James Cameron and the Last Crusade

It's my personal opinion that James Cameron is a gifted film director. His talents as an archeaologist or even an amature historian are not his best hand. Ben Witherington has some interesting thoughts on this. www.benwitherington.blogspot.com

Movie recommendation of the day: Rory OShea Was Here.

Tua has a head cold. Her nose is very congested; its hard for me to watch her struggle to breath as she is feeding. However, the bottle went very well tonight. I think its down to a science at this point.

More snow for the weekend.
Snowshoe race in Pittsfield on Saturday....
The verse of the last chapter of James on Sunday....
The fun never ends...

Flags at the Corner

There are flags to mark a driveway
A banner in the snow, deep and wayward
They were put there by a widow once
when the strong October winds began to blow

Heralding the coming tides that would accompany winter
Warning that there might just be a rose beneath that snowbank
or that the corner of the house might be closer
that it may appear

Now the flags are tattered
and faded and look
more like a picture I once saw
in a travelogue
of a monastary in Tibet
high and rocky against a pure blue sky
and from its walls
were strung colorful flags
small rags no larger than perhaps 8 inches square
which lit up the pages with their muted tones
and with their resiliency
paid homage to the hands
which with care
had chosen each
and had offered it up
to the wind

The same care that went into those high banners in that far land
surly must be in the placing of these corner marks
just down the road from me
Fading flags to mark a lane
leaving nothing this winter
to chance.

Sunday 9am

Much of the morning is spent at rest

Waking for a leisurly lay-about until 6:15

At which point the words start to come and

I am helpless as I pull phrases from this nest

and burst them suddenly from my lips

Surely they make sense to whoever it is who hear

Entering this hallowed space

Catering to needs I was not aware of

Within minutes after they appear

Time is spent adjusting light

and the temperature of the bathwater

Cannot help but be made right

Heat the towels for my descent from

The basin to the floor

Dry me down and dress me up

with colors that will make me blush

Walk with me around the rooms

Watch the minutes as they gather into pools of time

Sleep will come to both of us

You have the balance of the day ahead

But I shall sleep by Nine

Peanut Butter and Orkney

The land that generated the minds behind much of the industrial revolution has big plans for their northern coast. Scottish Power...(www.scottishpower.com) has outlined a strategy for building the largest wave power plant in the world. They couldn't;t have picked a better place. Orkney is a tiny coal of in the midst of a churning, icy North Sea where waves outnumber residents by an insurmountable ratio. So while the Scots are busy bleeding light from darkness, America is in the throes of a violent salmonella scare. Industrial food manufacturers and consumers alike can take out their notebooks here. In an age where notions of quality and service in any sector are informed by assumptions made about the product and not necessarily by the truth, it is not surprising that this doesn't happen more often. This peanut butter scare is a prime example. It is assumed by the consumer that Peter Pan peanut butter is a wholesome variety of the popular spread. This assumption has been made not because it it actually is a wholesome variety, but because it got a green light from the FDA at some point in the past and has been manufactured up until this point with no ill effects passed on to the consumer. This assumption has led to a trail of sicknesses which has bred and will continue to breed lawsuit after lawsuit against the parent company of a product whose only intention was to provide a better butter. So while Con Agra must be held accountable to the production processes at their peanut butter plants, the American consumer must realize their own liberty in product choice. I recommend Teddy brand peanut butter. Much less corporate and a better flavor too. And for those of you who are wondering what all this has to do with the wave power off the Orkney Coast, we all might do well to take a lesson from Scottish Power and use the recourses at hand to improve the circumstance which, in this case, would be to buy peanuts in bulk and make your butter in the sanity of your own home.

Office Help

Today, Tua had her first typing class. You might think that we're doing things backward (the kid might do well to learn to read first), but our thought is that if she learns correct word formatting, the rest will follow.
This is Bug's corner office at home. It is beginning to resemble an orderly atmosphere as we continue to sort out what stays and what goes.

Churning a New Leaf

If you were to glance outside our east windows today at arount 10:30 you would have witnessed the propane delivery man struggling to make his way across an unshoveled path to our tank. This post is dedicated to that individual. May I endeavor to keep his path clear from now on.
Some of you reading this may already be aware of the big news that finally came to pass this morning. Killington and Pico ski resorts were bought by a local land holding agency. This is important for two reasons. The first is that it will hopefully keep the cash generated at the resort within the resort. The former owner (American Skiing Company - owner of resorts across America) was famous for using Killington's ready cash to keep its corporate head above water. It was like the British in colonial America...... In short, Killington profits were shuttled off to Boston, New York and points West leaving the mountain here to survive on crumbs. With a newer, much less corporate and a more decidedly local ownership on the table, much change for the better might very well be ahead.
The second reason that this sale is on the record tonight has to do with its timing. In an era of such extreme climate change (as well as an escalation of consensus that the world is indeed getting warmer), I am encouraged to know that a deal like this is still a reality. The snowless winters and the seasonless years may well fall within my days but when one can still fetch 83 million for a ski resort, winter as we know it may not be disappearing as quickly as we think.

Tonights score:

Tua- 10
The Bottle-12
For the first time in the two weeks that I have bottle fed her, she fell asleep mid-drink. She had less than an ounce to go but she wouldn't be roused.

Sightings

Bug took all of the above pictures this weekend. It was an eventful weekend, with most of the activities centered around the indoors. We are still sorting our way through the boxes we packed away last May. We found some items we didn't know we had, and still others we knew we had but thought had been thrown away. Everthing seems to be accounted for, save for a really fine pair of Sorels which would really come in handy right now with the amount of snow we have. The photo of Tua and I above is a rare portrait. Bug is usually asleep at the 10:30 meal and there is no one but the collies to run the camera at that hour and they aren't any good at it. I look as tired as I do for the simple reason that I actually am. That was taken only minutes ago, so if this post reads like a sailors lament, you'll have something to chalk it up to.