Picture of the Day

I thought this picture would be an appropriate one for the day, although it was taken in December of 1989.

Update on Common Core Stuff

The Dancer has told me that one of her recent Spanish assignments was to pretend that she was a girl from Costa Rica, and write a letter to one of the other girls in class, who was pretending she was a girl from Colombia. They were to learn some facts about the country and then write a letter describing some of what their country was like. Mind you, my daughter is in Honors Spanish III. Both the Musician and I agreed that an assignment like that is pretty Spanish I type of stuff. Does anyone have any input on this? Obviously, it depends to an certain extent on the complexity of the writing required, but this doesn't seem to have been a very complicated letter. I know the Dancer thought it was kind of a silly assignment. She has been keeping me up on things, now that she has seen my previous post on Common Core. By Honors Spanish III, one is generally getting into the more difficult parts of grammar, and learning more advanced vocabulary. This assignment doesn't seem to have fit that bill.

I heard from the one mom I know well enough to contact about this. She said she didn't know what we could do about it. Hmmm. I have heard that there is an Ohio House Bill under discussion which would repeal Common Core for the whole state. I already called my State Representative and told him that I support it, even though it's still just being talked about. That may sound silly, I suppose. I wanted to let my rep know it was already being talked about by the larger community, and that there are people that support it. Ironically, I heard about this bill when I put up a Tweet with a link to my previous Common Core post. I also heard about Ohioans Against Common Core this way. The Evil Genius in me wants to buy an anti-Common Core shirt and wear it to home football games.

At least my daughter's AP US History class seems to be going the same way it was when the Musician took the course, BCC (Before Common Core.) They are using the same textbook, which I think was older already when the Musician used it. I am keeping an eye on anything they might be using outside of the textbook. Also, Mr. BTEG was a chemistry lab assistant in high school, and minored in math in college, so he is knowledgeable enough on both of those subjects to make sure the Dancer is getting a solid foundation in those courses. I wish every student was so blessed.

Why Mr. BTEG Is Good for Me

Because I can have conservations with him that help me feel better when I read people's opinions about America heading towards a Civil War. Like this one. I absolutely see this historian's points, and I don't think I disagree with his overall view of where our country is heading, which unfortunately is downward. I too see government as the problem, and I'm not even sure that the "47 percent" will listen to anything other than when the next check is due to arrive, while the author holds out hope that reason might win.

In a world of dire predictions, what Mr. BTEG does for me is be his usually optimistic self. Not that he thinks our country is in a good place; he actually thinks our country has been headed in the wrong direction for decades. What he does is provide his own analysis, which while not full of sunshine and rainbows, is also not apocalyptic and full of zombies and wastelands either. That while the future is not bright, and our children will face economic problems that we parents didn't, we may not end up behind the barricades either. I'm still trying to make sure our family is prepared for whatever comes, but Mr. BTEG helps me to worry less in the now.

Browser beware

While cruising the Web discovering new blogs and webpages to feed my vintage fashion addiction, I am coming across some very frustrating mistakes as well. In the main, these involve the mis-identification of people, royalty, specifically. The worst part, is that some of these kids, especially those with Tumblr blogs, don't really seem interested in correcting mistakes, so the false information is going to keep sitting out there for many other people to pick it up. And since members of royalty are historical figures, I hate to think about what incorrect history we may end up with. I suppose that's just a by-product of letting anybody add his two cents to the pool of available information, especially on places like Wikipedia, where I saw some misleading information just today. I guess for the wise Internet viewer, the best motto to take is Browser Beware.

Facebook Etiquette

The Musician hung out over the summer for a day with a friend from another town, and on the way back she gave me a lesson on Facebook etiquette. When you've been somewhere with a friend, you have to post about it on Facebook. But not right away. But definitely later that day. Also, the exhuberance of your post depends on whether the person is your *best* friend or just a friend or whatever. If the person is your *best* friend, your post will go along the lines of "Just had the BEST day EVER with Jane!!!" "Had fun with Jane today" works if the person is just a regular friend. It's like modern day Victorian calling cards!

I Want My MTV

I was just about to start my eighth grade year when MTV debuted. It was the coolest thing ever! I hadn't remembered the MTV logo flashing on the moon flag, but I found that so awesome back then. Now so much of it looks so cheesy! The open shirt on Mark Goodman! Oooh, edgy!

Sirius Radio already features four of the original MTV VJs as the hosts of the 80's on 8 channel. They did a tribute show today, playing the songs in order as the videos appeared on TV. They also had guests in like Pat Benatar. The reactions of the VJs ranged from "Good times, good times" to "I can't believe we played this dreck." After hearing Nina Blackwood back then versus Nina today, I also think she's smoked about two packs a day since then. Here then, is the first ten minutes of MTV.

Stepping Back

Now that I am in my forties and have several decades of life experience, I wish I could talk to my grandparents, my maternal ones in particular, with new eyes. My grandparents died at a time when I was still relatively young; I didn't realize then that many people's grandparents got to spend more years with their grandchildren. My grandfather passed away when I was in high school, my grandmother when I was a senior in college. And my grandmother was never the same after my grandfather died. Sadly, my grandmother never seemed to be very content with her life or her past, which was one of the reasons I think we never talked about it. For most of the time that I really knew my grandmother, she was ill with leukemia. However, she also seemed bitter about her youngest days, spent in Europe in grinding poverty, and her life as a young adult. Understandable, but there could also have been tales of endurance and overcoming hardship.

My grandfather also had a hard life, although typical of the poorer families of the time in this country. He didn't seem to relish much about his past either. So while my youth kept me from even knowing how to ask the kind of questions I would like to ask today, my grandparents also weren't eager to share their experiences.

Which is a long lead-in (whew!) to say that I have been thinking of them quite a bit lately. What we are in now may not match our vague impressions of the Great Depression (no dust bowls, no long unemployment lines), but things are certainly tight financially for so many families. High gas and food prices, high unemployment, real estate markets dried up. If my grandparents could bear to talk about it, I'd love to know what it was like to try to raise a family in those days. What ways did they use to get by? I have ideas of how things might work out today, if life gets harder for the majority, but I'd like to know if my thoughts about a possible future in any way resemble what was in the past. Automobiles, phones, televisions, so many things are different now. Maybe someday I can share wisdom with grandchildren of my own.

Then and Now

The Musician just asked me today if I thought that clinical depression has always been as prevalent as it seems to be now. Of course we can't be sure, but I opined that it has probably always been there at a level at least something close to modern levels. Famous people throughout history are now being diagnosed as having been clinically depressed based on their writings and actions. Abraham Lincoln, for example, showed signs of severe depression, even as a young man. In 1835, according to a biographer, he was so depressed after a death of someone close that he had people with him most of the time to make sure he did not harm or kill himself. But it was probably seen as more of a personality trait than a chemical issue at that time. I'm also thinking of people like the fictional "Mrs. Brewster," with whom Laura Ingalls Wilder boarded as a young teacher. She was definitely heavily depressed at the very least, very likely assisted by gloomy winter days and isolation.

In Julia P. Gelardi's book, Born to Rule, she writes about the behavior of Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, after the death of Beatrice's husband. She would be "crying one moment, raging at a picture of her dead husband the next. After this, the despondent young widow went out to ride her bicycle in heavy mourning. Then she read a book on piety or talked for hours about the small economies being made on all the candles in her homes." Sounds very like bipolar mood swings, or some other mental disturbance.

Then today I also started re-reading Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. And there is a description of famous fictional movie star Marina Gregg: "It's more that her ups and downs are so violent. You know - far too happy one moment, far too pleased with everything and delighted with everything and how wonderful she feels. Then of course some little thing happens and down she goes to the opposite extreme." In 1962, when the book came out, this was put down to "temperament." Today abnormal highs and lows are bipolar.

John Fixmer asserts in his online article that today Lincoln would very likely not be elected President due to a stigma of mental illness. I'll have to think about this for a while. My moods may fluctuate, but I am still as smart as I have ever been. I read about politics and economics, as well as history and light reading like Agatha Christie. My daughters are turning out to be decent people, based on compliments by others and not just by my biased maternal self. :) Still, stress can severely affect my mood, more than is normal, I think, and I try to avoid it as much as I can. I might want to avoid a press conference or meeting with a foreign leader if I was in a raging manic state. On the other hand, now that I am aware that I do have a chemical imbalance, and the world is not a horrible stinking rotten place even if I feel that it is, I have managed to be in public and not show what is churning inside. Maybe if I felt that leading a country was important enough, and I wanted to do it, being bipolar might not be an issue. I certainly try to control it to be a wife and mother, which I feel are far more important than being a national leader.

Born to Rule

That's the title of the book I'm reading right now. It's about five women who had two things in common: they were all reigning consorts, and they were all granddaughters of Queen Victoria. The author explores their childhood relationships with their grandmother, which were generally positive, and their enduring love for England and things English, even if they also learned to love their new homelands.

One of the sad things the book covers is that even though four of these women especially did grow to truly love the land of their reign, they were seen by many in their adopted countries as alien and perhaps even a threat to the welfare of the country. The book brings up something I'd never thought of; not only did many royals marry foreign princes and princesses because of the aspect of royalty marrying royalty, but in those times there was competition among the aristocratic families, for power. Marrying into one specific noble house and giving that family extra influence in court was not a wise idea

Despite their wealth and position, you end up feeling sorry for all of these women. Three of them were cheated on, four saw their thrones lost, the Empress Alexandra and her immediate family were of course eventually assassinated, and all of them for their supposed power as queen/empress really lived very constricted lives. Do you see this as a trade-off for the privileges they did enjoy?

Twenty Years On

Hard to believe that it was twenty years ago that I woke up to the news on the radio that the Berlin Wall had fallen. Not only was it fantastic news, but it was personally thrilling for me because Mr. BTEG and I would be in Berlin a month later. I hope we still have what is necessary to take on communism and win.

Oh Snap

I've been doing a lot of thinking since reading at Laura's about the homeless American Girl doll. This doll has been out all year, but her being homeless is never mentioned in the description of the doll in the catalog or online. One has to read about or watch the movie about the main doll of this year's three-doll Doll of the Year set, in which Gwen the homeless doll is included, to find out the backstory, it seems. Probably why it took so long for outlets to latch on to this news.

Most people who objected to the doll took issue only with the fact that no proceeds from this particular doll went to help the homeless, although American Girl the company does apparently support various charities. I think there is more to it than that, however. Of course, every historical doll in the American Girl series has a "message;" all stories convey some sort of overall meaning. For Addy, the escaped slave from the 1860s, the overarching lesson learned was obviously about the suffering incurred with slavery, although being for young girls the books do not go into details of beatings and so forth, but more about how the family is temporarily broken apart as they escape to the North. Through Samantha's best friend, Nellie, girls can learn about some of the hardships of factory life at the turn of last century and how even children had to work to support their families. However, these were historical themes, and the main idea behind the dolls was to teach girls about history and how girls of long ago were not that different from girls of today. Now American Girl seems intent on turning their line of dolls into After School Specials, with a Very Special Message for every one. Do we need a toy company to teach our children that Being Homeless Is Sad and We Should Help Our Homeless Friends? My daughter retches every time she sees the commercial on the Disney Channel about some sort of environmental crusade that viewers are urged to take part in. More of that self-congratulatory We're So Special and So Concerned That We Will Come Together and Fix Everything. Do they feel the yoke of sin and choose this to try to expediate their guilt? Do they need to feel better about themselves?

Also concerning, as I scanned American Girl's site for information about Gwen, is that the Kirsten doll is being discontinued. This will make two dolls from the original set of three to be canceled, as the Samantha doll and all her things are long gone. Is American Girl going to phase out every historical doll and just become about dolls of today? How sad that the original vision of Pleasant Rowland is being swallowed up. I definitely will not be interested in buying anything more from this company. We'll have to get the things the Dancer wants for her American Girl doll from other sources if possible.

On Family, the Old World and Values

Joining Facebook recently and trying to find connections has made me think a little about family. Mr. BTEG and I discussed how families that come over from the Old World are very close to each other, their kids are all close to the family, but the third generation seems to drift apart. My grandfather had a whole bunch of brothers and sisters, and I dimly remember the annual family picnics where all of them would get together, with their kids and grandkids attending as well. Now the kids and grandkids barely see each other. I haven't seen any of my cousins in years. I wonder why that is? Does the assimilation into American life mean a rejection of some of the Old World values? Or does the gradual increase of prosperity of the later generations mean less of a need to cling together and support one another as family?

The other thing that seemed to disappear in these family dynamics is the language. My grandfather couldn't speak his parents' native Saxon. My father-in-law's first language was Italian, but my husband knows none of it. There seemed to have been a real pride in making sure the kids wouldn't be hampered by not knowing the native language of America, but what have we lost by discarding some of our past? Does it matter, since we'll never visit "the homeland" except as tourists? Thankfully, at least my in-laws have managed to retain a large part of their family culture. I read those "You know you grew up... when..." and totally relate them to my husband's family. My family did not retain so much of the culture. I think in my grandmother's case it was because they were wanderers in an alien land even where they came from, but I do wonder what life among the Transylvanian Saxons was like. I wish I could restore my few threads with the past.

Cleveland Underground

Today our family got a glimpse of Cleveland's past, taking a tour of what remains of the W. 25th subway station, and walking part of the subway tracks. This tour is only open twice a year.

A trolley car, coming around a bend.

A subway wall.

Underground tracks.

Walking along where the tracks used to be, underneath the current Veteran's Memorial Bridge. This turned out to be a little more dicey for me than I would have thought. There was a metal grid, with steel girders every 24 feet or so. There were pieces of plywood on top of the metal grid to walk across, but where the steel girders were, the metal grid did not quite meet the girder, and there was a few inches that were open, straight down to the river below. For some reason, it really bothered me to cross over the girders and the empty spaces. I'm not normally afraid of heights, although usually when I'm up high, I'm nicely buckled in to a roller coaster car!

Here's a view looking down through the grid.

Looking at a bend in the Cuyahoga River.

Where the Cuyahoga meets Lake Erie.

A view of the Westside Market (the tower) from underneath the Veteran's Memorial Bridge. We stopped at the Market on the way home and bought lots of fresh fruit.

A trolley car you could walk through. Not really different than a bus, on the inside. There were lots of pictures to look at in different areas around the station, and even a couple of movies showing the old subway system in use. Some pictures showed older looking, horse-drawn trolley cars. It would be fun to ride in a horse-drawn trolley today! Well, maybe not so much in the winter.

History in the Making?

The remains of the two missing children of Czar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra may have been found. It would be nice to finally put an end to the story which has captured imaginations for decades if these bodies really are found to be Alexei and Maria or Anastasia. Also hopefully a positive identification of one of the earlier bodies found can be made, since there were debates between the forensic scientists involved as to whether one of the bodies was Maria or Anastasia. Without the fourth daughter's body, it was difficult to tell for certain.

Beautiful in Bay

Well, we haven't gotten to the beach this summer, but we did get to the lake!

Last night since we were in the area, we did a geocache in Bay Village, where I grew up. The easiest and most convenient one to do was in the Bay Village cemetery, which overlooks Lake Erie. If you like old cemeteries, this one is nice. A few of the men interred there fought in the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812. There is an unknown soldier from the Civil War.

The cache was a "multi-cache." We had to get dates from the historical site marker and a few gravestones in order to find the exact coordinates of the cache. Wildchild found it, under a rock by the back corner of the cemetery.

Now Is the Time When We Dance

Maybe we can at last stick a fork in this immigration bill. I find Bush's comments in the article to be annoying. Legal immigration *is* important to me. I'd like anybody to lives and works in this country to come here *legally*. Not sneak in. Get it?

My grandmother, great-aunt and great-grandmother were left behind when my great-grandfather first came to this country in the early 'teens of last century to try to make a better life for his family. I'm not sure if this was because of immigration laws of the time, of my great-grandfather having to prove he could support them before they could come over, or a simple matter of getting the boat fare together. However, World War I intervened when these three family members were still in the old country, and they ended up becoming war refugees in Russia, along with a great-great-grandfather, who died there. My family could have just stowed away on a boat and sneaked into the country, but they didn't, and they suffered a lot in pursuit of their dream. Yes, the living conditions in Mexico are horrible for many. Perhaps Bush should be putting pressure on his big-wig buddies down there to clean up the problems with their government and economy instead of just sending all the poor people they don't want up here. There's no reason why Mexico can't do better as a country.

Another happy thing, I've discovered via Ace of Spades that those good folks at Despair, Inc. have come up with a DIY parody motivator generator, good for laughs in all kinds of situations. In (dis)honor of Voinovich being one of the Senators from Ohio, and having the absolute last vote, probably the cause of his pulling a 180 at the last minute, here's one I lifted from Dave in Texas.

And this one is just too good not to share as well. Done by this guy. Yeah, I could just point you to the appropriate thread at Ace's place, but the last time I sent anyone there, Ace had just unloaded on a bunch of nasty people who were emailing him nasty things, and the person I sent there ended up needing to bleach his brain. So, you know.

And I'm just not feeling clever enough today to come up with my own. Sorry. I enjoyed being a recliner potato and watching the Indians win the series over the A's. And Jason Michaels is one of my favorite players, too!

A Fascinating Find

I found this book on ebay. It includes patterns and instructions for doing embroidery, crewel work, cross-stitch, needlepoint, patchwork, appliqué, quilting, rug hooking, crochet, knitting, weaving, candlewicking, and rug making. In addition to a pattern for each skill in the book, there is also a box of patterns that came with it that is 2 1/2" thick (or 6cm for you, Kate.) I can't wait to really delve into it and work on everything, but it will have to wait, as I've a bunch of other things to do right now.

The other exciting thing about this book, for me, is that the author, Rose Wilder Lane, is the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder! I vaguely remembered reading that Rose had written such a book when I saw this on ebay, and it made me especially keen to get it. Rose writes, "The first needlepoint that I saw may have been an early example of it. My mother made it when she was a girl in Dakota Territory, during the Hard Winter of 1880-1881. It was a bookmark worked in silk on a strip of perforated paper. The design was free and lively, spaced on the paper and unframed. My mother said that she 'thought it up' herself and worked it in half-cross-stitch to make the thread go farther." This book goes into lots of detail about the history of each art, and how it developed in America. Rose's pride in America comes through on almost every page, and there are loads of color pictures of early American examples of each work.

If Pictures Could Talk

Isn't the look on this girl's face delightful? She looks lively, intelligent, happy, like someone it would be fun to have a conservation with. I wonder who she was, and why her descendants did not keep her picture. It amazes me how so many old pictures end up for sale to the public. This picture is part of my collection of old pictures, that I have purchased.

I also have some copies of old pictures of my ancestors, that I wouldn't get rid of for anything. I need to make sure my daughters will know who is in all the old pictures! We have it so much easier today. I can scan pictures into the computer off of our digital camera in seconds, with the date attached automatically, and adding a description is as easy as typing it into our online photo album. We can also make back-ups on CDs if we want, for extra security.

By the way, I date the picture of this girl to around 1908. :)

Salzburg, Austria

Well, I told Laura I would post some pics of my trip to Salzburg, Austria, after being inspired to do so from one of her recent posts. After much computer wrangling by Mr. Evil Genius, and a lot of scanning, the pics are finally ready! It's a good excuse to scan them in; I really should do that for all my Germany-Austria pictures to help preserve them.

Mr. Evil Genius and I took a train from Vienna to Salzburg on February 3, 1990. We were still both in college back then, and not sure if we were dating yet (pretty funny, huh?) We were the only ones in our college group to visit Salzburg; I don't know why. Besides all the Sound of Music stuff






there are a lot of lovely views, and a huge fortress/castle that I would think would be worth going just to see that.



We also saw Mozart's Geburtshaus, or birthplace. Wouldn't you love to have this lovely kitchen, ladies? Ah well, I suppose it might have been all the rage in 1756.


We also took a quick peek at the real Nonnburg Abbey. Pretty cool, kind of built into the mountain below the fortress.

It was a fun day trip, and I'm sure we could have spent lots more time there. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Family Vagaries

Did you ever get a wedding invitation and have no idea who the bride and groom were? That happened to me today, I believe for the first time. The wedding is taking place in my husband's hometown, so I'm presuming they are somehow related to him. I know my husband's family pretty well though, sometimes better than he does, and I have no guess who either of these people could be. His grandmother was the one who really knew all the ins and outs of the family tree, and believe me when I say, there were a lot of ins and outs. My husband's family on his father's side all came from a tiny village in Italy called Sulmona Valley, big enough that there weren't all the problems associated with massive inbreeding, but small enough that DH's family tree sometimes resembles a tangled vine more than a tree.

And yet, when my husband was at a cemetery in Chicago to see Al Capone's grave, he found several headstones that bore our family name, and also a couple headstones that carried another of the family names, and he had never heard of any of these people. It's interesting, because my husband *does* have family that lived in Chicago, and our family name is a relatively unusual one. I have often wished I had the time to do a thorough investigation into my own family tree. I guess the least I can do is write down what I do know, so my daughters can check into things if they are so inclined.