I grew up in a house that didn’t value the work of hands, deeming it lower class. The adults’ skills in this regard varied, but the important thing was that whatever skills they possessed weren’t passed along to the next generation. Intellectual work was valued, not for itself, but for what it could garner in [...]
Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category
*Power Tools for Women
Posted in My Life, tagged a woman of valour, power tools for women on November 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
*Full Circle
Posted in Music, My Life, tagged Marilyn Lerner on November 20, 2009 | 7 Comments »
When I was five, my family moved to a new neighbourhood. It was May 1st and I was in kindergarten, starting at a new school, where the 12 year olds looked to me about the same size as the teachers, and I wasn’t sure which was which in the schoolyard. My stuffed animals and paints [...]
*Monday Nov 16/09
Posted in A Monday Moment, Art & Photography, My Life, tagged autumn rose on November 16, 2009 | 10 Comments »
The only remarkable thing about this photo is that I took it on Friday while walking home from the art gallery. It was in the garden of a Ukrainian church, too far from the hedge protecting it for me to check if it was fragrant. But it was the gift of a sunny day, surprisingly [...]
*Dead Sea Scrolls
Posted in Jewish History & Culture, My Life, Nature & Science, tagged dead sea scrolls, friendship on November 12, 2009 | 10 Comments »
I couldn’t take any pictures, cameras being forbidden at this special exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. I went to see the scrolls a week ago Wednesday with an old friend of mine, AB. (And as an aside, haven’t posted most of this week because of being under the weather due to side effects of [...]
*This Is About Bras
Posted in My Life, Politics & Economy, tagged the origin of bras on November 3, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Let’s start with the word. It comes from French for “arm protector,” referring to military uniforms that morphed into breast plates. Hence the mighty brassiere that I remember from my childhood: steely, pointy, sometimes lengthy undergarments which extended into a girdle, stuffing everything in and keeping it rigid.
As an aside, the current French term [...]
*Today: Go Forth
Posted in My Life, Spirituality, tagged Halloween and healing, Lech Lecha on October 31, 2009 | 10 Comments »
For most people in our culture October 31 is a day of fun, a day to mock traditional icons of evil, spurn death, costume oneself in an alternative identity. It is a day of acquiring masses of goodies, which is more than gold to children.
For some people, this is a day of fear. There are [...]
* Piggie Update and Books
Posted in Literature, My Life, tagged Books, h1n1 on October 30, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Children are doing well, bouncing off the walls because they feel healthy and have to stay home today. We’ll be having a couple more of same. We played 2 games of Clue, whereupon I bailed due to the extreme giddiness of said children and the poking of my bottom with a pen every time I [...]
*Pig Has Landed
Posted in My Life, tagged h1n1 on October 28, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Yup. Yesterday after school, both my daughters came down with a high fever and cough. One of them headachey, the other with sore leg muscles. Sore tummy. Fatigued. Today we took them to the pediatrician. She confirmed what I suspected. Though she can’t say 100% sure (because in our fair province only hospitals are allowed [...]
*Reunion
Posted in Adoption, My Life, Spirituality, tagged adoption reunion on October 27, 2009 | 10 Comments »
This weekend we had a reunion. It was the best kind, where nobody was showing off, and nobody dreaded being seen as a loser, the very thought of such a thing, in the context, being preposterous. It was the kind of reunion that makes people wish they saw each other more often, and regret having [...]
*Blog Action Day: Bikes and Feet
Posted in My Life, tagged bicycles, blog action day, Climate change on October 15, 2009 | 14 Comments »
The theme of this year’s Blog Action Day is climate change. There are many science bloggers who have a lot to say about this a lot more knowledgeably than I can. But my post today isn’t here to warn, admonish, or predict.
I want to talk about bikes and the joy of them. My first [...]
*Standing on the Roof
Posted in My Life, tagged fall views on October 9, 2009 | 11 Comments »
We took the air conditioner out of the bedroom window on Wednesday. The window now offers a good sized view, just over four feet by four feet, or 1 3/4 sq metres facing east. The window slides sideways, which is a pain for the a/c but lovely for a breeze, and I climbed [...]
*Positive Psychology
Posted in My Life, Nature & Science, Spirituality, tagged happiness, peace, positive psychology on October 8, 2009 | 11 Comments »
About ten years old, positive psychology studies how individuals and communities can thrive. A reaction against psychology as the study of mental illness, it aims to redress the imbalance in understanding human nature and what makes us happy and healthy and peaceful individually and socially.
This reminds me of a book I read years ago: The [...]
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