Recent Posts

William Finnegan's surfing article (Dec. 17) is too long by half, and he uses language that's comprehensible only to other surfers, which I think is a bad idea in a magazine with general interest readers.

I posted here before, and I thought I commented on the pic, but didn't!

Sorry about that!  I meant to!  LOL

Good set up, and I can understand why you still have it up.  I would keep the tree in the center up, no matter that Christmas is over.  I looks good that way.

Ready for the answer?? 
There are......




............ 114 marbles in the canning jar!! 

You were only 7 marbles off. . .pretty good!

The jar is filled with about 0.52 liters of marbles.  The marbles, "aggies," are about 11/16 inches in diameter, or about 0.34 inches in RADIUS (not diameter, as stated).  This gives the marbles a volume of about 2.8 cc's each.

The ratio of marbles to air looks to be about 0.58 to 0.42.  So, I am going to guess that there are:

(520)(0.58)/(2. = 107 marbles

How'd I do?

How enchanting!!

I started taking my mother to a Presbyterian church when she first moved to Denver. It's a bit of a new-age church with a small band that includes a bass and electric guitar, drums, violin, piano and vocals. They only have an organist come in once or twice a year. Mom missed the old hymns but occasionally one is in the service. I love the minister, she is really inspiring. Plus, the church was just so supportive when Mom had her final illness. I had in the back of my mind that I would stop going after Mom died but I have found it to be immensely calming, stress relieving and renewing to my spirit.

Very few Presbyterian churches are like that though. I attribute mine's uniqueness to the leadership of the minister and to the elders, many of whom have children who attend. A great priority is given to the young people of the church. Another thing I like about it is that we have sponsored more than 200 families in Rwanda and a group goes there almost every year.

There is an article out today on the construction of small auxiliary dwelling units for people's aging parents. In all of these articles, I've never seen mention of the investment of time it takes to have an aging parent living with you.

https://www.nextavenue.org/accessory-dwelling-unit-help-aging-parent/?hide_newsletter=true&utm_source=Next+Avenue+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=702e0b9a80-01.08.2019_Tuesday_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_056a405b5a-702e0b9a80-165235473&mc_cid=702e0b9a80&mc_eid=a194ac8bb9

I think it's very important that people's eyes are opened to the large amount of time a parent will need. There are the big stuff--medical appointments, monitoring pill taking etc.--and the small stuff--fixing the electronics they've broken, entertaining them, etc. Once a parent is living with or near you, they will expect you to be their chauffeur. The middle of the night stuff and the long hours in a waiting room. On top of that, children, siblings and partners are very adept at fading away when the responsibility of caregiving looms. Out of sight, out of mind. 

It's beautiful, love the Christmas tree in the middle!

Thank you. I'm glad you like it. 

And there's a truck just like Ennis' to its left!

  That's exactly why I bought that truck right away when I found it. 

We are adventurous, but not that adventurous. We're stopping where the world (= the mainland) ends. Driving the Dempster Highway and on to Tuk. Always North, across the polar circle and further North, North, North - as long as there's a road. All the way to the Arctic ocean. I'm already excited, it will be an adventure for sure.

That sounds fun! You're very intrepid. Will it be cold?

All that changed on Sunday when I went to the monthly meeting of the Sherlock Holmes book club. It's about two dozen nerdy people who like to get together at an English-style pub and discuss one of Doyle's classic mystery stories. But before discussing, we have a quiz. . .and guess who won the quiz this month! Out of all these people who have been studying these stories for years and years, little old me won the quiz! I told everybody it was a boost I really needed.

Nice! And that sounds like a fun club.

The second thing is that I had a brainstorm yesterday in connection with all the federal workers who are having to go without their salaries. There's a free web site called Meal Train where you can set up a connection for volunteers to deliver meals to people. Working with my church and the county action center, I've put all the structures in place to start setting up meal trains. I'm really jazzed about this and happy that I found something positive to do in the morass of this phony national crisis, government shutdown, and public presidential tantrum. 

Better to light a candle than to curse Donald Trump! Well, actually it's good to do both.

Maybe I've missed it, but I don't recall you saying much about your church involvement in the past. I mean, obviously Jeff talks about church quite a lot, but I don't think I've seen you mention going to church or being involved in church activities. What religion/denomination, if I may ask? Are you pretty active?

I would go to church if there were a Unitarian church anywhere near me. There's a church right behind my house -- a very nice church; they let us do our neighborhood vegetable gardens there and even supply the water. And so convenient! Unfortunately, they're not Unitarian.