PhotoHunters: Music

My life has been filled with music, but not many pictures of it.
I took this at NEFFA a couple of years ago.

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Thursday Challenge: Outside

Rainbow Lake from my kayak July 30.

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LensDay: Transportation

Driving through the mid-west last November.

More LensDay here.
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Happy Birthday D!

My nephew D turned 6 today. In honor of this auspicious day here are a few shots of D through the years. He was one month old when I took the picture above.

This is from his first Christmas, the hands are Amy's.

Pointing out his foot.

Introducing me to Wormy.

Trying out the "big camera".

Acting like a dog.

Hanging out on the Cape.

All tied up.

Sunday Scribblings: The End

You'll have to do some imagining so close your eyes. Oh right, you can't read with your eyes closed. Well imagine you're curled up in a comfy chair with your eyes closed.

Imagine a narrow street in a nice older neighborhood in a small city, the kind with just enough room for one car to pass between the cars parked on either side. This is a dead end street, lined with large houses built for the most part in the early 1900s. Children play in many of the yards, and as you get closer to the dead end more of them are playing in the street - bicycling, roller skating - the old kind of roller skates that secure over shoes with a key, and playing kick ball using the man hole covers and storm drain openings for bases.

The street ends at with a stop sign. Behind that sign is a 3 foot drop into a sloping yard full of large sheltering maple trees. The house that belongs to the yard is off to your right. It's big with a deep front porch just calling out to you to come sit and enjoy a glass of lemonade. On closer inspection you decide sitting in the midst of the hockey game being played there might be a bit dangerous so you step inside through the heavy wood front door.

Take in the living room as you step in. Straight ahead is the fireplace set into a small inglenook to the right the room opens up. If you listen carefully you'll hear the echoes of voices from the dinner parties held here over the years. To the left is a study behind glass doors and windows topping bookshelves which separate it from the oak lined stairway. Tucked under the stairway landing is telephone table, and under the stairs themselves a deep coat closet perfect for hiding. Behind the formal stairs is a second more utilitarian stairway lined with children's artwork.

Behind that second stairway is the kitchen bright with daisy covered fabric. Looping from there through the laundry room you come to the formal dining room complete with built-in cabinets at one end. You can almost smell the Thanksgiving turkey, and over in the corner you notice the perfect spot for a children's table.

Back in the living room you make your way up the stairs, stopping on the landing to gaze out the wall of windows to the trees beyond. It looks like the perfect spot to curl up with a book. At the top of the stairs is a large open hall with room for a writing desk and an occasional hamper basketball game. Off the hall are, in counter clockwise order a play room, which the children in the house call the secret room because when the family first moved in it was filled with boxes and they weren't allowed in, the master bedroom, the linen closet, the attic stairs, a children's bedroom, the bathroom and the other children's bedroom.

Up the attic stairs you find a wonderful mix of storage and playroom - dolls, doll beds and doll house nestle in the light from a dormer window. In the middle of the space sits a desk perfect for building with the erector set that sits in a box on top. Behind the chimney you can see the framing for another bedroom, started but never finished.

Returning to the yard you imagine the sled rides that start on the pile deposited around the stop sign by the plows and continue the length of the sloping yard. The gully that surrounds the house on two sides sparks thoughts of adventures to be had in that oasis of wild.

This house that you've been imagining is the haunted house my family lived in for ten years. We moved in when I was almost 4. My parents, with help from various professionals and my grandfather, stripped layer upon layer of wall paper, replaced plumbing and electrical lines, rehabbed the bathroom, painted, cleaned and filled the house with laughter and love. It was the first house my little brother lived in. I learned to ride a bike on the front porch (yes it was that big). It was a great house to grow up in there at the end of that dead end street.

Frozen Motion

D working to spin the merry-go-round faster and faster.

More frozen motion here.

PhotoHunters: Dirty

N was 19 months old when this was taken. We were hiking on a rainy day and he insisted that he was not going to ride in the backpack. What fun he had stomping in _all_ the puddles - most of them at least twice. He showed great promise as a hiker. This summer at 3 3/4 he climbed a small mountain.

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Poetry Thursday: An Open Window

As summer slips toward fall,
through an open window the river beckons
promising the pleasure that comes from
dipping paddle into water,
pulling toward sights and sounds
new and familiar.

More Poetry Thursday here.

Poetry Thursday is going away. This is it's last Thursday. Thanks Liz and Dana for providing this inspiration!

PhotoSharks: Plastic

Plugs for the computer server room at work.
This was taken 2 1/2 years ago when the room was under construction.

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Sunday Scribblings: I Get That Sinking Feeling...

Anyone who knows me knows that I will swim pretty much anywhere anytime. Each summer during our vacation I start each and every day with a lengthy swim - 45 minutes to an hour of watery Adirondack goodness. And I start many other days during the year with a pool swim. But it wasn't always this way.

As a child I was terrified of water. Even having my hair washed was a terrifying experience. I expect that there were many times when my mother was tempted to drown me rather than deal with my screaming.

I had many opportunities to learn to swim. My elementary school had a pool. During the summer the local recreation department offered swim lessons there. Beginning in third grade we had regular swim lessons as part of our PE program. My parents took us to the pool at the college where my father worked. A particularly scary pool since the shallow end was 5 feet deep!

The swim lessons that have stuck in my head, though, are the few I had with the swim coach from the college. Mr. K had a house on New York's Lake George and on a couple of occasions our family spent the day there. I remember standing in ankle deep water with Mr. K. In his hand he held a red boat. He explained that this was Popeye's boat, but that it didn't float very well (actually it didn't float at all) so when it went into the water I would have to retrieve it to save Popeye.

The first time the boat went into the ankle deep water. No problem to pick it up. Each time the boat went into the water it went a little deeper. Soon it was going into waist deep water. This presented a dilemma. If I picked it up by bending forward at the waist my face would be very close to the water. The point, of course, was to get me to put my face in the water. But I was having none of that. I worked very hard, twisting my body so that I could get full extension into the water, but not get one drop on my face. I'd like to say this game helped me learn to swim, but it didn't. I still got that sinking feeling when faced with the necessity to put my face into the water.

I was 10 before I learned to swim. I don't actually remember learning. It happened during one of the swim classes during PE. The mother of a classmate had taken over as our PE teacher. I remember that she was patient and didn't push me to swim.

Once I learned to swim there was no stopping me. I spent most days during the couple of summers after I learned to swim at the pool at the college where my Daddy worked. I would bike over, stopping to say hello to the athletic department secretaries then head to the pool. Mid-day was lap swim time, a forced break for me, but once that was over it was back into the pool for the afternoon. Freshman year of high school I signed up for swimming 3 of the 4 PE terms. My high school not only had a pool, but passing the Red Cross intermediate swimming test was a graduation requirement.

Swimming is one of my favorite forms of exercise, and if I'm not swimming I'm probably in my kayak. I no longer get a sinking feeling when presented with a need to get my face wet, and these days no one has to bring out a metal boat to get me swimming.

More Sunday Scribblings here.

PhotoHunt: Happy

D and JT enjoying the pool at my hotel on Cape Cod.

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Nobody Would Believe Me

If I didn't have the evidence I don't think I could convince anyone that today's set puzzle took me only 39 seconds. This is an actual, unretouched screen shot.

Of course, yesterday's took me over 3 minutes.

Thursday Challenge: Young

Oh, to be young and fearless. That's my nephew, D, running down the slide.

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Happy Birthday AE!

Please join me in wishing my sweetie a Happy, Happy Birthday! If you'd like to leave her birthday wishes you can do that by going here.

The picture above is Amy at 2. Her mom has pictures of each of her siblings, and a niece and a nephew posing on the same stool. All were taken at the photo studio in her hometown.

Haiku - derailed train

Stars shine upon me
sparkling off still lake water
perfect summer night

This week's prompt over at One Deep Breath is Haiku Train. It's a collaborative multi stanza haiku started by host Susan. Each subsequent participant uses the last line of the preceding haiku as the first line of theirs. I added to the poem earlier today (you can read all of the entries here). When I stopped by to see the subsequent progress I was struck by the line above from Pixiedust. Since I'm not sure about making multiple entries in the group effort I decided to post this here instead.

One of these years we're going to schedule our time in the Adirondacks so that we're there during the Perseid Meteor showers. I love gazing at the stars from the dock or from my kayak. We've seen shooting stars there, Amy saw her first there, and I think it would be a real happening to watch the meteor shower where you can see so many stars.

Sunday Scribblings: Goosebumps

As anyone who knows me will tell you I am not a great fan of scary things. I have seen only a couple of horror movies in my life. I saw part of Halloween in college. I think Amy may still have bruises from that. When Jurassic Park was due out Amy decided that if I had read the book it would not be so bad. So we read the book, at least part of it was read aloud while I painted the floor of my workshop. As it turned out that just made it worse, because I anticipated each of the scary parts of the movie. The only good news was that we'd waited a while to see it and there were only a couple of other people in the theater so there weren't many witnesses to my yelps.

I also startle easily. Many years ago I was a nanny for a family with 9 and 12 year old boys who discovered this tendency and proceeded to take advantage of it. The hallway from my room to the kitchen paralleled the pantry. This provided the perfect spot for the boys to hide and jump out to scare me. It took several months of almost daily scares before I got wise to this and was able to anticipate it.

There is, though, one scary event which holds a special place in my heart. The neighborhood I grew up in was home to a number of fraternity houses which housed students from the college where my father worked. One of these fraternities put on a yearly haunted house in the days before Halloween. The scary things in the house were not designed to scare the pants off of the children who went through it, but to give us a small fright.

The haunted house was an anticipated event. It ushered in Halloween, and was all about us as children. I don't remember an adult ever going through it. We would line up on the porch and sidewalk outside the fraternity. The anticipation grew as those who'd been through did their best to convince us that it was too scary for us. And finally it would be our turn.

In the darkened interior of the house were ghosts, and vampires, and bowls of eye balls, and things that dropped from the ceiling to startle. It was okay to scream when startled, that was the point. If you survived the scares the kitchen offered a steaming cauldron of cider and witches offering trays of doughnuts.

It's been many years since my last trip through the haunted house. These days I don't even watch the commercials for scary movies. But if I was given the chance to be 10 again and take the walk through that haunted house I'd do it. The goosebumps that haunted house raised were good ones.

Evening Haiku

softball hit sharply
scattering soccer players
fine summer evening

Dedicated to all the players and umpires of the MIT Community Summer Softball league.

I realize haiku should stand on it's own, but I think an explanation is in order for this one, particularly since I couldn't find an appropriate picture. Our softball league, MITCSS, plays on multi-purpose fields at MIT. At other times of the year the fields accomodate soccer, rugby, football, frisbee, baseball and softball. Most nights we have 6 or 7 games being played simultaneously and we use all of the available field space. Every night we must contend with soccer players who show up and decide that left field looks like a great place for a game.

I'll try to add a more serene take on the prompt tomorrow.

More One Deep Breath: here

Set Time

I haven't done the set daily puzzle since Friday, July 21st the day before we left on vacation. We did spend a little time last night and this morning with the card set, which arrived while we were away. I was getting ready to shut down the computer and head to bed and decided to take a couple of minutes to try the puzzle. The result is above. It's not my best time (that was 44 seconds on July 8th - photographic evidence will be provided if requested) but I think it's pretty good.

I'll be posting vacation tales over the course of this week, although probably not tomorrow since I have to work, and then umpire a softball game.

PhotoHunters: Tiny

The hands of our friend Snowman and his 2 month old son Snowflake.

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PhotoFriday: Vacation

Vacation Rules:
No pagers
No phones
No television
Computer for photography storage only
Crisp Adirondack air
Lake within easy reach
Family and friends
Large stack of books
Puzzles - jigsaw and pencil

Two weeks of relaxation starts tomorrow, now I must get back to packing.

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Information on the perfect Adirondack vacation: here

Sunday Scribblings: Wicked

Wicked was not a word that occupied much space in my vocabulary when I was growing up. Wicked was the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz, and occasionally another story book character. It was not a word I used in every day conversation and I don't remember anyone I spent time with using it either.

I grew up in New York state, although I don't really sound like it since my speech patterns were influenced by my father's western Massachusetts upbringing, and my mother's modified mid-western upbringing, and the elocution classes my mother was subjected to in college. By the summer of 1976 we were living in northeastern Ohio, a brief sojurn, where my speech was further influenced by not only the sounds of Ohio but also by the slight British accent a school mate had acquired during his father's sabbatical in England the previous year and cultivated for reasons unknown to me.

I'm sure I used slang, I do now and have no reason to believe that I was immune from it as a child. But I can't actually tell you what slang I might have used to identify those things which were, to use a more recent vernacular, awesome.

The summer of 1976 found me working in the kitchen of a church camp in New Hampshire. I ended up there largely because I'm not good at small talk, but given a job to do at a social event and I'm fine. Late in the spring of 1976 I was at a church picnic, and someone commented on how helpful I was. The college age daughter of our pastor was at the periphery of the conversation and asked if I was interested in working with her that summer. She was the head cook at the camp. A couple of weeks later I was off to New Hampshire. The trip east was eventful enough since it was the first time I had traveled alone.

I took the train east from Ohio to Springfield, Massachusetts where my grandfather picked me up, took me to lunch at the Ground Round in West Springfield, and deposited me at the bus station. At the end of the bus ride north I was picked up by the head cook (the minister's daughter) and the waterfront director, who was nominated for the job because he had a car.

A number of my co-workers were from the Boston area. And when they wanted to describe those things that set their hearts to tingling with joy they said "wicked pissah" (never pisser, always pissah). The first time I heard it there was a pause before I figured out what they meant. Eventually it became a familiar phrase rooted in my brain. I'm sure my mother was glad that the phrase didn't become part of my vocabulary.

I moved to the Boston area just over a year later (yes I'm that old) and was able to pick out the locals at my college by their use of the word wicked. In the intervening years the phrase wicked pissah has fallen out of use, at least in the circles I run in, but on those rare occasions when I hear it I am instantly back in that long ago summer in the woods of New Hampshire.

Happy Birthday T!

My little sister, who is not so little, anymore is celebrating her birthday today. Hopefully, there was at least a little sun out on Cape Cod where she and her family are camping.

Body of Water Haiku

Waves crashing, toss boat
arms strain to control paddle
mighty Atlantic

******************************************


Rainbow Lake visions
promising relaxation
vacation beckons

********************************************

rainy day splashing
little boy stomping puddle
temporary lake

Shutterday: Slippery When Wet

D and JT enjoying the sun, a pool, and each other.

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Cape Cod Boy

I spent the last couple of days with the But Wait and Sassafras families on Cape Cod. This morning was a momentous one - D lost his first tooth. I'm scooping his Mommy with her permission so that Grammy and Grampy can see the toothless grin.

More Cape adventures to come.

Independence Day Paddle

Tuesday night when I got home from work I loaded the kayak gear into and onto the car. I'd decided last weekend while on my way to the batting cages that aren't there anymore where I wanted to paddle. So, everything was in place for an early morning departure. That was the plan anyway.

Yesterday I woke up a bit later than intended, and it took me a while to get going. So it was almost 11 before I got out of the house. It was nice to have the gear ready to go so no more time was wasted.

My intended target was the Sudbury River. I put in just off Route 20 in Wayland (just west of Russell's Garden Center for those who know the area). There is a small parking area here and the edge of the river has a nice sandy bottom, although it does drop off pretty quickly. I was on the river by 11:20, and headed south (upriver) toward Framingham.

It was a slightly gloomy day, with a solid cloud cover. The weather gurus had promised that we wouldn't get rain until late in the day, so I wasn't too worried about that. There was a steady wind which when coupled with the current of the river made for a bit of a workout.

The river takes a hard left turn under Route 20 then a right turn under an old railroad bridge. From there river widens and passes through an area with marsh on one side and tree lined shores on the other. One more bridge, and the river widens a bit more. This stretch had fairly significant waves, particularly when you consider that this is usually a quiet river. I'd paddled here before (last fall), although on my previous trip I started further downriver (just off Route 27). There is a country club on the south/east shore of the river at this point but the only sign of human habitation is a path lined with curb stones that comes down to the water.

Once I'd passed the country club I entered the portion of the river I hadn't traveled before. The shore gives way to marsh at this point and the river meanders along. I passed a couple of other paddlers as I worked my way through the marsh. The view here is grass, grass and yes more grass. Finally when it seemed the marsh would go on forever I paddled around another bend and saw deep shade ahead. The marsh had given way to tree lined banks.

I had my first critter sighting of the day as I entered the shade provided by the trees. Slithering off the bank into the water was a beaver. It was quick, but the coloring and texture were definitely beaver. My guess was supported by trees showing definite beaver damage along the banks.

This picture is not one of those. This is the root system for a clump of trees (I'm not sure what kind). There were several of these along this stretch of the river. I'm fascinated by the patterns the roots make.

Most of the rest of my trip was between tree lined banks, and in tree littered water. As the river moves into Framingham, the evidence of humans increases. This stretch of the river is ripe for a clean-up effort. I had to wonder if the plastic tricycle caught in a downed tree was the result of flooding or littering. And the tires (I must have seen a dozen) - were those the remnants of swings, or do we really think that rivers make good dumping grounds.

I went just beyond the bridge pictured at the top, which isn't so much a bridge as a pier. If you look carefully you may notice that there is water to the right of the bridge. The water flows pretty rapidly here, but with a little work it can be conquered.

Just beyond the bridge a large white pipe arches over the river. This pipe brings drinking water from the Quabbin Reservoir to greater Boston. Our town doesn't get it's water from the Quabbin, ours comes from wells in town. The pipe is impressive.

Turning around was sweet bliss. Although the urge to see what was around the next bend in the river was strong, the time and slightly tired muscles convinced me turning around was in order. I love the feeling of having the trip go from the work of paddling against the current to the freedom of steering while the river provides the power. As much as possible I plan trips so the the downriver portion comes after the upriver portion.

The critter sightings were few on this trip. In addition to the beaver, and a squirrel or two, I saw lots of little birds (I'll have to figure out what they are one of these days), and a red-winged blackbird or two. The critter highlight of the day was the heron which took off from the river bank over the front of my kayak about 1/2 mile before the put in.

I pulled the boat out of the river at 2:05. It was a very nice trip and a great way to spend part of my day off.

Thursday Challenge: Time

Clock on the John Adams Courthouse in Boston.

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Garden Blooms

The lavendar is blooming, and the coreopsus are just awakening. The green on the right are day lillies, and the green behind the coreopsus is a combination of bell flower (campanula) and balloon flower (platycodon).
This picture makes it look like we have a huge yard. What isn't obvious is the road that runs between our yard and the large trees and our neighbor's houses just out of frame to the left and right.

Closeup of the English lavendar.

The coreopsus with the lavendar behind. The pale stems between them are Russian sage which is not yet blooming.

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PhotoHunters: Sweet

Local strawberries from a small market near our house. They smell as good as they look and taste even better.

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Thursday Challenge: Weather

Hot, sticky weather is making me wish for snow.

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Moody Monday: Horny

Rhino statue at the San Diego Wild Animal Park

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PhotoHunters: Shiny

Polar Bear Statue at the San Diego Zoo

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PTO Paddle

I took yesterday and today off from work (PTO paid time off). I spent yesterday loafing and doing a little work in the woodshop (first step of finishing the foot stools), and I finished up the day umpiring a fast-pitch softball game - very one sided, not a lot of fun to umpire.

Today after going to an 8am doctor's appointment I loafed some more, worked in the wood shop for a couple of hours (finishing the nightlight and working on a jig). And then it was time to hit the river, Charles that is.

I put in at the Elm Bank Reservation in Wellesley. This was the first tryout for the kayak trailer I got for Christmas. The trailer has a cradle for the back end of the boat and two straps one which secures the back. The other strap runs through a large hook. The hook is hooked to the cockpit and the straps are tightened to secure it. It works like a dream and makes moving the kayak more than a couple of feet a lot easier.

I put in under a large tree at the edge of the river. This put in is quite steep. My everlasting thanks to the woman, there playing with her dogs, who pointed out the gradual sloped launch site 20 feet away.

From there I headed upriver toward the dam in South Natick. I haven't paddled much of this stretch before. Like much of the Charles it is a mellow stretch of water that winds past park land (Elm Bank) and houses. Many of the houses had canoes resting by the water. And one had a great tree house right at the edge of the river. I got as close as I could to the dam. I had to turn around not because of the current, but because the water was too shallow. I did get within about 50 feet of the dam. Then it was back down river. Because I had time I continued about a mile or so beyond Elm Bank before I headed back to the car.

As I paddled my mind wandered around a bit. I composed haiku in my head, or I should say part of a haiku. I've got the first two lines. I thought about what to write about the paddle. I thought about the last time I paddled part of this stretch back in November. And I thought about things I've forgotten.

Total paddle time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Total distance ~ 3 1/2 miles. Turtle sightings - 1; heron sightings - 2; goose sightings - too many to count; plastic dog sightings - 3 (designed to counteract goose sightings). Human sightings were few - the woman with the dogs, 2 little boys who'd been fishing and their grandmother (I think), 2 couples reading in the sun, one adult rollerblader, two women on horseback, and two other kayakers.

Take a careful look at the picture below. Do you see the fish?


The other kayakers were not wearing life vests, and based on a short conversation I had with them were not clear on which direction was upriver and which was down. While the Charles, particularly in this section, is a fairly easy paddle I still don't think it's smart to paddle without life vests; and it's always smart to know where you're paddling.

A note on my own paddling practices. I do frequently paddle alone. When I do I always let Amy know where I'm putting in, where I'm planning to paddle and how long I expect to be gone and I call her when I'm out of the river. I also leave a note in the car with the time I'm putting in, the expected return and where I'm going. I always wear my life vest, which has an emergency whistle attached to it, and I always have identification (in the form of my medic alert bracelet) with me. I also do my homework. Before I try a new route I check guidebooks and maps so I know what to expect.

PhotoHunters: Hair

I wasn't happy about the haircut I'd just had.

Fifth grade - I was happier about this haircut.

More PhotoHunters: here
I scanned these but they were taken by my mother.
I'm a little early with this, but we're going away for the weekend.

Rejoicing in Massachusetts

I didn't hold a sign,
I didn't chant slogans,
I wasn't in the crowd.

I did release a sigh of relief,
I did call my wife,
I did smile broadly.

Three years ago I said I do,
Three years she said I do,
Three years as wife and wife.

Voting on rights is wrong,
the legislature agrees,
Our marriage will not be challenged.

At this point it's really not news, but today the Massachusetts legislature voted down a proposed ballot question that would have put the question of whether same-sex marriage should be legal on the ballot in 2008. I'm not naive enough to think the battle is over. The battle will continue both here and across the country. The haters will still hate. But for today it's time to rejoice because love has won out.

LensDay: Sports

I couldn't resist sharing one more Wellesley Softball picture.

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More LensDay: here

Paddle Season Begins

I finally got my kayak into the water Sunday afternoon. I can't believe I waited this long!

Sunday was a hot steamy day with crisp clear blue skies. In short the perfect day to put paddle to water.

Since this was the first outing I chose a familiar stretch of the Charles for my trip. I put in just off route 30 near route 128 in Newton. (For those who know the area the put in is across the river from the Charles River Canoe & Kayak rental shop. From there I headed upriver towards Weston and Wellesley.

Moving upriver on this section of the river you first make your way under route 30, then the turnpike before entering a quieter stretch that passes by Riverside Park. Next up are the route 128 bridges, before passing through the relative quiet of the Leo J. Martin golf course.

This is not the most remote section of the river, and even late on a Sunday afternoon there was quite a bit of company on the river. I'd expected that since the rental shop does a pretty brisk business and it was such a gorgeous day. Once I got to the golf course I was basically alone. I explored a little further than I ever have before, going well beyond the golf cart bridge.

As is typical when I get out on the river, I didn't want to turn around. I have a watch that hangs on my life vest, and before I put in I decide how long I can paddle. But as I get near and beyond the time to turn around I'm forever making deals with myself - "I'll turn around when I get to that big tree" or "I really need to turn around at that rock". It's a lot easier when there is a natural impediment to continuing - a dam, low water level or the like. Responsibility did win out and I turned around and headed back downriver.

It's always fun to begin a trip heading upriver and end it heading downriver. By approaching a trip that way the end of the trip is an easier paddle. The river is high enough, and I was close enough to a water fall that the current was fairly strong and pushed me back downriver.

All in all it was an auspicious, if late, beginning to the paddle season.

Sunday Scribblings: Spicy

I'm wrote most of this while sitting under a tree on the campus of the college from which I graduated. As I sat there enjoying the bright sunny day, I was thinking about the chapel service this morning. It's reunion weekend and since the class I graduated with is back I stopped by for a couple of events including chapel. (I took a year off halfway through college and usually attend reunion with the class with which I started. But it's a *big* reunion, and I only live a couple of miles away...)

The college I attended was a fairly white bread place when I was there. There were students of color and international students but they didn't make up a very large percentage of the student body. Similarly the chapel services were decidedly Protestant.

I didn't attend very many chapel services as a student, but as a member of the college choir attendance was mandatory at a few every year. Those services had a comforting similarity to the Presbyterian and Congregationalist services I had attended (sporadically) before college. The order of service, the hymnal, the prayers all were familiar.

Partway through my college life the college hired a new chaplain who was decidedly feminist. I have fond memories of our choir director, an older man with roots in the Episcopalian church, complaining because this new chaplain was insisting that the wording of the hymns being sung have the wording changed to reflect here feminist bent. There is a certain absurdity to his annoyance given that I attended a women's college. Our director was a dear sweet man who just didn't want his beloved hymns messed with.

Things have changed quite a bit since then. The student body is decidedly more ethnically diverse and formerly marginalized communities are an integral part of the campus. The religious life of the college has changed as well. A number of years ago a new chaplain was brought in and charged with developing ways to embrace the religious diversity on the campus. The chaplain embraced this challenge with an evangelical passion. College wide chapel services now incorporate elements of a wide range of religions.

As I sat under the tree earlier today it was the sounds of the service which were running through my mind. The low ringing of the bell which is the Buddhist call to worship; the chattering of birds outside the open door, the lilt of a Hindu prayer, the blending of women's voices as they sang a round in Hebrew, the words of the Koran, and the more familiar words of the Protestant and Catholic traditions.

After the horrid attacks of September 11, 2001 the college scheduled a special all college chapel service. At a time when the unfamiliar was cause for anxiety, this service provided healing in sharing the range of religious observance. I particularly remember the end of the service when we were directed to the lawn outside the chapel. Once gathered in a circle there we shared a native American prayer. It was one more element toward bringing understanding about how our differences can enrich us.

Where the services of my college life were white bread, the services now are a lovely spicy stew and everyone who is fortunate enough to attend one is enriched.

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is spicy. You can see more here. And thanks to Shelley for inspiration on this one.

Anniversaries

I love being able to introduce Amy as "my wife". It's only a word, but it holds a lot of power. Introducing the person you share your life with as "my partner" frequently results in a follow-up question of "Oh, you work together?" Followed by the now necessary explanation that no you don't work together (although we do which is a story for another day) but rather that you live together as life partners. When you introduce the same person as "my wife" you may get some interesting double-takes, and occasionally lengthy pauses while the person on the other side of the conversation processes the information and realigns their world view, but there is recognition and understanding. The word wife fits into a classification category in our society and brings common understanding.

Amy and I celebrated our third anniversary yesterday. Well actually we didn't so much celebrate as acknowledge that it was in fact our third anniversary. Why, you may ask, was this not an occasion for great rejoicing and leather (the traditional third anniversary gift)? This is one of three anniversaries we have. Yes, three.

Anniversary number one is the date we have celebrated for 24 years. It's in February and is the important anniversary.

Anniversary number two is the legal wedding date, yesterday. It's the day when we gathered with a couple of friends, my aunt and a justice-of-the-peace in our living room to make it legal.

Anniversary number three is the date of our "re-wedding" in October. That's the day when our friends and family gathered to celebrate our wedding. Vows, flowers, photographer (If you're in the greater Boston area and need a really good wedding photographer let me know and I'll pass on her contact info.), cake, and a bar tender who was only too happy to keep one ear on the first game of the 2004 World Series and relay the scores to the friends and family who gave up the opportunity to spend the night screaming at the tv to be with us. We do have one friend who had to leave early to get back to her job in the Red Sox ticket office (thanks Sarah!).

The legal wedding happened because I panicked. There is an image burned into my memory from the coverage of San Francisco's foray into issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It is of a slightly older woman standing in the hall after being informed that the state had stepped in to halt the issuing of licenses. She looks devasted, but rather than the string of profanities which might have issued from my mouth, all she is saying is "Oh darn, .. darn, darn, darn." I didn't want to be that woman, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to be Amy's wife.

Amy would have been happy to wait. She didn't feel the same urgency that I did. But she does love me. So we found a JP, called two of our closest friends, called my parents (who wanted to be there but couldn't rearrange previous obligations, and my aunt. The day before the wedding we prepared the entree for the wedding feast (greek meatballs), made cupcakes, and made sure the living room was presentable. Tuesday, June 8th rolled around and we headed to work. Yup, that's right we worked the day of our wedding. We left work early. We'd planned what to wear, but a sudden heat wave, 98º that day, changed those plans. But we did dress up.

We didn't have bouquets but we did have flowers. Amy had picked out some - to make sure we had flowers at our wedding. My parents sent a gorgeous bouquet of cream colored roses. Our friend Karen brought red roses, and my aunt bought a beautifully colorful mixed bouquet.

Karen was the first to arrive and we put her to work as photographer. We took a couple of pictures of the two of us using the neighbors yard as backdrop. She also took pictures throughout the ceremony and during the celebration afterwards.

Our friend Katy, not to be confused with my aunt Katie, brought her children R and A. Katy and R were dressed for the weather in simple dresses. A, however, had insisted on wearing his tuxedo complete with bow tie and cummerbund. (We'd even gotten email earlier in the week asking which bowtie he should wear - we chose the purple one.) I thought the poor kid was going to melt. He stayed in full regalia until we started dinner.

The ceremony was uneventful. There was some levity when Karen made us kiss a second time because she'd missed the first. It was sort of surreal to be saying those words. It didn't sink in until later that it was real.

We popped open a bottle of champagne, took some more pictures - including one that R took for our college alumnae magazine (all of the adults except the JP went to the same college), and had a great dinner. The next day we went to work. We hadn't told anyone there that we were getting married, but word got out and we received lots of warm wishes. We sent out announcements. And then life went on much as it had.

Being married hasn't changed the day-to-day of our life, although it has complicated our taxes (The feds don't recognize the marriage. The state return uses numbers from the federal return. We have to file state as married and federal as single. So we complete three federal returns - two (one each) to mail along with a letter explaining why we are submitting a return that says we're single when we're married and one to get the numbers for the state return.) What being married has done is given us a great sense of security. We have a license that gives us legal status in each other's lives. We don't have to rely on luck and geography to live our lives.

So we didn't celebrate our anniversary yesterday. But we celebrate being married everyday.

And finally, one more anniversary to make note of. Today is my parent's 51st anniversary. Their idea of celebration - watching the Yankee's win and babysitting my nephew so his parents can go to tomorrow's Yankees game.

Softball Season

The third week of the softball season ended yesterday. So far it's been a good year and every indication is that it's going to continue.

Once again this year we have scheduling issues, for which I have no responsibility. The athletic department (this league is a community league at the university with which my place of employment is associated) is planning to resod 4 of the 10 fields so those aren't available until early July. They have let us use the outfield of the baseball diamond. We have 73 teams in 13 divisions so this presented a challenge for the schedulers. Extending the season and scheduling double-headers solved this.

Our fields are with one exception not designed to be softball fields. We do use the intercollegiate softball field, but the other fields are just open grass. We do use one soccer/field hockey/frisbee/lacrosse field which is covered with what is essentially carpet - fake grass without blades. We use rubber bases which the umpires set out before the game and pick up after the game. Most nights we have games going on at least 4 fields at once. When the season really gets going we'll have 7 games going at once.

I've umpired one fast-pitch and on slow-pitch game, and played 2 slow-pitch games so far. The umpiring is going really well this year. I attribute that to all the softball I watched in March, April and May. Of course the fact that I've been doing this for 8 years might have something to do with it. I hadn't planned to umpire the slow-pitch game I did on Thursday but one of my umpires (I am the umpire-in-chief fo the league) called with a work conflict too late to get a sub.

My softball stuff is all in residence in my car so I grabbed the couple of things I needed and headed for the field. I did rearrange that night's umpires so I could do the game on the softball diamond, which has permanent bases so I didn't have to lug bases. Game time is 5:30. I had woodworking class at 7 so I let the captains (no coaches in our league) know that I was going to keep the game moving. An hour and 5 minutes later the 7 inning game was done, and I was headed to class. It was a relatively low scoring game (12 -7) and the teams did their best not to waste time. I was only 15 minutes late for class, which isn't an issue since it's an open shop class.

Our team is now 3-0. I've only played in two of the games. I missed last week because Amy had a concert. I'm playing second (no kneeling, not much running). I've only been involved in a couple of plays. First game I took a throw from short for a force out - and almost got taken out by the runner. Last night I fielded a ground ball cleanly and flipped it to the shortstop for the force. In the first game I walked twice and grounded out once. Last night I grounded out to the pitcher and hit a deep grounder to the shortstop. My courtesy runner beat out the throw on the second and came around to score later in the inning.

We're off to a good start, and I can't wait for more.

Literary Meme

While looking at other entries for Thursday Challenge I came across this on the Brew*Crew's blog. Usually I don't invite myself to play along with things like this, but this was quick so I decided to see what it would unearth.

The rules are:

• grab the book closest to you
• open it to page 161
• find the fifth full sentence
• post the text of the sentence to your blog
• don't search around for the coolest book you have, use the one that is really next to you.

I'm at work, and I've got lots of manuals around but the closest book is the mystery I'm reading. The fifth full sentence on page 161:

"I don't remember what being forty looks like," Judith admitted.

Just for the record, I do remember what being forty looks like.

Thursday Challenge: Texture

What do you think this is?

Larger View: here
More: Thursday Challenge

One Deep Breath: Architecture

lines intersecting
instruction for construction
vision of new space

More haiku at One Deep Breath.