Getting along together is trcky

A friend of mine felt down because a person of another ethnic group had achieved so much more in life.  It was clear that being born into that group brings many stresses and obstacles, often subtle slights and cuts that the inexperienced wouldn't notice or read as the negative wishes and actions that they are.  Over time, this friend seems to have forgiven personal self-failure to attain high position when others with more burdens did so.

As my group of learners in retirement plans its set of presentations and trips for the coming fall, we find here in the US and during the last days of Black History Month, plenty of reference to human origins, ancestors, physical appearance and related subjects.  Our current political situation emphasizes group contrasts, often in a disrespectful and harmful way.

Last night, I watched TED talks by Prof. Brittney Cooper, Miriam Zolla Perez and Dr. Dena Simmons, each informative and moving. All are available on the TED Talks website.  I ordered "Dreams from my Father" by Barack Obama and I have "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Cooper emphasizes the fact that things in the US for people who are not white are often painful, dangerous and slow, slow, slow to improve:

Let me loop back to the past quickly to give you an example. If you think about the Civil Rights Movement and the cries of its leaders for "Freedom Now," they were challenging the slow pace of white social inclusion. By 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed, there had been a full 100 years between the end of the Civil War and the conferral of voting rights on African-American communities. Despite the urgency of a war, it still took a full 100 years for actual social inclusion to occur.

Since 2012, conservative state legislatures across the US have ramped up attempts to roll back African-American voting rights by passing restrictive voter ID laws and curtailing early voting opportunities. This past July, a federal court struck down North Carolina's voter ID law saying it "... targeted African-Americans with surgical precision."

Double happiness

I understand that the Chinese symbol referred to in English as "double happiness" stands for marriage.  You can see the symbol in Google but I am reluctant to insert it or a picture of it or a link to an instance since I am still suffering from spam filters.  The symbol looks a bit like two capital T's together: TT but the vertical parts of the T's have what suggests body parts like heads, arms and bodies.  The symbol in brass hangs on our bedroom wall so I get to see it every day. 

There are two dogs that live across the street from us, with two separate families.  By chance, they are both the same Pomsky breed.  I wrote about the two of them in my post of last November 10th.  

If you ever catch the sight of one of the dogs in his large fenced-in pen, and the other seeing the neighbor walking toward him with a leash in hand, you will see a demonstration of how to express joy and excitement with your body, especially if you are four-legged and quite young (about one year, or about seven in human years).  To express anticipation of deep fun, you bark and leap about.  You twist this way and that, keeping your feet in touch with the ground as little as possible.

As the neighbor leads the dog toward the pen, the excitement and anticipation continue.  Once inside the pen, the visitor stands still so that the transfer leash can be removed.  Free!  Both dogs are free!  They run together at top speed, keeping their shoulders in contact.  At some point, one of them will bodycheck the other in an attempt to bowl him over.  If it works, the one will stand over the one downed and grip all parts of his face and head and neck in his teeth while the other does the same to his friend.

They are the very picture, a model, of double happiness.

It started with a beautiful flower

It started with a beautiful flower.  The amaryllis blossom shown on the Amaryllis Alert page of my Google web site Kirbyvariety is a sexy, gentle, encouraging color, especially when viewed against the snow outside its window.  I hesitate to insert a direct link to the page since I have had rejections and delays getting photos and links to recipients of the blog.

By the way, just to further confuse things, there actually seems to be a flower called "Kirby variety Amaryllis".  You can imagine the confusion (and possibilities for poetry and humor, for kidding and sly digs) people and bots and semi-intelligent machines can find in the two sets of words.  I got a little peeved at the limitations of sending one little photo or even a link to a photo.  I had heard of another Google service called Google Groups.  I looked into it and for some purposes, creating a more or less closed group might be good.  That still leaves open the question of what kinds of messages can be exchanged and how easily.  

Not long ago, I read "What Hath God Wrought" by Daniel W. Howe.  I am interested in the overall effect of the telegraph and the railroad.  But the book and possibly my own age, got me interested in the broader, more far-reaching question of history.  I grew up in an era when it was common to say that history began with writing and before writing, there was no history but "pre-history".  Ok, but as detection and forensic procedures get more powerful, more insightful and more helpful, we can go farther back into the past.  

So, I did, with The 10,000 Year Explosion, The Invisible History of the Human Race and other books.  That got me into genetics and the ongoing evolution of humans, which I came to see is very much related to both our brains and our language.  With communication in speech and writing, we augment our brains with the brains of others.  But as the internet and cellphones expand our communication to include more and more others and types of others, we can expect more disagreements, more shocked and outraged readers, writers, speakers and reactions.

We already have the situation where people have multiple phone numbers, several secretaries and assistants, multiple email addresses, multiple residences or no residence.  Previously, we often assumed everyone had a phone or an address.  Now, that is no longer a single, reliable arrangement and many of our ways of communication are up for grabs by causes, organizations, institutions as well as our actual, human friends.

I again had trouble

My amaryllis plant has bloomed and it is quite lovely.  I explained the troubles I had in today's post when I tried to send pictures of it.  I tried a different approach today: sent a link to my web site Kirbyvariety and the page with pictures of the plant. The post has evidently been intercepted as spam, too. Sorry !

Spring moves forward (second try)

(I just sent this out for today's blog but it appears to have been intercepted by scam filters.  I am going to try again with only the non-live link at the bottom.  Apologies if you get two copies.)

I was impressed with the strong showing the amaryllis bulb made when it first shot some giant leaves up from the buffet flower pot where it lives.  As it grew bigger and stronger and put up some stalks for flowers, it was even more cheerful.  I thought it would cheer to the recipients of this blog so I sent out a blog post with two pictures in it.

Unfortunately, the two pictures were not properly modified.  They were far too big and they tripped the Google spam and transmission filters.  Not just Google but many other systems blog recipients use rejected that post.  Out of courtesy and caution, I got about 150 separate warnings that this recipient and that recipient did not receive the post but one system or another would try again later.  Later, they all tried again but the post was unchanged and was finally rejected.  I got 150 additional warnings that the message (it might have been very important!) was not delivered.

That was all great fun but I am trying to avoid a repeat.  The amaryllis is now an attractive flower, in a light pink shade that gets me.  I have put all three pictures on a web page for your viewing delight.  Hope you get all turned on and weepy over the beauty of life and things of that sort.

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/amaryllis-alert will take you to the pictures or copy the link below into your favorite browser.  

(To me, the plant and its lovely shade of pink is worth seeing but I guess there is more and more of a battle to sort out spam.)

Spring moves forward

I was impressed with the strong showing the amaryllis bulb made when it first shot some giant leaves up from the buffet flower pot where it lives.  As it grew bigger and stronger and put up some stalks for flowers, it was even more cheerful.  I thought it would cheer to the recipients of this blog so I sent out a blog post with two pictures in it.

Unfortunately, the two pictures were not properly modified.  They were far too big and they tripped the Google spam and transmission filters.  Not just Google but many other systems blog recipients use rejected that post.  Out of courtesy and caution, I got about 150 separate warnings that this recipient and that recipient did not receive the post but one system or another would try again later.  Later, they all tried again but the post was unchanged and was finally rejected.  I got 150 additional warnings that the message (it might have been very important!) was not delivered.

That was all great fun but I am trying to avoid a repeat.  The amaryllis is now an attractive flower, in a light pink shade that gets me.  I have put all three pictures on a web page for your viewing delight.  Hope you get all turned on and weepy over the beauty of life and things of that sort.

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/amaryllis-alert will take you to the pictures or copy the link below into your favorite browser.

https://sites.google.com/site/kirbyvariety/amaryllis-alert

How

The last of the interrogatives is the lonely H, How.  It asks about method: how do you make a pie?  How was he killed?  A dissertation, a thesis that reports an experiment or scientific investigation often has five chapters:

Introduction -What this is about [How I look at this question?]

Review of Related Research - History [How others have worked on this?

Method - How this was done

Results - What happened [How it turned out?]

Conclusions and Implications - what it all seems to me to mean, for now and later [How I recommend we think about this matter?]

This is what I now feel I know and you too can do what I did and see why I think the way I do.

In today's complex, highly interconnected and educated world, it is not easy to specify all the details of How something was done is or is to be done.  Even with the best directions and checked and re-checked wording and explanation, there may still be ambiguity, misunderstanding and confusion.

It sounds good and it is, but there are holes.  One is who is paying for all this?  How am I living while doing this research?  If political forces and wealthy commercial interests are financing questions of How and nudging research toward desired subjects and results and away from those not favored, we may be a distorted view of what is and what is not.

Why

Why is probably the toughest of the interrogatives, the five W's and the one H.  It asks for the cause and causes are tricky.

We learned in statistics that "correlation is not causation", meaning events that happen with other events may not be their cause.  Every time my fork is raised to my mouth bearing food, my mouth opens but the nearness of the fork to my mouth does not cause it to open.  Finding causes assists in our efforts to understand and control our world.  Who wants to control their world?  Nearly everyone at times.  When I discover I have measles, I would like to discover the cause of getting the disease so I can avoid getting it again and your getting it.

I think it is funny how I decided I liked experimentation as a young man and figuring out the world as it actually works but I never noticed the role of memory and history in that process. If we don't know what steps were taken in the experiment and how the sample being used was found and experimented on, we can't do much with the experiment.

In grad school, I was ok with taking a course in the history of psychology but I had no expectation that the course would be a valuable as it was. The text we used in that class, "The History of Experimental Psychology" by Edward Boring (I kid you not) got me thinking about causes and causation.  The text asked "Why is this apple tree growing here?"  Answers: because Grandpa planted it there but also because it got adequate sun and rain and also because no large animal grazed on it or stepped on it and because no plant virus or fungus infected it.

A technique to stimulate good thinking about a phenomenon is the use of five Why's.  

1. Why did my mom date my dad?  Because my parents were attracted to each other.  

2. Why were they attracted to each other? Because both had good shapes and high levels of hormones.

3. Why did they have good shapes and high hormone levels?  Because they had good nutrition and were the right age for sex hormones.

4. Why did they have good nutrition and the right age?  

5. ________________________

Sometimes, like parents beleaguered by a three year old who has gotten into the why-why-why game, we stop without getting to #5 but sometimes the answers are indeed helpful and move our thinking to new areas for thought and investigation.

Who

Who did it?

Who is that?

Who do you like?

I know who you are.

I saw a scattering of feathers on the ground, likely the scene of a predator catching a bird.  I didn't ask "Who did this?" because I learned to generally use Who for people.  What's a person?  We both know the answer but it is still a valuable question.  When you look into the eyes of one of the great apes, you can see a similarity to people you know.  When you do that with a reconstruction of an ancient human such as a Neanderthal, you can see someone Who is a Who, although different from Who we are.

Some writing and thinking has been done on the emerging concept of an individual.  I read a few years ago that knocking on the door of a rural Chinese farmhouse a couple of centuries ago when there was only an 18 year old servant inside would have brought an answer that there was nobody home.  The writer conveyed the idea that the young woman actually did mean nobody was home because she didn't think of herself as anybody.  She wasn't just humble, she was not a person. Today, we might add "she was not a person in her own mind" or "in her opinion" but it takes a few centuries to decide that such a matter is open to opinion and not a fact.

If you look up "the history of the concept of individual", you can find some of the emerging thinking about the subject.  I think that roughly speaking the concept is about changing social ranks from truly and actually superior and inferior to more or less equal.  It is not just a trumpet of liberty sounding, although emerging ideas of freedom and individual rights and abilities certainly are part of the story of Who.  But, it is also the story of realizing that you are yourself and you like pineapples and can be a real pain but are also loveable.  When I understand the facts and typical trajectories of you, I know you as a person, an individual unlike any other, before or since.  

The Buddhists make a big deal of the fact that there is no Who in me, that when the scientists do an autopsy on me, they won't find the Self organ.  Others are more likely to say that my habits, thoughts and body make a bundle conveniently thought of as Me but that Me is always being transformed by time, experience and conscious modifications such as study and practice.  I can forget about Who I am or I can search for some more comfortable and capable version of Myself.  Alfred North Whitehead and Buckminster Fuller were more likely to say I am a ongoing process.

Where

The first book to come to mind in the matter of Where is "Longitude" by Dava Sobel.  Might not sound all that interesting but it is a thrilling book on the way men sailed and got very lethally lost without being able to measure longitude, how far around the globe they were. The sun helped with latitude but longitude was horrible.

So:

Where?  Here!

Where?  There, over there.  Overseas.  Some place else.

Not in my backyard.

In a galaxy far, far away.

Where the wild things are.

Where are my keys?

Where was I, Class?

Where?  Where they do things differently.

Where?  Where I can live a better life.

Where?  Go to hell.

Where am I?

Where was I?

Where was I yesterday?

Where do you live?

Where have you been?

Where have you been all my life?

Where was I at the time of the crime?

As with When, we have mysteries. We don't know everything about Where we are or Where we could be.  The same Dava Sobel has written about Copernicus and his better way of thinking about the local universe.  It was still in the 1920's that some astronomers thought that the Milky Way, our constellation, was the entire universe.  Again, Dava Sobel has written about the women "computers" (no electronic computers yet) at Harvard who figured ways to measure the distance to some stars and show that many were much further away than our neighbors in this galaxy.

You can take a minute to put "famous women astronomers" in Google and learn about Vera Rubin and the current theories of dark matter.  Many male astronomers have helped us know more about Where we are, including those who showed that the universe is expanding.

If you want to learn about Where, try Google Earth, which can show you the bottoms of the oceans and Where you live.  See the movie "The Martian" to get an idea of Where we may go some day.

I overheard a colleague talking with a student.  "Well, who is your advisor?"  

"Dr. Kirby"

"Well, Dr. Kirby may be able to be in two places at once."

I thought of that statement when I sat in a classroom and could hear myself teaching in the next room (on video tape).

When

We have heard of the five W's and 1 H:

1. What

2. When

3. Where

4. Who

5. Why

6. And How

These are the English interrogatives and Wikipedia labels them a formula for getting a complete story about something.

I was surprised by Ezra Bayda's explanation of the power of What to focus attention on the current moment.  I have been watching for abstractions of thought and imagination, facing the fact that honor, duty, yesterday's experiences and what is likely to happen tomorrow are all abstractions, often helpful, maybe essential to human operations but still not real in the same sense that this desk is real.  

You may be familiar with "The Power of Now" and Eckhart Tolle's emphasis on the value of being present in the now.  So, when?  Now!  Sometimes.  But when my greatgrandson wants to know "When will I be an adult?", we kick the concept of adult around a bit, do a calculation and try to indicate a time in the future.

You know that is what they say dogs always answer to the question "What time is it?" "Now!"  But my greatgrandson has dreams and plans to be accomplished in the future and refuses to live like a dog.  (Probably couldn't if he wanted to, too bright, too spirited, too intelligent, too inquisitive, too language-conscious.)  He may develop some tools for stepping out of the imaginary flow of time, as Yogi Berra did:

Manager: What time is it?

Yogi: You mean now?

He may study scales of measurement and conclude that this is 2017 on a time scale with an arbitrary zero point, approximately the year of the birth of Jesus.  He may find that there are something like 60 calendars in use in different places and that we don't really know when When started.  

So, when?

When I tell you to

When hell freezes over

In 20 minutes

Next year at this time

How many times do I have to tell you?

Let me get back to you on that

What?

I am surprised by the impact this quote has had on me:

When life isn't going as we wish, practice is neither to seek explanation nor to assign blame. We can practice simply being with the "what" on as many levels as we can, rather than looking for the "why." Once again we ask the koan, "What is this?" The answer to the question is always our experience itself. This "what" is the present moment. And this is where real understanding lies: not in the mental world of "why," not in intellectual description, but in experiencing directly the ambiguous perceptual complexity of the present moment.

At Home in the Muddy Water:A Guide to Finding Peace within Everyday Chaosby Ezra Bayda, page 26

I had never noticed the relation between What and one of my favorite questions these days.  The question "What's a _____________?" has been helping me keep track of the meaning of words.  What's a valet?  What's a commode?  What's an Instagram? Some old-fashioned things are referred to by words that are not familiar to today's young people.  In fact, take a look at the eye-opening book "The African Svelte" by Daniel Menaker to see some surprising twists recently given to rather common expressions.

(The word "svelte" derives from Italian and means slim and lean while "veldt" comes from Afrikaans and means the landscape in parts of South Africa. The book is about poetic and inspiring mixups as in "she was a pillow of strength", which is exactly what some women are.)

"What is this?" may be a question you can easily answer or it may be a toughie.  But Bayda's point in the quote is that focusing on what is in front of you and answering the question in simple, direct and immediate terms can help you step out of the forest of abstractions, memories and guesses about the future.  You can rest a bit in this moment, this present.  You can hear, see, smell, taste and feel what is right here now.

(An example of how things are changing: a used hardback of the Bayda book is available from several sellers for $.01 plus shipping or for $21.99 for an e-copy.)

Respect for our eyes and ears

Our drive faces south so when I drive in or out, the rising sun is on our right, the east side.  Today has been quite warm, 50° F and warmer.  The snow on our roof is melting and dripping off the roof.  The dripping is a good sign of spring and warmth.  Each drop of melt sparkles in the morning sunlight and is beautiful, especially pretty when the drop strikes the sidewalk beneath and shatters.

I wanted to get a picture of the falling sparkles. I tried a photo with my iPad and I tried a video.  The photo caught no sparkle at all.  It just showed a wet sidewalk.  A wet sidewalk in bright sunlight either means melting and warmth or it means it is raining.  But it was the sparkle I was after.  

Ok, the falling drops are moving so I tried a video.  Nope.  No deal.  Just a tiny indication of drops with the briefest possible twinkle.  Not inspiring or noteworthy.  So, let that be a lesson: our eyes and ears are advanced instruments and can do things all the time and quickly and easily that many semi-advanced pieces of equipment can't accomplish.  You had to be there to see the sunlight, the splatter of the drops and the marvelous sparkles of the collusion between newly melted snow melt and the cement sidewalk.

Our eyes and ears, in low light and high noise, under a wide range of conditions, do marvelous things all the time.  You can take it all for granted but when you are older and grayer, you may pause and think what a wonder you have been since your conception. We are actually pretty cool!

[I got about 30 bounces this morning from yesterday's emailed.  It was only two pictures, the amaryllis on Feb. 4 and on the 16th.  I thought the contrast and the growth were heartening.  If you want to see them, look up the blog page for Fear, Fun and Filoz.  I suspect the photos were too large.]

Feb. 4

Feb. 16

What about religion?

I met with the hospital chaplain today to get my end of life directive in shape.  She told me that the hospital is under new management and there is an increased emphasis on having such documents on hand and in good shape.  

Among many people I know, religion has dropped in importance and emphasis in life.  But many of the questions that prompt religious thought and practice still loom large in life: Am I a bad person?  Will I be punished or pleased in an afterlife?  What is life about?  Do I deserve the life I have?  Have I lived as well as I could have?

Philosophy, modern and older, has wrestled with these questions for millennia and no doubt will continue to do so.  But modern communication and knowledge storage and science alters the situation quite deeply.  We can find answers to questions in more places and in more forms and from more sources and thinkers and traditions than our grandparents or their grandparents ever could.

Whether it is legal prompting, or medical discoveries or scientific theories or advances, the natural questions that an inquiring mind comes up with about our lives, our purposes, our pasts and our futures still get raised.  Rising levels of education, better methods of inquiry, competition among scientists and between commercial organizations and between nations all push for new answers and re-examination of old answers.  

No matter how comfortable a person is with their thought and religious position, it is possible that when disease or accidents or warfare or crime happen, we can suddenly be gripped by big terrors or little niggling fears.  We may find comfort in some of the same rituals and practices and words that previously comforted people.  We may find comfort in modifications of what was done before and we may well find new ideas, new words and new methods to face doubts and confusion, loss and pain.

Arguments and reasoning

When I listen to a discussion of logical reasoning, I get the feeling that what I am hearing is not very related to the ideas and mental experience of many people.  

    All men are mortal.

    Socrates is a man

    Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Maybe so, but those who like the fellow don't want him to die.  They are hoping he doesn't die for a long time.  Meanwhile, those who don't like the man and his endless questioning are hoping he kicks the bucket real soon.

So, already we can see the liking and the disliking.  We can see timing involved: Can he postpone dying for a long time, like 60 years?  Can he hurry it up and expire soon, like tomorrow?

Besides, when my boss or my hero says he hopes Socky lasts a long time, and I like my boss and my hero, too, I decide I hope the old questioner lasts another century, too.  Mortal, schmortal, I am in with the supporters.  Argument, schmargument, I don't want him to die and I am going to moan and groan if he does, just as loudly and with the same heartfelt sounds as the other mourners.

The philosophers and the logicians and the mathematicians discuss valid inferences but if my cousin is on the side of those in favor of the Gadfly drawing his last breath, I support heroic measures to sustain his life.  I have never liked my cousin and what he likes, I don't.  

Oh, wait a minute.  Is Socrates that old guy who hangs around the Acropolis muttering about virtue and slave boys?  Oh, I thought you meant that other guy, the one my cousin hates and my boss likes.  That man's not Socrates?  Oh, forget the whole thing, then.  I don't care one way or another.  I am not involved.  Not my problem.

Helping harder

We have the example of Jesus and we have Servant Leadership.  We have people who have found joy in helping others.  But my astute friend gets irritated with those who are always helping others but fend off being helped themselves.  If helping others gives you a lift, why not share that good feeling by letting someone help you?  It is true that it is sometimes harder to accept help than to give it.  

Much as you want to be independent, you can't really be.  You are already sharing the world made by others, using a language you didn't invent, participating in order you didn't create and don't enforce, benefitting from inventions and discoveries by the ancient Chinese to today's scientists.  Just as you accept all that graciously and gratefully, accept a favor or a gift from another.  Or, if you are strong enough for a greater challenge, accept a compliment, thankfully and sincerely and directly.

Special message

Happy Valentine's Day!

Repetitious delights

I have only lived one life.  I have thought about it, tried to examine what has happened as far as I can remember.  Naturally, I have considered my memories and of course, some memories stand out.  I have some favorites and they are favorites because they are especially important.  When you say, tell me about yourself, it is those important memories that I recite. These important memories are among my best anecdotes.  I skip over the times I washed dishes and emptied the trash.  

Over time, I have come to think of the first time I was responsible for 40 college students for several months abroad, my visit to Nice, the time I got in trouble for climbing a tree on the school ground and when I caused alarm with a short note about the death of our school principal.  I remember the time an inexperienced driver like me got out of the camp vehicle, locking the door but not setting the parking brake, only to find the carefully locked car rolling down a hill without a driver.  

So, please forgive me if I settle on the events that scared me the most or made me proudest or happiest.  There is a rather small set of them and I know them well.  They tend to come right to mind.  I used to ask if I had told them to you but I delight in re-telling and reliving them so now I just rely on your patience and start in on them.  If you really don't want to hear them again, just put your hands over your ears and scream,"No, no, not again!"

Fwd: Bill Kirby: 100 Kindle books for $1 each

I confess to having way more books than I have read and continuing to contemplate acquiring still more.  I don't want to read too many bodice-rippers (what's a bodice?) or swashbuckler (what's a swashbuckler?) but I haven't read one in a while.  Some of these have high ratings and sound good.

Your Amazon.com     Today's Deals     See All Departments   Treat yourself to a new book with this selection of 100 Kindle titles for $1 each through February 28, 2017. Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim   Price: $1.00   Learn more   The Good Neighbor by A. J. Banner   Price: $1.00   Learn more   Game of Fear (A Montgomery Justice Novel Book 3) by Robin Perini   Price: $1.00   Learn more   Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey   Price: $1.00   Learn more   In Her Sights (A Montgomery Justice Novel Book 1) by Robin Perini   Price: $1.00   Learn more   Behind the Lies (A Montgomery Justice Novel Book 2) by Robin Perini   Price: $1.00   Learn more   Chains of Command (Frontlines Book 4) by Marko Kloos   Price: $1.00   Learn more   Infinity Rises (The Infinity Trilogy Book 2) by S. Harrison   Price: $1.00   Learn more       Browse all     Find Great Deals on Millions of Items Storewide Books Movies & TV CDs & Vinyl Digital Music Fire Tablets Electronics Video Games Computers & Software Office & School Supplies Clothing, Shoes & More Health & Personal Care Toys & Games Sports & Outdoors Amazon Dash Button Amazon Echo Amazon Fire TV Kindle E-readers Connect with us   We hope you found this message to be useful. However, if you'd rather not receive future e-mails of this sort from Amazon.com, please unsubscribe here Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time this newsletter was sent; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com. © 2016 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210. Reference: 226625640 Please note that this message was sent to the following e-mail address: olderkirby@gmail.com