Ordinary Time

I had dinner with W and MC tonight, so am back late with no energy to write. But I wanted to share a link to something worth listening to. As I was driving to dinner, I caught some of the Moth Radio Hour, and heard a story by Gaelynn Lea who is a folk musician and is a disability rights activist. It is definitely worth a listen.  Accessibility is the New Punk Rock

It's funny what you can completely overlook. We have lived here over six years now and have looked at this tree every summer. As you can see, it is a very large tree, but it is also surrounded by apple trees on one side and some rather decrepit peach trees on the other. All that recognizable fruit growing in our backyard was all we really paid attention to. This tree did have fruit, but we didn't recognize it, so we ignored it. The fruit is even really pretty. Until today. For some reason I took a good look at it and stopped to wonder if the little berries that were covering it we're good for anything. So I took out my phone and opened my handy plant identification app to see. (Technology does have its uses.) It turns out that this is a black cherry tree which is related to the choke cherry. After doing due diligence (did all the parts in our tree match the description, were there any poisonous look-alikes, etc.), I popped a cherry in my mouth. It wasn't as sweet as the...

I'm pretty used to receiving unusual comments on any number of things, so it's rare to have to respond to something brand new. Today was a new members park day for our co-op, and since I'm on the board, I thought it would be a good idea to go in case there were any older students. So I told my crew that they needed to go be social and off we went. It was a good thing we did because there was an older student who was very relieved to not be the only one. I visited with the new members and inevitably the question of how many children I have came up. I answer twelve, pause for the expected reaction, and continue the conversation. At one point a younger mom asked me how old my oldest was. I replied thirty, and the other mother exclaimed, "You could be my mother!"  Right...  I mean, what does one say to that other than laugh and smile? I've decided that she was so surprised that I was old enough to have a thirty year old because I didn't look like it, that she ...

Is today, or so social media informs me. This is not to be confused with National Book Day (Sept. 6) or World Book Day (April 23). I'm not even sure what the day is really supposed to be, so I'm using it as blog fodder, and rather poor blog fodder at that. Some of my newer readers might not be aware of the many book lists I have posted here over the years. So I thought I'd put them all in one place for ease of use. I'm going to try and lost them in chronological order with the oldest first. 100th Post - Which really was my 100th post from way back in 2008. It is a list of 100 of my favorite books. I've read literally hundreds of books since it was written, so it would probably be a slightly different list were I to be writing it today. Christmas Books - the title seems fairly self-explanatory  Children and Play: a reading list - one of the first annotated genre lists I made Since you asked... an annotated reading list - this is a list of adult fiction  An Annotate...

If any of you know me or have been reading here for any length of time, you'll know that hearing someone say to me, " You're amazing!" upon learning about my family, you'll know that it is guaranteed to irk me. But I also came across another instance today where the use of "You're amazing!" was just offensive. The trouble is, when used, the user of the phrase doesn't realize quite how offensive it is and usually means well (in a clueless sort of way.) So, I decided to help everyone out by writing a user's guide to help people avoid being cluelessly offensive.  When to use, "You're amazing!" 1. You are watching a magician and they are purposefully trying to be amazing. 2. An athlete who has just broken some type of record. 3. To a peer who goes out of their way to help out. 4. To someone who just jumped into a river to save someone. When not to use, "You're amazing!" 1. With anyone who is different from you and who...

Over the weekend I finally finished the napkins and dishcloths I had been weaving. I took them off the loom, cut them apart, hemmed them, washed them, then gave them all a quick iron. Here they are: There are ten napkins, all in the same pattern. Here is one of the dishtowels. It will be a gift. It has a slightly different pattern from the napkins. The blue dishtowel is the same pattern as the one above. I'm pleased with them. I'm also very happy to be done with this particular project. It feels as though I have been working on it forever.  Having hemmed everything, I had my chair moved over to the sewing machine. (It usually is in another part of the room next to my spinning wheel. It is annoyingly difficult to live the chair between the two spots. I think I just need to get a second chair.) But having the chair there, it made me think it had been a while since I had really seen something.  I had a book checked out of the library that was mentioned in one of my weaving groups...

Just the other day the thought popped into my head that we hadn't bumped into someone who mentioned that they had seen the documentary in quite a while. This was merely an observation, and truly I go weeks at a time without thinking about it. We were done with filming at the very beginning of 2016, so that doesn't surprise me. Even it's big debut on PBS was a couple of years ago now. It was a huge part of our lives and now it's not. It was just something interesting to ponder. But, it seems, that it may just sneak up on us every now and then, and that is how it will be going forward. For instance, this afternoon, we were at a neighbor's birthday party, when we found ourselves having a conversation with someone (whom we didn't know), who had seen the documentary. It was a very nice conversation, but I think the documentary angle took both me and J. by surprise.  And once again, the whole thing startles me... that there is this movie about our family when I still...