaching color to my art students. Beginners assume that if you want to make a color lighter, add white. This works. However, there are other colors to mix to get lighter colors and much more variety. Add yellow to blue and you get green. Add more yellow and you get a lighter green. Magic! Beginners also assume that if you want a darker color, add black. This works but you may end up with a very muddy color – not very pretty. Black is an elegant, stunning color, but you can get dark colors by mixing other colors together.

Add a tiny bit of orange to blue and you get a darker blue. Add a tiny bit of yellow to purple and you get a darker purple. Add a bit of green to red and you get a darker red. These colors, known in artist jargon as complementary colors will darken each other if added together in the correct amounts. How much is the correct amount? Well that depends on the color you want. It is both magic and a delightful puzzle. In the case of this type of puzzle, I tell my students, there is no wrong answer. In a math puzzle, if you get the wrong answer, the space ship crashes or the bridge collapses. In an art puzzle, there are many possibilities and the only limit is your imagination.

Some of my students look at me as if I am crazy and some frown seriously. Most seem to have lots of fun once the paint starts flowing onto the paper. Colors make people smile!

I also remember teaching kindergarteners about color. They are suitably impressed by the magic that occurs when primaries are mixed into secondaries. Red and yellow make orange. Red and blue make purple. Blue and yellow make green. Magic. Kindergarteners reasonably assume that if two colors are mixed together to make another color, more colors mixed together must be better. They are not ready for the finesse needed to mix complementary colors so invariably they mix every color they can get on their brushes and they end up with mud. But it is all great fun.

Give them finger paints instead and then the organized chaos really begins.  I taught art students about painter Vincent Van Gogh using finger paints. If you look at his paintings, Starry Night is a familiar one, don’t just look at the colors, look at the texture he achieves by applying paint in thick, swirling layers. Fifth graders make amazing pictures with both color and texture using finger paints when you inspire them with a master class about the magnificent Mr. Van Gogh.

I have nearly finished reading Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s book The World’s Worst Journey about Robert Falcon Scott’s second Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole. It is a fascinating tale of adventure and hardship and exploration. Cherry-Garrard is very aware of the look of Antarctica and he brings the colors of that vast place to life in his story. This place of always-winter is full of colors both subtle and intense. Imagine many months of total darkness when the only light is candlelight or moonlight or starlight. Imagine the intense days of 24 hour sunshine during the summer months when ice and snow are many shades of blue as well as white and the sky is ever-changing  colors with parhelions (sunbows)  and southern lights (like northern lights) making stunning mirages in the sky. Cherry-Garrard sees purples and reds and yellow and greens and rich blacks and browns in Antarctica.

Colors matter and not just to artists. We don’t make only one color of automobile and we don’t paint our houses one standard color. Imagine a world where everything was a single, specific, prescribed color and no variety of any kind was allowed. In a world where some folks like to be in supreme control, the only color allowed would be grey. Greys are beautiful. Nothing but grey would be ridiculous. But colors matter and to some folks, some colors are not good. Consider the idiotic idea that skin color has something to do with human value. This has been one of humanity’s most stupid, ugly, and hurtful ideas. On this Martin Luther King holiday, let us celebrate all colors in all uses and forms. Color exists only to bring joy and variety and pleasure and imagination to the world. Colors should always make people smile. The more colors, the better. This I believe.

Toes and Fingers

My first blog of 2012 ought to be a bit light-hearted, thought I. But as I started to write this one, I realized that I know or had read about people who do not have fingers and/or toes. The two extraordinary people that I know personally who are missing either fingers or toes lead remarkable lives that make me appreciate what they do without and also appreciate what I have. Then, consider Stephen Hawking, paralyzed with Lou Gehrig’s disease or Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in a fall from a horse. You can read biographies about them – see what life is/was like with their disabilities.  Think of all the soldiers who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan or any war that have lost one or more limbs. Or consider a different case: Helen Keller, who had all her fingers and toes and needed them as sensory elements since she could not hear or see. So as you read my thoughts on my imaginings of the secret lives of fingers and toes, enjoy those body parts if you have them, and consider what life might be like without them.

As body parts go, toes lead pretty interesting lives. They live in a variety of comfortable dwellings: shoes, slippers, flip-flops, sandals, socks and stockings of all kinds. Of course if you are one of those women who like to wear high heels, your toes may not have had such an easy life. Ever see the toes of a woman who has been wearing high heels for many years? Depending on the design of the shoe, those toes look like they have been in anything from a minor fender bender to a major train wreck, all squished together, sometimes overlapping so badly it is difficult to sort one toe from another.

I wore high heels for a couple of years when I was a middle school art teacher. Some of the local boys in that school district’s farming community were huge and I needed to gain some height on them so that I had a chance to look them in the eye. This was necessary when they threatened me with their fathers. They would swagger up to me, get in my face and say: “I’m gonna have my father come see you.” This was usually said in what they thought was a menacing tone. Sometimes they really sounded menacing. These days, you might report such nonsense to the school principal. But back then, I’d look them in the eyes, as close as possible and say, sweetly, “I’d love to talk to your Dad and your Mom too if she’s available. Please have them call me and make an appointment.” This usually made them stare at me in strange ways and slink off to find someone more easily intimidated. None of their parents ever made an appointment to talk to me. Ever since those school days, I’ve happily worn flat shoes and my toes are grateful.

Recently I was walking behind a woman in very high, stiletto heels. With every step she took, she wobbled because her ankles could not support the crazy angle those shoes forced her to cope with. But it was fascinating to watch her click along, and I felt sorry for her ankles and her toes.

Ballerinas also have sad -looking toes from so many years of wearing ballet toe shoes. I wonder if ballet dancers, both males and females have foot problems in later life. They sure do give their feet intense workouts. Next time you go to a ballet, (you should go: it’s fun) watch the dancers’ feet. It is amazing what ballet dancers do on the tiny little tips of toe shoes. If the thought of attending a ballet makes you grimace, try this movie: The Turning Point with Anne Bancroft and Shirley MaClaine.

Then there was the kid I met who had spent a few years living in Hawaii where his toes were apparently naked and unshod the entire time he lived there. He could slide barefoot down a muddy, rocky hillside and never suffer the slightest pain. Yowza!

But back to the lives of more spoiled toes. Hubby and I have flannel sheets for winter sleeping and my toes ADORE getting down there at the bottom of the bed and wriggling in the warmth of flannel. Oh, what a feeling. Or consider the lovely feel of a soft pair of socks: BLISS!

Then summer comes and more fun ensues. If you have not walked around barefoot on a freshly mowed lawn, you need to do so as soon as possible. Walking on beautiful grass is a luscious feeling. Then there’s running barefoot on beach sand, either wet or dry. It can be hot or cold or very scratchy but, hey, toes like a little variety now and then. And there’s always the fun of dabbling your toes in the ocean, or going into deeper water and letting your toes hang on to the bottom for dear life, so you don’t get swept out to sea. Wheeeeee!

But let us move on to fingers. They lead very different lives from toes as they are more likely to be noticeable. Out there! I remember biting my nails for years and never a fingernail file or nail clippers did I care to bother with. Then I had a college roomie whose nails always looked perfect: perfect length, perfect color. She doesn’t know this but she inspired me to quit the nail gnawing and make friends with nail files and nail polish. Now I cannot imagine biting my nails. If you are tense and stressed for any reason, digging long nails into your palms is a great way to…well…to be tense and stressed.

Fingers do have a variety of clothing options considering all the different types of gloves. Mom would never do dishes without her trusty rubber gloves. Bare hands in dish water were just WRONG as far as she was concerned.  Hubby is a work glove connoisseur and would never be seen at any form of labor without the proper work gloves. I too have work gloves though I find them difficult to use sometimes. Some tasks require the sense of touch.

Weeding with work gloves will certainly protect your fingers, but my fingers, with a stake in the quality of the task, want to be naked as they do their stuff. For instance, I need to feel weeds when I am weeding or the weed doesn’t get pulled properly. I want to feel the soil: is it moist or dry and does it need compost. I want to gently spread the roots out to fit in the planting hole and I want to gently scoop up the worm I dug up and move him/her to a safe place. Worms are only a little gooey and fun to pick up if you can get past the worms are icky hangup. All this naked fingers work will give you dirty broken nails, scratches, pinches and pokes, but the plants are worth it.

Then there are all the finger decor options: rings. One of my favorite memories was to see what kind of rings Ringo wore. If you paid attention those rings changed all the time. And if you don’t know who Ringo is (unbelievable) go  and Google or Wikipedia him.

I think that the two toughest things I’ve ever done with my fingers are making clay pots and playing the piano. Clay can be surprisingly resistant, especially when spinning on a potters’ wheel. I remember long nights in the college pottery studio, getting a sore neck and back and fingers skinned ragged trying to make clay behave on a potters’ wheel. Hubby’s been taking pottery classes and his work is lovely and improving constantly. I am jealous.

I spent ten years taking piano lessons. That is really a finger workout. I still remember the simple first song I played with the words: “Kitty’s face is full of lumps; Daddy says she has the mumps!” But playing the piano is something I’m glad that Mom made me do – Thanks Mom! Check out my blog titled Lost Chord Lessons.

Along the years I’ve also learned to knit and crochet and paint and draw and knead bread and play the guitar and hand Hubby tools or struggle with them while he watches patiently. I can scratch and wave and smooth and cuddle and pet and twiddle my thumbs and play cat’s cradle with string and wave hello or goodbye. Bye now! (Iimagine fingers waving.) Happy New Year!

2011 Whoas, Whoops, and Wows

This year has had its ups and downs. In my usual rambling fashion, thought I’d comment on some of the wows and the whoas and the whoops.

We lost Andy Rooney this year – one of the great commentators of our time. I really liked curmudgeonly Andy and will miss him. I first encountered newspaper opinion columns in the morning newspaper of my childhood home town. My first columnist was a fellow named Norton Mockridge and he provided laughter and thought provoking ideas every morning. These days I like Thomas Friedman and Mike Littwin. There are also local columnists that make me groan in frustration with every partisan, narrow-minded word they write. In any case, columnists are a great way to start the day. If you haven’t done so, check out opinion columns. They get your brain cells going!

Our national government continues to be a non-functional mess. We have government of the people, by the rich, for the corporation. This is not how it is supposed to be. Some solutions: politics should not be a career; politics should not be limited to those who can raise vast amounts of campaign funds; politics should be temporary service by any qualified citizen who then returns to his/her regular life after serving a term. Those who think that voting the bums out is the way to go are kidding themselves.  A new self-serving politician replacing an old self-serving politician is not the answer. I’ve been reading Yahoo news stories about the coming Presidential campaign and the comments that follow each story. There are a lot of voters out there making decisions based on sound bites and party propaganda, not on facts and common sense. They are uninformed voters. If you want facts, go to www.factcheck.org and vote with knowledge.

Our economy is also a mess with everybody in any way associated with fixing it blaming everybody else for the state of things. A recent Denver Post newspaper column mentioned a couple of Fox News folks who think that the new Muppets move is designed to make children hate oil companies and capitalism. To read Ed Quillen’s opinion, check out his December 11, 2011 column titled “Those squishy liberal kids’ tales”. I haven’t seen the new Muppets movie so I cannot comment on the plot. But I do detest irresponsible oil companies, i.e. British Petroleum that puts profit ahead of safety, peoples’ lives, and a clean environment. If you’ve forgotten or missed it, Google: Gulf Oil Spill. If I were a relative of someone who died on that oil rig, I’d want someone in jail for murder. I also detest irresponsible capitalism. Free enterprise has proven to be our best economic system, but capitalism without a moral and ethical belief in the common good can be nothing more than a legal license to commit fraud and theft. If you’ve missed that ongoing tale, you must have been off-planet since the economic meltdown starting in 2008.

I wandered through a few stores this year to do my little bit for the economy and it is a nifty thing to see that scarves and sweaters are popular items. As a knit/crochet/weave thread-lover and newly minted scarf painter, I enjoy seeing what’s out there as I search for inspiration for my own work. It is the artists and craftsmen that showcase the best our civilization has to offer.  Whether it is a beautifully constructed stone wall or a delicate watercolor on rice paper, or a carefully knitted scarf, these are the creations that show who we really are. I volunteer knit for a local hospital and we provide hats for newborns and comfort shawls for those who are ill. I feel privileged to help provide some of these things for people I will never meet. In return I get free health screenings, a yearly flu shot, and a thank-you luncheon. There’s an example of a mutually beneficial exchange – gosh – isn’t that what capitalism SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT? Hmmmmm!?

I look out the window at a lovely snowy landscape that is so bright in the sunshine it hurts my eyes.  Thanks go out to whoever invented sunglasses. There are bird prints in the snow all over my patio where the local feathered wildlife snacks at my birdfeeder. I wonder about the little birds called juncos that wait on the ground for seeds falling from the hanging feeder.  The information I found about them on the Internet says that they are ground birds. I’ve seen them often in Colorado and, come to think of it, I’ve never seen one in a tree, only on the ground. They do not make any attempt to land on the feeder. As they seem to find plenty to eat on the ground, I like to think that the feeder-perching birds send seeds down to them – real bird sharing! WOW!

Note to all people wrestling with how to control the costs of healthcare: the best healthcare in the world is irrelevant if it is unaffordable.  These days healthcare seems to be about profits first and patients second. This is terrifying. And I am tired of too many folks trying to sell me vitamins and other supplements that will work miracles if I will only try them. With the money I save on not buying all this stuff, Hubby and I could take a yearly vacation in Hawaii at an exotic resort.  I suspect that Hawaii would be better for my health than a truckload of pills. I have my own little local Hawaii in the form of tropical plants on many of my windowsills. My shamrock plant, a gift from a good friend, is blooming its little heart out: lovely white, bell-shaped flowers. Plant care is good for your health – just as good as an apple a day!

Finally a note to all my blog readers: I wish there were more of you. All I want for the New Year besides world peace and harmony is more readers and reader comments. After all, even us amateur columnists like to hear the thoughts of our readers. Happy holidays!

 

 

Second Message Home

Science Fiction has always been a fun form of entertainment for me. Science fiction can also provide a unique look at current events and societal issues. The best Star Trek episodes always had a lesson – or viewpoint as the theme of the story. Stargate SG-1 and Babylon Five accomplished the same thought-provoking entertainment.

With that in mind, I began thinking about how our world would look to friendly aliens of my imagining, observing us in secret. It occurred to me that this topic could become an occasional Bumpy Schoolbus blog topic. So here’s the second one.

Dear Centralia,

I am cold. It is an amazing, exhilarating sensation. You would have to travel all the way to the poles of our world to experience this feeling. There are so many variations here, it will be difficult for me to describe this time called winter, but I will try.

First, there is chilly. This is just a little bit cold. It begins with a feeling of mild discomfort. The local sentient species call this prickly sensation by the delightful name goose bumps. A goose is a large bird so I have not yet determined the connection to cold but the words still have an interesting sound that make me smile. I find that when I am chilly, I need an extra garment to regulate my body temperature. Here, the sentients call them sweaters. These garments are made from a variety of threads and some are quite colorful. I would like to acquire sweaters for us to place in our nest as artwork. I have a request in to Captain Klavia to see if she will agree to add this to my return collection allotment.

Then there is cold that some of the locals call bitter cold. Here, bitter is a description of a flavor that I find extremely intriguing. But bitter also means very, very cold. This kind of cold bites into the skin and overwhelms sweaters. We don multiple layers of warm clothes as do the locals. Sometimes bitter cold is a good reason to stay tucked inside next to any kind of heating device. But sometimes cold, even bitter cold, is a reason to go outside and play.

The cold produces ice and snow and during a snowstorm it is lovely to watch the falling water crystals, sometimes falling slowly and sometimes whirling in wind so fierce it is hard to see any outdoor details. This is a good time to be indoors and warm. We have sampled some of the local warming delights like tea and coffee and hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. Snow is sometimes light and fluffy and sometimes heavy with moisture and falls deep, smothering the landscape into lovely soft forms.

Playing in the cold comes in many varieties. Some of the sentients love to sculpt snow into simple forms called snowpeople. They are very creative and these lovely creations make everyone smile. There are also fake wars called snowball fights. We declined to participate in these – some snowballs hurt as Naysho found out when he got in the middle of one fight. We all agreed that we much prefer our ocean splashing parties, especially when we add scents and tastes to the water. Here, snow just tastes wet unless it is contaminated with dirt or chemicals.

But there are many other forms of cold play. The locals strap shoes with blades fastened to the soles and glide across flat ice surfaces. I tried this and it is lovely. Once I figured out how to balance on those weird shoes called skates it was fun gliding across the icy surfaces. I forgot all about being cold. There’s a game here called hockey where teams on skates pursue a round, flat object called a puck. There are also competitions where skaters dance across the ice making amazing leaps and twirls. It is all fascinating to watch. I am quite pleased with my much lesser ability to stay upright and skate backwards – just a little – as well as forward.

Another cold play activity is called skiing. Amazingly long boards are strapped to heavy shoes. Players are carried to the tops of sculpted mountain slopes. From the tops, they slide down at breakneck speeds. The very skilled ones rarely fall (though the occasional fall can be terrifying to watch) and they compete to see who can get to the bottom in the shortest possible time. The most spectacular falls are called yard sales. This is when the slider’s equipment ends up scattered all over the mountain slope. I do not understand this reference to commerce at all. But lots of the locals, from children to elders ski or ride a variety of other devices: boards and sleds to travel down mountain sides. When they fall, they pick themselves up and go right back to sliding. I find that I prefer watching to participating in this cold activity. I think longingly of our special waterplay and the delight of sliding down warm water waves when we swim with our dolphin friends. In fact there are dolphin species on this world though that is a subject for another message.

In fact there are sentient creatures other than the dominant sentient species that also enjoy cold. There are giant cream and white bears called polar bears that live near the North Pole of this world. There are also small black and white creatures called penguins that live on this planet’s coldest southern continent, called Antarctica. There are also whales and seals and microscopic creatures called plankton.  These are very similar to some of our sea life; I will save my allotted message time, tweak your curiosity, and send videos later.

There is a subculture in the dominant species that likes birds and they feed birds, especially in winter, providing extra seeds for local birds through an astonishing variety of devices called bird feeders. We researched this thoroughly and purchased our own bird feeder and seeds. I find it wonderfully peaceful to sit as still as possible and watch the variety of birds that come to feast on our provisions. They chatter and call to each other, fly off suddenly if startled, but come back to feast again. It is a delightful pastime and I wonder at the ability of these small, delicate creatures to survive very low temperatures.

You may recall the specific sentients I told you about in my first message. They appear to belong nowhere and have no homes. They manage to survive cold times though their comfort must be minimal. They live in thin tents, or sometimes discarded paper containers called boxes. Sometimes they sleep on heating grates for warmth. Again, I do not know if this is a lifestyle choice or if there is some other reason for this behavior which seems extremely miserable to me.

But let me end my message by telling you about a delightful object that makes cold comfortable. We would have no use for these on our warm world but here, I find that I like them very much and we have all begun to collect them for our use here. They are sometimes called socks or stockings or leg warmers but they keep the feet amazingly comfortable.  My favorites are made of the softest threads and I sometimes fall asleep thinking about my oh-so-warm and comfortable fins and toes.

My dearest, I will share again soon. I wish you warmth and light, always.

Wanderer

My Cubic Foot

The February 2010 edition of National Geographic contains an article entitled One Cubic Foot, written by Edward O. Wilson and photographed by David Littschwager. Mr. Littschwager took a green metal-frame cube and placed it into environments around the world, then photographed the life forms that he found coming and going through the cube. The photographs are fascinating so check out this magazine issue to see the results. Most of the life forms range from tiny to microscopic but the size of these creatures doesn’t prevent them from being extraordinarily beautiful.

This article started me wondering about what I would find in a cubic foot of space where I hang out. So I did a thought experiment and wandered around a mental version of my various environments. Imagine with me, a green metal-framed cube in the following spaces and what might be found there.

The Picnic Table: It is winter now and snow is blowing through my cube. I wonder what tiny, invisible-to-the-naked-eye creatures might be floating in the air or riding the snowflakes but I have no technological means to capture physical images of these possible travelers. If you’ve ever seen magnifications of snowflakes, you know how amazing they are and I wonder, how do we really know that no two are alike? But what a delight it is to find the footprints of birds and squirrels in the thin snow. Their lovely prints form a lacy design on the surface of the table and the ground under the bird feeder.

The Bird Feeder: It is a busy place with house finches, sparrows, chickadees, and juncos feasting on the black oil sunflower seeds that I provide. The birds are fascinating to watch and it appears that they throw seeds down to the patient pair of squirrels waiting below. After a visit to the local pet store to buy birdseed, I realized that one could spend quite a bit on birdseed and other wild critter food. Can you believe that a bag of – maybe – a dozen ears of corn to feed squirrels costs $11.00? I wonder how long a bag of corn cobs might last.

Outside My Front Door: Lots of stuff blows into the alcove at my front door. This area must be swept periodically or else it looks like lazy people live here which is only true sometimes! So the sweepings consist of dead leaves and sand pebbles year round and an assortment of insects in the summer time. Occasionally I have helped an innocent spider or roly-poly out into the yard before sweeping up the trash and the invisible critters I am sure are lurking in the sweepings in the dust pan. Apologies to these critters; I am doing the best that I can, and I do not want to look perpetually lazy.

My Rock Garden: The plants there consist of a variety of sedum plants and, in the summer, annual marigolds. Ants live in my yard and so populate this particular flower bed. It is interesting to rest on hands and knees and watch the ants. They are always busy. I’ve never seen an ant relaxing, taking in the sunshine, and watching the passing scene, as I like to do. But in this particular green cube is a rock with lichens growing on it. You can find magnifications of lichens on the Internet and these organisms, in their varied forms and colors may be the plant equivalent of snowflakes.

Wikipedia says “Lichens sometimes are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus (the mycobiont) with a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont or phycobiont), usually either a green alga (commonly Trebouxia) or cyanobacterium (commonly Nostoc).The morphology, physiology and biochemistry of lichens are very different from those of the isolated fungus and alga in culture. Lichens occur in some of the most extreme environments on Earth—arctic tundra, hot deserts, rocky coasts, and toxic slag heaps. However, they are also abundant as epiphytes on leaves and branches in rain forests and temperate woodland, on bare rock, including walls and gravestones, and on exposed soil surfaces (e.g., Collema) in otherwise mesic habitats. Lichens are widespread and may be long-lived; however, many are also vulnerable to environmental disturbance, and may be useful to scientists in assessing the effects of air pollution,ozone depletion, and metal contamination. Lichens have also been used in making dyes and perfumes, as well as in traditional medicines.”

That’s a mouthful, but consider what a wonderful thing is growing on a rock in my back yard.

Hubby’s Garage Workbench in Summer: Hubby is an organized dude and his garage workbench always has some tools scattered on it depending on the project of the moment. Besides the tools there may be stray leaves, bits and pieces of the Miller Moths that invade us every summer, as well as a glass of ice tea and a cookie provided by me. It is fascinating to watch Hubby work on his various projects. He wields his tools like a master musician.

My Scrap Basket: This contains, at any given time, scraps from assorted knitting and sewing projects. The contents may include bits of string, yarn, fabric, buttons, beads, sewing needles, knitting needles, crochet hooks, glue, tape, ribbon, twist ties, paper clips, safety pins, pencils, pens, cat hair, scissors, small Ziploc bags, tissues, a plastic fork, a drinking straw, toothpicks, sandpaper, old magazines, small stones, and some spare, unused teabags. If this scrap basket and its contents describe some of my daily activities, you may draw your own conclusions.

What sort of things would you find in your own cubic foot?

 

The Ethics Conundrum

One of my college students recently complained about how frustrated she is by her ethics class. Curious, I asked her what annoyed her. She said that there was never a right and wrong answer – nothing black and white – just shades of gray. She wanted clear right and wrong answers.

That sounded like an interesting blog topic to me. I agree with her. Why aren’t rights and wrongs clearer? So I thought about some possible examples and searched for some in the local Sunday newspaper.

Example one: I regularly help myself to a ream of paper from the nearest copy machine at the college where I teach. My students use that paper in my college classes for scrap paper as they plan drawing assignments. Some of them never bring any supplies to class and would be unable to do the assignment if I did not provide paper. Is my use of the school’s copy paper for the school activity of drawing unethical? I hope that most would say that if that is the worst thing I’ve ever done, then I’ve been a really good girl. On the other hand, I’m certain that many of us have used our employer’s copier for personal use at one time or another.  Gosh I just need a couple copies of this legal form. No big deal, right? Technically, that’s stealing. But how bad is the crime? Does right and wrong change due to the seriousness of the crime? We’ve just wandered into a foggy, fuzzy land of grays.

Example two: fraud in government programs. There’s lots of examples, i.e. Medicare fraud that costs millions if not billions of dollars every year. In Sunday’s Denver Post (11/19/2011) I read about another area of fraud that was news to me: food stamp trafficking. Consider this partial quote: “… thousands of retailers are suspected of trading deals with customers, exchanging lesser amounts of cash for their food stamps. …the food stamps are then redeemed… at face value netting huge profits and diverting as much as $330 million in taxpayer funds annually.”  There’s no right vs. wrong shades-of-gray question here: fraud and stealing are absolutely wrong.  Right? But what if you are desperate, have tried every agency that offers help, want to work and can’t find work, and still you and your family are starving. Does fraud take on a different meaning then? Well not to me. Stealing is wrong. Unless we want to go back to that copier question. And is starving ethical or unethical. What do you think?

Example three: there’s an illegally dumped pile of tires in Columbia, South Carolina that is visible from outer space. One person has been charged with the illegal dumping and a Florida company is hauling the tires away. But the fine for this mess: a $475.00 ticket. Illegal dumping: wrong. Fine: too small, so also wrong. Will the perpetrators and/or the landowners get the bill for cleaning up the mess? What do you think?

Example Four: the recent pepper-spraying of Occupy Wall Street Protesters by campus police: wrong. The mess and health hazards and sometimes violence caused by some Occupy protesters: also wrong. Nobody wins here and the message gets lost in the mess. Columnist Tina Griego wrote in Sunday’s paper about the Denver Occupy Wall Street protests. She saw average people in everyday clothes. She says, “I talked to no one who begrudges the wealthy man or woman his or her rewards if gained fairly But I talked to many who believe that all should have equal opportunity to seek the same rewards and that corporate influence on Congress, growing economic disparity, and continuing educational inequality threaten opportunity’s very underpinnings. Are we wrongly angry at the wealthy? Should companies share the profits from their products or services so that everyone benefits and not just the companys’ owners? For those who don’t feel Occupy Wall Street has defined their issue clearly – here’s my definition. Pay people a living wage for work performed. We don’t want a handout – we want honest wages for honest work. Consider the huge talent bank we have in the USA: skilled, willing people who cannot find work. What’s ethical or unethical here? What do you think?

Example Five: the Congressional Super Committee admitted to failure this week. They were unable to set aside partisan differences and this week’s news has been filled with the consequences of this failure. The monetary picture is ugly. But it would be ugly even if they had agreed to spending cuts and or tax hikes. Someone’s got to pay and someone’s got to do without. The only solution I see is one of COMPROMISE, which a significant few refuse to do and the great majority watch in amazement and disgust. How do we hold these people to immediate consequences since they clearly cannot govern. Ethically their behavior is disgraceful, in my humble opinion. Their salaries should be stopped immediately – all of Congress, not just that committee. You don’t get paid when you don’t do your job. And we need to face the fact that we are all going to have to fix this mess, not just some of us. What’s ethical here? What do you think?

What’s right and what’s wrong? If someone asked you that, about these or any issues, what would you say? If things get fuzzy, foggy, gray, what would you say? Why do we throw out ethical behavior if and whenever it suits us? You don’t steal. You don’t cheat. You don’t commit fraud. You live up to your promises. You consider the community good as well as your personal good. What if we said: the group must consider the importance of the individual; the individual must consider the importance of the group; and we are all better off if we are all better off. Would that change the tone of the discussion? What is right and what is wrong and how gray is gray? What do you think?

Crows in the High Country

According to Wikipedia: The ravens of the Tower of London are a group of captive Common Ravens which live in the Tower of London. The group of ravens at the Tower comprises at least seven individuals (six required, with a seventh in reserve). The presence of the ravens is
traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the Tower; a superstition suggests that “If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the
Crown will fall and Britain with it.”

I looked up the Common Crow and the Common Raven in my bird book: Birds of North America by Fred J. Alsop III. They are classified under
the same family: Corvidae. They are both shiny coal black and described as intelligent, solitary and monogamous, mating for life. The average raven is bigger than the average crow.

There have been a lot of crows in the high country. While my bird book describes them as solitary, they seem to hang around in small groups. I’ve put out stale bread or crackers and the crows are the first to show up. They are graceful in the sky and seen from a distance, it is difficult to tell whether they are crows or hawks. Size-wise, I wonder if some of the bigger ones could be ravens.

Regardless, watching wildlife is fascinating even though watching them means that they are reacting to humans and therefore extra cautious. Hubby and I like to keep critter counts during our high country visits. This weekend we saw, besides the crows, a hawk, a fox, a mouse, and four mountain goats. The hawk was sitting calmly in an aspen tree surveying an empty field, possibly looking for movement in the grass that might signal a wandering ground squirrel. The fox tried to cross the road in Cripple Creek and gave up when a parade of cars entering the town blocked its way. It looked thin and I wished that I could have Star Trek beamed it to a safer place with better food prospects. The goats were grazing
alongside the road. They looked well-fed and healthy. I’d love to have stoppedand watched them for awhile but I hoped that no cars would hit them as the road in that area has no shoulder. The mouse shot across the road moving at mouse warp speed and disappeared in the long roadside grass.

The seasons change and I enjoy the changes. The mourning doves are gone but the sparrows and finches stay all year. The leaves are mostly down from the trees now. Over the weekend we had very high winds. Leaves and tumbleweeds blew across the roads and the wind shook the car as we traveled around town. I still remember reading about tumbleweeds and seeing them in western movies so seeing them blowing around makes me smile. A little bit of the old west is not dead. During the windiest hours there were no signs of birds in the skies or around the yard.

Temperatures are lower in the high country so it was cold and blustery up there. A wood fire in the woodstove is especially comforting. Water bubbles in the iron teapot on the stovetop and provides humidity. Hubby and I take turns sitting in the stove monitoring chair or we take turns toasting our front and backsides standing as close to the stove as we dare. Watching the flames and reading next to a crackling fire is bliss. I wonder how the birds that stay for the winter stay warm

Earlier in the year we had a woodpecker looking for its supper and exploring a cabin corner to find it. I find myself wondering why my house should be a bug magnet for a woodpecker but I’d rather watch the woodpeckers than shoo them away. Recently a flock of magpies slowed traffic in town. Seven of them were pecking at something utterly and totally invisible on the pavement in the middle of a lane
of traffic.  When the traffic light turned green cars in the magpies’ lanes moved slowly until the birds moved. One hopped on the roof of my car and danced around up there until the light turned red, then hopped down onto the road again with his comrades to continue working on the invisible tasty stuff on the road.

Deer hunting season has begun and I wish all the hunters the worst of luck. It is no secret to those who know me that I think sport hunting is WRONG. Yes, deer are more than plentiful but we have to think of a better way of controlling wild animals than killing them. We are too often the interlopers in their territory. In the last year we have had deer grazing and napping on the side of our house. I was weeding during the most recent visit, working my way from the front to the side of the house. When I got to the side of the house I heard footsteps on the rock. I looked up and stared right at a lovely buck. We looked at each other; he moved away a few feet, not the least bit spooked. I stepped into the back yard and quietly closed the gate, quite content to let him go back to his nap. I peeked through the fence several times to check on him and he stayed for the
afternoon. I cannot fathom how anyone could shoot such a creature for sport.

But let us return to the subject of birds. Hubby and I hung a birdfeeder on the back patio. It is out of reach of the local squirrels but the squirrels have worked out a cooperative effort with the local birds. The birds dine on the birdseed and some of it falls uneaten to the patio where the squirrels enjoy a treat. The squirrels are either pregnant or very well fed, so I do not worry about putting out food for them. I enjoy the little accidental teamwork example the wildlife provides and there will always be squirrels and sparrows won’t there?

A long time ago, I saw the ravens at the Tower of London. They are tame and cannot fly away because their wings are clipped. That seemed like cheating to me – the birds ought to feel so valued by the British Empire that they stay due to affection and respect. Life is not so black and white. But I hope the tough wild critters that share the earth with us stay because they are lovely and give so many humans a spiritual lift like nothing else can provide. Some may see crows as ordinary and ugly but every bit of life that is different than us is something to be studied, treasured and preserved.  And if you would like to read more about the ravens of Britain type Tower of London Ravens into Wikipedia and learn all about it. There’s some nifty myths and legends about ravens.

Reinventing Politics

In the very near future, campaign advertising will begin to overwhelm the airwaves and our snail mail boxes. I suppose that spending on campaign advertising will create temporary jobs for some folks. But this is a waste of money – in my humble opinion.

Pundits (what do you suppose it takes to become a pundit) believe that campaign advertising works. But I can’t believe that I am the only human being in the United States that ignores campaign advertising. News to political candidates and their staffs: I ignore campaign advertising. I turn off, change channels, or mute the sound on TV and/or radio campaign ads. Snail mail ads go – un-read – directly from my mailbox into the recycle bin. Why? Because this stuff is propaganda, again in my humble opinion. These ads do not address specific issues with specific solutions and are designed to appeal to voters who will vote based solely on political affiliation, not on reasonable, specific solutions to specific problems.

You might ask how I know this if I ignore this kind of “information”. I know because I have looked at this stuff in the past, and can’t ignore all of it all the time in the present. I despair that any voter would make a decision based on it.

How do I make my decisions? I seek out news sources that discuss the specifics and more importantly the accuracy of what people say about candidates and issues. It is easy to do this. Go to www.factcheck.organd check out any news story that interests you. It is fascinating how much
half-baked nonsense is out there posing as truth. Local TV news and newspapers also provide fact and accuracy information. It is easy to find. Check it out. But this isn’t reinventing politics.

Sometimes one has to try BIG changes to see if that will fix problems. It is no secret that government is tied in knots these days, unable to make decisions based on the common good. We can’t even agree on what the common good is. We need more compromise. How do we encourage politicians to work together? Make them share every political office. They can’t work together now, you cry, so why would making them share the office help? This idea will never happen but it is fun to consider. Once the primaries are over and we have a candidate for each
party, the election is over. Two candidates, one from each party must share the office, share the salary, and they must make decisions together in a timely fashion or they will be removed from office immediately and replaced with randomly chosen alternatives from the roles of active voters.

Note to third parties. I do not know how to include you in this new idea. Apologies, but you will have to shoehorn yourselves into one or the other of the major parties. Yes, I know that dumping the major parties all together might be another BIG reinventing politics idea, but for now we are stuck with Joe Democrat or Joe Republican and/or Sally Republican or Sally Democrat.

Would it work? Who really knows unless we tried it? Imagine! Joe Republican and Sally Democrat meeting each morning in the same office – having large staff meetings to divvy up the chores and having to sit face to face at their desks and discuss every issue and how they are going to come up with a workable compromise based on facts and logic and common sense. Specifics must be listed and laws passed in a reasonable amount of time.

Note: I have no idea what would define a reasonable amount of time and the arguments over defining that would kill any possibility of trying this sharing idea. But we are just having fun speculating here, aren’t we? So let’s skip the time definition and say that after that deadline is reached and no law passed, Sally Republican and Joe Democrat are immediately removed from office and replaced by two unknown entities. Would Joe and Sally fight to make decisions in order to keep their shared office? They fight to keep their unshared offices so one would hope that shared recognition and shared power would still motivate. And if this sharing actually accomplished something good for everyone, what an amazing thing to have your name associated with REAL problem-solving!

Anyway, I agree with the points in an email that’s been circulating recently, also about reinventing politics. Generally, political office should not be a career. It should be a service performed by lots of citizens who serve and then return to their regular lives. Think how much we’d save on no Congressional pensions and other after-office benefits. Congress should live under the same rules as the rest of us – i.e. healthcare and retirement benefits. And so on and so on. Solutions are out there – we just don’t have the courage to try them and interests vested in the current mess are unlikely to budge.

However. Look at 2011 news from around the world. From protestors in the Middle East and Europe, to the Tea Party, to Occupy Wall Street, average citizens have begun to demand political change. This is a good thing. It is about time. Individual citizens do have power and finally we are starting to realize it and use it. It’s time to stop digging the same hole deeper and try new ideas. I you have any good ideas, share them! Share them with your friends or – oh the delight – send comments to this blog!

Finally, what is a pundit? According to Wikipedia:

“A pundit is someone who offers to mass media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences or sport) on which they are knowledgeable. The term has been increasingly applied to popular media personalities. In certain cases, it may be used in a derogatory manner as well, as the political equivalent of ‘ideologue’.”

I suppose we could argue about the definition of knowledgeable. Does it mean knowledgeable in the sense of educational knowledge i.e. one or more college degrees or does it mean general, life experience knowledge. In the weird world of punditry, no doubt many kinds exist. In fact this might mean that I could consider myself a pundit and so could you! Imagine!