Another reason to be thankful for the US

New vehicle for dissent is a fast track to prison (via the Washington Post)

Articles of note

I found these killing time at a wifi spot today:

European Churches Open Their Doors (from the Washington Post) Illegal immigration is not only an American problem.

Soldier finds winning lottery ticket and returns it (from cnn.com)

It's Tuesday, but seems like Monday...

My three year old was clearly confused yesterday, too. Since I normally make pancakes on Sunday morning, he thought we were going to church, but, alas, there was no Mass after these pancakes this week.

We had some friends over Sunday and we barbequed so we could relax Monday. We made a cool zucchini salad to enjoy with our food. It turned out to be a hit.

Summer Zucchini Salad

2 medium sized zucchini (ours were 2" in diameter and 10" long)
1 small Vidalia onion
2 Roma tomatoes (or 2 medium of your favorite variety)
1/2 Ken's Raspberry Walnut Vinagrette salad dressing
1/4-1/2 teaspoon McCormick Garlic Pepper mix*

*You can substitute pinch of pepper and salt and garlic powder to your own taste, if you do not have the mix available.

Wash vegetables. Peel onion and chop finely.
Cut zucchini into rounds.
Chop tomatoes.
Mix zucchini, tomatoes, onions in bowl. Add salad dressing and garlic pepper in bowl and mix until vegetables are coated.
Refrigerate for one hour before serving.

School starts today. Cross your fingers! :)

Everyone needs a goose egg

...on your head, right smack dab in the middle of the forehead, to realize why headache pain relievers really are great.

I was lucky enough to whack my head while going for one of Bubba's dropped M&Ms on the floor. I did not want to take the dog to the vet for eating too many of them. My reward is a big headache today, which is, thankfully, subsiding, so I could write this.

Outside of other fun activities, I'm still doing my PR work for the upcoming Notre Dame High School reunion on 6/25 (see www.ndalum.net for more details). It's going pretty well. Never underestimate the power of a parish secretary. They're the folks who do most of the work. I am so happy to be working with so many of them. They're making my task a lot easier.

My background check was rescheduled to next Wednesday. The scheduler was not real time, so it did not confirm my appointment, which I originally scheduled for yesterday. It just rescheduled me for the following week, and my spam filter on my e-mail promptly sorted it to the Junk folder and you can guess where it went. At least, they don't use ink anymore for that fingerprinting. Now, I just go back with my $100 check and my fingers, and all will be lovely.

Here are a couple of fun articles I found today whilst meandering through cyberspace:

The World's Snappiest Comebacks (from the Washington Post).
I love Nicole Kidman's heel comment.

A Mistakeover
How technology makes some things really good, and others, not so good. (also from the Washington Post)

Cram, cram, cram

Arrgh! Bloody blogger tried to eat another of my posts. Anyway, I'm back now.

I'm cramming as many appointments, etc., into my schedule before school starts. It's been really fun!

Last week I erroneously signed up for a two-day CPR class. The audience was doctors and RNs. Thankfully, they had a class for peons like me on Monday night. Just another reason why that continuing ed stuff should have descriptions in Banner (but I'm preaching to the choir here...at least for the TESS SLCC folks...). The class turned out really well and I was home by a little after 10PM.

I'm also working on a committee for Notre Dame High School's all-class reunion and faculty/staff shindig at JB on 6/25. It should be fun. Need more dirt? Go on over to http://www.ndalum.net and check it out. I'll be thinking of everyone as I distribute my flyers all over South County and everywhere. If you can make it, be there. We have some really creative folks planning this, so it will be fun.

NDalum.net up and running...

Finally! I've got something besides a reserve page up on this web site I've created for the Notre Dame alumnae group I've been working with...yes, that's an -ae, since all you Latin scholars know there were never any -i's at ND ;-> I've been a little distracted lately, so that's kept me away.

Check it out here: http://www.ndalum.net

WebSiteTonight is a free management program that's available, but it's not for the faint of heart...or slow (even DSL is slow) connection. I've been typing away at my fave hotspot with a T1 connection (corporate fast speed) and it still crawled.

Give me my Notepad and I could have crunched it out in one tenth of the time I've spend on it. Ca y est! (or thank goodness that's over)

Happy Friday...did you ever wonder

...about days when it rains when the sun is shining? I'm sitting in South County, looking out the window and the sun is shining brilliantly and it is pouring rain.

My Rx friend is in from California for a short trip, so we went to see her and her family for a couple of hours last night. Her son and mine had a great time playing together as usual. We brought her son his birthday gift (his was Monday), and Bubba (not his real name) had fun helping rip the wrapping paper to shreds (since he likes to help with gift opening tasks).

Later we took them outside in the backyard and they ran around. Since her dad removed the above-ground pool and deck recently, there was a big, barren patch in the far end of the back yard. Where do the kids head to play? Straight for the old pool site, which has some rocks and mud all over. What do the moms do? Snatch them from the mud. Luckily, the boys didn't mind, since it was nearly dark and there were lots of other fun things in the yard to explore, like the cache of toys under the deck and on the deck.

Hopefully, we'll see a little more of her before she leaves town on Sunday.

Running, running, running

At least, it's not with scissors!

The last two days I've been doing all the oddball yardwork, like getting the vegetation out of the driveway and patio cracks so I can seal them up, never to weed again, at least for a little while longer than with dirt and decaying wood strips between them. This kind of work is brutal--to save your back, you can sit on the concrete, but it is unforgiving on your back.

Today, I get to run errands and see how fast I can get them done. It should be interesting.

For something completely different...

Get that monkey off your back!
This method worked in the Netherlands.

BBC Job interview leads to TV interview for the wrong 'Guy'

Mother's Day...did you know

Courtesy of cnn.com

1858

Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis organizes Mother's Day Work Clubs to help improve sanitation and worker safety in her Appalachian home in West Virginia. The clubs help raise money for medicine, inspect bottled milk and food, and hire women to help families where the mother was ill with tuberculosis. During the Civil War, the clubs remain neutral at Jarvis' urging and provide food, clothing and medical care for both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Sources: CNN, West Virginia State Archives

1864

Anna Jarvis is born on May 1 in a village near Grafton, West Virgina, to Granville and Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. Her efforts to establish a day to honor mothers would lead to the creation of the modern-day Mother's Day.

1865

With the end of the Civil War, Union and Confederate soldiers return to West Virginia. With tension increasing, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis organizes a Mothers' Friendship Day at the courthouse in Pruntytown, West Virginia, in hopes of bringing together former adversaries. Despite fears of violence, the event is successful and the event was held annually for several years.

1872

Julia Ward Howe, who was a pacifist, suffragette and writer of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," first suggests a holiday for mothers in the United States. She suggested it as a day mothers could rally for peace, and for several years she held an annual Mother's Day meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.


1907

Anna Jarvis conceives the modern-day Mother's Day holiday in honor of her late mother, a community health advocate. Jarvis' mother died on May 9, 1905, so Jarvis chose the second Sunday in May in her memory. The carnation was her mother's favorite flower and the tradition of wearing a carnation survives to this day, red or pink for living mothers and white to honor deceased mothers.

1908

Jarvis launches her campaign for a nationwide observance of Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May, the anniversary of her mother's death. The first bill to call for creating a holiday to honor mothers also was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Nebraska Sen. Elmer Burkett, but the bill died in committee.

1910

West Virginia becomes the first state to officially recognize the holiday when Gov. William E. Glasscock issues the first Mother's Day proclamation on April 26.

1912

Anna Jarvis is recognized as the founder of Mother's Day at the General Methodist Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1914

On May 9, President Woodrow Wilson signs a joint resolution passed by Congress recognizing Mother's Day as a national holiday.

1939

The pansy card is introduced as a Mother's Day card. By 1999, the pansy greeting card has sold more than 30 million copies since its introduction to honor mothers.

1948

Jarvis was deeply dismayed over the commercialization of Mother's Day and before she died in 1948, she admitted that she regretted ever starting the holiday. She once filed a lawsuit to stop a Mother's Day festival and was arrested for disturbing the peace at another Mother's Day function.

2006

Mother's Day is the third-largest card-sending holiday in the United States behind Christmas and Valentine's Day, according to Hallmark Cards. Hallmark estimates that Americans will send more than 150 million Mother's Day cards and that about 70 percent of U.S. households celebrate Mother's Day.

Triple berry pancakes

Look! A recipe...yes I have been slacking off, albeit for good reasons. Since we opted to do brunch after we went to Mass in Maplewood at 1030, I was really hungry thinking about how long we'd have to wait for our food. So, as usual, I whipped up a batch of Bubba's favorite, triple berry pancakes for breakfast.

I use this recipe and add the berries (after I microwave them slightly so the pancakes cook faster). Since Bubba (not his real name) also likes pancakes thoroughout the week, I double or triple the recipe and freeze the leftovers to microwave as he wants them.

from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, 2000

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 beaten egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons cooking oil

Add-ins (optional)

• 1/2 cup millers' bran (or buckwheat)
• 1 cup frozen berries (thawed) or 1/2 of one 15 ounce can wild blueberries in water, drained
• 1/2 cup cubed mango with 1/2 cup crushed pineapple (drained) with 1/4 cup flaked coconut
• one large ripe banana, smashed, with 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (or cinnamon)
  

Stir flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the bottom of the dry mixture and set aside.

In another bowl, mix the egg, milk and cooking oil. Add this mixture all at once to the dry mixture. Stir until moistened. NOTE: batter will be lumpy. Add any additional ingredients you may want in your pancakes.

Pour about 1/4 cup onto hot, lightly greased griddle and cook on medium heat for two minutes or until golden brown. Makes approximately 8-10 standard pancakes (4 in. diameter) or 36 dollar pancakes (2 in. diameter). Serve with maple syrup or your favorite jam and butter.

On my way to SLU

Friday, May 12 was my last day of work. I will be going back to school full-time at the end of this month.

I always thought finding a job and working would be really different, since I spent a lot of time looking for a full-time job after I got my first two degrees in the 1990s, but going the other way, back to school, is equally interesting.

When I look back, it was a different time. The internet was some foreign place that was just starting to issue passports. I remember when I went to an online search workshop at the library and we had to have the librarian actually do the search for us, because we didn't have access.

No one, outside of a couple of strange characters in my class in the business school had cell phones. The phones they did have came in a bag, or had to be put in one, because there was no way you'd get it to attach to your belt without having a big chunk of plastic on your hip. Every cell phone also had an antenna that was about 6-8 inches long.

SLU was different, too. The memory of the tennis courts behind Ritter Hall was still fresh, because the Dolphin pond and fountains were relatively new. The Laclede parking garage was new, too. It didn't have gates on it, until later in the spring semester in 1992. I occasionally parked my car there when my spot was gone on the street. Laclede was still a through street to Compton way back then. I hung out in Busch Memorial Center (or Busch or BMC) just like the rest of the commuters, and lounged on the grass underneath one of the sycamores out in front. We had to cross Grand there, where there were no landscaped medians, and you took your life into your hands trying to cross against the lights or at the very last minute. West Pine at Spring was also another place to dodge traffic on my way to Xavier Hall for metaphysics.

Today, the brick piers and gates are everywhere on campus--at the med school campus and at Frost. Incarnate Word Hospital at Lafayette and Grand is now SLU's Salus Center and Water Tower Inn hotel. The new Research Building is going up on the corner of Grand and Chouteau, right near where a manufacturing plant stood and Peerless Restaurant Supply. The surrounding neighborhoods are much spiffier, too. People actually live in the Continental Building (aka the "Superman" building) and the Coronado was totally renovated.

While the rebel in me would love to flash back to the days when you actually could park on the street for free, I have a nicer car (no primer this time), so I'll probably just conform and buy a parking permit.

It's fourteen years later, but hopefully, it'll be fun to be back!

Invasion of the field trippers

I guess it's that time of year, because I'm hanging out in my favorite spot downtown and as I look out the window I see a pack of them. Kids scrunched together going down the sidewalk on one side, and on my side, they're pirouetting back and forth as they wait for their chauffeur/chaperone. They're dropping sugar packets into the sidewalk grate and watching them fall down.

Who'd think these kids were 13 or 14? Arrgh! Maybe the electrical guys will rough them up. No chance...the teacher is back and they're being herded down the street.

Outside, it's partly cloudy and a little drippy. I'm glad I'm inside (and so is my laptop!).

So much for the musings on the latest tourists. Back to work for me!

Fiction, fiction, fiction

An interesting article about disclaimers and the DaVinci code.

Although the book has been out for quite a while, I have never had a longing to read it.

Back to the old grind. Until next time, have a great day!

A thought

I think of my father every day and he has been gone six years. When I read articles like this one, I remember what my job as a parent should be, even if my child never grows up to win the Masters.

Oops of the week

Courtesy of our friends in T.O.
Hacker Hits Toronto Transit Message System, Jabs Prime Minister (via Computerworld)

Quote of the week

I found this in the Scoop on msnbc.com today.

Anne Rice, the vampire-obsessed author who recently found religion, doesn’t take “The Da Vinci Code” too seriously. When the Catholic Rice was asked what she thought of the wildly best-selling novel — which some church officials have attacked — she replied, “It’s a hoot.”

The other side of May 1 - Day without immigrants in SFO

I was lucky enough to remember that yesterday was Wednesday and to call my friend Marilyn in San Francisco. We always chat on her day off about anything and everything. So I mentioned the demonstrations from Monday.

Yes, she replied, that was my store on TV Monday night on NBC as the throngs went strolling through downtown near City Hall. She mentioned that her store would have been closed if all the immigrant workers there had taken the day off. In her department, about 75% of the employees are immigrants -- from Singapore, the Philippines, Macao, China and Hong Kong.

Fortunately to her amusement, many of the marchers forgot the boycott part (Organizers asked participants not to buy anything anywhere, too, that day). Her store was swamped with all sorts of folks picking up the latest goodies on sale. A few of the regulars (mainly homeless customers) got picked up for shoplifting. They thought it was an opportunity (with all the excess people running around the store) to do a little splurge shopping.

News roundup

From the Washington Post:

Vatican excommunicates 4 Chinese Bishops
I guess the China-Vatican honeymoon (or thought of one) didn't last too long.

Post Office hopes idea of 'forever stamp' sticks
And here I was in the local post office yesterday, telling the clerk how I aim to pay all my bills online (but I still need stamps for some of them!)

And from a local food guide (SauceMagazine):

Follow that dish! What happens to your entree after you place your order?
If you've ever worked in a restaurant, you probably already know this stuff, but it's fun to read for the rest of us.

Article today: China-Vatican ties tested

Another reason why normalization of China-Vatican relations will go slowly (from the Washington Post today.)

UPDATE: 6/25/06 NDHS Alums, Faculty, Staff? Be there!

A group of ND alumnae have planned this gathering at the Ordnance Shelter, Sylvan Springs Park (JB) from 2-6PM on June 25, 2006.

This gathering allows you to get together, thank the faculty and staff, remember and have a good time. Some longtime faculty, such as Ruth Schejbal and Lois Koenen, will also be there, as they will be leaving ND at the end of the current school year.

You can get more detailed information on this gathering in this PDF. To chat and remember your "good ol' days" on the internet, head on over to the ND_Alum_Remember Yahoo!Group and meet up in cyberspace.

Share this information with your classmates and save the date!

In the news...

From Professor C's neck of the woods...(via the Washington Post)

ID law stirs passionate protest in N.H.
At least, someone can complain with some passion . Just remember, all you Texans, this is the original "Don't mess with" state. ;->