by jphilo | Jul 23, 2012 | Daily Life
It’s lunchtime, and I just realized there’s no post yet for today. My first inclination was to blame the oversight on my age, which as of Friday will be closer to 60 than to 50. But after looking over last week’s to do list and writing a new one for this week, I decided busyness was the culprit. Take a gander at these to do lists and see what you think.
Items Completed on Last Week’s To Do List
- Buy groceries to feed hungry daughter and son-in-law.
- Water the flowers gasping for moisture because of the drought.
- Squeeze in writing time between cooking and visiting with company.
- Take daughter’s birthday meal, including homemade German Chocolate birthday cake, along with hubby, daughter, and son-in-law, to my brother’s to celebrate birthday with his family and my mom.
- Buy more groceries to feed hungry company.
- Water the flowers again.
- Finish washing the windows with daughter. All done! Yahoo!
- Make pesto from basil growing like crazy because of the heat.
- Buy more groceries.
- Water again.
- Watch 2 episodes of the PBS series Sherlock with husband, daughter, and son-in-law. Waaaay good!
- More groceries.
- More watering.
- Meet with friend (who organized the daughter’s wedding reception) to organize her son’s upcoming wedding reception.
- Finish tweaking of book proposal and send it to agent. Double yahoo!
- Groceries.
- Watering.
Items on this Week’s To Do List
- Get son-in-law to auto repair shop so leak in his car’s gas line could be fixed.
- Buy groceries on way home.
- Water flowers.
- Take son-in-law back to auto repair shop to pick up car.
- Squeeze in writing between cooking and talking about books and movies with daughter and son-in-law.
- Water flowers.
- Take measurements so daughter can make me two bras.
- Watch final episode in series one of Sherlock.
- Try not to cry when daughter and son-in-law leave on Wednesday.
- Water again.
- Prepare for Camp Dorothy by moving Hiram and me to upstairs bedroom.
- Tune the television to The Price is Right, Jeopardy, Judge Judy, Wheel of Fortune, and Antiques Roadshow.
- Pick up Mom on Friday for Camp Dorothy.
- Water some more.
- Celebrate my birthday with Hiram and Mom.
- Put on Vana outfit and settle in for 5 days of Camp Dorothy fun.
- Help at wedding reception on Saturday.
- Water.
What on your to do list makes it easy for you to forget the most routine things? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | Jul 20, 2012 | Current Events
Yup, The Amazing Spiderman is making an appearance on this blog, even though superheros don’t get a lot of play along our gravel road. To be honest, the only reason Spiderman gets his due is because I was plumb out of stuff to write about.
I thought about writing an I-told-you-so post about how I predicted the drought of 2012 way back in January. But that seemed kind of evil, and I ditched the idea. My next thought was to gush about The Amazing Spiderman movie, which we went to with our daughter and son-in-law on Tuesday. The movie was good. Really, really good. But writing a review is hard work, and I wanted to keep the memory fun.
So I ditched that idea, too, and didn’t have a thing to write about until a Facebook friend of mine posted the above picture. It shows the window washers at Michael Hopkins’ Evelina Children’s Hospital in London.
I almost ditched that idea, too, since this blog is for fun stuff and DifferentDream.com is for kids with special needs stuff. But then I read the text accompanying the photo and decided it was fun enough for this blog:
Evelina Children’s Hospital was the first new children’s hospital to be built in London in more than a century. The hospital was designed with a goal of “making a hospital that didn’t feel like a hospital.” Accomplishing this required hospital designers and staff to create a patient experience that included touchpoints fostering a sense of inspiration and wonder – in addition to healing – for children throughout their stay.
Perhaps the most remarkable touch point of all comes from an unexpected source: the hospital window washers. As part of their contract, Evelina requires that hospital window washers dress up as superheroes while cleaning the hospital windows. Bedridden, sick children delight in seeing Superman, Spiderman and Batman dagling just beyond the glass. The window washers report the superhero visits to Evelina are the highlight of their week.
I thought maybe the window-washers-dressed-as-superheros was urban legend. But according to Hugh Pearman’s article first published in The Sunday Times, London, on November 27, 2005, the window washers are for real. The article, “Just What the Doctors Ordered” tells the story of the vision behind Evelina’s Children’s Hospital and mentions the superhero window washers.
I think the idea of window washers at a children’s hospital dressing like superheros is way cool. The perfect medicine for a nation full of hot and thirsty people worried about a drought they’re powerless to control.This story is just what the doctor ordered. Do you agree?
by jphilo | Jul 19, 2012 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
We’re having a delightful visit with our daughter and her husband this week – trying to cram a year’s worth of fun into two weeks and doing a pretty good job of it. No wonder this week’s three thoughts revolve around our daughter who made her initial appearance 24 years ago this week.
- Anne and I are in love with Jane Haddam, a mystery writer who’s been around for decades but is brand new to us. The daughter gets my kind of excited about a mystery series that’s well-written and thirty titles long. Heaven, we’re in heaven…
- The Amazing Spiderman in 2D was thrill enough for the daughter and me. To avoid motion sickness, we averted our eyes when that sassy nerd, Peter Parker, started swinging off sky scrapers. We were both smitten by the performances of Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Martin Sheen and Sally Fields. Though I was waiting for Sally to don her habit and take to the skies with her nephew.
- I was born during the drought of 1956. My daughter was born during the drought of 1988. I’ll become a grandma and the daughter will become an aunt during the drought of 2012. Based on such dry family history, we predict Baby Philo will be a girl!
How does your family predict the gender of new babies? What’s your favorite summer movie? Mystery writer? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jan 31, 2012 | Current Events
For a couple weeks after the caucuses, Iowans were conditioned by political pollsters to give short answers on the phone we almost forgot how to engage in casual conversation. But since the ISU Cyclones defeated fifth ranked KU over the weekend, conversation has picked up quite nicely in our little state. Even after the “How’s about them Cyclones?” talk dies down, I think the weather will give us plenty to talk about.
Optimists can talk about how nice it is to walk to the mailbox in shirtsleeves in January.
Environmentalist can talk about how this month’s weather is a sure sign of global warming.
Farmers can talk about how Elwynn Taylor thinks the drought of ’12 is coming down.
For those of you who’ve never heard of Elwynn Taylor, he’s an uncannily accurate Iowa State University extension climatologist. He studies long term climate patterns and predicts long term trends rather than day-to-day weather.
In July, if he predicts a snowy winter, you’d be wise to buy a snowshovel.
But if he predicts a mild winter, don’t buy a new winter coat.
In January, if he predicts the summer will be wet, cancel the cabin at the lake.
If he predicts a flood, buy a boat.
And if he predicts a drought, take it seriously.
Guess which one he’s predicting for this summer?
A drought.
Which means I’m taking out stock in a garden hose company.
Because the last time Elwynn predicted a bad drought was in January of ’88.
When the dry fall and winter weather pattern was similar to this fall and winter.
When La Nina was getting old.
When Alaska had lots of snow.
I was three months pregnant with Anne way back then. By the time Anne was born in July, the drought was awful. To be clear, Elwynn didn’t know about my pregnancy, so it didn’t figure into his prediction.
But, even if ISU loses every game for the rest of the summer, my shelf of conversation starters is well-stocked for the rest of 2012. I’ll be the life of every party, chatting about Elwynn Taylor drought predictions, pregnancy during drought stories, and labor during drought stories. Really fascinating stuff.
So, when would you like me to come to dinner at your house?
