Frosty the Snowman

December 30, 2008 | Iowa,Weather,Winter

Was a jolly happy soul

With a John Deere hat and a carrot nose

And two eyes made out of … beer-bottle caps

At least that’s how the story goes around here.

Merry Grinchmas

December 23, 2008 | Holidays

I’ve got gifts to wrap and food to prepare, but we’re just not ready for Christmas until we’ve seen How the Grinch Stole Christmas! We just watched it … so, bring it on!

Happy and merry to everyone in Whoville, er, Blogland!

Books: Hold on to Your Kids

December 22, 2008 | Books,Family,Parenting

I recently read Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Maté, M.D.

I picked it up because Izzy mentioned it. She said Christina recommended it to her.

Good book.

Never the twain shall meet?

Books,Politics

I just finished reading Patriotic Grace by Peggy Noonan.

Who knew I’d find similar quotes, opinions and themes to what Studs Terkel wrote in his memoir?

Noonan: Part of what I’m saying has been said, better, by Bruce Cole, the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in a speech at New York University in the summer of 2002. He warned of “American amnesia,” noted a study of students at 55 elite universities that found over a third couldn’t identify the U.S. Constitution as establishing the division of powers in our government; 40 percent couldn’t place the American Civil War in the correct half century; and two-thirds didn’t know what the word “Reconstruction” referred to. “Citizens kept ignorant of their history are robbed of the richness of their heritage. . . . A nation that does not know why it exists, or what it stands for, cannot be expected to long endure. . . . We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision.”

Terkel: Memory. How can we have memory if we don’t have any knowledge? If we have no history, no memory of what happened yesterday, let alone what happened fifty years ago? . . . What happens to all Alzheimer’s sufferers is tragic. What I’m talking about is what I call a national Alzheimer’s — a whole country has lost its memory. When there’s no yesterday, a national memory becomes more and more removed from what it once was, and forgets what it once wanted to be. We’re sinking under our national Alzheimer’s disease. With Alzheimer’s you forget what you did yesterday. With Alzheimer’s finally, you forget not only what you did, but also who you are. In many respects, we have forgotten who we are.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Iowa,Weather,Winter

No school today.

No, it’s not a Snow Day. It’s not snowing.

It’s a Zoinks!-It’s-how-cold?!? Day. Or a By-the-time-we-get-the-buses-warmed-up-school-will-be-over Day. Or Your-ears-will-pop-off-your-head-in-two-minutes Day.

How cold is it? Depends who you ask.

That was first thing this morning. The Internet is telling me it’s still minus-17 degrees out there.

Ah well. I guess it’s like the snow. I laugh when they say how many inches of snow we got. How do they know? It could be 2 inches or 24. The way the wind blows it around, it’s hard to tell.

We’ve got 3-foot snowdrifts next to the house and a 6-foot wall of snow in back.

Now if it would just warm up (I’d take, oh, 10 degrees at least), the kids will have tons of fun digging and building forts in all that snow. They also want to build a snowman. Heck, they can build a whole village of snowmen out there.

From lizards to blizzards

December 21, 2008 | Iowa,Weather,Winter

We have tons of snow, and the kids are dying to make a snowman. But there’s not enough “bundling up” to be had to make me send them out in minus-10 degrees and 40 mph winds … you know … a blizzard. (I don’t care what the Norwegians and Swedes say: “No bad weather, only bad clothes.” Yeah, whatever.)

I know I’ve said it before, but … brrrrrrrrr!

I’m dreaming of a pink Christmas

December 19, 2008 | Iowa,Weather,Winter

Christmas past

Christmas present (snow day #2)

Books: Touch and Go

December 17, 2008 | Books

I just finished reading Studs Terkel’s memoir, Touch and Go. Anyone?

That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me

George Bush,Iraq,Media,Politics,SNL,Television,U.S. government

That’s what President George W. Bush said after ducking shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist.

See? Everyone’s a comedian. Maybe he’s lobbying for Amy Pohler’s old job on Saturday Night Live.

Dude, where’s my $700 billion?

Banks,Economics,Ethics,Leslie Bennetts,Movies,No clothes!,Politics,SLBTM,U.S. government

Headline of the day. But, then, I’m partial to the whole Dude headline theme. Maybe I should see the movie, eh?