Happy Easter 2013

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Mamacita says:

Happy Easter, everyone.

What? Oh, oops. . . . .

Here. This is more like it. I do love those vintage Easter postcards. I hated growing up and finding out that those baby kittens were probably going to eat those baby chicks. I would also hate to have to tell you all how old I was before I realized that the bunnies weren’t really responsible for all those eggs.  (In real life, those Disney owls would have devoured those baby birds, etc, too.  Only in a Disney film is an owl a wise mentor, not a voracious carnivore.)  But I digress.  Or did I. . . .

Ultimately, however, this is Easter to me.

And isn’t it wonderful that so many of us, with so many different beliefs, can hang out here in the Blogosphere and get along great and love each other without having to constantly proselytize and try to sway each other to our own beliefs?

Oh, sure, those people are online too, but I don’t pay much attention to them. Not here; not anywhere.  Well, maybe a little more this past week, but not usually.

It’s the people whose beliefs are quietly lived every day, the people who show me by example what their values are, who get my attention.

And who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? If you don’t believe me, just look around for a minute or two. Think of your family.

And if you’re alone, look in the mirror.

See?

Happy Easter, dear internet people. Eat chocolate. Get together with family. Smile. Have some eggs. Rejoice over something.

It’s a good day for rejoicing. . . .

(Originally posted on Easter, 2005, but nothing’s changed since then.)

Oh, about that Easter Island head? It and its clone guard the entrance to the local city park. We carve limestone here.

Are you going to eat that Reese’s Egg?

P.S.  ”He is risen.”  Please notice the participle form of “to rise” used after the linking verb “is.” Participle forms of verbs, used without a helping verb, are adjectives.  If you want to say “He has risen,” you are using the third column past participle form of “to rise” and you are using it  with a helping verb.  Third column past participle verbs are never used without a helping verb.  By that same token, never use a helping verb with a first or second column present or past tense verb.  ”He done rose” is not acceptable.  (Future tense is an exception.)  (He WILL rise.)

P.P.S.  The above Easter grammar rant was brought to you by me, because I am forever behind a lectern, in reality and in my head, and can’t resist making a connection even if it involves bringing holy or sacred icons into the classroom.  Or the Blogosphere.  Why?  Because I am not afraid nor do I hesitate to connect pretty much anything and everything and anyone and everyone to anything and everything and anyone and everyone else. In the universe.  That is what education is.

P.P.P.S.  Easter Island heads have bodies.

 

 

Dongles, Sherlock Holmes, and Stuff That’s None of My Business

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DongleMamacita says:  I’ve been reading about the “dongle incident” and doing some serious thinking.    I’ve also been doing some serious head-shaking, and some equally serious wondering about where the line should be drawn between private conversation and public listening.
I don’t know about you (some of you, maybe, but definitely not all of you. . . .)  but when I’m not sure I understand something, an analogy is sometimes helpful.  Since I am “in education,” (but who isn’t?) I try to think of something well within my own understanding to help me out.
Like this:
Sometimes, teachers assume that their students have a background in cultural literacy when in fact they do not.  And sometimes, helping a student make and understand a connection between one thing and another, makes it all worthwhile.    Sometimes, teachers do not agree on what is worthwhile and what is not.
A few years ago, my sixth graders were getting ready to read a Sherlock Holmes short story: The Adventure of the Speckled Band, to be specific, which is my favorite Sherlock Holmes story.
About ten seconds into my enthusiastic introduction to the story, I realized that my students had never in all their lives even HEARD of Sherlock Holmes.  They will never be able to make that claim again, however.  I assure you.
We read the story and most of the students agreed that it was pretty cool.  Snakes.  Poisonous snakes.  Gypsies camping in the yard.  A cheetah and a baboon wandering free.  A huge powerful man given to fits of violence.  A bed, nailed to the floor.  Bending the iron rod.  Holmes, bending it back.  We discussed the physics of the iron rod; all the students, young as speckled bandthey were, knew that bending the rod in the first place required strength, and that bending it BACK required even more.  Holmes’ powers of observation fascinated the kids. Weird noises in the night.  Strange coincidences that even an 11-year-old thought off-kilter.  A bell-pull that pulled no bell.  Shared inheritances.  Screams in the night.  What’s not to love?
When we had finished, I recommended other Holmes stories, and the bell rang, and they left my room.  I sat there hoping the unit had gone as well for THEM as it did for me.
I knew it had been a good unit when I overheard a group of boys talking about it in the hallway.
“Now I know what it really means when somebody says ‘No shit, Sherlock!’”
No, I did not stop short, drag the student to the office and demand that he be punished for saying ‘shit.’  The P.E. teacher who also overheard the boys wanted to, but I asserted myself, which didn’t often happen because I am pretty much of a wuss in spite of my big talkin’ ways, and anyway, I do not believe in jumping on kids when their conversation was not directed towards me.  Eavesdroppers often hear negative things, and if they would mind their own business, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  (I am not referring to inappropriate remarks specifically aimed at a non-invited listener with the intent of upsetting, insulting, or otherwise involving said uninvited listener, mind you; I am talking about private conversations that happen to be overheard and sometimes taken personally when no personal involvement is intended.)
I figured that we were eavesdropping on those boys, and that whatever they said to each other in their supposed privacy (unless it was about bombs or threats or clues about who TP’d the restroom or whispers of abuse, etc.) was their business, not ours. Kids deserve some respect.
The other teacher walked off in a huff, carefully, so the corncob wouldn’t fall out.  I smiled at the boys and said, “That’s right, guys.”
Knowledge is power.  Education is all about connections.  And that, as far as I was concerned, was a legitimate connection.
And that is why I think too much was made of the “dongle incident.”  This is also why I do not call a flash drive of any kind a “dongle.”  If I told my students to insert their dongles into the drive, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get some laughter.  The word “dongle” is funny enough all by itself, and funnier in ANY kind of context.
Too many people take too many things far too seriously these days.  It takes our attention away from REALLY serious things, and THAT, my dear readers, is why so many important things are circling the drain while others, not nearly as important or serious, are getting so much attention.
Taking offense at someone else’s private conversation?  Please.  Was the conversation repellent?  Yes.  Sexist?  Yes.  Anyone’s business other than the two men speaking to each other?  No, it wasn’t.
Should we all try to be kind, considerate, discrete, careful what we say, and mindful of our surroundings when we say it?  Of course we should.
Does it ever happen that eavesdroppers do not hear what they’d like to hear?  That’s been a truism for hundreds of years.  ”Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.”
Were these men wrong in having this kind of conversation in public and loudly enough to be overheard?  Yes.  Was this woman wrong in making a huge public deal out of it INSTEAD OF trying to deal with it, at least at first, more quietly?  Yes. Don’t get me wrong; I think the men were indiscrete, but I also think the woman overreacted.  And I think the conversation was gross, but other people’s conversations – if they’re discrete – are none of my business.
Could this whole incident have been handled more wisely?  No shit, Sherlock.
Let’s all try to use our brains a little more, and our sense of context a little more, and our “I’m offended” a little less.  There are too many genuinely important issues out there; we must not allow ourselves to be influenced by, let alone offended by, an overheard conversation not even intended for the eavesdropper’s ear.
Rise above it.  Overcome it.  Be better than it.  Don’t give it any attention.
I do not want to live to see the Kardashians win.

Pogue Ma’Hone – Both Versions

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Mamacita says:
May you be buried in a
casket made from the wood
of a 100 year old oak
That I shall plant tomorrow.

Oh, tis a wondrous thing to be Irish, although the same could not be said earlier in our country’s history. Many people do not know how unwelcome the Irish were here, in those days. We’ve since learned wisdom.  About the Irish, anyway; some people are still working on wisdom in general.

I loved to read about Beany Malone for so many reasons, some of which were the casual ways their Irish ancestry was a part of their everyday lives.  Beany’s cousin Sheila McBride was the also the source of one of my favorite expressions, “pogue ma’ hone.”  It means, “the back of my hand to you,” if you’re a classy lady/gentleman, and “kiss my arse” if you’re me you.

Click here for some cool St. Patrick’s Day experiments for you and your kids to do, stolen borrowed from the Master Magician Scientist, Steve Spangler.

What’s a little green water between friends?

This picture is by Tim Nyberg, a fantastic artist who draws awesome things which look even more awesome than they originally looked before he drew them so awesomely.  He drew this one  for the Wittenburg Door, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself; the site is down right now but you can still see it in its archived glory.   (Don’t click the link if the corncob makes you walk funny.)

What is it supposed to be?

Why, it’s St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, of course.

It was no mean feat, and I should know.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. If you’re not wearing green, strangers are allowed to pinch you.

What’s that? I can’t hear you. Come a little closer. . . thaaaaat’s right.  Gotcha.

I repost this, adding a little here and there and subtracting a little likewise, each March 17, so if it looks familiar to you, you’re not crazy. Well, not about this post, anyway.

Pogue Ma’Hone to you all, for you know why you deserve it even if I don’t.  Pick your version.

. . . on a tripod, yet. . . .Beat That, Barbie!

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Mamacita says:  At Christmas, or for birthdays (the only times kids got new toys!) other little kids wanted Barbie dolls, sleds, electronics, fake makeup, shoes, sports equipment, and other “typical” kid-desired stuff.  I wanted a telescope.

That’s really all I wanted.  A telescope, a real, not-a-toy telescope.  I’ve never like Barbie; I still don’t.  I rejoiced when my daughter wasn’t a Barbie person, either.  I didn’t want any kind of doll; I just wanted a telescope.

That year, after Mom and Dad came near to pleadin’ with me to name something they could understand and easily purchase, they said they’d try. I mean, that Santa would try.  (Kids who know what side their bread’s buttered on believe in Santa more and far longer than cynical little kids who are too big for their britches and don’t have the negotiation skills smart little kids have).  I crossed my fingers AND my toes and hoped.

Hope really is the thing with feathers. . . .  My hope made my dream of Christmas morning, with me running in with my brother and sisters and seeing a telescope, a real telescope, not a toy, a   telescope on a tripod, with my name on it, seem possible.  And yet, I knew they didn’t really understand, and that a purchase like this would be difficult for them.  I didn’t want what the other kids wanted, and no substitution would do.  A substitution would devastate me, even while I was prepared for something else and a lecture about my own good.

I was obsessed with the night sky.  I used to go outside at night, where the car was sitting on the carport driveway, lie on top of it, and search the night sky with a pair of pink plastic binoculars, dreaming of how much more I’d be able to see on Christmas night with my new, genuine, not-a-toy telescope on a tripod.  Like astronomers had.  I wonder now what the neighbors must have thought at the sight of a little girl lying on top of an old 1959 Chevrolet (the year the fins were huge) as still as a stone for hours.

You don’t need a powerful telescope to see some awesome sights in the night sky, but with a telescope, a real telescope, it was going to be so much. . . oh, I didn’t even really KNOW. . . something.  MORE something.  IF I got the telescope.  IF Santa understood.  Santa was more than a bit provincial at our house.  Santa understand Barbies, but I had my doubts about a telescope.

A few days before Christmas, a wrapped package appeared under our tree.  A wrapped package shaped exactly like a small telescope: a small, hand-held telescope.  Toy size.  I refused to so much as touch it, although my dad kept urging me to pick it up and try to guess what it might be.  I didn’t want it to be the telescope.  I didn’t want a toy telescope.  I wanted a real telescope.  On a tripod.  And I was afraid now of Christmas morning.

On Christmas morning, I was afraid to run into the room.  Dad filmed every Christmas morning with his 8mm camera, and I didn’t want to be preserved forever with a look of devastation on my face as I realized that Santa’s idea of a telescope was a toy purchased at Woolworth’s.  I wanted no memories of a Christmas morning that didn’t have a real telescope-on-a-tripod waiting for me.

On Christmas morning, when Dad said “Go!” I walked into the living room very slowly, behind the other kids.  I was scared bordering on frantic sticking a toe into the territory of terrified at what I would find.

What I found was a telescope.  A real telescope, on a tripod, and it was for me.  Mine.  I probably got some other gifts as well, but I have no recollection of them.  All I’d really wanted was the telescope and I got it.

As a matter of fact, I still have it.  It’s still awesome.  It was one of the first things I packed when I got married and moved away from my parents’ house, and it resides in a corner of the living room, behind the TV as I type.

Sometimes, parents who honestly don’t have a clue how to indulge a little girl’s wishes because the little girl is a genetic sport and isn’t like any of the other kids, get it right.  As for the fake telescope under the tree, put there to worry and fool me, I still think that was one of the dirtiest tricks anyone ever played on me, and I refused to even touch it.  Dad opened it to reveal a wrapping paper tube, and nobody understood my disdain for the whole laughing childish lot of them.  :)

legion-of-superheroes3I didn’t have to lie on top of the car any more.  Now I could sit on the front steps, comfortable until the cold stone came through my pants, and look at the night sky and all its glory the way kids in books saw it.  I always identified and warmed to kids in books far more than kids in real life.  Kids in real life played with Barbies. Kids in real life got laughed at in school for drawing picture after picture of planets, stars, comets, asteroids, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy (before the Legion was rendered forever uncool by new artists and bad writers). . . . Kids in books not only looked through telescopes; sometimes, kids in books got in space ships and WENT UP THERE.

Which is a possibility I still haven’t ruled out.

Blogging: My First Love is Also My Current Love

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thinkthereforeMamacita says:  Facebook, Twitter, and PInterest are taking up much of my former blogging time, but you know something. . . . popular and fun and useful as other aspects of social media might be, my first love is also my current love:  blogging.

I am one of the old-school bloggers.  My archives go back to April 2004, and by blogging/social media standards, that’s practically ancient.

WordCamp ChicagoI go to conferences mainly to meet up with other old-school bloggers.  Oh, I love meeting the newbies, too – we all begin everything as bloghernewbies – but my heart beats with love at the very thought of the other old-timers, the bloggers I’ve known and followed for years.  I’d list them here but they know who they are.  I only hope they know how precious they are to me.

Whether I’m speaking or just attending, blogging conferences are necessary for my soul.

blog-world-expoMy clients are precious, also.  I give them my full attention, and I hope I give them exactly what they need and want.  I also hope they let me know pronto if I don’t.

This blog is not a client blog, although several clients have “discovered” me here.  This blog is where I talk about my own “stuff,” and if that is of interest to others, more the better.  (SQUEEEEEEE….)

Blogging saved my soul alive, but that is probably another story.  Someday, perhaps I will have the courage to tell it.  Some of you already know it, and your support has meant the world to me.

Those of you who have encouraged me along the way will be precious until the day I die.  Possibly even after that.

Blog IndianaBlogging has enhanced my life.  It has enhanced my teaching.  It has enhanced my social media work.  It has enhanced me.

I think it would do the same for you.  Give it a chance.

Blogging is far more than keeping a diary of what you had for dinner.  That might have worked for Samuel Pepys, but these days people save that stuff for Twitter.  :)

We had chicken/cheese enchiladas for dinner tonight.  Interested?  I thought not.

Blogging gives us a look into other people’s lives, and allows us to become acquainted, really acquainted.  Blogging lets us share, and help, and like each other and, sometimes, even love each other, and I don’t necessarily mean the romantic or creepy kind.  Blogging is the village that everyone needs.

I met some of my best and dearest friends via blogging.  So can you.

What are you waiting for?

Cupid and Psyche

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Mamacita says:  It’s Valentine’s Day, and since many people associate this day with Cupid, let’s talk for a moment about the REAL Cupid. Well, the real mythological Cupid.

Cupid is not a fat naked baby, flying around shooting arrows into people to make them fall in love with the first living thing they see, causing people to have inappropriate relationships with cows and bulls and goats. It was used as an excuse by some people, but we won’t go there.

It’s kind of along the same lines as the alcoholics who tried to rationalize their choices by swearing they were just worshipping Bacchus/Dionysus, and the knocked-up teenagers who swore they were abducted by Zeus. . . .

Ahem.

In some myths, Cupid IS a perpetual child, but in most of the myths, he is as all the other gods (except Hephaestus) were: indescribably beautiful. Unfortunately, his mother was the goddess Aphrodite/Venus, and even though she was the goddess of love and beauty, she was a BITCH.

Here is the story of what happened when Cupid dared to fall in love and try to have a life of his own. Heh, and some of you think YOU have mother-in-law problems. . . .

==

Once upon a time – was there EVER a better way to begin a story? – there was a King who had three daughters, all beautiful, and the youngest daughter was the most beautiful of all. In fact, and this was dangerous talk in any myth, people said that this young princess was more beautiful even than the goddess of beauty herself. Now, whenever, in a myth, people compare a mortal to a god or goddess, you will know in advance that the poor mortal, even though he/she probably did nothing wrong, is going down. DOWN. Circling the drain down.

This young princess, whose name was Psyche, begged the populace not to say such things, but people were heedless and full of gossip even back in these days, and the talk went on and on. Eventually, of course, Aphrodite heard of it, and she was FURIOUS.

She called her son Cupid to her, and instructed him to fly down to earth and shoot an arrow into Psyche, making sure the first living thing she saw would be a monster that would devour her even as she could not help falling in love with it.

What Aphrodite had not foreseen was this: Cupid took one look at Psyche, was dazzled by her beauty, tripped and fell on one of his own arrows and fell in love with her himself. It was the real thing, too; it would have happened with or without magic love arrows or anything else. He saw her, and he loved her.

He knew, though, that he would have to keep it a secret from everyone, especially his jealous, possessive mother. Therefore, he would have to somehow get Psyche away from her family and sneak her to his palace.

He sent Psyche’s father, the King, a dream that directed him to go to an Oracle – a fortuneteller – who told him that he must take his beloved daughter to the top of the mountain and let a Demon take her to wife.

The King did not dare to disobey, so he and Psyche’s sisters walked with Psyche up the mountain and left her on a jutting rock to await her demonic husband. She did not understand what was happening, and could not think why she should be treated so, but back in the days of the myths, people did what the gods told them to do and chalked it all off to the Fates.

That night, the West Wind swooped down and flew with her to her new husband’s home. She tried to ask Zephyrus what was to become of her, but he would not, or could not, answer. He, too, was following orders.

To Psyche’s surprise, Zephyrus took her to a beautiful palace, even more beautiful than her father’s palace back home. Invisible servants waited on her hand and foot. Delicious food was served to her, three times a day. Lovely clothing appeared in her closet.

She dreaded the night, because she knew that her new husband would come to her in the marriage bed, but when he came into the room, she knew no fear. She could not see him in the dark, but he told her he loved her and would always love her. He also told her that she must NEVER see him in the light.

He came to her every night after dark, but was gone before the morning light fell upon his face. Psyche knew that she loved him, but she did not even know his name.

Then, she got homesick.

After much crying and begging from his wife, Cupid told her that her two sisters would be allowed to visit her. Psyche was happy to hear this, for living alone in a huge castle with only invisible servants by day and a nameless, faceless husband by night was hard on a girl. Besides, she was pregnant.

Cupid was happy to hear this news, but he warned his wife that as long as she never looked upon her husband’s face, the baby would be immortal, but if she could not resist temptation and saw him in the light, the baby would be mortal and eventually die.

By this time, Psyche loved her husband so much she would have done anything for him. She agreed.

When her sisters arrived, they were impressed with the richness and luxury their sister enjoyed, but their jealousy of her good fortune overcame their love for her. They were amazed that Psyche was pregnant with the child of a husband she had never seen and didn’t even know by name. They told Psyche that he must be a hideous monster, and that she had a right to see her husband’s face. They told her that if he was indeed a monster, she would have to kill him. They told her these things over and over until they convinced her that it would be the only right thing to do. After all, why should a wife not know her husband’s face and name? It was so logical!

That night, after her husband had come to her and then fallen asleep, Psyche fetched an oil lamp and a knife. The lamp would show her his face, and if he was indeed a monster, she would kill him with the knife.

But she trembled, and a drop of hot oil fell on him. He awoke, and turned to look at her. She saw, in the light, not a hideous creature from the depths of hell itself, but a beautiful young man with golden wings, looking at her with love and pain and despair. He got out of bed and flew away, and Psyche knew she would never see him again.

Psyche blamed herself for losing her husband. Because of her curiosity and disobedience, she was alone, and pregnant. She prayed desperately to the gods, but they did not answer, and Cupid did not return to her.

She decided to go to Aphrodite, Cupid’s mother, and offer her services as a servant, hoping that Cupid might admire her devotion and return to her.

What naive Psyche didn’t know was that her mother-in-law didn’t merely dislike her; she HATED her, and was eager to do great harm to her to keep her son away from his wife. She was still angry because the townspeople in Psyche’s homeland had remarked that Psyche was more beautiful than Aphrodite, and the fact that this girl was now pregnant with her son’s child made Aphrodite even more furious. Aphrodite was determined to punish Psyche for taking some of her son’s affection from his mother.

Aphrodite set Psyche to work on a series of ridiculous, impossible tasks. She had to sort a roomful of different grains by nightfall; had it not been for the ants, who helped her sort the grains into various piles, she could never have finished. Next, Aphrodite told Psyche she had to shear the wool from a flock of deadly, possessed sheep that were hypnotized, so that they tried to kill all who came near. Fortunately, the reeds along the riverbank advised Psyche that she could get enough wool from the thorny bushes the sheep had passed through, instead of trying to deal with these evil sheep.

Each time Psyche succeeded, Aphrodite became angrier and more determined to break her. The tasks became more and more difficult. She sent Psyche to fetch water from the river Styx, the river of death, but fortunately, Zeus took pity on Psyche and sent one of his mighty eagles to fetch the water for her.

Finally, Aphrodite told Psyche to enter the Underworld and fetch her box of cosmetics from Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. No mortal had ever entered the World of the Dead and returned. The night before this task, she lay in her bed and wept.

Suddenly, she heard a voice, telling her how to succeed in this task, and also warning her not to open the box once she got it in her hands. This piqued Psyche’s curiosity.

In a myth, whenever someone is extremely curious about something, there’s going to be trouble.

Psyche entered the Underworld. She crossed the Styx, paying Charon his toll. (This is why, in many cultures even today, the dead are buried with a coin on each eyelid.) She gave food to Cerberus, to distract him so she could run through the gate of Hades. (Meat is placed in the hands of the dead, and when rigor mortis set in, the meat was secure in the fist.) Psyche did as the voice had instructed her throughout her entire visit, and finally, box in hand, she returned to the world of the living.

Once she got back to her palace and was alone with this mysterious box, Psyche’s curiosity got the better of her. What harm could one little peek do? She wasn’t going to TOUCH anything in there, after all. But when she opened the box, she fell into a deep slumber.

By this time, Cupid’s anger had passed, and he longed for his wife and baby. His mother tried her best to dissuade him, but for the first time in his life he defied her openly and, in spite of her magical attempts to hold him, flew out of his childhood home and went back to the castle he had built for his own family.

He found his wife, sound asleep on the floor of her room, and so deep was her sleep that Cupid thought she was dead, and wept as he held her in his arms. He bent to her for one last kiss, and she awakened!

Cupid and Psyche were together at last, in the light, and both liked what they saw.

However, there was still the danger of Aphrodite, who still hated Psyche and who wanted her son Cupid’s full devotion. Cupid finally appealed to Zeus, King of the Gods, and asked him to make his wife immortal, that Aphrodite could no longer harm her, and Zeus agreed.

Cupid and Psyche lived happily ever after, and their daughter Volupta. . . well, that’s a whole other story, isn’t it.

==

I hope you saw the roots of a lot of fairy tales and other stories. The ancient myths are a treasure trove of literary points of origin. I also hope you noticed a lot of root words; the English language is a patchwork quilt of languages: we steal from everybody.

Mythology is one of my thangs. Can you tell?

Happy Valentine’s Day, all.

Somebody else can tell the story of St. Valentine. I like Cupid and Psyche.

This myth is also ONE of the origins of the expression “Opposites attract.”

Because Love is all emotional, see, and the Mind is logical, and. . . . oh, you know. And how ironic is it that the Ancients saw the male as the emotional one and the female as the logical one?

Mythology is so cool.