The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Vindicated
(Apologies in advance to everyone in my real life who has heard this story a hundred times.)
I was home from college and getting ready to put up the Christmas tree in our living room. I turned on the family room TV for some noise and walked away. Several minutes later, I heard an evil little voice calling:
“Children…Lollipops!!”
And froze in a panicky moment of deja vu.
I went back to the family room to look. The movie was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Dick van Dyke was in some town where children were outlawed and there was a bad man that collected all of the children and imprisoned them. So the adults are at some meeting somewhere and the children are told to stay put and the bad man lures them out of their hiding place with lollipops.
Somehow, I had seen this as a child and been so utterly terrified by the concept that I’d blocked it out of my head.
Most people find it utterly hilarious that my, “what movie really scared you as a kid” is Chitty Chitty Freakin’ Bang Bang. But there it is.
Yesterday, my brother e-mailed me this list of 17 Surprisingly Scary Kids’ Movie Moments. Number Four, Baby:
If that isn’t enough for you, here is the scene on YouTube. It still creeps me out.
P.S. I have still not seen Bambi. When I was a child, my mother determined that no child should have to contemplate the death of her mother, so it was banned. I was at least in junior high before Snow White and Cinderella. If you ask her today, my mother will tell you that The Lion King is equally unacceptable. How this shit got past her is totally beyond me.
Frozen Dog Treats
Several weeks ago, when Chicago was in the midst of the heat wave, my social media feeds were all talking about ways to keep our pets cool. One that I found interesting was chicken broth ice cubes.
I am already in the habit of making pumpkin pops for my dogs. Literally take canned pumpkin, spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze. They think it is the best treat ever and the extra fiber does them good.
So I went looking for some low sodium chicken broth and found that one is way lower sodium than the others. Makes sense since it is organic:
I used two cups (half the package) and two cups of water, which was more than enough to fill three ice cube trays. The dogs love them. And seriously, between this and the pumpkin I am not feeding them a whole lot of cookies. And you gotta believe this is way less expensive.
Dog Treat Kitchen has several more recipes for the creative types, and I will hang on to the site in case my dogs start to get bored. But so far, so good.
Louisville – Day 2
We had an afternoon free, so a few of us took the Louisville city tour. First stop was in..Indiana. The Ohio Falls with the statue of Lewis & Clark:
Then we drove around a few neighborhoods and looked at the Victorian architecture. Apparently, one can buy a lovely Victorian home for around $200,000. But one would have to spend a fortune remodeling it to modern standards of acceptable plumbing and light.
Then we went to Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum. I seem to have forgotten that Barbaro was buried there, but by the end of the tour I had told my friend Dave the entire story (tour guide confirmed my facts) and managed not to cry.
I did not shoot the grandstand very well.
Did ok with the Derby winner’s circle.
And that was pretty much it. We had dinner at Ri Ra Irish pub, which I now know to be a chain. Guinness BBQ burger was very good.
For those keeping score, things are not yet back on track at UAL. This time, my luggage – which was on the correct plane and was scanned properly upon arriving at O’Hare – was somehow lost on its way to baggage claim. It was delivered to my house by their third party vendor the next morning. I have flown this airline almost exclusively for 20 years. These past five months since the merger have tested my faith.
Louisville – Day 1
I spent the better part of the week in Louisville, Kentucky for a meeting. We stayed at the Seelbach Hotel, one of the historic places. (Read as: smallest hotel room I have ever used in my life.) Very pretty, clean, pleasant staff, $10 a day for wifi and I was unimpressed by the pecan pie.
We had breakfast at a Panera across the street from the Convention Center. Seems they have a Horses on Parade thing going on:
We did one fancy dinner, at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse. The bonehead that put it on the FourSquare map called it a sushi place. Sushi is on the menu, but puleeze. Several of us started with the Freddie Salad. Very basic, but the awesome smoked bacon made it fabulous. I ordered the petite filet and was not mocked or glared at for requesting it well done. And this was dessert:
Brownie base, peanut butter mousse, chocolate shell and peanut butter ice cream (made on site). Two of us couldn’t take it down. This was a serious meal and I am glad we walked over there.
Went straight back to the hotel and pretty much right to sleep.
The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb
Book 31
I don’t love Wally Lamb the way most book clubby people do, but the guy can tell a story. The hook of The Hour I First Believed is Columbine. Guy is a teacher there and his wife is a school nurse. She was very close to the “action” that day, while he was out of town on family business. So a whole lot of this story is downhill.
PTSD is a common thread. War, abuse..there are other types of trauma and Lamb paints a canvas of Survivors and Not. The reader watches the story unfold to determine where or heroes are going to land and why.
Religion is almost a character in its own right, which is interesting. It sometimes felt heavy-handed (although that was certainly exacerbated by the impatience of the main character), but the “faith” part of Lamb’s survival formula seemed to be that We Cannot Control Everything and We’d Better Accept That. Which I totally buy.
The Scenes from a Marriage stuff seemed very realistic to me. The more he tries to fix things/ protect her, the more she pulls back/lashes out. I was generally on his side, which I blame on his being the narrator, never having experienced such a trauma myself and..I am sorry to say..the narrator on the audio version made all of the female characters sound like shrews. It was distracting.
Overall, very engaging. And way better than She’s Come Undone.
Heartland K9 Walk of Love 2012
All last summer I waited for Gibbs to be old enough (he didn’t finish his puppy shots until August) and mature enough to start doing charity walks with me. There are several local animal shelters and they all have such events when the weather is warm. However, since Gibbs has trouble with strangers, crowds and any other unfamiliar situation, Fiona has been elected.
Heartland Animal Shelter in Northbrook had a Run/Walk yesterday. I didn’t join a fundraising team. I just paid my registration in advance and showed up.
The 10K started at 8:30 in the morning and the walk was at 9:30. I arrived somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00 thinking that Fiona would want to smell everything and perhaps do her business before the walk.
I was right on one count.
She behaved beautifully. Politely introduced herself to people and dogs alike. She even let herself be bear-hugged by a young girl. (The child did ask if she could pet my dog and followed my instructions – “Go slow and be sure she sees you first.”) Also important – she was very patient as we waited for people to gather. Gibbs would have been whining to do something.
She pulled on the leash as the walk began and she stopped to do her business after about three minutes. (Never leave home without the baggies.) But she settled down eventually and went with the flow. It was only a 2K, which was vaguely disappointing because by the time I had her settled to the pace, I could have gone much further.
Heartland had several great sponsors – Whole Foods, Einstein Bagels and Dairy Queen are some that come to mind. I happen to know that Wags on Willow was a sponsor, but they couldn’t be there with a table because their complex is doing a sidewalk sale this weekend. And Sit Means Sit, a dog training service, had a demonstration.
Some pictures:
Sponsors setting up their tents.
The welcome sign.
The trainer from Sit Means Sit warming up the dogs. One fully trained and one puppy.
Fiona taking on the doggie ice cream provided by Dairy Queen. She pretty much has the whole cup in her mouth. She earned it.
Next up: Orphans of the Storm has a 2-Mile Walk on August 18. And Wright-Way Rescue, which brought us Gibbs, has a 5K on October 6.
The Early Middle Ages, Paul Freedman
I can’t seem to finish any books because I am spending all of my spare time on Academic Earth..I just finished Professor Freedman’s course The Early Middle Ages, 284 – 1000 A.D.
As the title of my blog suggests, I harbor no small fear that – as my 8th grade teacher suggested – civilization is descending into the Next Dark Age. One of the first things Freedman does is say that “we” don’t like the term. Another is that 470 A.D., when the Roman Empire is generally agreed to have fallen, was really only when the western part fell. Constantinople hung in there quite well for awhile and Byzantium is one of the “heirs of the empire” (the other two being Christianity and Islam, if memory serves).
Freedman seems to think the Middle Ages rock because anything can and does happen. He asserts that the people living in this time didn’t think of themselves as living in a “Dark Age”. They merely led simpler lives in smaller spheres than in the great days of Rome. Although it was admittedly rather more violent.
He warns us in the beginning that there is a lot of material on the Christian Heresies that not all students appreciate. We know about the many, many rulers and battles and assassinations and this course does a lot to dispel some old mythology from my high school recollection about how and why it all happened.
But yeah. A lot on religion.
My favorite statistics were regarding books and I wish I had written them down. Apparently, around the time of Charlemagne there were only a few hundred book titles in existence. Of those, something like 25 were not religious texts. Rather startling until you remember that the monks are pretty much the only literate people.
I particularly enjoyed the lectures on Byzantium and then the birth of Islam. Freedman tells a good story and I could watch him again. But I don’t feel any better about the state of western civilization.
Blankets 45-47 and the Community Blanket Concept
OMG I totally forgot to take pictures of the three finished blankets that I brought to Starbucks night.
One was a solid pink fleece with the variegated yarn from Joann Fabric.
The second was a solid purple blanket with a different variegated fleece from Joann Fabric.
The third was..it was that one where the holes were only cut on three sides and Karen had to fix it on Blanket Day last Saturday… what the heck was it..no. That was the pink one. Oh!
It was another Chicago Bears fleece. I seem to recall that I picked up two of them last month. Caron White yarn.
I will not make this mistake again. But just so I have some pictures, here is a new trick we are trying:
Small pieces of fleece are cut into squares and the holes are punched. Each volunteer takes one (or five) and crochets the edges:
Then they are stitched together into one blanket:
This was Penny’s idea, and she calls it a “community blanket”. We worked on a second one this week with larger squares and Penny has some different ideas about how to stitch it together. It is different, it is interesting, and it doesn’t take a group too terribly long. Awesome.
Postcards
I can’t believe I haven’t blogged this yet:
I have long been in the habit of sending postcards to my nephew, Alex, when I travel. When he was very small, it was mostly an excuse to send him snail mail of his very own. Like on Blue’s Clues. Later, I decided that it might be a way to spark an interest in geography. And finally, I wanted him to remember my existence when I am on the road a lot and not seeing him. These days, the postcards include his sisters.
A couple of weeks ago, Alex and his family went on a road trip to Hershey, PA. The first stop was in Ohio, and I received this:
It says, “Dear Aunt Anne, We liked the bust of Walter Payton. See you soon. Alex”
People, this is the best piece of mail I have ever received.
Fargo in July
I took a quick trip out to Fargo this week for a presentation. The weather was lovely and I quickly realized that as many times as I had visited North Dakota, I had never been there in the summer. Never walked through and enjoyed downtown Fargo in the daylight. I learned several things:
1. The downtown area has a noise ordinance. Quiet hours are 10pm to 6am. This is particularly interesting since Fargo is the home of North Dakota State University.
2. They don’t really need their coffee. The one coffee bar on Broadway doesn’t open until 6:30 in the morning. And when I arrived at 6:31, it wasn’t open yet! Do you know what would happen if my corner Starbucks opened five minutes late on a Wednesday morning?!
3. They have the same goofy art parades that we have.
Fargo was prepping for some kind of street fair when I was in town. Blocking off the streets and that kind of thing. I discovered that all of the cop cars in Fargo have license plates that say “POLICE” on them. Even the unmarked ones.
The streets were dead at 6:30 am and hopping at 7:00. The airport has been renovated which is mostly good except the restaurant with the famous beer cheese soup is gone. And my regular hotel is in the middle of a major facelift. I am hoping it is done by the time I get back in December.
‘Cause it will be back to ordering pizza by then.
The Next Dark Age 