People are STILL requesting to add me to their online contacts. Again, many thanks for the compliment, but I simply don't indulge in this kind of activity, nor do I ever have "online chat time," if that's what it's called, either scheduled or otherwise. There's nothing personal when I decline your invitations: I must decline EVERYBODY'S invitations.
I don't know what happened to my old website, or when; but if it's going to cost me dollars to get it back, that may just have to wait a while. I've been out of contact with just about everything since my mother's stroke early this past Feb. She is 91, spent until Easter in the hospital and adjoining nursing home. Then back at home from Easter Monday until just last week, when we finally had to put her in a nice, friendly and clean assisted living facility. My time is still going to be quite limited, what with going back and forth to visit her (50 miles round trip), and meanwhile seeing if I can't crack into the modern romance market to take a bit of the pressure off my financial situation. Have been reading romances like crazy these past months: turns out that, if you get the nice, thick ones, there's an amazing lot of doggone good storytelling here, the kind of storytelling that attracted me to adult fantasy forty years ago.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Legend of St. Valentine
When I was a child, my mother told me a legend she had read about St. Valentine and the origin of Valentine cards: not having much money himself, the saint had written letters to various people. His ink turned to gold on the page. It remained gold for every recipient who saved and cherished the letter, but for anyone who tried scraping the gold off, it turned back into dried ink.
I have since been unable to locate this Saint Valentine legend anywhere else, nor has it as yet turned up in such of Mom's old scrapbooks as remain in our keeping. Can anyone out there in cyberland help me? (Use email, please.)
I have since been unable to locate this Saint Valentine legend anywhere else, nor has it as yet turned up in such of Mom's old scrapbooks as remain in our keeping. Can anyone out there in cyberland help me? (Use email, please.)
Sorry, I just don't do online chatting with anybody!
Please, please, PLEASE, stop inviting me to join your online chatting contacts! I appreciate the compliment, but I don't do online chatting at all -- my time is too limited, my schedule too erratic -- and it pains me to have to "decline" all these offers. Stick to email, okay?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Bibliography addition
Don't have much time to write these days, but I am doing occasional columns again for GASBAG, the news magazine of FUMGASS (Friends of the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society. umgassexec@umich.edu; or UMGASS, 911 N. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1265)
And a little blurb by me about how much I like "Salt Your Own Chowders" has started appearing in the Vermont Country Store catalogues.
And a little blurb by me about how much I like "Salt Your Own Chowders" has started appearing in the Vermont Country Store catalogues.
Apologies for refusing invitations
People had been sending invitations to my email. As nearly as I understand, they wanted to join me in ... do they still call these things "chatrooms"? I felt very sorry to have to refuse the invitations without explanation, but could find no way to explain that the closest I get to this activity IS oldfashioned email. Suddenly last month I noticed a little symbol that apparently makes it appear the owner of the address is indeed open to such invitations. So the inviters were acting in good faith, and it must have looked as if I were being rude to them, individual by individual! Let me hope the people most concerned check this blog and see my heartfelt apology to them. I have, I trust, put the little symbol on the setting that shows the true situation.
There are two reasons I don't join in this kind of activity. One is that a number of years ago I saw printouts from a chatroom, and felt appalled at the hard, insulting anger much of it showed. Perhaps this kind of thing is easier when people are learning the power of words and cannot either see face to face or even hear voice to voice the persons they're communicating with. Anyway, I felt no desire to participate in such an exercise, ever. The other reason is that my present day-to-day life is such that it leaves me little wiggle space for any reliable scheduling of what time I can snatch for myself (and usually need for resting; while computer time can invigorate, I do not find it at all restful). Someday, perhaps, time will start seeming so long for me that I will rethink my old decision not to participate in chatrooms or their equivalent. Sorry, it has not arrived yet, as anyone can see by how rarely I manage to post blogs.
There are two reasons I don't join in this kind of activity. One is that a number of years ago I saw printouts from a chatroom, and felt appalled at the hard, insulting anger much of it showed. Perhaps this kind of thing is easier when people are learning the power of words and cannot either see face to face or even hear voice to voice the persons they're communicating with. Anyway, I felt no desire to participate in such an exercise, ever. The other reason is that my present day-to-day life is such that it leaves me little wiggle space for any reliable scheduling of what time I can snatch for myself (and usually need for resting; while computer time can invigorate, I do not find it at all restful). Someday, perhaps, time will start seeming so long for me that I will rethink my old decision not to participate in chatrooms or their equivalent. Sorry, it has not arrived yet, as anyone can see by how rarely I manage to post blogs.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Hors d'0euvre Method of Doggy Meds
Last week Abby developed the doggy equivalent of the common cold. Yes, she gets a vaccination every August; but the vet explained that by June it's wearing off, nor are doggy vaccinations always absolutely 100% effective, any more than our own vaccinations for whichever strain of flu they think is going to hit in any given flu season. Abby's was apparently a mild case, quickly caught, and after a week of treatment she seems well over it.
Now Abby -- like many dogs, I believe -- isn't the easiest entity in the known universe to medicate. During the first half year or so of sharing our home with her, I tried most of the tricks I'd heard of to get her to swallow her pills, and none of them worked very well. In fact, inserting a capsule into a bite of sausage only seemed to insult her.
At last I found a method that has so far worked every time, and since I've never seen it described anywhere else, the whole point of this blog is to pass it along. On a little square snack cracker, I put a generous dab of peanut butter, and perch the pill on top, visible and bold as an olive. She gobbles up as a snack what she scorns as a medication.
If you need such a recipe, may it work as well for you as it has so far for me.
Love!
Now Abby -- like many dogs, I believe -- isn't the easiest entity in the known universe to medicate. During the first half year or so of sharing our home with her, I tried most of the tricks I'd heard of to get her to swallow her pills, and none of them worked very well. In fact, inserting a capsule into a bite of sausage only seemed to insult her.
At last I found a method that has so far worked every time, and since I've never seen it described anywhere else, the whole point of this blog is to pass it along. On a little square snack cracker, I put a generous dab of peanut butter, and perch the pill on top, visible and bold as an olive. She gobbles up as a snack what she scorns as a medication.
If you need such a recipe, may it work as well for you as it has so far for me.
Love!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Derogatory Language
If we are to add "retard" to our list of abusive words to avoid, why is it still respectable and even commendable to use "tone deaf" as a synonym for moral dereliction, as in "tone deaf to ethics," "tone deaf to faith," and so on? While I'm on the subject, why are tone deaf people who aspire to sing guilty of the deadly sin of pride and deserving of public humiliation, whereas wheel-chair bound people who aspire to race show the Triumph of the Human Spirit and deserve cheers and Special Olympics? Would it be that much out of order to suggest a few singalongs for us tone deaf who, as Dr. Oliver Sacks points out in MUSICOPHILIA, often love to sing?
Tone deafness is a wildly misunderstood handicap -- so misunderstood that it can take many years for those of us born with it to understand that we even have it. It is NOT hearing the world in monotone. It is being unable to hear the difference between "in pitch" and "off key." I might perhaps compare it with an inability to fine-tune the sense of pitch. In our own ears, we sing as well as most people outside the realm of opera; and we live in an era which tells us to "Believe in Yourself," even when it means putting your own opinion above that of critics. I have never watched "American Idol" and never intend to watch it; but if what I hear of it is true, then I hold the people in charge of searching out hopefuls and airing videos of substandard contestants completely responsible for victimizing tone deaf people.
In my own childhood innocence, I thought that "carrying a tune" meant going up and down in the right places and to the right degrees -- I have apparently always had pretty accurate hearing for intervals. But after half a century of playing flute and other instruments, frequently in some school or community band or orchestra, I still have no more than an intellectual grasp of the concept of staying "in pitch" -- it has something to do with the key signature. My husband once devised a home test which indicated that the trouble is mainly in my left ear (which in more general tests shows the stronger hearing), and that my right ear seems to hear tones pretty accurately. I suppose that I hear every tone as a chord, which could be why fancy harmonizing causes me to lose the melody line completely. While I appreciate that I cannot hear music as richly as my husband heard it, nevertheless I hear enough to love it deeply, at least in its operatic and pre-Twentieth Century forms. At the same time, it clearly takes more to outrage my ears than it does someone cursed with "perfect pitch."
Well, doesn't it stand to reason that if we tone deaf people couldn't hear music at all, we wouldn't even want to sing, and there would be no problem?
Obviously, "tone deaf" is not the best term for our disability; but I have not yet met a better one. "Tin ear" is to "tone deaf" as "nigger" is to "Negro." "Tonally challenged" in today's climate sounds like a parody. "Tone deaf" is at least comparable to "color blind," which generally refers to an inability to differentiate between only a couple of colors.
Tone deafness is not a voluntary condition. I imagine that it is usually if not always genetic. I try to avoid using any terms that might offend other people; but the more tender we grow about everyone else, the more we hurt those people (e.g., the tone deaf, Gypsies, Wiccans) who remain respectable targets for contumely and insult.
I'd like to propose a sort of umbrella to cover everyone: BAOOPP -- Be Aware Of Other People's Problems. Whenever tempted to badmouth any group, even in terms of casual comparison, stop and think how you would feel if one of the particular groups to which you yourself belong were spoken of in the same way. This isn't "political correctness," it's simple good manners.
Tone deafness is a wildly misunderstood handicap -- so misunderstood that it can take many years for those of us born with it to understand that we even have it. It is NOT hearing the world in monotone. It is being unable to hear the difference between "in pitch" and "off key." I might perhaps compare it with an inability to fine-tune the sense of pitch. In our own ears, we sing as well as most people outside the realm of opera; and we live in an era which tells us to "Believe in Yourself," even when it means putting your own opinion above that of critics. I have never watched "American Idol" and never intend to watch it; but if what I hear of it is true, then I hold the people in charge of searching out hopefuls and airing videos of substandard contestants completely responsible for victimizing tone deaf people.
In my own childhood innocence, I thought that "carrying a tune" meant going up and down in the right places and to the right degrees -- I have apparently always had pretty accurate hearing for intervals. But after half a century of playing flute and other instruments, frequently in some school or community band or orchestra, I still have no more than an intellectual grasp of the concept of staying "in pitch" -- it has something to do with the key signature. My husband once devised a home test which indicated that the trouble is mainly in my left ear (which in more general tests shows the stronger hearing), and that my right ear seems to hear tones pretty accurately. I suppose that I hear every tone as a chord, which could be why fancy harmonizing causes me to lose the melody line completely. While I appreciate that I cannot hear music as richly as my husband heard it, nevertheless I hear enough to love it deeply, at least in its operatic and pre-Twentieth Century forms. At the same time, it clearly takes more to outrage my ears than it does someone cursed with "perfect pitch."
Well, doesn't it stand to reason that if we tone deaf people couldn't hear music at all, we wouldn't even want to sing, and there would be no problem?
Obviously, "tone deaf" is not the best term for our disability; but I have not yet met a better one. "Tin ear" is to "tone deaf" as "nigger" is to "Negro." "Tonally challenged" in today's climate sounds like a parody. "Tone deaf" is at least comparable to "color blind," which generally refers to an inability to differentiate between only a couple of colors.
Tone deafness is not a voluntary condition. I imagine that it is usually if not always genetic. I try to avoid using any terms that might offend other people; but the more tender we grow about everyone else, the more we hurt those people (e.g., the tone deaf, Gypsies, Wiccans) who remain respectable targets for contumely and insult.
I'd like to propose a sort of umbrella to cover everyone: BAOOPP -- Be Aware Of Other People's Problems. Whenever tempted to badmouth any group, even in terms of casual comparison, stop and think how you would feel if one of the particular groups to which you yourself belong were spoken of in the same way. This isn't "political correctness," it's simple good manners.
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