Memory Stones, Indeed!

Erin, you nailed it. The item I purchased in bulk at the dollar store was a bag of semi-polished rocks. They're small, they come in different shapes and colors, they're pretty, and it's unlikely that anyone would already have one in his/her pocket.

The convention was excellent. The highlight for me (aside from doling out rocks and talking with lots of people) is the business meeting on Saturday. The democratic process is alive and well in the American Council of the Blind, and it's cool to experience it. I'm blessed with an abstract-random learning style, so it amazes me that there are folks who know Robert's Rules of Order inside and out. I was relieved to hear that, at the national conventions, ACB hires a parliamentarian consultant to keep things in order.

At the business meeting, the really cool thing is the voting method. Accessible ballots at their finest! Each member is given a few slips of paper and a nail. When a vote is to be taken, the names of candidates are announced in alphabetical order. A vote for the first candidate is noted by punching a single hole through a piece of paper. The second name would require two holes, and so on. All you have to do is use the nail to make visible, tactile holes in your ballot. Sighted guests (not voting members) are designated to collect and count the votes and report to the president. Even though this is a beautifully simple process, there were still a number of invalid ballots. Hanging chads are okay, however!

In the photo above, I displayed my notebook (anti-dozing aid), reading glasses, a few of my rocks, and the voting materials. Mementos of a weekend well spent.

In another post, I'll tell you about the perils of making plans for other people, and how close we were to having a stampede and riot to get off the bus.

A Penny for Your Thoughts?

Woo hoo! Road trip! I'm going to a convention this weekend, and have set a g**l to talk with every person in attendance. (I'm allergic to g**ls, so can't spell out the word. If you put an o and an a in the middle, you'll get it.) Although I'm a people person, I'm also an introvert and am naturally on the shy side. Because of that, I had to figure out a strong motivation to make sure I meet and greet as many of these 150 people as possible.

So... I went to the Dollar Store yesterday, planning to look around until I found something inexpensive I can give to each person during our conversation. It has to be cheap (there will be about 150 folks) and small and memorable. It took a few minutes, a couple of failures, but I came up with a wonderful plan.

I bought two bags, each containing at least 100 items, each of them a little different than the others. Can you guess what I got? They cost $1 per bag, they're small but not tiny, and no one else will be handing out anything like this. Come on, can you guess what I'm taking? Post your answer in the comments, and I'll let you know how it went (and what the goodies are) when I get home.

Educational Entertainment?

I threatened to put these links up some time ago, but today I'm going to follow through and do it. Have you ever wished you could speak another language? Have you tried to learn a new tongue? Numerous studies have shown that the learning process moves ahead more quickly when set to music. (That's why you've heard your orthopedist humming, "Thigh bone's connected to the hip bone...") Language-learning also benefits from the use of song. Therefore, I offer you a catchy little tune in a variety of languages so you can decide which one you'd like to work on first. Which is your favorite?

German (the original, I presume)
French
Spanish
Brazilian (also known as Portuguese?)
Hungarian
Swedish
Hebrew
And, for translation purposes, English


Are you overwhelmed by the thought of learning a whole new vocabulary? Syntax got you down? This little gem will help you to sound like you speak another language, without the extra bother of memorizing new words. Here are a few samples:

Jamaican Creole
Canton
Nepali
Tagalog
And for my brother, who loves the food, Basque.

There you go, off on another armchair adventure courtesy of The World Wide Web and yours truly. But please be careful -- blue cheese does not go well with Gummi Bears.



The Speech Accent Archives belong to George Mason University. Quite a fascinating study.

Football and Prayer

Last night was the homecoming game. At this school, tradition is carried out in utter consistency from year to year. At least, that's what I've observed over 14 seasons. The princesses are driven in a parade of convertibles to the 50-yard line, where they are met by their parents and escorted past a JROTC honor guard and onto the field. After they've all been introduced, last year's queen is driven into view. She gets out of her car and walks out to crown the new homecoming queen. Hugs, hugs, tears, and back to the cars for the return trip to the side of the stadium.

The cars this year were beautiful, gorgeous, poetic 1957 Ford Thunderbirds. I drooled over them. Mint green, creamy yellow, white, black, red, and gunmetal gray. I swooned over them. The serious rain last night made the owners keep the lids on tight, but this was the way the cars were designed to look most of the time, right? I feasted my eyes on them.

No wayward fireworks, no streakers, no bad surprises in last night's festivities. Yay! I can't even recall any injuries on the field. It was a good night.

Except...

Late in the fourth quarter, at a quiet moment, I heard something bad. The crowd around me heard it, too, and there was a collective gasp. It appeared that a child had slipped on the wet steps. Dad scooped him/her up and ran for the exit. Despite the fall, this little one was not crying. Head injury? Loss of consciousness? A minute later, I began to notice people craning their necks toward the area where the ambulance always parks. My concentration for the game was blown. I'll spare you the details, but I was very concerned for that family. Eventually, the ambulance moved. Before the game was over. That meant... well, I can't be sure, but I've been praying for the child ever since. I am ever thankful for the availability of emergency medical assistance. Even though I'm still scared about that situation, I trust that the child received excellent help in whatever way necessary.

Reading... and Thinking

It certainly would be a good thing if I were to post something meaningful or entertaining here, say, daily. Since I often check in on other blogs, you'd think I'd have the sense to write something for my reader(s) more regularly. But there are days... weeks... that go by without any particular hilarity or insight. I'm still chuckling about something, and I'm certainly pondering and wondering, but it doesn't seem worthy of a blog post.

In the past, I've written reaction pieces after reviewing a small portion of Scripture. Those Old Testament folks -- the ones with the clay feet that sometimes ended up in their mouths -- are interesting characters to analyze. But these days, I'm reading the Old Testament prophets. Ugh.

"You did wrong! You will be punished!"

Over and over again, that's the message. There's some great imagery, some scary stuff, but it's judgment, judgment, judgment. Not exactly the kind of material I'd like to put out there for just anyone to read, you know? Such a terrible downer.

Fortunately, if I ever get all the way through the major and minor prophets, there's good news coming. After all those downers, there'll be a gigantic upper. "Yes, you did wrong. Yes, you most definitely deserve to be punished. But there's an alternate ending to this story." It's a real-life choose-your-own-adventure but with an outcome that's beyond all expectation.

I'll keep putting in my time, reading and absorbing, walking through my days, writing when there's something worth your time reading. There is good news coming. Hang in there.

Rufus and I... Likin' Those Walks!

For the past couple of weeks, the Rufster and I have been walking three or four times a week, about 45 minutes each outing. We've gotten acquainted with some new micro-neighborhoods near our house, but once in a while have driven a little ways to find new views (and new sniffs.) Here are some photos I've taken along the way. If this were a scratch-n-sniff blog, Rufus would've been happy to share his impressions, too. Woof! (In case you can't make it out, that first photo is of branches with lichen. You know -- liking -- likin')?

Review: The Widow's Season

If you ask, I'll tell you that I don't read suspense. Nor do I read romance, sci-fi, or stories that don't fit well within my moral boundaries. But if a book really grabs me, those preferences go out the window for the sake of the story.

The Widow's Season by Laura Brodie caught my eye with its beautiful cover and intriguing title. The main character is Sarah, a recently-widowed woman still in the prime of her life. Her hopes and expectations were brought to a crashing halt when her husband came up missing from a solo kayaking trip. Although she wouldn't have said that she defined herself by her marriage, she did. Her inability to bear a child was a burden that weighed heavily on that relationship. Sarah and her husband, though close, were each dealing with the loss of a dream family.

When Sarah begins to see her husband at odd moments -- at the end of an aisle in the supermarket, walking down the hall past her bedroom -- the story takes an eerie turn. Is it a ghost? Is it David, in the flesh, returning after faking his own death? Or is it all Sarah's imagination, a subconscious reckoning with her losses?

There are a couple of places where Sarah's moral choices caused tension for me, but also for her. What if... What if her husband had been so traumatized by his accident that he let the world think he had died? What if his grief over the loss of a dream and the mundaneness of his life caused him to seek a new existence? What if, in her loneliness, Sarah turned to David's brother for substitutionary consolation? Until one has been tempted in such an awful new way, the responses are beyond imagining.

I would encourage you to read this book, not because you'll like it, but because you'll experience it. Ms. Brodie paints intimate pictures of the soul.