The beginning of guilt

I watched an episode of Wagon Train this morning about a mother with a past history as a saloon hussy.  They never called her a hussy on the show.  They never called her anything.  They just danced around the truth.  I think because she was a mother they were trying to be nice about it.

They never said, but the viewer was given the impression that she had to do 'whateve it took' as a "saloon hussy" to make enough money to feed her son and handicapped husband.  When she got tired of taking care of her husband, she stopped helping him live.  That's what she called it.

In trying to teach her son, Matthew, to be a strong man, she tried to teach him that love was bad.  That a "real man" would take but never give, would never cry, would never grieve.  When their horses were attacked by a wounded mountain lion, the boy shot at the lion but hit his beloved dog, Happy.  The mother tried to make Matthew shoot the dog to put it out of its misery, and when he wouldn't do it, she killed the dog herself.  This stirred up a turmoil in the boy's mind as well as his heart.

There was a philosopher on the train who was intrigued by the mother and son.  He felt the pain that they both harbored without knowing the cause of it.  In one scene he discussed the wounding and killing of the dog with the boy.  Whose fault was it that the dog died?  The mother killed the dog, but the boy wounded it, he wouldn't have wounded it if the dog hadn't tried to protect the horses from the mountain lion, the lion wouldn't have attacked the horses if someone or something hadn't wounded it first. 

Only God knows where the guilt begins.

What Day Is It?

This is my third day of vacation and already I've forgotten what day it is.  I had to look at the calendar to see if it was Sunday or Monday.  (Just in case you don't know either, it's Monday.)

Luckily I don't have anything planned specifically, I mean for a specific time.  There are things I want to do, but I don't have to do them today or tomorrow or even the next day.  So I don't have to know what day it is till it's the day I need to return to work.

And I'm not going to think about that till tomorrow.

Whenever that is.

What I learned from watching westerns

I like watching western TV shows and old movies.  Except for the violence.  That bothers me sometimes.  But I read once that watching TV violence helps purge people of their innate violent tendencies.  I also read that it encourages people to act on those tendencies.  

I like to think that westerns offset their violence with redeeming qualities that teach people valuable life-lessons.  Here are a dozen plus one lessons I've learned from Westerns that can be applied to the more modern world, in one way or another, if you just think about them in the right way.

1. Work hard, play hard.  It's the real cowboy way.
2. Take care of your horse, and your horse will take care of you.
3. Just about anybody can be a hero.
4. Accept and respect those who are different from you
5. Don't tolerate bigotry, dishonesty, or cruelty.
6. Don't lie, cheat, or steal.
7. Nobody likes a back-shooter.
8. Make friends with the sheriff, the minister (or pastor or priest), the store keeper, the bartender (or cook), and the school marm. And the stable hand, and the street urchin, and the town drunk, and the banker. And the ranch foreman, the ranch owner's daughter, the ranch owner's son, and the ranch owner. And the wagon master, the Indian scout, and the Indians. And the lady that runs the boarding house and the hotel clerk.
9. Know when to be kind and gentle, and when to get tough.
10. Don't draw a weapon if you don't intend to use it. And don't say anything you aren't prepared to back up.
11. If somebody is shooting at you, DUCK! Before you shoot back, before you stop to see who's shooting at you - for heaven sakes, DUCK!
12. Good guys don't always win, but they're always winners.
13. And never, ever get engaged to a Cartwright.

Zero Robotics

When I was growing up, girls in my neck of the woods never got to do fun stuff.  They were discouraged from taking math and science classes and from having ambitions to be anything but nurses, secretaries, or teachers.   Now, I have nothing against those occupations.  I was a practicing nurse myself for 20 years, I wouldn't be where I am today without teachers, and I always say if you want to know something, ask the secretary (or administrative assistant now-a-days) because they know as much or more than the boss.

What I'm saying is that girls should have had the opportunity to be anything they wanted to be.  There shouldn't have been a limit on their talents, intelligence, ambitions, and contributions.  And the sad truth is that sometimes in the United States it hasn't got any better.  When I was in high school in 1968, I was one of 2 girls in the senior math class.  When I graduated from college in 1990 with a degree in math I was frequently the only woman in the math and computer classes.  That was 20 years ago and I really hope it's changed, but I still see a lot of young women who's only ambition is to have a baby and a boyfriend.   And that's OK with their mothers.

A lot of brain power is wasted by not encouraging girls to take advantage of their intelligence.

That's why I'm telling you about a competition called Zero Robotics Zero Robotics.  (Yes I got on my soap box before I got around to telling you about it, but "Girl Power" is a subject near and dear to my heart.)

"Zero Robotics is a student competition [run by MIT and NASA] that takes "arena robotics" to new heights, literally. The robots are miniature satellites called SPHERES, and the finals are aboard the International Space Station!"

This looks like so much fun, but I'll never know.  It's too late for me.  So I'm encouraging you to pass this information on to girls and boys in high school (but especially tell the girls).  Even if they don't participate in the competition it might inspire them to learn and enjoy more math and science. 

Send them here: http://zerorobotics.mit.edu/index.php/zr2011 for more information on the 2011 competition.  It may be too late for them to get involved in this year's competition, but if they start now they'll be ready for 2012!

My Plate

Did you know the USDA's Food Pyramid was now a Plate?  How much more appropriate!  Actually, it's My Plate.  I learned about it from the  Tough and Bluff blog of which I wrote yesterday.  

According to the web site, "MyPlate is the "new generation" food icon to prompt consumers to think differntly about their food choices.  ChooseMyPlate.gov  contains a wealth of resources based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to help individuals meet nutrient and calorie needs and make positive eating choices."

Check it out and don't miss the breakfast desert, Rise and Shine Cobbler.

Click Here

Sometimes I click on the Next Blog button at the top of the blog just to see what I can see.  There is some kind of algorithm that selects which blogs you see, and I don't have any idea what the algorithm uses to decide what would interest me.

Some days I only get blogs written in other languages.  I can't read any other language but English, but sometimes they have interesting pictures.

One time it was mommy blogs with a lot of twins and even a set of quadruplets. 

Today it was food related.  I enjoyed Food Fight, and next there was Tough and Buff , which had a picture of a little girl catching chickens (which I did a lot of when I was a little girl and lived on a chicken farm), and then one on spicy Indian food with complicated looking recipes but I won't give you a link to that one because the host irritated me in more ways than one.

The Next Blog, Dee Happy World, was about the Lion King Musical and had nothing to do with food, but coincidentally was simultaneously written in two languages.

And so 2 more hours have passed without one minute of housework getting done. 

I am soooooo good at not doing housework.

Now I see it

Now you don't.

I drove my invisible car to work and back home again today and have most of the week.  Like the Emperor's New Clothes to the Emperor, it's not invisible to me - I can see it, touch it, hear it, wonder if it's ever going to rain enough to wash the dust off it.  But ...

And it's a big but  (Hey, I just got that!)

To other drivers, my car must be invisible and when I'm riding it, I myself can not be seen.  Why else would people make right turns at stop lights in front of my moving car?  Every day?  Several times a day?

Sometimes I'm tempted to speed down the highway in my invisible car.  If I could only see the faces of the state troopers who clocked an invisible vehicle going 90 miles an hour.

Lunch Time

One day at work last week, during our lunch somebody said they never understood why we Hoosiers ate peanut butter sandwiches with chili.  I know why.  It was on the school lunch menu rotation. (Makes me wonder now about the source of protein in the chili which I thought contained ground meat, beans, and macaroni.)

She went on to say that she always ate grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.  (Well, yes, doesn't everybody?)  Then she said her family always served soup with Ritz crackers, never saltines.  And she probably still does that today.   To that I say, "To each, their own."  Even when they are wrong.  (Actually, I eat whatever cracker is in the house.  I'm not bound by rules like "That's the way we always did it.")   And speaking of wrong, she prefers that watery tomato soup when everybody knows creamy is better.

Then another luncher asked if we'd ever had peanut butter, banana, and mayonnaise sandwiches.  She said they were better than they sound.

I eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but I'd never put mayonnaise on them.  I also like peanut butter and raisin sandwiches.  Did you know that to make a proper peanut butter and jelly sandwich you should mix the jelly and peanut butter before you spread them on buttered bread?

I like peanut butter and bologna sandwiches.  A treat from my childhood (i.e., twenties) that I'd almost forgotten about, I had one last weekend for supper.  Usually I have mayonnaise, lettuce, and potato chips on my bologna sandwiches. 

Somebody mentioned fried bologna sandwiches.  We used to have them sometimes when I was much younger, but now it's too much trouble to wash the skillet. 

I usually buy bologna to make Bologna Salad Sandwich Spread, but I eat the bologna before I get it made.  Here's a recipe for bologna salad sandwich spread.  The measurements aren't exact but start with the lesser amounts and then keep adding till it's the way you like it.   Makes about 6 - 8 cups and keeps about 5 days in the refrigerator.

Bologna Salad Sandwich Spread

1 to 1 1/2 pounds bologna
4 - 6 hard boiled eggs
6 sweet pickles (enough to make about 1/4 - 1/2 cup when chopped, or use pickle relish)
1 tablespoon mustard (more or less)
1/2 - 1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing

Grind the bologna, eggs, and pickles coarsely with a meat grinder (or use a food processor, making sure you don't over-process).  Mix all the ingredients together, chill, and serve on bread or crackers.

Some people like to add about 1/4 small onion to the bologna when grinding it up. 
Some prefer dill pickles to sweet pickles.
You can add about 1 pound of cheddar cheese to the grinder also, and omit the eggs or not.
Some people don't use any mustard.

Some people think they are too good to eat bologna or peanut butter.  I say, "To each, their own".  Even if they are wrong.

Just How Dumb Can One Person Be - Part 3

Dumb enough to get fired, at least.

I'm still not sure just how deep dumb can go, but apparently even the Dumass Corporation has a limit because this week they fired the subject of Just How Dumb Can One Person Be, Parts 1 and 2.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living.

The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

                                                     ... Mark Twain

GW?

I'm always having to ask the young woman sitting at the desk next to mine at work what the text messages mean that the L. A. kids send to me in instant messages.

That's because we old people have our own language:

ATD -at the doctor.
BFF -best friend fell.
BTW -bring the wheelchair.
BYOT -bring your own teeth.
FWIW -forgot where I was.
GGPBL -gotta go, pacemaker battery low.
GHA -got heartburn again.
IMHO -is my hearing aid on?
LMDO -laughing my dentures out.
OMMR -on my massage recliner.
TTYL -talk to you louder!
ROFLACGU -rolling on floor laughing and can't get up.