I was just thinking...

Name:

I've become addicted to "A"s (I've gone back to college), love eating and cooking everything but goat cheese, I always try to please everyone and laugh without wetting myself or snorting. I love reading and keeping up with current events, I value my friends. And most especially, I'm a proud mother of four and an excessively proud grandmother of five.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

...always...about Rescue Me, my favorite TV show







http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/rescueme/firefighterGallery/#/1/0

So, I went on the "Rescue Me" official website (above), a few weeks ago to see when the series was going to begin (Tuesday nights, 10pm Eastern time, on FX). Anyhow, they have a "Firefighters' Gallery" where you can submit favorite photos of fires, firetrucks, firefighters, etc. For the heck of it, we submitted the Droolmeister's picture. Much to our surprise, if you go to this site, and click on "Most Popular", Michael's picture is the first one to pop up!! You can leave comments on the site. He is so frigging adorable, he has developed calluses on his cheeks from Scott and me kissing him constantly.

...Just Announced - IKEA to take over GM


IKEA HAS ANNOUNCED ITS INTENTION TO TAKE OVER GM AND TO SELL CARS.

Assembly Required

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

...about Josh Schools, gone too soon...

Virginia Beach--
Joshua Allen Schools, 24, of the 1300 block of Covington Court, sadly passed away April 27, 2009, after a tragic accident on his motorcycle. Born in DePaul Hospital, Norfolk, he was a shipping and receiving clerk at the Stihl factory in Virginia Beach. He was a graduate of Ocean Lakes High School. He is survived by his parents, Jimmy and Lori Schools of Chesapeake; three brothers, Zachary, Jacob and Aaron Schools, all of Chesapeake; and one sister, Sarah Schools Pratt and her four children of Virginia Beach. He is also survived by his maternal grandparents, Ronald and Myrna Nyreen and his paternal grandmother, Ida Schools. He was, and always will be, loved, and he will be sorely missed. We were proud and honored to have him as our oldest son. Joshua lived life to the fullest and would give the shirt off his back, without hesitation, to anyone who needed it. He was a good, honest son and brother, who grew to be a good, honest man. We loved him dearly. Visitation will be held in Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home, 524 Cedar Road, Chesapeake, Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. A funeral will be held at Great Bridge Presbyterian Church, 333 Cedar Road, Chesapeake, Saturday at 11 a.m. with Pastor Hershel Adams officiating, followed by a graveside gathering at Chesapeake Memorial Gardens, 524 Cedar Road, Chesapeake. The family will receive visitors at their home, 212 Hall Drive, Chesapeake, after the services. Condolences may be offered to the family at http://www.hollomon-brown.com/.
Josh was one of Mallory's closest friends...she says he was one of the few from this neighborhood who totally had his life "together." He had a good job at Stihl, was attending college, and was the first of her friends to have bought his own home. Everyone is still in disbelief. Parents just do not expect to outlive their kids. Ever. And no matter how hard we try to protect them, we just can't be there for everything. Nobody ever told me that when I was thinking of having kids. Our hearts ache for his family.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

...I neglected to mention the Chicago blizzard of January 1967




First, this blizzard, and then the tornado. Nineteen sixty-seven was the year that my parents finally threw in the towel and decided to move to sunny southern California. I remember waking up and finding that we were sealed up in our house...both the front and back doors were blocked by nearly two feet of snow. Dad had to jump out a second floor bedroom window, make his way out to the garage, and dig the door out enough by hand to get to the snow shovel. He dug out the sidewalks and driveway. To this day, I don't frigging know why. The streets were not plowed for several days, so he couldn't drive to work anyhow. When the snowplow finally cleared our street, it piled up a mountain of snow and slush (which froze over) at the end of our driveway...further burying a car that Dad hadn't even seen which had been abandoned in the street right in front of our driveway!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

...about 42 years ago yesterday...




Oak Lawn, Illinois. April 21, 1967.


...the weather was warm and sunny, but off in the distance, the sky was greenish-gray. I was worried that I'd have to walk home in a bad storm if I stuck around to wait for the bus. Although I ended up at the same place, I got there about 30 minutes earlier when my friend's mom offered to drop me off at the bus-stop a few blocks from my home. The wind was very powerful and the dirt and grit stung my face and got into my eyes. I ducked into the doorway of a business right on the corner, and waited for a few minutes for it to subside. I recall a very loud roar, and I could barely hear sirens going off. Never having heard a tornado warning before, I did not recognize the sound. By the time the wind had subsided and I peered from around the corner, I was met with a scene of complete destruction. Police and firefighters were running out of the back of the building to the left of me, and I was told to stay back. I had not comprehended that I had witnessed a tornado, and that I had barely escaped being injured or killed. I remember climbing over debris...tree branches, bricks, telephone poles, and lumber, just trying to get home. My parents and sister were uninjured, but our house was pretty badly damaged. Many of my neighbors were not so lucky. Thirty-three people died, and over 500 were injured in our town alone. That day, there had been an outbreak of tornadoes in northern Illinois.
















Monday, April 20, 2009

..."There once was a young man from Leeds..


Who swallowed a packet of seeds.
Great tufts of grass sprounded out of his ass,
And his balls were all covered with weeds."
Dad said that when he went to a Carnegie Tech class reunion during the 1950s, he visited the library (photo above) and much to his delight, found a copy of his printing engineering class project--the infamous book of limericks on a shelf. Being an honest man, he initially left it there. But when he impusively decided to go back and "acquire" it for his own personal collection, he discovered that someone had beat him to the punch.

...how much I miss my dad.


My dad passed away three years ago this past Saturday. We had some very stormy times beginning at my adolescence and ending (kind of) shortly before he died, just a couple of weeks before his 91st birthday. I wish that we had been able to enjoy each other more during that long stretch of time, because he was a brilliant man. He was a voracious reader, consuming at least one book per day--he would drive to Borders or Barnes and Noble out in Tucson once a week, and buy a briefcase full of books. He would have them all read before the next shopping spree. Shortly before he passed away, we donated most of them to the library in his little community--so many that there was not enough shelf space for all of them.
Dad spoke at least seven languages fluently, including French, Mandarin Chinese, and Swahili. He spoke enough of many other languages to communicate with native speakers. He co-authored a book of limericks when he was a student at Carnegie Institutute of Technology (Carnegie Tech)--now Carnegie-Mellon Unversity. The book was a class project for printing engineering; the students were required to publish a book. This included creating the ink, the typeset, the paper, the subject for the book, and binding it. Enough copies were made for each student and for the professor. The entire class got an "A", but the teacher confiscated the books because the limericks were too "obscene" for the times. My dad taught me a few of them when I was a kid, and although I didn't understand what they meant at the time, he said one day I would. And that I should memorize them because they were "part of my heritage." I would post a couple of them here, but am afraid my blog would get removed for being too obscene! An interesting thing--I bought my dad a couple of books of limericks about 30 years ago as birthday presents. He was quite pleased to see some of his and his former classmates' limericks in print, but was irritated that other people had taken credit for writing them.
Dad was very musical, as well. He played the bagpipes; in this photograph, he was a member of the Kilty Band at Carnegie Tech. I guess he must be around 25 or so. He graduated from high school at 16, from his first college at 19, attended MIT for a year, took classes for one year at Fordham University, and graduated from Carnegie Tech before going off to WWII. He played the trumpet, French horn, and piano, and an ocarina. My son, Matthew, inherited his trumpet, but I believe my grandma sold the French horn and bagpipes after he left for war. I don't know what happened to his ocarina; the last time I saw it was when I was 18. Matthew inherited his musical ear, but Monica, Meeghan, and Mallory inherited his brains. Meeghan has his naughty sense of humor. So, even though he's not physically here with me, parts of him live on through my kids. And, sadly, we get along much better this way.

...Meeghan is tough...

She got this tattoo last year--designed it herself. In Hebrew. I don't have photos of her other tattoos--my other favorite is a medicine wheel with a buffalo skull in the center, and a lightning bolt going through the whole thing, as I recall. She designed it to match the design she created on her moccasins...at least 15 years ago. If she lets me photograph it, I will post it. She had this one on her "Facebook" or "My Space" so I figured she wouldn't mind if I posted it here. She writes:

"To add to my collection, but this has meaning. The middle word means family. Surrounding are the names of all my family members starting with my great grandmother and ending with my daughters."

While I personally don't care for tattoos, I think this is particularly awesome and certainly original. And since I don't even like testing my blood sugar level with one tiny stick of a needle, I must say that Meeghan is a lot tougher than I could ever be. If I ever decided to get a tattoo, it would have to be one of those temporary ones.

Speaking of Meeghan, today she called to say that she had gotten confirmation that her research into another branch of our family tree linking us back to the Revolutionary War, is correct. She was invited to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) this past year, once she provided documented proof tracing our lineage back to Captain Hope Lathrop, who lived in Toland, Connecticut and was in the Revolutionary War. Today her research and documentation proved correct once again; another branch traced back to Adoniram Grant (we are related to Ulysses S. Grant), who provided aid and clothing to colonial soldiers during the same time period. One of her next projects is to document the Lathrop branch back to a marriage between Reverend John Lathrop's daughter (can't remember her name) and Samuel Fuller, one of the original Mayflower passengers. She has information tracing Reverend Lathrop back to England prior to his arrival here in 1630, and the Grant family back to Scotland back to the 1500s. She has to have certain documentation in order beyond what she has right now.

This journey back through history came as a result of a couple of a few sentences my mom said to me when she was the age I am now--before Alzheimer's disease sucked the life right out of her brain, "My grandmother came across the country in a covered wagon and ended up in California. Her name was Sarah Helen Lathrop." From those two sentences, Meeghan has uncovered a treasure trove of incredible information that humbles our family and makes us all feel like underachievers. We are decendents of Ulysses Grant and related to Franklin Roosevelt (Delano). Also somehow related to the Stanford of Stanford University. Asahel Lathrop, Sarah's father, was one of the early settlers of Utah, but moved on away from the Mormon church, and opened up an inn or something in California. When the "Donner party" was stranded in the snow in mountains in California, he was one of the group of rescuers who went in search of survivors. I remember reading about the history of Donner Pass when we went on vacation growing up, and about the fate of so many of those stranded in the early winter snow. Little did I know our family had any attachment to this piece of history. Just thought I'd put that out there for you to read.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

...save this date: April 23-25, 2009...

The Gathering of Nations pow wow is
the largest in North America. We have gone to or participated in a number of pow wows over the years, but have never had the opportunity to be in New Mexico at the same time this pow wow is going on. This is awesome.

...about "The Day of Silence" (TM), Saturday, April 18th, 2009

This article comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center's newsletter, entitled "Hatewatch."
It is reprinted here without their express permission, but giving them full credit for the entire text. I believe it is important to stand up for the rights of all.

April 2007 -- Parenting columnist Dana Williams writes about how a recent spate of highly publicized anti-gay remarks underscores the need for the upcoming Day of Silence ™.
Dana Williams
"First it was Isaiah Washington, who portrays the gifted surgeon, Dr. Preston Burke, on the hit TV show "Grey's Anatomy."
I've been a fan of "Grey's Anatomy" — and of Isaiah Washington — since the pilot first aired in 2005, so needless to say, I was thrilled to see the cast nominated for several Golden Globe Awards earlier this year. But when Washington blurted out an anti-gay slur during the cast's backstage gathering after the Awards, I felt completely shocked and disappointed.
And then it was Tim Hardaway, former guard for the NBA team, the Miami Heat. The retired basketball player emphatically announced, "I hate gay people" during a recent interview for a sports radio show.
Hardaway's remarks were especially troubling to me, not just because of the sheer bigotry behind the words, but because I know my son and many other young children look up to athletes like Hardaway as role models.
My son eats, sleeps and breathes basketball, and to him, the men who play the sport in the NBA are men he idolizes and emulates from their jump shots to their styles of dress. To hear Hardaway say something that so drastically contradicted all that I have tried to teach my son about being accepting and respectful of all people greatly angered me — and greatly confused my son.
"Does he really hate gay people? Didn't he know everybody was going to hear him say that?" my son asked. "He shouldn't have said that; I bet he made a lot of people not like him anymore."
I saw the incident as a learning opportunity, explaining to my son that just because people are celebrities or famous athletes doesn't mean they are free of prejudice. "Those are things we all have to work on," I told him.
Painful rhetoricWhile Washington's and Hardaway's comments have been dissected in the media for weeks now and demands for apologies have ensued, it is a sad fact that similar remarks can be heard in any school hallway in this country on any given day.
Far too often, such anti-gay rhetoric in our schools is met with little discussion or disapproval. In many cases, school leaders choose to look the other way rather than address the anti-gay behavior. The lack of support causes many students who are gay or perceived to be gay to retreat in shame and silence.
If there is one positive thing about the controversy surrounding Washington's and Hardaway's recent comments, it is that the incidents have drawn public attention to how powerful and painful anti-gay rhetoric can be. If nothing else, these incidents give the public a taste of what LGBTQ students routinely face in our schools and communities.
The 2005 School Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) paints a troubling picture. Among the survey's key findings:
75% of students heard derogatory remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often at school, and nearly nine out of ten (89%) reported hearing "that's so gay" or "you're so gay" — meaning "stupid" or "worthless" — frequently or often.
Over a third (37.8%) of students experienced physical harassment at school based on sexual orientation and more than a quarter (26%) based on their gender expression.
LGBTQ students were five times more likely to report having skipped school in the last month because of safety concerns than the general population of students.
The average GPA for LGBTQ students who were frequently physically harassed was half a grade lower than that of LGBTQ students experiencing less harassment.
Statistics like these prompted GLSEN to sponsor the Day of Silence ™ in 1996. Now in its 11th year, the annual event challenges students in schools across the country to take a one-day vow of silence to symbolize the silence forced upon LGBT students each and every day.
Speaking up with silenceThe Day of Silence ™ draws thousands of participants and has become one of the largest student-led actions in the country. This year's Day of Silence ™ will take place April 18.
It's ironic, because most of us have been taught that it is necessary to speak up against injustice. The power of one voice is a concept I've always tried to explain to my son.
But as the Day of Silence ™ illustrates, speaking up doesn't always require using our voices. When we choose to boycott a store because of unfair labor practices, we are speaking up. When we don't vote for a candidate who supports anti-gay policies, we are speaking up. When we choose to meet hatred not with more hatred, but with forgiveness, we are speaking up. And when used as a show of support and unity, silence can also be a powerful way of speaking up.
Perhaps silence would be a good lesson for Washington and Hardaway, too.
Editor's Note: To learn more about decreasing anti-gay harassment and bigotry in your child's school, visit our free online guide, The ABCs of Sexual Orientation."

Sunday, April 12, 2009

...what a nice e-mail to wake up to this morning!


My old friend Mohawk chieftain's son Sean, is a National Park ranger. He is always doing something fun or adventurous. A few days ago, he met this orphaned seal. I'm not sure exactly where. Anyhow, the little baby, named Priscilla by Sean's coworker, is now on her way to a safe place where she can be cared for until she is old enough to be on her own. Most of us never have an opportunity to be so close to a wild animal. It is unfortunate that she was alone and probably frightened and confused when she was found, but she was fortunate that she met Sean and the wildlife rescuers.

Friday, April 10, 2009

...Happy Easter...

Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Christmas...All are chocolate grabfests. How come we get matza and gefilte fish??

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

...Happy Passover!!


We're all sick, and eating only the matza ball soup portion of our Passover dinner tonight. For dessert, we will have lemon tea with honey and some aspirin with a decongestant chaser.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Ash Kicker, Jr.


This is my youngest schmoopster, Michael, at 1 year in his firefighting gear. In real life, he produces enough drool in one day to extinguish a major fire.

Labels: ,