Saturday, March 24, 2012

All that snow on the Mountain is GONE now

27 comments:

  1. Howard's got *it*!

    I remember the snow staying on Mt. Olympus through August. Wonderful seat I had at the table, looking out the back window onto that mountain! For most of my childhood/youth. One very lucky little girl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Up early at the behest of a giant puppy wanting to check out what the neighbors' kids were doing this fine rainy spring morning. That coupled with a very restless night (for no good/bad reason I could find). Unnerving for it to be 72ยบ downstairs first thing in the a.m. at the end of March. . . . There have been years when people were looking for firewood in the second week of June.

    Two of the minor bulbs yesterday: a lovely little purple and a luminescent pale blue (kind of matches the small blue skippers). Spring is definitely on stage, and enjoying herself. The bulbs are the last of a pack of thirty the kiddle gave me at Thanksgiving (early Christmas present) years ago, and planted between the two holidays. I always forget they're there til they show up, lol! I suppose they actually have names, but the package is long gone -- I didn't think to save it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Been raining steadily since I got up at 7:30. The whole time, Beau's been on the porch. He came in for about five minutes, didn't even take the time to eat/drink before begging to go back out. He's quiet now, almost asleep under the front window, but won't come in. Obsession is the word we're looking for here. . . .

    ReplyDelete
  4. But if you're *missing* that Snow on the Mountain, here ya go:

    http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week274.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ah. Who knew? This just in...

    Hi Mom! I am in transit back North right now and I am working on formatting my 155 page dissertation so I can submit it to the editor by 5 pm today. This has to be done within 24 hours of the defense so I am still a bit under the gun! I will call to talk when I get in after 5 though! :-)

    So it's not just a hot seat grilling these Ph.D. folks undergo, but a full-fledged hazing into the Doctoral Fraternity!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bill Thomasson3/24/2012 03:20:00 PM

    These things vary by school. Caltech wasn't super-picky about formatting, but the thesis had to be in a week or so before the defense so the committee members could review it. And the defense itself, if not exactly a formality, wasn't something people seriously worried about. If the thesis itself was up to snuff -- and your advisor made sure it was -- then passing the defense was essentially assured.

    But in terms of formatting pickiness: When I did my Master's thesis at Long Beach State, it was understood that you had to hire a professional typist with experience doing theses for the school. No one without relevant experience could possibly hope to get every jot and tittle right.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Right about right! When I was defending my Master's thesis, I remember sitting there with three men, two of whom I'd been drinking with, and one of whom had propositioned me. All of whom up until that hour had treated me collegially, and respected my opinion, and even changed theirs based on observations I had made. Suddenly, we were in a place together I'd never imagined existed. And it had all the earmarks of a game we played as children called "Let's Pretend." I knew when I exited that I would not be going further with the charade: they would be no Ph.D. defense in my future. My belly was completely full.

    1970 movie by the name of "Getting Straight" with Elliott Gould. . . . To be loved for the Defense scene if nothing else.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Look away for just one minute. . . .

    Severe thunderstorm watch, and flash flood watch. . . .

    Just moved car up the hill.

    Hope the kids decide to spend the night at the tailor and not in the camp at the river's edge. (Think they are: Beau's calmed down.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. My Grandma lived on an island in the Little Miami River. They often had flash floods, as in a 4 ft. wall of brown water rushing at you. You got to their place over a little bridge that had no sides. I had nightmares about that place for *years*! My sister and brothers say they did too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A four foot wall of brown water'd give me nightmares, too. Wonder if your grandmother had 'em? How high up was her house? My floods come, but they tend to be slow, and the worst, Hurricane Isobel in 2003 only made it up to the second of six steps. The rest ran under the house (as designed). What a birthday present *that* was, lol!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Winnie at the dog park.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Her house was built up about 2 or 3 feet from the ground, can't remember how. The water still came in the house. She had a cocker spaniel, and I guess she and Grandpa weren't there when the flood came and the dog, Taffy, took refuge atop the bed.

    My grandpa raised pheasants and ducks and they were caged. More than once he lost all of them in a flood. They had kept their old trailer and a flood washed it into the river. There was also an outhouse which got knocked over. Happened *way* too often for my peace of mind!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Ah, what a pretty girl!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Dick Cheney has had a heart transplant today.

    Interesting: when I was 62 and diagnosed with congestive heart failure, I was told that I was *TOO OLD* for a heart transplant. Guess being rich makes you younger, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  15. All he's missing are the bolts in his freakin' neck!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'd be so angry if my family member's heart had been given to a 71 year old...
    and for it to be a person so cruel is the cruelest part.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Son and DIL got outta Dodge (Raleigh) just before the Tornado Watch was posted.
    They're home safely tonight. Ahhhhhhhh.

    ReplyDelete
  18. His last version of the 4th and final chapter of the 155 page thesis had to be in their hands a month ago! This formatting isn't for the Committee, it's for the publisher!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Wow, puddle! I'm with you. I feel completely done with formal academia. I've always been alternative and progressive when it comes to education anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Well, there's always the hope of transplant rejection. He's a monster and I can't imagine how a good person's heart would *work* in his evil chest. I imagine it struggling to get out. No Christian charity in my heart for this evil being.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I absolutely drink in your gorgeous noticings of Spring's exuberance!

    Thanks for taking care with the flood potential, m'dear.

    ReplyDelete
  22. There are stories of new hearts bringing part of the old personality with them. If true, depending on whose heart he got, it might be *very* interesting. . . .

    One I remember was a sudden craving for pizza on the part of someone who'd never had the least liking for it. Turns out the donor had *loved* pizza. . . .

    What if Cheney got a really loving heart? Or a really wise one?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Another amazing story, reported by Pearsall, is that of an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a ten-year-old girl who had been murdered. After the transplant, the recipient had horrifying nightmares of a man murdering her donor. The dreams were so traumatic that psychiatric help was sought. The girl's images were so specific that the psychiatrist and the mother notified the police. According to the psychiatrist, ". . .using the description from the little girl, they found the murderer. He was easily convicted with the evidence the patient provided. The time, weapon, place, clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him . . . everything the little heart transplant recipient had reported was completely accurate."

    http://www.sfms.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&SECTION=Article_Archives&CONTENTID=1540&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm

    ReplyDelete
  24. Bill Thomasson3/24/2012 11:32:00 PM

    listener ~~ not something I had to worry about. I can't at this point remember whether it was because the publisher in those days simply accepted whatever the institution approved or whether Caltech didn't bother having its theses published.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'd dislike that in most ways, except where it would plague his conscience.

    ReplyDelete