Hard-working women

Maybe this is true in your house, too.  There is a woman in the kitchen, pulling out pans, mixing this and that, making all sorts of foods, mostly sweets and impressive cakes and confections.  Used bowls and mixers, kitchen implements get piled in the sink or arranged in the dishwasher.  Various types of vessels get filled with cookies and candies.  You know what is happening and why. 

Superlative fatigue

Much of our society depends on communication and much of our communication is ads.  Just use your favorite browser and see how long it takes before some words pop up about great this or wonderful that.  

In high school and college, I enjoyed the writings of Jacques Barzun, a native of France who later became a dean at Columbia University.  In his book "Science, the Glorious Entertainment", he expressed fear that with all the research that goes on, the number of important discoveries would eventually exceed the number of words we have to name them.  Just think of the additional burdens advertisers have in trying to convince us that although other products do stop bleeding, THIS product is far superior, far safer, far whatever quality you are looking for.  Buy it, dammit!

We are hooked on the use of superlatives (best, highest, most this or that).  Trying to think of communicating our desire to have you purchase the product we make without using superlative words is difficult in today's world.  One angle is to take an unusual variable:

"Buy our product because it is so pretty that as it sits in your bathroom, visitors will be impressed by its beautiful color."  Another is humility:"Buy our product, please.  It is merely one of all the others, competing for your coin.  It is an adequate product, not more expensive than the others but equally good.  So how about it?  Buy ours, please." See?  Superlative free!

Mild dis

About 71% of my life, year numbers began with "19".  Now, they begin with "20".  Just about every day, that seems wrong. I'm willing to go along with it but I am registering mild discomfort.

Tomorrow is winter

Tomorrow at 3:20 CST AM is the official beginning of winter.  It will be winter until March 20, 2025.  So, what has it been until now, with snow and wind and cold?  It's still fall today, since September 22.  Of course, the seasons don't always behave as we expect.

Vernal Equinox 2025

20 march

10:01:09 AM

Summer Solstice 2025

21 june

04:42:02 AM

Autumnal Equinox 2025

22 september

08:19:18 PM

Winter Solstice 2025

21 december

04:03:01 PM

What is new?

I often read CNN's Five Things AM, Google News, NPR.  There is often plenty of repetition between them and I probably don't even need 1440.  I am interested in what's happening but there is a limit.  I can see that what the news reporters and media decide to mention is a matter of judgment.  My interests tend to be somewhat limited and peculiar.  I admire Alexandra Banner who is credited with the text in CNN.  She tends to get across what happened without too much slant or judgment.

Recent books

I try to avoid buying Kindle books since I have so many already, many that I have paid for and own but haven't downloaded.  But sometimes, new ones appear that seem worth buying to get them into my account.  I wrote on Monday about taping the front of four Kindle readers to make it more convenient, easier and faster to know what is loaded into first position in that reader.  The four books were 

Mindfulness on the Go by Jan Chozen Bays, MD

The Man's Guide to Women by John and Julie Gottman

Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia

Longevity for the Lazy by Richard Malish, MD

I was reading The Last Boat Out of Shanghai aloud but decided I wanted to drop it.  It was a selection of Lynn's book club.  We moved on to How to Train a Wild Elephant by Jan Bays instead.

"Meet Me Next Christmas", the universe and us

We watched some of "Meet Me Next Christmas".  The heroine sits next to an interesting man and eventually they offer to meet next Christmas if by then, they are each interested.  By next Christmas, she is and tries to follow up.  They purposely avoided exchanging contact information, letting "the universe" and fate either let them get together or not.  We didn't watch to the end but, of course, expecting the universe to guide a life is asking quite a lot.

My first English course in college included the woman I have been married to for more than 6 decades.  The first event that put her on my radar was the professor calling the roll and saying about calling her name, "That's Finnish, isn't it?"  She agreed that her name was Finnish.  I was interested in ancestry and still am.  

Later, after dating and marrying, I had learned of the Finnish epic poem, The Kalevala, and checked our college library.   They had a translation into English, Of course, I noticed the translator was William F. Kirby.  Not exactly my name but close enough!  The universe was a little late, but helpful anyway. 

Later still, we both submitted our saliva to two separate genetic companies who explain where a person's ancestors came from.  Hers included Finnish, Cuban and Spanish.  How in the world do Finns, Cubans and Spanish get together?  Mining.  There were mines in Michigan and mines in Cuba.  A Swedish-Finn man was a roving troubleshooter in Michigan when trouble in a Cuban mine needed him.  While there, he met an attractive young woman.  Thanks, universe!