Who is John Shuster?

We've been Olympic nerds since the infamous Munich games in 1972. We graduated from college in May of 1972, and our TV was a 13" black and white with built in rabbit ears. (If you are too young to know what rabbit ears are, you can look it up. Your pocket computer will tell you.) We decided it was TIME to see the Olympics in color, so we bought a new television based solely on the criteria of seeing the Olympics in color. Color TV was relatively new, so in 1972 a 21" color televison cost about $500, or $3300 in today's dollars. Major investment since our monthly salary (combined) was $1000. We kept this television for a LONG time, and it was eventually replaced because we wanted a bigger screen on which to watch the Olympics.

Now, I like everything in the Olympics with the exception of the LOOOOOOOONG races. I do have a complete favorite in the Olympics, and no, it's not figure skating:  It's curling.  We have been watching since it was a demonstration sport, and it just sends me.  I can watch the men.  I can watch the women.  I can even watch the mixed doubles.  What I've discovered is there are more and more people who are secret curling fans.  I've never even seen the inside of a curling ring much less watched a game live.  One of my few disappointments in our Canadian trip was all the curling rinks were closed for the summer.  I had fantasies of actually seeing a game.  Here's why I like curling:

1)  Big time curling looks like it's played by regular people.  Yes, yes, I know they do physical conditioning, and they all have big biceps, but beyond a slightly higher level of cardio fitness, curling in the Olympics could be played by your Uncle Bob and Aunt Mildred.  The USA men's team looks like guys who bowl in the Wednesday night league.  Psst - there's even a little jelly belly on one of those USA guys.  Thank heaven he has divinely long hair, or it would just be embarrassing. 

2)  If you pay attention, there are some really, really hot men curling.  Check out the Swiss skip, or the Canadian third.  Oh my.  It's a pity they don't play 'shirts' and 'skins' in this game.  The Scandinavian teams have divinely blue eyes.

3)  Curling is easy to understand.  You can watch one half of one game and you can know all the rules.  I've spent YEARS (not exaggerating here, people) learning the rules of baseball, and I STILL don't know them all.  Just try explaining baseball or football or basketball to someone who's never seen a game, and you will quickly get the gist of what I'm talking about.  Curling:  Get your colored rocks closest to the bullseye and score a point for each one that's closer to the bullseye than the other color of rock.  BOOM - that's it.  Oh, and you take turns pushing the 14 pound rocks down a sheet of pebbled ice.  See?  

4)  Curling is relaxing.  Enough said.

5)  Sportsmanship is a big deal in curling.  Not lip service as in most other sports.  

6)  The number of games is not overwhelming.  Curling is kind of like watching March Madness.  It's played in tournament form instead of over a 'season'.  Baseball:  162 games plus the play-offs plus the World Series.   Curling:  Each team plays 9 games to get into the medal round in the Olympics.  And, this happens once every four years.  What a deal!  

7)  There's no merchandise.  No hats; no jerseys; no dolls; no video games.  Refreshing.  Speaking of clothing, curling lends itself to WILD SOX!!!!

If you haven't tuned it yet to a curling match, time to tune in.  I guarantee you'll be a fan after watching just one game.  Becoming a curling fanatic takes a little longer.   

Phoenix Botanical Garden with bonus: DALE CHILULY

We actually took the trip across town to see this garden.  If you're in the DFW area imagine Hurst to Richardson; NYC area Brooklyn to Bronx; therefore, not a trivial trip.  We are trying to do more outings, so I can exercise more and hopefully recover my health.   We've learned from past experience, if you are going to do an outdoor activity in the Sonoran Desert, January is perfect weather.  While the natives think January at 70 degrees is 'freezing', us snowbirds think it's glorious.

The tree is called a 'Boojum' - a name derived from a Lewis Carroll poem

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Next to the Boojum (which was about 50 feet tall) is a hint of the lagniappe  (a Cajun expression meaning "a little something extra").  Surprise!  It's a Dale Chiluly exhibition of glass works. According to the Docent we chatted with, Chiluly, the most famous glass artist in the world, loves the Sonoran desert because he thinks the landscape is the perfect setting for his art.  The Phoenix Botanical Garden is the only garden to have hosted more than one of his landscape shows, and it has been the setting three times.  This is the second time we've seen them in the garden.  The directors of the Garden must agree with him since after the first show in 2008 they bought three sculptures which resemble agave cactus.

Entrance to the Phoenix Botanical Garden

I could have taken pictures of the almost unlimited variety of cactus and succulents which are planted in the garden, but I restrained myself.   The founding of the Phoenix Botanical Garden started with the happenstance meeting of a Swedish Botanist, who was wild for cactus and concerned about their decimation, and an unusual woman with a strange cactus she wanted to know about.  Thus, Gustaf Starck, the botanist, and Gertrude Webster, the snowbird philanthropist, began a drive to "Save the Desert".  Their ideas together with a small group raised $40,000 in 1936 (depth of the Great Depression!) to establish the garden.  At each step of the way, an important individual has dedicated her/his life to the garden.  I first saw the Botanical Garden in 1970, and it was impressive then.  Now, 50 years later, it's magnificent.  I consider this place to be the top attraction in the City of Phoenix.  It's no wonder Chiluly feels this place is the ideal venue to display his famous works.  This time there's also a small indoor gallery of some of his pieces.  

   
 As always, there are pictures:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/jswHYkymPCr6qqtQA

New York City Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show - 2021

New York City Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show - 2021

The New York City Botanical Garden is a cherished institution in New York City.  It is located in the Bronx, the northernmost borough of the five boroughs that comprise modern New York City.  It is 250 acres and includes fifty acres of  'old forest'.  It was founded in 1891 by University of Columbia botany professor, Nathaniel Lord Britton.  He was it's first director, and his vision was to create a living research botanical facility.  He opened the gardens to the public in 1900.  True to his vision, the botanical garden is famous for research, and has one of the largest botanical libraries and collections of fungus and herbs in the United States.  The great Conservatory was also constructed and opened under his watch

 During the holiday season for the past thirty years (except last year), the garden has welcomed the Holiday Train Show.  It's one of the many holiday destinations in New York City.  This year we were able to attend with our train obsessed three year old.  What makes this exhibition uniquely New York City is the trains wind around New York City landmarks constructed of natural materials.

This is better seen in the following photos.  (I recommend you use the 'slideshow feature'.)

 The entire exhibition was under the Conservatory.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ERuJrNGSHu7TxgpK7

Snail Mail Christmas Cards

 I just sent out my annual Christmas letter by paper Christmas card via snail mail.  Looking at that sentence, I'm struck by the archaic nature of it.  I actually have some young friends who are in their upper 20's or just turned 30, and I can guarantee not a single one of them sent out a Christmas card.  Furthermore, not a single one of them even THOUGHT about sending one much less a Christmas letter.  It is well known I'm obsessed with snail mail.  (I just finished writing letters to eleven people this week!)  However, I've just realized the number of people who do not have email addresses I send Christmas cards, has dwindled to ZERO.  Just a few years ago there were still a few people without email addresses.  

  According to Smithsonian Magazine, you're looking at the first commercial Christmas card.  It was commissioned by Henry Cole, a very busy aristocratic Londoner, who watched his correspondence explode thanks to the 'penny post' - a Victorian innovation which allowed anyone to send a letter to anyone else for a penny.  It was the equivalent of the email explosion we've all experienced.  He had an artist friend draw up this image, and then he had 1000 of these printed in 1843 on 5" x 3" card stock.  These allowed him to fulfill his obligation of replying to his holiday letters.  It was considered impolite to not answer correspondence.  Notice the "To: and the "From"?  This innovation allowed him to quickly answer all his correspondence during the holiday season.  His idea caught on and spread across the Western world.  The first American Christmas card was printed in 1875.

The company who came to epitomize the greeting card, including Christmas cards, was founded in 1915 by the Hall brothers in Kansas City, Kansas.  I'll bet you can figure out what this company morphed into....right? "The Hallmark Company".   Hallmark has been printing Christmas cards since it was founded.  Of their many innovations, they pioneered the 4"x6" folded card which quickly replaced postcards since people wanted to write a little something more than would fit on a postcard.  The folded card is now the industry standard.  People also began collecting Christmas cards - big surprise - people will collect anything.

During the 20th century, Christmas cards were so popular famous artists tried their hand at Christmas card design including Norman Rockwell (wildly popular), Alexander Calder (less popular), and Salvador Dali (complete failure with his designs pulled from the shelves).  There have been all types of designs of Christmas cards.  Surprisingly, early American cards did not have religious themes, but rather floral or plant themes.  Currently, polar bears are a big image for cards.  Hallmark still uses the most popular Christmas card design ever from 1977- over 34 million sold - which is three cherubic angels.  Last year Americans bought 1.6 BILLION Christmas cards.  I guess I'm in good company.

During the last fifty years of the 20th century, it was important to send Christmas cards WITH LETTERS enclosed to out of town recipients since most people had a class of friends who had 'moved away'.  People leaving their home towns was one of the outgrowths of WWII.  Usually, the only way to stay in touch was through the annual Christmas card.  People certainly didn't telephone 'long distance' since it was extremely expensive until the Ma Bell monopoly was broken up.  People faithfully promised weekly or monthly correspondence to friends who were moving away, but this quickly dwindled to the letter inside the annual Christmas card.  I actually handwrote my letters onto my Christmas cards until I got a computer with a printer.  

At that point, my Christmas card list just exploded.  At my high point, I was sending out over 100 cards each season.  Now, I'm considering this year may be my last year of paper cards with accompanying paper letter.  I already send out ecards using my fave card site, Jacquie Lawson.  Several of my friends have adopted using this site since it's a nobrainer if you like to stay in touch with people.  And, aren't we all far flung these days?  Currently, I'm sending regular snail mail to Mustang, Ok; Tulsa, Ok; Acton, Tx, Hurst, Tx; North Richland Hills, Tx; Arlington, Tx; Alpine, Tx; New Braunfels, Tx; Houston, Tx; Albuquerque, NM; and Oakland, Ca.  Do I really need to send Christmas letters and Christmas cards?

I think I'm just blowing smoke, though.  I'm one of those suckers who has collected greeting cards from every holiday and birthday sent to me by Drake over the past fifty years.  One of our family traditions is "Best Card".  We give beautiful cards to one another, and then we vote on who has chosen the best looking card.  It's silly, but we think it's fun.  I keep threatening to turn my box of collected cards into a collage.  One of these days.....  

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas.  If you didn't get a snail mail Christmas card and letter; well, I guarantee you will get the ecard version.  I wonder how much of my letter I can ecard?  Oh, and KUDOS to my friends who have sent me Christmas letters inside cards - especially the ones with family pictures embedded.    

Christmas Trees, 2021

          The Christmas season is kicked off.  I’ve always liked Christmas immensely, and I taught our daughter to love it as well.  I get to take all the credit here since my better half belongs to the ‘Bah, Humbug’ school of thought who interprets Christmas as celebrating a ridiculous religious tradition sprinkled with crass commercialism.  Oh, yes, he’s a real Ho, Ho, Ho killer when he gets on a BH rant.

         Our first brush this year with the 'Bah, Humbug' attitude came with our Christmas tree.  We have a flower seller whose booth is outside the local convenience store at the end of our block.  We buy flowers from him sporadically all year long.  In fact, he made up the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I’ve ever gotten for my birthday.  Anyway, back to the point…. The flower guy put out for sale a selection of Christmas trees ranging from three feet high to about six feet tall. 

I’ve said for the past month our grandson (AKA the Huckleberry) is going to have a tree at our house which is just his height, and that he can decorate with the unbreakable bedazzled felt ornaments I made.  This is a tradition which we started with our daughter.  Her first tree was three feet tall, and she could reach every branch including the top.  Tiny trees may seem small to us adults, but to a toddler, they are huge!  Each year, as she grew, the tree got taller. 

When you don't have a car you either have to pay a delivery fee or carry the tree home yourself.  It seemed a no-brainer to me to buy the tiny tree at the end of the block.  It's an easy carry home.  It even has a small sized tree stand.  All was fine.  The Huckleberry and his Grandad picked one out since they pass the trees on the walk home from school each day.  

On purchase day, they  discovered  the price was $50.  Bah, Humbug, they walked away without the tree.  I was furious.  This will be the only Christmas I will have to spend the entire season with a grandchild, and it’s not like we can’t afford the tree.  The upshot:  We have a three foot tall $50 tree in our living room decorated by The Huckleberry.  It’s a cute as a bug, and worth every penny.  He loves this tree and wants it lit the minute he arrives at our house from school. 

         Christmas Tree Saga Number Two:  Our family tradition is to buy and decorate our Christmas Tree immediately after Thanksgiving.  Our son-in-law has learned to give the Sweetpea (our daughter's nickname) free rein in trees since she and I love the decoration aspect of Christmas and the tree is the centerpiece.  My mother wrote the ‘family’ and my closest friends when she was barely one year old suggesting giving her a Christmas ornament each year.  Due to her efforts, the Sweetpea has a huge collection of fun ornaments.  The Piano Man (son-in-law's nickname) now has his collection given to him by me which we started in 2009, and The Huckleberry has his.  At this point, there are so many a six to seven foot tree will not display all the ornaments.

         This year the Sweetpea decided to go BIG.  They bought a nine foot tree!  Now, if you have the Texas mini-mansion or a sprawling ranch style home, it’s not that big a deal.  The only restriction is ceiling height.  Well, there's an 11 foot ceiling in their 1000 square foot Brooklyn apartment so, no problem!  Remember the $50 three foot tree?  Well, they paid $95 for the monstrosity they purchased.  (Our Bah Humbugger somehow thought this validated his point the three footer was too expensive.)  Gargantua is a beautiful, beautiful tree.  Its shape is perfect and the branches thick.  It does require a heavy duty stand.  To give you a further scope of the size, it took nine strands of lights.  Best of all, for the first time in a long time, ALL the ornaments are hung, and they aren’t even sparse.  Gigantico only takes up 25% of their living room space.  The Sweetpea and I think that’s perfectly reasonable.  It looks wonderful.  Let the Christmas festivities begin! 

Do You YouTube?

 If you really stop to think about it, YouTube is really amazing.  I mean who knew there were so many cat movie stars?  However, people taking cute little movies of their kitties isn't what makes YouTube fascinating.  YouTube is at its best when it shows ordinary people filming their interests.  Are there terrible films spewing hatred?  You bet.  Are there disgusting films?  Oh, absolutely, but those aren't the ones which make up the overwhelming majority of YouTube films.  My favorite films are by people who want to share and showcase something wonderful.  

I like ALL the Steam Trains Galore videos.  They are perfect for putting a toddler into a tharn state.  (Tharn is the state described in the book Watership Down in which a rabbit freezes in place.)  Thanks, Mike Armstrong (maker of Steam Trains Galore).  I am somewhat baffled about how and why steam trains are so fascinating to him; however, he has traveled around the country filming steam trains running up and down tracks.  His films are very relaxing.

I also like the MTA (transit system of New York) films showing the subway trains running in and out of the tunnels of New York City.  Another perfect film for toddler lunchtime.  It seems to be soothing to the 1 - 3 year old group.  There's no dialogue.  There's just trains running up and down the tracks between various stations.  Let's take the "A" train!

Then, there's the Dad and 10  year old son who have transformed their backyard into a Monster Truck arena.  They have jumps, mud, water, tracks, and all sorts of dirt filled amusements for toy Monster Trucks.  The YouTube films show Dad and son playing toy Monster Trucks in the awesome dirt arena they built together.

Another 'fave' of mine are the Cornell University School of Ornithology YouTube live bird feeder/breeder sites all over the world.  I've watched hummingbirds in West Texas; deciduous forest birds in upstate New York; tropical birds in Panama; and the hatchings of Owls, California Condors, Redtailed Hawks, and Ospreys.  You can even watch a Royal Albatross around on the other side of the world hatch and raise a 'chick' which when full grown will weigh in at around 20 lbs.         

Have you ever heard of Destin Sandlin?  Well, he's an engineer who makes YouTube videos applying engineering principles in fun ways.  Like graphing firing a baseball over 1000 miles per hour through a one gallon jar of mayonnaise.  He loves charts, graphs, math, and his excitement level is off the leash.  His videos are called Smarter Every Day, and he's on the same wavelength as Mythbusters. 

I recently watched a TV program called "GLOW" on Netflix.  It is a reality program about make up artists.  This career employs people not just at make up counters of department stores in malls, but also on movie sets, television sets, live theater, fashion show runways, magazine fashion shoots, and surprisingly YouTube videos.  If you want to learn how to apply false eyelashes or create a 'smoky eye', well, there are You Tubers willing to help you.  Many of them got interested in make up through You Tube.  A new career path in make up artistry is to create a series of 'how to' YouTube videos and amass hundreds of thousands of subscribers.   Manufacturers perk up and pay those folks.

"How to" YouTube videos have revolutionized dissemination of information.  Anything you need to know how to do will have not just one but several YouTube videos by self proclaimed experts.  In the world of home repair alone, YouTube has leveled the playing field.  Not everyone grows up with an expert in the family.  Anytime there was a home repair job my husband used to telephone my father or meet with him face to face since by Dad was a self-taught handyman.  His knowledge was encyclopedic.  Today, my father would be making YouTube videos.

Sponsorship is definitely a way to make money using YouTube.  If you have expertise in any field, you can Vlog on YouTube.  (The snob I am, I always look down on Vloggers.  If they could write coherently, they would be blogging!)  If you can be found by the public in great numbers, you can expect sponsorship and a certain amount of $$.  I don't think very many people can sustain a career using YouTube as their medium.  It's akin to writing a best selling novel, and then continuing to do it over and over again.  In other words, there aren't too many Stephen Kings or John Grishams in the YouTube world any more than the literary world.

It's the accessibility of YouTube to the ordinary person which makes this phenomenon so wonderful.  Who could have predicted this?  YouTubes are just one aspect of the Electronic Revolution which is now shaping all our lives.  Do you YouTube?

  

Dark Time

 When I was in high school, I had a curfew.  My father's dictum was, "Nothing good happens to a girl after midnight."  One of my vivid memories from high school is my Dad dozing on the couch in front of the TV waiting for me to get home on Friday and Saturday nights.  So, what kept me from just tiptoeing past my father's sleeping form if I came home later than midnight?  I couldn't break curfew because of my Dad's alarm clock:  Television actually SIGNED OFF THE AIR at midnight.  There was a waving American flag with the "Star Spangled Banner" playing in the background.  The song was like an alarm to my father, and my happy little ass had better be in the door before the anthem finished.  The waving flag and anthem was then eclipsed by the 'test pattern', or sometimes just 'snow' until television signed back on at 7:00am.  Here's what I mean by test pattern.  It was routinely used as a signal to viewers their TV was not malfunctioning, but rather it was intentionally off the airways.

My point is television went off the air.  Now, true, there were only three stations plus one independent station in 1966, but still, can you imagine in today's shrinking globe a main stream media provider going DARK for seven hours?  I'm not going to claim 'life was so much better' in the supposed good old days because it truly wasn't.  However, I do miss what I think of as 'dark time'.  Even in those days, the United States had a frantic pace of life compared to other developed countries, but compared to today's insistence on a 24/7 life; it was idyllic. 

Life wasn't lived around the clock.  People who worked the 'swing shift' (3-11pm) or 'the graveyard' (11-7am) were pitied.  They were so out of sync with everyone else.  Mostly nothing was open past midnight except bars, the type referred to today as 'dive bars', and they certainly didn't serve food.  You couldn't shop for groceries or for anything else.  There were no all night restaurants except at truck stops, and even back then, truck stops were not known either for their cuisine or their atmosphere.  I can personally attest to this since me and my idiot college girl friends would go to the Dinko Truck Stop outside of Norman, Oklahoma - up and coming town of 25,000 - around 3am. for a 'Dinko Darling' meal.  [Don't ask.  I can't imagine how we avoided ptomaine.  19 year old bodies, I suppose.]  My point is in 1969 in a college town, nothing was open in the middle of the night.  

These days we carry around the 24/7 media provider in our pockets.  For eleven years I monitored my father who was in a dementia care facility.  I called the graveyard shift nurses routinely, and they also called me.  (This was the easiest staff to reach for a 'chat'.)  I slept with my phone turned on to receive their calls or texts right next to my pillow.  That experience trained me to be 'on the grid' 24/7.  That night time experience also trained me to use my phone to play audio books to help me get back to sleep. 

The reality now is I read the news across two major news outlets, listen to audio books, search for e-books and audiobooks to check out for myself and Cedric from eight libraries,  daily use our family channel on Whatsapp, monitor the weather across several locations, look at recipes, find answers to knowledge questions, take pictures, make videos, play games, and clean out my email on a daily basis.  I'm ashamed to say lots of those activities go on sporadically throughout the night.  

The smart phone is so integrated into my life, I don't have the desire or will power to go off grid for more than a few hours at a time.  The convenience of having information, entertainment, and basic knowledge available constantly seems like library heaven to me.  (FYI:  I was supposed to be a librarian, and it's one of my few regrets that I chose teacher over librarian.)

I think it would be beneficial to turn off my phone for seven or eight hours a day of 'dark time' because propaganda, misinformation, data mining, and going down rabbit trails seem to be overwhelming the positive aspects of 24/7 information.  Granted, we are in the earliest days of this phenomena, but individually stepping back and reclaiming dark time in the electronic age may help restore perspective.   I’m identifying feelings of anxiety, helplessness, insignificance, and anger in myself all of which has been intensified by the pandemic phenomena.   I also know those feelings are rooted in the information barrage that is today’s life in 2021.  There are too many choices every direction I look.  I think I need some dark time.