Time Warp

It's just a jump to the left

One of the folks I follow on Twitter recently posted some excellent advice about limiting screen time. The gist of it is to 1) set a limit, and 2) follow it.

And then a step to the right

One of my birthday gifts was a DNA test and access to an ancestry web site. The whole family tree thing is addictive. Everyone has a story, but it is obscured by time... multiply that by four families and several generations, and that's a lot of clues to sleuth out. No worries, though, I'm just the (obsessive) detective for the job.

With your hands on your hips

Listen to this! One of your relatives was the elephant keeper at the Buffalo Zoo!

You bring your knees in tight

There goes another day with hardly a bathroom break.

Let's do the Time Warp again!

Note to self: use timer tomorrow.

Crystal Ball

We like where we live.

In the 13 years we've been here, we've seen a lot of folks come and go. In fact the place across from us is about to go on the market for the fifth time. These houses seem to fill a particular space in their owners lives-- first home, temporary home, transition home. As for us, it's a little harder to say.

It's not perfect; there are certainly times when we wish we had more space for visitors, and the bicycle storage thing has been a conundrum, but otherwise, we're fine here in our economical little corner of the county.

We invited some former neighbors up to the pool so that Heidi could give the kids some swimming lessons. When it was time to go, we walked them back to their car and helped with all the loading up and buckling in that three children require. Our friend swept her canny, ex-resident's eye across the complex. "Not much has changed," she noted.

"Nope," I laughed. "I can't imagine it's going to."

"So... Do you guys think you're going to live here..." she paused, searching for the right question. "Until you don't?" she finished.

"Yep," I answered. "You can count on that."

It's Just Not the Same Without Her

Scenario: Heidi was doing a little summer testing for a few extra bucks, so I leashed up the dog and off we went for a little afternoon walk. Generally, Isabel is a very congenial companion, all too happy to trot along by your side. Today, however, when we got to the top of the hill to leave our complex, all she wanted to do was turn back home. It took some serious goading and scolding to get her to finish our little outing.

A little over halfway, it dawned on me what must have happened. Isabel had probably heard Heidi's Jeep barreling into the parking lot at home, and she wanted to invite Heidi along on our walk. Sure enough, when we got back, there was the Jeep, and there was Heidi, an hour earlier than we expected.

Better Safe than Sorry

All weekend I've been hearing and reading coverage about the damage the shootings in Aurora, CO might have on our collective national psyche-- how a single gunman can take a place of escape like the movies away from all of us.

To be honest, I've only been listening to that part of the story with half an ear, if that. Although this event was unsettling, eleven years after the September 11 attacks we in America are fortunate to live mostly with a solid sense of security. Unlike many other places in the world, attacks on civilians here are so rare that, even here in the capital of our nation, we might only give that kind of threat a second thought when the line is so long at the airport that we might miss our flight.

Psychologically? That's where I thought I was.

That is until this afternoon when we decided to see the 4:10 IMAX show of Batman: Dark Knight Rises. I got the seats-- up high and right in the middle-- while Heidi got the popcorn. As the preshow drabble rolled across the screen, I was checking my email and playing Words With Friends in the nearly deserted row.

Right before the lights dimmed, a couple came up to sit three or four seats to my left. They were young, casually dressed; he had a beard, and she was wearing a head scarf. They also had a suitcase with them. The rolling type that will fit in the overhead compartment on a plane, something you don't often see at the movies. When Heidi came up with our snacks, they politely moved it out of her way so she could pass.

Even now, I get a little choked up thinking about it. All of a sudden, everything came crashing onto me-- what movie it was, the weirdness of the suitcase, the age and ethnicity of those people, and at that moment, my sense of danger was so high I couldn't stay there. I whispered my worries to Heidi, and we decided to leave those seats, and when we got to the exit row, I kept on going straight out the door and to the counter, to turn in my tickets and tell someone in charge about my concerns.

I got a shrug, a refund, and a hell of a lot to think about.

Her Story

I've been doing a bit of genealogy research this summer. I like it because it's like a puzzle or a scavenger hunt-- search the records to find the connection and fill in the family tree! Some branches of our family have been in America a looooong time. (I would be more impressed except for the fact that there are tens of millions of people living in the U.S. today who are descended from the Mayflower passengers and crew alone, and we are not among them... so far.)

Those folks are relatively easy to trace, both because they've created a lot of records in all the time they've been around and they have a lot of descendants researching them. The same can not be said about my ancestors who came here later. All of them so far have come from Ireland, and there is a certain commonality of both surname and first name that make them tough to pin down.

For example, when I began all I knew of my father's mother's mother was that she was named Margaret. Through some digging, I found that Borrie may have been her maiden name. But wait! A few records later, it turned out that Borrie was probably a mis-transcription of Bowler. Her mother was Helen Bowler. That made sense-- my grandmother was Helen, too-- but who was Margaret's father?

Scouring the records, I hit dead end after dead end, and I was just about to give up when something made me search for Maggie Bowler. That was the breakthrough. I found Maggie in the census at 2 and 12 and so forth, and even though her mother was variously referenced as Ellen Bowler, Helen Borrie, and Mrs.Thom Bowler, it was great grandmother Maggie who helped me piece together the story of a couple of young Irish immigrants who married in America, moved to Upstate New York, and built a family before Thomas died of consumption at only 39, leaving Helen with five children ages 15 to 2.

The 2-year-old was Margaret, or Maggie, my grandmother's mom.

Postcard

It was cool and rainy here today, which was really a blessing after the dry, blistering heat we've had. There was no need to go to the garden and we decided to do the Sunday farmers market, so we hung around and read all morning.

Still, at around 2 PM a restlessness struck me that could not be denied. I need a purpose and I wanted some activity, so I proposed a walk down to our local olive oil shop. (Yes, I know what that sounds like, but sue me-- we have a local olive oil shop, and damn it, I'm glad.) Anyhoo, we leashed up the dog, grabbed an umbrella, and stepped out into the soft weather.

When we got there, Heidi waited outside with Isabel while I went in to do the shopping. Soon enough, one of the proprietors pushed open the door to invite Isabel in (what a great place!). She also offered her a sample of their bacon-infused olive oil, and it is here that the story takes a little jog to the unexpected. Much to the dismay of all of us, our dog literally turned up her nose at such an extravagant treat.

Why I'm not sure, but her disdain did not stop me from splurging on a couple of nice bottles of the evoo, and when they were safely wrapped in plum tissue paper and placed in a fancy handle-bag, the three of us headed back into the mist and home.

1001 Reasons

I am not a big fan of the Olympics, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever had to hear me moan about the blind nationalism of the games.

I acknowledge that that's quite a few of you, considering that there have been about 900 days of Olympic competition in my adult life alone. Add in all the pre-game coverage, and that's well over 1,000 opportunities for me to complain, both in person and in writing.

Well, here's yet another reason: This year the games fall during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. There are over 3,000 Muslim athletes competing in London, where the average length of each day will be 15 hours and 12 minutes with no food or water for the observant. How is that sporting?

Not only that, but this is a major Islamic holiday season, which is often celebrated with all the trimmings of parties and gifts. It is a time for families and friends to gather and rejoice in their faith.

Imagine scheduling the Olympics in late December. Wouldn't happen, would it?