The redbuds are blooming

Spring is on its way!

Take just a moment here, and go to Google. Enter the word “redbud” in the search box. Click on Images.

Isn’t that a beautiful page of pictures?

My one redbud tree is pinkish. It’s pretty much the first thing to flower in the spring. There’s not usually any warning. Leaves are falling everywhere, trees are bare, the herons and the coots are here for the winter, and one day, you look up, and the redbud tree is in bloom.

The forsythia, which always used to herald spring in my more northern existence lags far behind the redbud here. This year, my redbud is more lavishly decked out than in the past two years. I think it might be because we finished taking down a tree behind it that the previous owners had partially removed. Its trunk had been lowered to about six feet, but it was sprouting a new top. It was too close to the fence—and, hence, the neighbors’ house—which is the main reason for its removal. But it also helped to hem in the poor redbud which is hanging out under an oak and a sweetgum as well. Taking out that one tree trunk seems to have given it a little bit more light.

I’m not sure how it will fare long term.

There’s a magnolia planted next to it. Right next to it.

I suspect both trees would prefer to have a little more room, but I’ve nowhere to move one of them, and I hate to lose either, so I’m letting nature take its course.

So far, the magnolia has shown no signs of flowering, but maybe it will take up the challenge from the redbud and see if it can outdo its neighbor. Meanwhile, spring has sent its advance guard, and the redbud is blooming!

Circular Breathing

What is it?

This is a thing about which I have been wondering ever since I first read the liner notes on a CD collection called Global Celebrations. The notes in question are about a group called Angelin Tytöt (The Girls of Angeli). They call themselves Angelit, now, but I’m still wondering.

Anyway, the girls of Angeli are from Inari, a Lapp village in Finland, and they sing a form of folk music called joikhing. The notes talk about a circular breathing technique similar to Eskimo songs.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Eskimos singing.

So, that’s another thing to wonder about.

But, I liked this particular song called Normu Jovna, and I wondered what circular breathing is. At the time, the internet had not amassed the vast stores of information (and captioned cat pictures) that it now has, so I didn’t find out much.

Today, I can read entries and view lessons on circular breathing—although they seem to be aimed at the players of woodwind instruments, so I don’t know if it’s the same idea for singers. I still wonder about that.

For the instrumentalists, it appears to be a technique whereby you store the last little bit of breath in your lungs in your cheeks and use your check muscles to push it out while you inhale more air through your nose. (If that sounds a bit like rubbing your stomach while patting your head, it’s because it probably is.)

The idea is you get air without interrupting the flow of the music.

I can see how this could be very useful, although I haven’t been able to master it.

(Master it? I haven’t been able to sneak up on it with training wheels.)

However it is done, the joikhing has a happy sound. Since I don’t speak Finnish or Sami or Lapp or whatever it is, I have no idea what any of it means. But I like the sound of it.

This clip has a big of Normu Jovna at the start of it. And if you do happen to speak Finnish or Sami or Lapp or whatever, maybe you will understand the interview that follows. If you don’t, it has a happy sound, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lmgAGSNS0

Unintended Consequences

In which I am a little too law-abiding.

The Law of Unintended Consequences bit me a few weeks ago.

Some of you who friend me on Facebook already know about this – the day I lost all my writing. All my plays, all my short stories, all the children’s stories, my not-so-good and never-to-be-seen-again novel. The whole folder. Gone.

The reason I am still here and haven’t jumped off a bridge is because of the miracle of redundancy.

But for a little while there, it didn’t look like redundancy was going to help me. In fact, for a little while there, it seemed like redundancy was the cause of all my problems.

I try very hard to follow good computing practices. I have an anti-virus program. I have a malware program. I don’t click on links in emails.

And I make backups. In the plural.

One backup can fail. Two is good. Three is better, and four was the miracle.

Because I use a very useful program called Second Copy to make three of my backups. It has the ability to synchronize data, so I can delete a file in one place, and the next time I run my backup, the file will be deleted from the backup set. This is a feature which has worked well for me for a long time—because who wants to waste disk space on backing up files you’re actually throwing away? I figured if I deleted a file by accident, I would realize it before I ran the next synchronization, and I could get it off the backup.

But that was before my hard drives booted up in a different order and Second Copy thought I had deleted my writing folder. And before I then synchronized my other backups with the one where the folder was deleted.

There I was, thinking I had three good copies onsite, and I had none. Miraculously, I have Carbonite, and my offsite backup was fine. Twenty minutes, and everything was restored.

So, my Tuesday Tip is four-fold:

Don’t let your Second Copy backups run without checking the box to let you preview it first.
Don’t run Second Copy without checking that your drive letters are the same as they were when you set it up.
Do consider unchecking the Second Copy option to synchronize deletions on at least one of your backups
Do use Carbonite or some other offsite backup service.

And, always, always, always remember the Law of Unintended Consequences.

He looks like me.

And that’s why last Monday was a miracle.

Last Monday, President Barack Obama was sworn in for a second term. For some, this was a hoped-for event. Others were not so pleased. Most of us, however, might be able to understand and agree that, regardless of our political opinions, there is a miracle here.

The miracle lies in a picture that one mother posted to CNN in response for their requests for photographs of viewers watching the inauguration.

The picture was not of an adult all bundled up on the mall surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic, cheering supporters.

It was a picture of a little 5-year-old boy in a t-shirt in front of a television. He was watching the official, constitutionally-mandated swearing in on the day before the big outdoor ceremony—when President Obama took the oath of office indoors in a semi-private ceremony. As the President raised his right hand, so did the little boy, and the mother’s camera caught that moment.

She asked him why he had his hand up, and he said, “Because the President looks like me!”

It reminds me of an episode of The West Wing in which Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos, the first Latino candidate for President, counters Josh’s warning not to mortgage his house for campaign funds with a story. He tells him that when he’d first gotten out of the Marines, he had applied for a Pentagon job but was having trouble with the background check. The FBI agents couldn’t find anybody in his old neighborhood who knew him. He went back to Texas, and a bunch of the neighbor kids came running up to him.

“Tio Matt, Tio Matt! The Feds. They were here lookin’ for you. We told ’em we never heard of you.”

He tells Josh, with great determination, “I am running for President in that Texas primary, and those kids are gonna see me do that.”

Life often imitates art.

Elected once, it could have been a fluke, a reaction to what is widely perceived as the abysmal Presidency of George W. Bush.

Elected twice? Those kids have seen him do that.

And that may be the biggest and best legacy of any modern President.

Another Dame

The Grand Dame of Dish.

This is not a title by royal fiat. It’s more of a PR title, but considering a career that began in 1949 and is still continuing—what is that? 63 years?—it’s okay with me.

Today’s Smith is Liz Smith.

Currently blogging for the Huffington Post, for decades she was one of New York’s premiere gossip columnists. Before that, she was a news producer for NBC and an entertainment editor for Cosmopolitan magazine.

You can also find her stuff currently on the website she helped found: The Women on the Web.

You can say what you like about gossip columnists, but for any woman to make it in journalism in that era and to make herself a household name in NYC, a power in the theatre, and to still be going strong—that’s impressive!

Manic Pictures Present

The Inimitable Danny Kaye.

In honor of it being SAG Awards time, and me having to watch ten movies before yesterday, I bring you this bit of silliness from Danny Kaye.

(By the end of my ten movies, they may be carrying me out by the elbows just like Danny.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoEUxTTobZ0

And, as a special bonus, one of his most famous bits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CetQrxFp4XI

Just remember: Eschew all vessels, pestles, palaces and chalices, and you’ll be fine!

The pursuit of knowledge

Useful or not.

I am one of those people who has a head full of basically useless information. Now, that means I’m fairly good at Trivial Pursuit, especially if we’re playing in teams and you, yourself, are good at sports trivia. We’d be fairly unbeatable—given ordinary luck with the dice and assuming it was a classic version of the game. (I kind of lost interest in pop culture the last few years, so the more recent versions…I make no promises.)

I’d be fairly good at Jeopardy, too, except for the wagering and the Final Jeopardy question. I always lose Final Jeopardy.

I’m not sure where this fascination with minutiae originated, except that my family does tend to acquire books like Why Do We Say It? and The Book of Lists.

So, imagine what a find a website is like the one I’m going to point you toward today!

Imagine, too, what a total time sink it is, and be warned.

Now, that you’ve been warned, check out The Straight Dope.

The Straight Dope is a syndicated newspaper column in which, as far as I can tell, readers write in to ask odd questions about anything and everything, and Cecil Adams, the columnist, answers them.

Some of the interesting things you can learn from perusing The Straight Dope are:

Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down?
Do you burn more calories when you think hard? (We can only hope.)
How does the Queen answer the telephone?
What’s the likeliest doomsday scnario?

You can see that these are critical pieces of information. I mean, when I call the Queen, I would want to be sure it really was Her Majesty on the other end of the line.

Other than that, it’s just interesting stuff and a way to kill a few hours. I’m not even sure much of it would help you on Jeopardy, the show not usually having a category heading of “Doomsday” or caring too much about royal phone habits.

But it’s interesting stuff, and you never know. You might just be the one to settle the argument about Fibonacci numbers at your next family gathering.

Things are not always what they seem

Or, maybe they are.

I’m sitting out on the dock today working on some blog posts in advance. It’s truly a beautiful day—although, by the time you read this, it may not be. But, right now, it’s about 76° and sunny, the very best kind of Florida winter day.

So, I’m thankful for the weather. And I’m thankful for the wireless technology that allows me to sit out here and work. I do need, perhaps, to get a more comfortable deck chair—because this one is designed more for lounging than typing—but why quibble? I mean, there are a lot of people with no deck chair at all.

Another thing for which I am thankful is the mystery and the drama of the coots. As I sat here, a solitary coot went paddling by me. Now, you must understand, a solitary coot is an unusual thing. They travel in packs.

At first, I thought, “Aha! Straggler! You better hurry up.” This coot had a lean and hungry look, different than the usual cheerful rotundity of coots, that made me think, perhaps, he was always a straggler, always just booking along to catch up to the rest.

But, then, I saw the rest of the flock way down the creek far behind this one.

I thought, “Aha! Scout! You’re the advance guard.”

But, then, I saw the rest of the flock turn and go the other way.

So, now, I don’t know.

Has there been a falling out among the coots? Has my fast feathered friend, perhaps, departed in high dudgeon over some slight, real or imagined? Is the rest of the flock too conservative to dare the shining waters beyond the bridge, or is the lone swimmer fearful of some alligator the rest have decided to brave?

It’s a mystery.

Quick! Call CNN! We need an investigative journalist. There are stories to be told at the creek.

Don’t count out the old wives

Yet.

Their tales, I mean. Because, here’s a question my sister raised, and I think it’s a good one.

As we continue to navigate what has become a really bad flu season (not for me, touch wood), I am wondering why the flu even has a season?

Doesn’t it seem really odd to you that we tend to have flu epidemics in the winter? Because we (my sister and I) have always thought that the reason hospitals are so cold is to inhibit the growth and spread of germs. So, either I am wrong about why I try to remember to bring a sweater when I have to visit someone in a hospital, or there is something about the cold that lowers our resistance and/or strengthens the flu.

Well, it turns out that scientists have been asking this very question!

Because, of course, once I start to wonder about something, I can’t just let it go.

Perhaps, that is not entirely accurate. I can let it go just fine—especially as I’m likely to forget it before any research can be done—unless I don’t have much else going on at the point the question is raised, unless it really does interest me, and unless my sister says, “Hey! It’s a thing for Wondering Wednesday.” (I do like it when other people come up with ideas for blog posts. If nothing else, it proves someone is reading!)

Since I had time and since it struck me as a good thing for a Wondering Wednesday post and since I really do wonder about it…here we are.

Turning to my trusty Google, I discovered a few possibilities:

One, the air is dryer in the winter. So, it dries out the mucous membranes of our respiratory system which, in theory, allows the little flu bugs easier access.

Two, the flu virus—the actual molecules or whatever—have a protective coating in the cold which is missing in higher temperatures and which allows them to live longer outside a host.

Neither of these theories have been proven conclusively, but it seems the scientists are on it. I have every confidence they’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, and since they haven’t yet, I think I’ll continue to wear a hat in the cold weather, because I always get sick when I don’t!

Never put off ’til tomorrow

Well, hardly ever.

My tip for today is identify one thing that you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s too hard like cleaning out the attic. Maybe it’s too scary like going to the dentist. Maybe it’s too complicated like doing your taxes.

Whatever it is, do it.

If it’s so complicated that you cannot possibly finish it in the time you have, do the first steps.

It’s not because the things we put off have a tendency to jump up and bite us—although they do. And it’s not because I think you simply must be organized and efficient.

It’s because I’ve found that all those little (and big) things that I avoid doing are sucking drains on my peace of mind and they interfere with the creative process.

When I’ve got a thing like that hanging over me, there is always some little corner of my mind clouded and shadowed and knotted up with having to remember it and dreading it. It’s a dark inky blotch on my To Do list. It’s a mosquito buzzing around my head, a twinge in the stomach, a headache waiting to happen. In short, it’s a damned nuisance.

There’s this contract I’ve made, and I’m not living up to my part of it. The energy it takes to worry about and/or try to repress it is far less than the energy it will take to do it. In the end, it’s just easier.

Sometimes, it even turns out not to have been as hard or unpleasant as I’d anticipated. That’s often the case, in fact, but the real point is that the brain cells that are taken up with the looming task are brain cells that are not available to help you write your novel, invent the next big thing, or play Chutes and Ladders with your kids.

And wouldn’t that be more fun?

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Monthly Archives: January 2013