This evening I attended a Plan II seminar, part of a 7-wk class that alumni are invited to sit in on. It meets once a week from 7-9 p.m., and a panel of professors from various disciplines lead the class. There is a theme, and each week a different professor speaks about the theme from his discipline for about 45 minutes, then after a 15-minute break the other members of the panel discuss/react to the presenting panelist's talk, and the floor is thrown open to audience comments & questions. Last year the theme was religion; this year it's beauty.
The panelists this spring are the following:
Paul Woodruff, head of Plan II and a philosopher & translator of Greek texts
Betty Sue Flowers, former head of Plan II and currently the Director of the LBJ Presidential Library
Philip Bobbitt, UT School of Law
Dan Hamermesh, Economics
Larry Speck, Architecture (former Dean of the School of Architecture at UT-Austin)
Neal Evans, Astronomy
Mike Starbird, Mathematics--he has co-authored a book on mathematics for the layperson that arose directly from his math class for Plan II students (I was in the first class ever!)
Anyway, after all that, I thought I'd share some of the notes I took tonight. Betty Sue Flowers was the speaker.
She suggested that the opposite of beauty is not ugliness but ignorance--the failure to recognize beauty.
At one point she defined grace as getting what you don't deserve, which I thought was a lovely definition.
At the beginning of her talk, she proposed that part of seeing beauty is believing that it could appear at any time, in any place. I believe this is true. Just opening a jar of jelly can be an act of beauty--the way my hands work, free of arthritis or other pain, to unscrew the lid--I appreciate that. Watching someone walk down the street can be beautiful, as can watching someone expertly operate a motorized wheelchair. Beauty is all around us; we just have to open our minds to the existence of it.
She read from a poem that has one of my favorite quotes in it. It is "Among School Children", by Yeats, and the last line is "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"
It is fun going to these seminars and thinking about something entirely different than I would otherwise do in the normal course of my day (what to fix my child for breakfast, can I put off the laundry another day, what to fix my husband for dinner . . . ). It is also interesting to be back in the academic world again; what a different place than where I am now, and very different from the fast-paced corporate world I worked in! I am not sure I would want to go back, but it is exciting to be surrounded by people who think about things like beauty and mathematics, or beauty and law.
Note to readers: part of what I think is interesting about this class are the panelists themselves, which is why I made the effort to find links for all of them. If no one else, read about Betty Sue and Mike Starbird.
Today I rode my bike (indoors, on a trainer) until I'd burned 527 calories; it took me 49 minutes. It felt great! I did some good stretches afterwards and had a couple of slices of buttered toast. Nothing has ever tasted so good. Now I just have to see how I get exercise b/w now and Thursday, when Jonathan goes to Lunch Bunch and I have 2-1/2 hours to myself.
Last night Jfer & Stepan came round with their DVD of The Matrix for our Friday night movie. It wasn't an official movie night, just the four of us, but Jfer says it's the fifth Friday in a row the two of them have been here for movies. I love it! They brought food from Rudy's for dinner, which was wonderful (I was still getting out from under the pile of dishes from book group two nights before). Nothing like lots of meat covered up with barbecue sauce and potatoes swimming in butter, ha ha.
The movie wasn't bad, although I don't think I'd say it was great either. I think that The Lord of the Rings movies (at least the two so far) have kind of ruined me for a while in regards to any other movies set in any kind of fantasy setting. The team on those films put so much thought and effort into every single aspect of what was captured on screen, nothing else seems to measure up. Maybe for an upcoming movie night we'll do Bladerunner, since that is the only movie I can think of right now that does such a good job of putting the viewer into another world. It would be interesting to see if it lives up to my memory, since I haven't seen it for at least five years now.
I did a wonderful thing today--in 40-degree weather, on the wet side, I ran 5k. And it felt great! Even though I've put on weight from last summer, the training and stamina paid off, and I didn't feel tired once. I am very pleased with the experience and am looking forward to continued good results.
Part of my incentive for dragging my rear out there today was not only a very strong desire to see the scale numbers go back down but also a desire to not waste the SKIING VACATION that we have just booked. Yes, we finally did it, and we will be visiting lovely Park City, Utah, at the end of February for four full days of skiing. Got great flights on Southwest Airlines, and found a very reasonably priced 2-bdrm condo to stay in; Mom is joining us to play with Jonathan. It's also possible that other friends and/or family may come too, but that's uncertain at this point.
We'll be staying at the Carriage House, and we'll have three resorts within five miles of us: Deer Valley (which is skiers only, no snowboarders), The Canyons, and Park City Resort. I want to be in good shape for this and ski all day every day without dying in the evenings. I want to be beautiful, svelte, and able to eat queso and chocolate with no repercussions! I want, I want, I want . . .
Last week certainly went by fast; I can't believe it's been six days since I posted anything to my blog. Shame on me!
I am sitting on the couch in front of our monstrous television (thanks to our wireless network at home courtesy of my big honey), and I'm just in time to catch the last half-hour of The Princess Bride. What a wonderful movie! This is one I'd love to have on DVD. It never fails to bring a huge smile to my face and heart.
On Wednesday last week I was proud to host our book group at my house. The hostess responsibilities are providing food (most seem to do something substantial enough for dinner, since it starts at 7:30 p.m.), plenty of red wine (I was left with 3 bottles of white in my fridge), and dessert & coffee. Also, you get to provide the selections that we vote on for the book for the next get-together.
My offerings were as follows:
Confessions of a Pagan Nun, by Kate Horsley
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber
Samaritan, by Richard Price
The runner-up was Confessions of a Pagan Nun, and the winner was Year of Wonders. I had a blast finding books to offer and was gratified to hear at least one person say that it was going to be hard to cast her vote.
I am posting the recipes that I used--Barnyard Chowder and Strawberry Chocolate Truffle Pizza--on our hub home.
For those of us who like to support local businesses and/or read books that don't necessarily make it onto the NY Times Bestseller list (sometimes that's a good reason *not* to read a book!), there's a great resource available now at booksense.com. I have bought some of the Booksense 76 picks and find them very interesting. There is a search feature on the site--you type in your zip code, and it gives you a list of the independent booksellers (at least those affiliated with Booksense) within about 100 miles of you. Very neat indeed.
I don't have anything to write, really, so I thought I'd put in a poem I like. My dad brought a box of some of my old books when he came down on his way to the Great Quail Hunt, and I found some old favorites I'd forgotten I ever had. One is a book called One Hundred and One Famous Poems, and it contains a poem by John James Ingalls:
"Opportunity"
Master of human destinies am I.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake--if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore--
I answer not, and I return no more.
Due to various reasons I didn't want to enter any data into the genealogy file tonight, so I spent some time researching the census instead, using the HeritageQuest Online that I referred to in a previous entry. In the 1870 US Federal Census, I found a possibility for Charles McCullough, Jr. (my great-great-grandfather), and I also located Sarah Dohoney (my great-great-great grandmother) and her three daughers!
Sarah came over from Ireland with her three daughters around 1850 or 1855 (have not yet been able to find them in any passenger lists). In 1870, she was living with her oldest daughter Hannah and Hannah's husband John Hassett, in Steubenville, Ohio. Honora Dohoney (listed as Nora) was a domestic servant in Pittsburgh, I think, while Bridget Dohoney (Kitty Lou's grandmother) was already married to John Kenefick, and they were also living in Pittsburgh.
It was fun doing some research instead of learning about my new program or cleaning up data that's already in there. Plus it helps me think about how I want to set up the new program to make the research easier and highlight where I have missing information (like someone who should be included in a census that I haven't found yet). I can't find any of our Karls in the 1870 census, and yet I know they were here. Will have to keep searching and get creative . . .
Today (yesterday? the 14th of January, at any rate) was my brother-in-law Glen's 40th birthday. We gave him a holiday to come see us in Texas (nope, no selfishness involved with that present at all). He just has to pick the dates and arrange his vacation, and then we'll buy his ticket. While he's here, Dale is planning on taking him to New Orleans for a couple of days. Last time I was there was our second wedding anniversary, which is now more than six years ago (gulp). I cannot wait to see Glen--neither can my husband--neither can Jonathan. I hope he hurries over here! Dale made a little QuickTime movie to tell Glen what his present was, but it involves naughty pictures so I won't post a link to it here. :-)
What a day today! All Jonathan did today was push my buttons, beginning with when we woke up in the morning and he wouldn't stop sticking his hand down my shirt. Aaargh! He was a perfect angel only twice today--when we had lunch with Jennifer, he was a darling, trying to impress his auntie Jenny whom he adores, and when he went to bed tonight. The rest of the time he really wound me up. Harrumph. Some days are like that.
On Monday evening, while my dad was here, we watched two of the four segments of The Blue Planet, a documentary put together by David Attenborough. We have it on DVD, and with the S-video connection to our 57" widescreen television, it was a pretty awesome thing to watch. The photography of the whales, the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean (first found in 1979, since then a new species there has been discovered every ten days), the bioluminescent animals that live so far deep that not even red light penetrates the weight of the water, the Ridley's turtles coming onto the beach to lay their eggs . . . very impressive and humbling. It is so difficult for me to believe that people could see something like that and not understand how important it is to live in harmony with the environment, sharing the world with all the other species that occupy it.
A couple of the things I learned (well, re-learned since I've already seen this once) are that more humans have been in space than have gone down to the ocean floor (where this team went to film), and there are more species of animals in the water than there are on all the land in the world.
The last few days have seen me very busy with my new genealogy software. After being a subscriber to a mailing list about it for nearly two months now, I finally feel comfortable enough with it to start entering data. It's so much fun! The last few days I've been working on a lot of stuff on Dale's side of the family, particularly his mum's family. Brian has brought me lots of wonderful information and documents for his branch of the family that I will tackle very soon.
I did also get a tip from my mailing list that some public libraries allow their users to access a bunch of HeritageQuest data online for free. I immediately checked out the Austin Library web site, and sure enough, I can do it through my membership. I managed to find a couple of Gertrude's (Leo's mother) brothers in the 1910 census, which I've not had access to before. They're living with different families, so her mother must have died by then.
I also found Grandpa Jack (Leo's father) in the 1910 census--he's 20 years old and living back at home, working in the mill. My dad thought he'd worked in a mill in Youngstown rather than Dover, but that must not be the case. Also, he must have already been to and departed from the seminary & school in Herman, PA. It was very interesting to finally find out where he was in 1910.
On his trip down here, my dad brought two boxes absolutely full of stuff about my mom's family. Most of it is Sprong stuff but there are some things regarding my Grama Sprong too. I think I now have enough to keep me going for at least six months just sorting through it all!
Just had my dad here for a few days, from Sunday to Wednesday. It was very nice having him and particularly nice for Jonathan to have his Boppa around again so soon after seeing him at Xmas. For the three mornings that he was here, Jonathan would get out of bed and run to say "good morning" to him in the kitchen (he was always already up & reading the paper), and then my dad would fix his breakfast while I remained in bed. As a matter of fact, on the morning that he left, my dad heard us awaken and popped his head in to say hello, and Jonathan requested that he go back out into the kitchen "and I'll come and find you and you can fix my breakfast". Also, bonus for me--two days Daddy brought me a cup of coffee while I was still in bed! I can't remember the last time that happened to me. It was really luxurious to be lying in bed, slowly awakening to the world, and sipping a cup of fresh hot coffee every now and again. Glory.
My dad is a bad influence on me though. On Monday while Jonathan was at his gymnastics/preschool class (3 hours long), Daddy twisted my arm and positively forced me to go to BookPeople, and then talked me into buying a bunch of books that I really didn't need, as I already have a stack nearly as tall as myself waiting for my attention. (I got my revenge by giving him the green light to get a copy of the OED on CD-ROM though.) Then we walked over to the Waterloo Ice House to peruse our new items over a burger & fries. The burger was forgettable, but the fries were yummy.
I didn't really get time to think about these much this year as I was too busy cleaning up the house and packing away the Xmas decorations (everything but the tree, which is still up with its lights on). I do know that I would like to try to send each of my grandmothers a letter (via snail mail) once each month. I have no idea if I'll even get to do that for January, let alone keeping up with it all year, but I'm going to try. I myself love getting something personal in the mail alongside all the damn bills and catalogs, so it would be nice to give that back a little.
Also I need to try to return to my sensible eating habits, which fell by the wayside a bit when I was briefly pregnant last year (had to start eating lots or I would have lost weight, which is a no-no for a mommy-to-be). And I should drink more water.
I bought a blank book a couple of years ago that still has nothing written in it--I'm going to use it to record all the books I've read, beginning 1 Jan 2003.
Not really any other resolutions per se. I'm too tired to think about planning ahead! But I am curious as to what others are doing. Does anyone else still set aside any time on the first day of a new year to reflect on the year before and think about the upcoming one?
Well, my scales tell me that I am again taking up more space in the world than I desire to, so I hauled my carcass back on the bike today. Unfortunately I should have filled up the tires before I went out, so it was a bit of a hard slog, but I did burn a little over 600 calories and went a little over 8 miles. It was a beautiful day here, not a cloud and in the mid-sixties, and it felt good to get my body exercising again. I do confess to being a little more tired than usual now, though.
Having a heart rate monitor is really nice--or rather, indispensable--for my workouts. It lets me know exactly what I've accomplished, and there's no substitute for that.
Now the only question is how long it will be until I can get back on the bike again? One day, two days, or an entire month? Wish me luck.
Having gotten the monolithic 57" widescreen television mentioned in an earlier post, Dale and I decided we had to partially justify its presence in our den by having people over to share it with us. So last night we had Jack and Dana (two guys Dale works with), another colleague Tony and his wife Shelley, and Jfer & Stepan over to watch the special edition version of the Terminator II (I received it as a "Mother's Day" present last year--little Jonathan sure knows how to pick them!). Dale made his special Cointreau coffees as well as some hot chocolate, and many yummy chocolatey things were available for munching on. The movie was MUCH better than the first Terminator, and it was really fun having a movie screen in our den with people piled all over the couches and the floor watching it and feeling the subwoofer resonating in their chest. I do love our movie-watching setup!
I have been having a great deal of fun helping my cousin with his college application essays this week. It does bring back some memories! I was on the admissions committee for two years for my own major, Plan II Honors at the University of Texas at Austin, and it was fun to read all those essays from hopeful students, knowing I was secure and had already gotten what they wanted. I usually had the same feeling when interviewing candidates for positions we had open when I worked at Applied Materials and then at Dell. It's really nice to be on the interviewing side of the table.
Anyway, I just finished discussing what to look for in a college with Matthew, and now that I know so well what I'd want, can I go back to college? Live in a dorm and have someone else cook all my meals for me? Stay up late and have nothing to do but be in class 3 hours a day? Please?
My poor aunt Kathleen thinks she has made entries in her blog--and she very well may have--but somehow they are not getting published to her site. I am trying to help her out and hopefully by tomorrow it will all be okay.
On the positive side, my parents have finally gotten their website up and running. Yay Mom and Dad! I really like the background page, and I think reading the blog will be enjoyable, especially if they comment on what they're doing around the farm--the gardening, woodworking, etc. One of the reasons they are doing their own website is that they have lots of friends who will be interested in the farm history (but not karlhub.com!) and all that, plus of course when they started setting this up they weren't aware of the karlhub.com existence. They have spent lots of time learning how to create a web site lately, and I think they've done an admirable job.
Cooked buttermilk pancakes (in cast iron molds--a heart for Jonathan and then a couple of perfect circles) for New Year's Day breakfast this morning, and then I made creamed turkey with the last of the Xmas leftovers for lunch--did both in one of my new cast iron skillets that I picked up in Tuesday Morning when Dale's parents were here.
I am kind of nonplussed at how quickly I've taken to cooking in cast iron since I got my first item, a 7-quart Lodge Logic pre-seasoned cast iron Dutch oven. I'm not really sure why I like it so much, although I'm sure it's a combination of things. The thought of cooking in something that will last forever appeals to me somehow (my neighbor across the street uses her grandmother's cast iron pots); I think the food is more flavorful; the additional iron that is imparted to the food is always good, especially for a woman; and on some level I feel more connected to people who've been cooking in cast iron since long before nonstick came about--I'm participating in a cooking tradition. That feels like a lot more fun than just dishing up the evening meal!
Another benefit is that since you're not supposed to let food sit in the cast iron, and you're also not supposed to use soap on it (or you'll have to reseason it), that means I get the pots cleaned up and put away pronto after dinner, rather than leaving them until the next morning. A clean kitchen always contributes to my sense of happiness, since it means there's less work awaiting my attention.