Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Weekly Roundup 9: Orchid Patience

 


I'm not sure how long I've had this orchid, but I think my husband gave it to me a few years ago. This is the third time it has bloomed, and it is the best bloom so far. I don't do anything in particular to the plant, just leave it in the same place and water it. And wait.

I wish I could say that I wisely apply this hands-off patience to other parts of my life, but that's challenging. I always feel like there's something I could and should be doing to get the desired result. Watching and waiting seems too passive. But sometimes when conditions are right, that's all that needs to be done. 

The tricky part is finding the balance between productivity and rest, which is something my orchid apparently doesn't stress about.

The Ides of March: Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, and the date was immortalized by Shakespeare's famous line: "Beware the ides of March." The Ides of March still has an unlucky vibe, but in ancient Rome, "ides" referred only to the full phase of the moon. The Romans used a lunar calendar, with the new moon occurring on the first day of the month and the full moon on the 15th. So the date isn't inherently unlucky--unless you owed someone money, as that was the day the Romans settled their debts.

If all else fails, the luck of the Irish comes to the rescue two days later, on St. Patrick's Day.

Erin go bragh! (Ireland forever!)



Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Weekly Roundup 8: In Like a Lion

From a brisk breeze to a howling gale, every day of March so far has been windy here in Colorado. The month is definitely coming in like a lion, as the saying goes. I've always assumed the phrase "in like a lion, out like a lamb" was attributed to Shakespeare. After all, he gave us such gems as "wild goose chase," "brave new world," "too much of a good thing," "neither rhyme nor reason," and "cruel to be kind."

But the Paris Review credits Thomas Fuller’s 1732 Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, ancient and Modern, Foreign and British for coining "Comes in like a Lion, Goes out like a Lamb."

There's also some question about whether the saying might be related to the positions of the constellations. In early March, Leo the Lion is on the eastern horizon at sunset. At the end of the month, Aries the Ram is on the western horizon.

Whatever the explanation, the phrase often feels very accurate when the cold winds of early March are a' blowin. (It apparently has nothing to do with the Lunar New Year lions that bring luck and prosperity, I just thought I'd throw that picture in here.)

How about another idiomatic expression: to crane one's neck? This one is pretty obvious. It means to stretch your neck much like a crane does, in order to get a better look at something. 

I saw lots of necks craning last weekend when I visited Colorado's San Luis Valley to spy some migrating Sandhill Cranes. In the spring, these birds famously flock in the thousands to an area around Kearney, Nebraska. But they also pass through southern Colorado, which IMHO is more beautiful than Nebraska any day.

We had a lovely morning of crane watching before, you guessed it, the winds kicked up.

Hang onto your hats and have a great week!








 






Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Weekly Roundup 7: Bonus Day!

Thursday, February 29, 2024 is a Leap Day! In a nutshell, an extra day was added to various calendars around the world because it takes the sun 365.242190 days to orbit the sun. Over time those quarter-days add up and throw the calendar out of sync with the seasons. Leap Day is a reset day every four years.

Not everyone loves Leap Day. Leaplings (born on February 29) might feel cheated out of an annual birthday. In many places, it is bad luck to get married or start a relationship on Leap Day. In Greece, Scotland, and Germany, the entire year is seen as unlucky. 

Though Leap Day was traditionally seen as a day in which gender roles were reversed and women could do "male" things such as propose marriage, the flip side, according to Monmouth University history professor Katherine Parkin, was that women were often ridiculed for it. She calls it "false empowerment." Hmph.

The Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar would do away with Leap Day. In this calendar, every date would fall on the same day of the week every year. January 1, for example, would always be a Monday. Birthdays would be the same day, too, which is great for the Friday/Saturday people and much less fun for the Monday/Tuesday people. But the permanent calendar doesn't avoid the "calendar drift" either, so every six years, a leap week would be added to the end of December.

Even though I occasionally get cheated out of a weekend birthday, I vote that we stick with our current system and have a bonus day every four years. I hope you have the chance to do something fun, bold, or memorable on February 29. Or do nothing at all! Take a nap and dream of spring.

Oh, and that guy in the picture is Leap Day William, from a very funny episode of 30Rock.

See you in March! 


 

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Weekly Roundup 6: Labors of Love

 

It's always around this time of year, as tax preparation season gears up, that I am reminded of how little income I generate as a writer. There are reasons for this. More published books now than any time in history, for example. And less industry support for authors.

But one of the biggest reasons is that I'm terrible at selling books. I get overwhelmed by the number of social media platforms that all but require my participation. I suffer from imposter syndrome. I choose fun (writing) over not-fun (marketing). And, yes, I perhaps like Netflix a little too much.

I'm no stranger to labors of love. When I stayed home with our young sons, I did a tremendous amount of work without a traditional paycheck. Now I'm increasingly doing the same for my mother. Throughout it all, the writing tugs at my sleeve, the ever-present companion who compels me to spend hours and hours on projects that will never earn me a living wage.

And you know what? I'm okay with it. When I was younger, writing as a labor of love wasn't enough. But as I've gotten older and (hopefully) wiser, I've started to measure success differently. I strongly suspect I'll never be a Colleen Hoover, but when I'm a finalist in a short story contest or have a friend tell me she still thinks about the characters in my novels months later, it's a different kind of payment.

Show Romance Some Love: There's still time to read a romance novel before the month of March is upon us. For ideas, Bookriot has a list of the bestselling romance books of all time. Yes, the gray one is on there. And the vampire one. After all, the list is bestselling, not critically acclaimed. But like heart shaped boxes of chocolates, romance novels can be a guilty pleasure. (A special shoutout to my friend who is trying to make it through Twilight. You can do it!) 


Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Weekly Roundup 5: Beautiful Day

Beautiful Day: First of all, it's a beautiful day because it's Valentine's Day. I'm not a super-romantic person, but I very much value the various forms of love in my life: spousal, maternal, familial, platonic, pets, plants. (I do think my plants love me back, just very quietly haha!)

But the title of this post refers to the U2 song Beautiful Day, which I had the pleasure of hearing performed live twice in the past week. First by the Vitamin String Quartet, a very talented group of musicians who put an amazing classical spin on rock and pop music. Other songs in the program included Prince's Purple Rain, Kate Bush's Running up That Hill, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. 


But to top that, I had the opportunity to hear U2 perform Beautiful Day at the Sphere in Las Vegas last weekend. I've been a fan for years and have never seen the band live. Big bucket list item for me, especially when I could share it with Son #1, who is also a big U2 fan. 



Year of the Dragon: February 10 ushered in the Lunar New Year of the Wood Dragon. The dragon is the only mythical animal in the Chinese zodiac and is seen as especially auspicious, representing wisdom, strength, prosperity, and luck. And the Wood Dragon is the most creative, visionary, and generous of the dragons. I hope this year brings you many opportunities to follow your dreams, expand your horizons, and show compassion and loyalty to your friends.

Have a Beautiful Day! See you next week.


This awesome dragon was part of the display at the Bellagio Conservatory in Las Vegas. And, no, I was not a guest there :-) 

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Weekly Roundup 4: See Jane Inspire

Last week, I had the pleasure of  hearing Jane Fonda in conversation with Colorado State University President Amy Parsons as part of the university's Year of Democracy. 

Jane is of course well known as the actor-daughter of a famous acting family, a fitness guru of the 80s and 90s (find a recent revisit of her videos here), the ex-wife of Ted Turner, Grace in Netflix's Grace and Frankie.  

But her heart and soul belong to activism--political, social, feminist, anti-war, and environmental causes have all benefited from her generous attention and support.

Jane was very candid and forthright about the personal growth and change she had to undergo before she truly understood how to best embody her desires to make the world a better place.

And here's what's foremost on Jane's mind these days: the action needed to address our climate crisis. The lens of an octogenarian is wide, and at the same time, the 86-year-old knows her time on this planet is growing much shorter. Funny and sassy and pulling no punches, she urged the audience, regardless of age and standing, to take as much action as we can. And also not sleep with oil company executives. 

Words I Confuse: Concrete and cement. I use the words interchangeably, but they're not the same. Google just taught me that cement is made from limestone and clay and acts as a binding agent. Mix it with water, sand, and rock, and the result is concrete.  So there you have it!

Have a great week!

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Weekly Roundup 4: Correspondence

 

The long month of January winds down today! I think I've appreciated the slow pace more than usual this year. But I'll still be happy when spring comes.

Correspondence: I was browsing through the library and came across the newly released Remembrance - Selected Correspondence of Ray Bradbury. Bradbury has always been one of my favorite authors. He was a very prolific writer of fiction, poetry, and screenplays, and apparently letters, too. The book, which I've just started, includes letters written from Bradbury's teen years into his 90s. There are a lot of authors and editors, but also family members, friends, political figures, etc. Here's an excerpt from a letter written to the Republican party in November, 1952, that feels all too relevant today:

"I have seen too much fear in a country that has no right to be afraid. I have seen too many campaigns...won on the issue of fear itself, and not on the facts. I do not want to hear any more of this claptrap and nonsense from you. ... I do not want any more lies, any more prejudice, any more smears."

But back to correspondence. I use and appreciate technology every day, but that doesn't mean I don't miss things that fall by the wayside. Case in point, handwritten letters. I appreciate them for their historical importance--my husband has family letters dating back to World War I--and for their glimpse into a particular person's mind on a particular day in a particular place. The handwriting, the paper and ink, the stamps, they all preserve a moment in time. A few years ago, my sister and I started exchanging letters. We write one letter on alternating months, so we each send and receive six letters a year. And I still get excited when I see her envelope in my mailbox. 

Thankfully, the internet has plenty of information on letter writing groups and societies for anyone who wants their correspondence to include more than texts, chats, and emails.

Candlelight dinners: Ingrid Fetell Lee is a designer, author, and expert on the aesthetics of joy. Her latest newsletter had a blurb about her 3-year-old son asking if they could light candles at dinner. It reminded me that we used to do the same thing when my boys were young. Even though I got tired of sweeping up little bits of broken wax picked off by busy fingers night after night, we all loved having dinner by candlelight. Even though the flames are small, the light and warmth bring people together in a special way.

I hope January treated you well! See you in February!