Language

I need to apologize for not 'blogging' very often. The whole concept is new to me, and being a member of the 'older generation', I tend to think of writing letters before emailing and blogging. I'll try to be better in 2008, although I suspect that my daughter is the only one who reads these things anyway.

The English language is a rich and varied one, where the rules seem to be made to be broken. Where else can you 'polish' your 'Polish' furniture and change the pronunciation of a word just by capitalizing it?

For example - how would you pronunce 'ghoti'? In 'tough' and 'enough' the 'gh' is pronounced like an 'f'. In words like 'condition' the 'ti' is pronounced like 'sh'. Now if you pronounce the 'o' the same way it is pronounced in 'women' you have:
ghoti = fish

It has been said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn because of all of the broken rules. It is particularly fun to watch the kids struggle with learning how to spell things. Our older daughter once wrote that if you exercise you will get 'strog mucles'. My personal favorite is when the stamp store called to tell me that my Great Britain supplement was in, and our younger daughter dutifully wrote down the message - "Mom, your grape written supplement is in". Is it possible to die from laughing too hard?

My father particularly enjoyed all of the weird things that can happen with the English language, and wrote a poem about it. I won't quote it in it's entirety here, but some of the lines were:
There are some things everyone understands
You don't get music from rubber bands
When two streets meet they don't shake hands.
If mouse becomes mice, does house become hice?
If a man who keeps sheep is a shepherd, is a man who keeps lion a leopard?

Sometimes things just seem so logical, that you can totally understand why kids say them. We frequently talk about things that happened yesterday, so our grandson started talking about things that happened 'yesternight'.

Its not just the spelling and the different ways that certain words can be pronounced or used (look at bow and it's different meanings), but the punctuation can also have a profound difference in how something is interpreted. And English professor once wrote the following sentence, without punctuation, on the board and asked the class to put in the commas where appropriate.
Woman without her man is nothing.

The men in the class wrote "Woman, without her man, is nothing".
The women wrote "Woman, without her, man is nothing".

I will close with something I read recently that really struck me. At a military conference where American, Canadian, British, Australian and French officers were attending, one of the French generals complained about the fact that Europeans learn several languages, but english-speaking nations don't. He wanted to know why these conferences always had to be in english, instead of french.

One of the American officers quietly said, "Because the Americans, Canadians, Brits and Aussies made sure that you wouldn't have to speak German".

Here's hoping that 2008 will be the best year yet for all of us!

The Dog that almost was

Our grandson has been asking for a dog for a long, long time. This, despite the fact that he is slightly afraid of dogs. Although our house could accurately be described as a disaster zone, I decided that the time had come for us to fulfill his dream. Therefore, last Monday (on his 11th birthday) we headed for the Humane Society to get a dog.

I have to admit that it wasn't exactly what I expected. It was much more commercial at the front end, and less modern at the back end. There were also a lot more people there than I expected. Actually, from the amount of people wandering around checking the dogs out, I'm surprised they had any animals left at all.

Tim wanted a black dog. Bill wanted a female. I wanted something housebroken. The dog we settled on was all three - a labrador/retriever mix with a white chest and paws and a very gentle disposition. They had picked her up as a stray and had already spayed her and put in a microchip. They had named her Melanie and she seemed close to perfect for us.

We completed all the paperwork, paid the adoption fee (rather higher than I had expected), and headed for home. Hmmm - hurdle number one - getting dog into car. Most dogs just jump into cars with great enthusiasm, but we literally had to pick her up and shove her into the van. Either she wasn't used to riding in cars, or she had had a bad experience with one.

The ride home was actually rather funny. Tim was in the back seat with her, and she was very nervous and moving all over, causing Tim to howl that he was being squished. She tried several times to move up into the front seat with us (such a friendly dog!), but Bill managed to push her back.

We had originally planned to go out to dinner for Tim's birthday, but decided we didn't want to leave the dog alone right off the bat. Therefore, as Bill and Tim followed her around the house, I went off to Burger King to get his birthday dinner. Rather tasty, actually. When I got home I found chair barricades up all over the house to keep Melanie confined to the kitchen area!

Most of the rest of the evening went fairly smoothly. Our oldest daughter, Miranda, had come over to help celebrate, and after the Burger King feast we all settled down to play some Apples to Apples. (If you've never tried this you should - it's a great game!). Melanie lay on the carpet next to Bill and went to sleep. The ideal picture of a house dog.

After Miranda left and Melanie had been taken out to 'do her thing' (and she was very good at it), we started thinking about going to bed. Melanie kept going to the door as if she wanted out - whining actually - but subsequent trips into the great outdoors didn't alleviate her desire. In fact, we discovered that she could easily jump over our chain link fence. I will treasure the picture of Tim hanging on to her leash with him on one side of the fence and her on the other, and Tim hollering for help. I had to walk around to the outside of the fence to take the leash and rescue him.

We had originally planned for her to sleep in the upstairs laundry room, but she was NOT going to go up the stairs. Therefore we put her into the downstairs bathroom with a chew toy and a blanket. Needless to say, within a short period of time, she wanted out. When barking didn't accomplish this, she tried to tear the door down. We could hear all of this upstairs and it absolutely terrified Tim. We couldn't hear it very well in our bedroom, as it's farther away - but in Tim's bedroom (which is almost directly above the downstairs bathroom) it was fairly loud. So Tim ended up sleeping on the floor of our room!

By now Tim was quite vocal in his opinion that the dog would have to go. Bill and I waffled back and forth, but the deciding point was the fact that both Bill and Tim were showing signs of breathing problems - consistent with allergies. The next morning Tim himself was going back and forth between "When I get home from school I don't want any trace of IT around", and "Can't we keep her another day or two to see if it works out?" He went off to school sobbing his little heart out, and yet almost too scared to pet her goodbye. I think the fact that she had managed to tear a strip of molding off of the bathroom door had something to do with it.

While Bill was driving Tim to school, I had to contend with a very restless dog who obviously wanted OUT. She almost climbed over me and my computer to get to the window. In the living room she was up on the couch trying to get out the window there. She spent a great deal of time whining and barking at the door. We have concluded that she was probably an outdoor door - maybe even a kennel dog. Perhaps if we had had a chance to work with her more, we could have made her more content with being inside, but we were worried about the allergy problems.

When Bill got back, we had the struggle to get her back into the van. Then off to the humane society to return the dog that we had had less than 24 hours. While we were waiting to be helped, she suddenly started bleeding out of her rear - big clots of blood. They whisked her off to the vet, but we haven't been able to find out what the verdict is. I'm afraid that she swallowed a splinter or a nail when she was tearing down the door molding. Our other concern was that she might have cancer or a tumor. She was very thin, and wasn't very interested in eating - although she seemed to like dog treats.

We took Tim out to dinner that night and are very careful not to mention the word 'dog' around him. We have said that perhaps next time we should get a puppy and let it grow up with us - but none of us are really anxious to do this in the near future. In fact, I rather have the opinion that we are not really 'pet' people. Although I would love to have a cat. Nix on that, though, as both Tim and Bill are very allergic to cats.

So that is the saga of the Dog that almost was - and we fervently hope that she will find a good home (with a well-fenced in yard).

Friendship

I was reading over my daughter's latest blog, and I was very impressed by what good friends she has. I had to stop to think about that for a little bit. I have never been a person who has a lot of friends - at least not 'friends' friends. I have a lot of aquaintances that I like a lot, and who like me, but they aren't the kind of people I can call up and tell everything too.

It has been a long time since I had a girl friend that I would automatically turn to if I needed advice, or wanted to chat, or needed a shoulder to cry on. I have always only had one - or at the most two - friends at one time that fall into this category. I guess I don't do deep meaningful relationships very well. I haven't had this kind of friend for a long time.

Or have I? I don't have a girl friend to call, but I do have a daughter in Utah who comes as close to being a 'friend' as I've ever had. And my best friend? My husband! We many not always be on the same page about everything, but he is the one person I can talk to about everything. OK - he doesn't get the female stuff too well, but everything else.

So after thinking the whole thing over, I'm not going to complain. I am friends with both of my daughters, and have a wonderful relationship with my husband; AND I always can turn to the Lord for comfort. Who could ask for more?

Are you Thankful?

As Thanksgiving approachs (pretty rapidly for us as we're having our big turkey dinner tonight!), we are urged to think about what we have to be thankful for. This is understandable because we spend most of the year thinking about all the things that are NOT going right for us. Let's face it - they take up a lot of our time because we are (hopefully) trying to do something about them.

For example, I am constantly thinking and worrying about my weight. I weigh close to 300 pounds and have been battling the bulge all of my life (well - since I was 5). That takes up a considerable amount of time - so much so that I very rarely stop to think about the fact that I have very beautiful blue eyes (that's a quote from others!), natural curl to my hair, and fingernails that will grow as straight and long as I allow them (which isn't very long).

We do tend to take the good things for granted unless we are forcibly reminded of them. Perhaps we need to turn our eyes in a different direction. Instead of looking at the neighbor who has a bigger car, or a better job, or more nicely-behaved children, we should look at those who live in totally different circumstances. The African mother who is dying of AIDs and doesn't know what will happen to her children. The refugees in Dafur who consider clean water one of the seven wonders of the world. The ordinary, simple folk in Iraq who just want to have normal lives, but are caught up in a political struggle that most of them don't understand.

Yes, we have problems - and we can't just turn our back on them because other people have bigger problems. But we CAN spend more time being thankful for the many things that we are blessed with, and less time complaining. Actually, it doesn't hurt to take the Pollyanna view either - examine your burdens carefully and find the good side to them. I guarantee they are there if we look hard enough.

So - I will say that I am thankful I live in a free country and can worship the Lord the way I please. I am thankful that I am married to a wonderful man who loves me. I am thankful that my children all seem to like me (especially when I give them money!). I am thankful that I have a job, and that despite my weight I can still function and have basically decent health. I'm thankful for technology - the wonder of computers, pain killers, cars & DVDs. And I'm thankful for people who take the time to read my blogs!

Rainbows

Today on my way home from work (another 2 hours of overtime!!) I saw a rainbow. It wasn't the best rainbow I've ever seen, being rather fuzzy and almost disappearing entirely when you got up to the top of the arch. But it got me to thinking about how I'd been told that a rainbow is really a circle, but the earth gets in the way of half of it.

I remember a plane flight I took once where I looked down on the top of the clouds, and there was a rainbow reflected there - and it was a perfect circle. Fabulous! I wish I'd had a digital camera with me - although (come to think of it) I don't think digital cameras had been invented back then.

As I looked at the rainbow today, melting from purple (or is that indigo?) to blue to green to yellow to orange to red to indigo (or is that purple?) I was struck by the fact that when people (especially children) draw rainbows, the colors are very defined. You can clearly tell where the yellow ends and the orange begins - there is an actual border between the two colors. This is not what a real rainbow looks like. It is very hard to tell when one color ends and another begins, although the brighter colors in the middle look thicker than the dark purple and indigo on the edges.

This is a lot like people, and the various attributes they have. For example, a person isn't either patient or impatient. One person might be down in the blue area of patience and able to hold his/her temper for a long time, while another person might be up in the red area and explode a lot. But there are many, many gradations in between.

This is especially true of good and evil. There are very few people who are truly 'evil' in the sense that there is no good in them at all - that they are completely at one end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, the opposite is true too. No matter how good a person is, they are never quite at the optimum end of the rainbow. I am talking, of course, about normal people in this life. Jesus Christ, obviously, is an exception - as is Lucifer.

The rainbow analogy isn't just for virtues or failings. It can also be applied to talents - and in this case being near one end or the other isn't a sign of a deficiency in your character - it's just what you are and are not good at. According to my fans (mostly my family!) I am right up there in the gifted-to-make-up-poems-and-songs category but absolutely hopeless in the putting-on-cosmetics-to-make-myself-beautiful area. Neither of these attributes is necessarily better than the other one - we just have them to greater or lesser degrees.

And that is enough philophizing for today - I need to get some sleep if I'm going to have another night tonight like I did last night.

There is beauty all around

I had a very rough time at work last night. Of the three and a half lab assistants normally scheduled for a Tuesday night - one was on vacation, one came in 4 1/2 hours late (and could only work 5 hours), and the half lab assistant (she normally works 4 hours) never showed up. I am in the process of training the new tech - but I spent a good portion of the night doing lab assistant work - and put in 2 hours of overtime.

So I grumbled my way down to the car and grumpily started the 45-minute drive home. And then the sun started to come up. The clouds in the sky (hey - this is Washington State, there's always clouds) turned a beautiful deep pink color, which gradually changed to a golden orange hue that made the trees look like they had a fire behind them. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I was reminded of all of the beauty that is constantly around us.

That brought me to the contemplation on the complexities of life - how plants absorb carbon dioxide and produce the oxygen we breath. I looked at the clumps of tall trees with their yellow leaves half fallen off, amid the clusters of the evergreens that Washington is famous for. While keeping my eyes mostly on the road, I observed the stubborn weeds and scraggly bushes growing by the edge of the road - stubbornly pushing their roots down into the soil to get whatever nourishment they can. No pampered greenhouses or fertilizer for these, but they cling to life and exploit every opportunity to grow.

I looked at the large tangles of blackberry bushes hunkered a few feet back from the pavement. They almost seemed to glower as they brooded over the heaps of yellow leaves that had fallen at their feet. And yet, they are a haven to small animals and insects - who find both shelter and food among their prickly branches.

As I got out of the car I looked up at the soft gray clouds totally covering the sky (It's Washington State all right), and I thought about the kind of world there was before Noah and the flood. Those people never did see the sun - the clouds were so thick that they constantly covered the sky and kept out all the harmful rays that shorten lives. I was suddenly struck by how pretty a color gray can be - a very comforting color too.

As I pondered again on the incredible complexities of life and how everything is intertwined and dependent on each other, I found myself marveling at the popular theory that all of this just spontaneously 'evolved'. How can anybody with a grain of sense believe that there was not some sort of guiding hand at work to put together a world so beautiful, so complex, and so varied?

In Memory of the Bard

I just thought that perhaps some of William Shakespeare's most memorable quote could be updated. For example:

Hamlet: To blog or not to blog, that it the question. Whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows from an impatient daughter or to take arms against a sea of critics - that is the question. To think - to think, perchance to publish - aye, there is the dream.

Romeo & Juliet: But, soft! What words through yonder blog appear? - A blog by any other name would still be a blog.

Midsummer Night's Dream: How now, blog! Whither wander you? Over wire, over cable, through the internet and the monitor.

Macbeth: When shall we three meet again our diverse opinions to explain? When the blogging's finally done, and internet surfing has begun.

Julius Caesar: Friends, Bloggers, Web designers - lend me your RAM.

What could old Will have done with modern techniques!!!

The Deceptive Casserole

In order to tell this story properly, I have to do a little background. I am a morning person, but I work graveyard shift. What this means is that I go off to work very groggy, and gradually wake up while working. By the time I get home in the morning, I have the most energy I'll have for the day.
I also feel that it's dinner-time. After all, I've put in my 8+ hours at work, and I'm ready for some hearty food. Therefore I frequently make dinner in the morning, and my husband (Bill) and grandson (Tim) reheat it in the evening for their dinner.
Yesterday I decided to try a new recipe that my daughter had given me. I think it's called something like "Poppy-seed Chicken Casserole". With stunning foresight I had baked up chicken breasts the day before in order to have the most important ingredient. I had also gone to the store to get Ritz crackers and poppy seeds.
I tend to rate new foods in one of three categories. Either it is absolutely scrumptious and I definitely want to have it again (frequently). Or it is OK, nothing to write home about, but acceptable, and I might make it again. Or it's a complete dud and I regret that we don't have a dog to feed it to.
When this casserole came out of the oven yesterday, and I helped myself to a portion, my first thought was that it fell into the second category. I was reading a book while I ate, and it wasn't until I had drifted back to get thirds that I realized how much I was eating of this casserole. I had fourths and could barely restrain myself from having fifths.
Bill noticed me trotting back and forth between my book and the casserole, so he decided to have some for breakfast. He had the same reaction. I almost hesitate to admit this, but between the two of us, we ate almost half of a 9x13 pan of this casserole. I grant you, it isn't a very deep casserole, but still!
When I got up last night I discovered that Tim had enjoyed it as well - and he went back for fourths too! Despite my first opinion of it, this casserole is addicting! I think I've figured it out. It has poppy seeds in it. Opium is made from poppy seeds. Opium is very addicting. Do you think it might work if I sprinkled poppy seeds on vegetables and persuaded Tim to take at least one bite . . .

How did I get talked into this?

I come from the old school - in other words, I'm over 50. Computers are still a marvel to me, and the Internet is absolutely awesome. Today's kids take a lot of this for granted, but I can still remember typewriters, telegrams, and televisions being the 'latest technology'.

My younger daughter, Maleen Cazier, has embraced the Internet and all of its myriad opportunities. She created a 'blog' for her and her family, and has been intermittantly asking me to do the same. I am a little hesitant because I don't really think that my life is all that interesting, and I can't imagine who (besides her) is going to read it.

I am still learning how to manipulate photographs on the computer. Hey - I only figured out how to use a digital camera about a year ago (and that is another thing I absolutely marvel at!) It makes the wonder of Polaroid cameras look ridiculous by comparison, but that used to be hot stuff.

So - here is my 'blog'. No guarantees on how often I will post anything - or when I'll figure out how to find the pictures that I know are stored on my computer. And if you find the ramblings of a 50+ female micrbiologist interesting, come back for another look some year.