Here is Suzanne the one year we cut our own tree. I think she had the most fun of the four of us. The thermos had hot chocolate.
We set our sights on smaller trees nowadays, and my husband just put this year’s in the stand. I’ve been gearing up to decorate, first looking through the ornaments. It’s like greeting old friends after a year. Some of them are very familiar and beloved, but I can’t remember their stories. Here are a few whose stories I do remember.
The big red one on the lower step: from the Crafts for Christmas class I took the year we were married. Amazing what you can do cutting up egg cartons!
The sparkly tear-drop shape and the doorknob cover: from the church’s craft workshop when John and Suzanne were young. The angel with sequins: made by Aunt Mae in her 90s. She also made the smiling snowman backed by a green star and many other items — in secret, to surprise everyone. The round milk-bottle-cap ornament: don’t get me started now on highly educated women with no occupation spending their time on that. But I like to think of the woman who made it, with sympathy.
The soldier with John’s name on it: that was a gift from Aunt Peggy.
The Esperanto green star: from a friend in my Esperanto group. The two crocheted Chinese dolls: from a trip to the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake when Suzanne was about 1. My husband went to see a Shaw play while I babysat. I went to see hilarious concert comedienne Anna Russell while he babysat.
The bear: John was 3, and I was spending considerable time in graduate classes. John insisted my husband make a bear ornament just like that one out of cardboard. We have that too, somewhere. It doesn’t look just like that one, but we love it.
The Clymers brought the saddle from a trip to South America. John stitched the cross-stitch tree at a ridiculously young age (3? 4?).
The see-through snowball: a gift at DeAnna’s December wedding to Mairtin at the Peabody-Essex Museum.
A wonderful organization, the Providence Granola Project, has just received some well-deserved attention in the food magazine Edible Rhody. In fact the magazine has prepared a short video that says it all, here.
Nancy Kirsch writes, “Established in 2008, Providence Granola, now part of Beautiful Day (a nonprofit organization founded in 2012), has a three-fold mission, says Providence Granola co-founder Keith Cooper: Provide job training for immigrants in Rhode Island who are unlikely to otherwise find gainful employment, and educate community members about refugees and refugee resettlement, all by making and selling delicious artisanal granola.
“Cooper and his lean professional staff, including Anne Dombrofski, director of strategic partnerships, work out of the Social Enterprise Greenhouse, a co-working space in Davol Square in Providence. …
“Hand labor is done by a small team at Amos House, a soup kitchen and comprehensive social service agency in Providence. …
“The trainees are immigrants—often, but not always, refugees—who have come recently to the United States. They attend classes at the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island (Dorcas) and, through its assessment process, have been identified as less likely to find employment within the next year, given their lack of first-language literacy and absence of English skills.
“ ‘If we can speed up someone’s entry into the job market from a year or more to between three and six months … there’s a huge benefit,’ says Cooper.”
Maria Popova at Brain Pickings finds the most wonderful books to blog about. In a recent post she extolled the wonders of fairy tale illustrations by Kay Rasmus Nielsen.
I was surprised to learn that’s a man’s name in Denmark. Wikipedia says, “Kay Nielsen was born in Copenhagen into an artistic family; both of his parents were actors – Nielsen’s father, Martinus Nielsen, was the director of Dagmarteater and his mother, Oda Nielsen, was one of the most celebrated actresses of her time, both at the Royal Danish Theater and at the Dagmarteater.
“Kay … received his first English commission from Hodder and Stoughton to illustrate a collection of fairy tales, providing 24 colour plates and more than 15 monotone illustrations for In Powder and Crinoline, Fairy Tales Retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in 1913. In the same year, Nielsen was also commissioned by The Illustrated London News to produce a set of four illustrations to accompany the tales of Charles Perrault; Nielsen’s illustrations for ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Puss in Boots’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Bluebeard’ were published in the 1913 Christmas Edition.”
I wouldn’t call them role models, but they have done things in their older years that have given me food for thought.
This week, we heard that Diane Rehm, who has hosted a popular talk show for 37 years despite a speaking disability, will be retiring after the presidential election. She is currently 79.
Jimmy Carter’s mother (remember Miss Lillian?) joined the Peace Corps around the time he became president. She went to India.
My mother ran for Congress in her early 70s.
My friend Dorothy kept going to her editing job in her late 70s. In her late 80s, she was asked by her former boss to edit a book. (This time she declined politely, reminding him he now knew how to identify a dangling participle.)
Just putting it out there.
Photo: National Endowment for the Humanities
Diane Rehm, popular talk show host for 37 years, plans to retire after the election.
How lovable is this? Sheepdogs that protect a tiny species of penguin from predators.
Austin Ramzey writes at the NY Times about an effort to counteract “Australia’s long history of imported species’ decimating native wildlife. … The toll on Middle Island, off Victoria State in southern Australia, kept rising. By 2005, the small island’s penguin population, which had once numbered 800, was below 10.
“Today, their numbers are back in the triple digits, and much of the credit has gone to a local chicken farmer known as Swampy Marsh and his strong-willed sheepdogs.
“ ‘The powers that be wouldn’t listen to me until it got down to six penguins,’ said Mr. Marsh, whose long-unused birth name is Allan. ‘They were desperate.’
“The farmer’s simple solution — deploy a particularly territorial breed of sheepdog to scare the foxes away — became local legend and, in September, the subject of an Australian film, ‘Oddball,’ which fictionalized the story and made a lovable hero of one of the dogs. The strategy is now being tried elsewhere in Victoria, in hopes of protecting other indigenous species from non-native predators. …
“Maremma dogs are self-reliant; they can be left to defend a patch of land for long periods of time with a supply of food and water that they know not to wolf down right away. During the summer, when foxes pose the greatest danger to Middle Island’s penguins because of tidal patterns that form sandbars, the dogs can stay on the island for several days in a row, watching over the birds from a raised walkway.
“Training them for the job involves introducing them to the penguin’s distinct odor. ‘Penguins don’t smell particularly nice,’ said Peter Abbott, manager of tourism services for the Warrnambool City Council. ‘They look cute and cuddly, but they smell like dead fish.’ Gradually, the dogs are taught to treat the penguins like any other kind of livestock, to be defended and not harmed.’ ”
The article explains that “when red foxes were imported for sport hunting in the 19th century, they found the tiny, flightless birds to be easy prey.” More here.
Photo: David Maurice Smith/NYT A little penguin, the name of the smallest penguin species. Middle Island’s penguin population, protected by sheepdogs, has rebounded to 150.
And speaking of bike lanes, look what Calgary did.
Chris & Melissa Bruntlett write at Calgary Buzz, “Calgary’s network wasn’t the product of a ‘top down’ approach from a single political entity. Rather, it was the result of a non-partisan, grassroots campaign (paired with a strategic measure of brokering and championing by Mayor Nenshi) that captured an entire city’s imagination, and demonstrated the undeniable demand for safer cycling facilities. …
“ ‘Putting in cycle tracks is not rocket science,’ says Thomas Thivener, the City of Calgary’s Cycling Coordinator, ‘we just had to be sure to keep it cheap and temporary.’ This meant that instead of using a lot of concrete, they opted for flexible delineators, planter boxes, and parking curbs where possible. Also, instead of hardwiring traffic signals, posts were placed on floating pedestals, with wiring attached overhead.
“This approach worked in favour of the project, which was completed two months early at a cost just over $5 million – a whopping $2 million under the approved budget. Not only is this a win for the project, but should the cycle track network become a permanent piece of the downtown transportation system, it establishes a recipe that can be replicated throughout the city.”
It seems to take a long time to make streets safer for bicyclists. Nicole Freedman made a great start in Boston in 2011, but riders are still being hit in 2015. At the Atlantic magazine’s “City Lab” blog, Sarah Goodyear writes about the latest techniques of vigilantes working to make New York City’s streets safer.
“They showed up on the street on the morning of October 7 — 25 orange traffic cones marking the bike lane that runs northbound on Chrystie Street in lower Manhattan. Several had sunflowers poking up out of their necks.
“The cones were the work of an anonymous group that announced its intentions on Twitter, calling itself the ‘Transformation Department.’ …
“The Chrystie Street bike lanes — one on the northbound side of the street and one on the southbound — are one of the city’s main commuter routes, providing key access to and from the Manhattan Bridge, which connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. Thousands of people ride the route everyday …
“But the infrastructure remains painfully inadequate in the eyes of many advocates for safer streets. …
“Installing flexible bollards to keep cars out of the bike lane would be one example of an improvement that would not require a street redesign and that could be implemented relatively quickly, says [activist David ‘Paco’] Abraham. Instead, even maintaining the status quo has proven difficult.
“An NYC DOT spokesperson said in an email that a proposal for a two-way bike lane [is] under review. …
“The makeshift safety cone installations are the most visible manifestation of the frustration that advocates and bike commuters like Abraham feel over the disconnect between the city’s stated policies and its actions on the street. ‘We’re tired of seeing people injured,’ says Abraham. …
“The Department of Transformation has clearly captured the imagination of some New Yorkers with its efforts. This week they set up a GoFundMe page to pay for more cones and raised $1,000 in a single day. Abraham says the ever-growing community of people who ride bikes — and more broadly, of New Yorkers who want the streets to be safe for all users — no longer will be satisfied with a minimalist approach to bike infrastructure.”
Feeling the cold setting in? Well here’s a summery scene on New Shoreham’s famed Painted Rock, one of my favorite pictures of the island’s constantly changing bulletin board. Wish I knew who the artist was.
John is behind the new tumblr blog featuring the Painted Rock in as many iterations as folks can dig out of the albums and send along.
Here’s what John had to say about it on the island e-board:
“Thanks for the kind comments and great pics submitted to paintedrockbi.tumblr.com The ‘mini cooper rock’ and the ‘hamburger rock’ are especially cool.
“There was also a question about me and the reason for the blog, so here goes.
“About 20 years ago my mother painted the rock early one morning to celebrate my sister turning 16 and my turning 21. Our summer home is a only short walk down Mohegan Trail from the rock, but if you took careful note of our ages, you might guess that my sister and I were not really morning people.
“So by the time we had rolled out of bed and made it down the street to look, it was already painted over. No photos were taken, but I know it’s there buried under all the layers. Now I am a parent, and it kind of reminds me of the many things we do for our children that no one ever really sees, but we keep doing anyhow.
“For many years I’ve been thinking about how best to document the many cool rock paintings. And last week I finally got around to doing something about it; hopefully the page will continue to get submissions and we can save the many small memories behind each coat of paint.”
I liked a recent story by Steve Annear at the Boston Globe. It was about a student who was planning to run the New York Marathon — while knitting — to raise money for medical research.
“At first,” writes Annear, “the idea of knitting a scarf while running the length of the New York City Marathon was merely a joke shared between Meredith Parmalee and her former employer, We Are Knitters.
“But as the Northeastern University senior continued to ponder the concept, she realized she could use the attention-grabbing feat to bring awareness to, and raise funds for, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. …
“ ‘It helps distract me from thinking about running . . . and my legs hurting and my arms hurting. It helps me keep my mind off of it.’
“Parmalee, 22, is being sponsored by We Are Knitters, where she did a co-op job for school, to run with the charity group Team in Training. … As she jaunts through New York Sunday, Parmalee will use a technique called ‘finger knitting,’ rather than two long needles, to weave a long scarf.
“To finger knit, Parmalee starts by making a slipknot around her index finger, and then loops the yarn around each of her three other fingers, skipping the thumb. She then brings the ‘yarn tail’ back around each finger, so there are two loops on each, and slips the second loop off each finger, starting with the index finger.
“She repeats the process, slowly binding the yarn together in tight knots. Making sure she threads the yarn correctly between each appendage requires a certain level of hand-eye coordination, but it also helps Parmalee keep a steady rhythm while she runs. …
“Parmalee said the plan is to have supporters at designated mile markers along the race route so that she can replenish her yarn supply.”
More about Parmalee at the Boston Globe, here. More about about We Are Knitters, here.
Photo: We Are Knitters
Meredith Parmalee plans to use a finger-knitting technique while making a scarf during the New York City Marathon.
Suzanne and Erik’s 3-year-old is an expert on washing machines. He checks them out wherever he goes. Did you know, they have washing machines in hotels in Miami?
When in doubt about a way to entertain a grownup, he suggests doing a wash. And sometimes, when my husband is babysitting, the two of them go to the laundromat and investigate what cycle each machine is in. With the top-loaders (no windows) it can be tricky to get a sense of what is going on inside, so my grandson puts his ear to the tub and tells my husband what he concludes.
I’m not sure what he would make of story time at the laundromat, as reported by National Public Radio (NPR), but I suspect he would find the stories intrusive for serious work.
For other children, it could be the gateway to heaven.
Andrew Boryga reports at NPR that a group of friends at Oxford University is “developing a combination childhood education and laundry services center, a concept they’ve dubbed a ‘Libromat.’
“The five team members have extensive backgrounds in childhood education, and they pooled their talents to apply for the 2015 Hult Prize, a $1 million award for young social entrepreneurs tackling some of the world’s biggest problems. This year’s challenge: provide self-sustainable education to impoverished urban areas. …
“According to the team’s research, mothers and caregivers in South Africa can spend a whopping nine hours per week hand-washing dirty clothes. ‘That’s one whole working day,’ team member David Jeffery, 23, says. So they aimed to solve two problems at once and teach mothers effective ways to read books to their infants in the amount of time it takes to complete a wash and spin cycle. And with the money collected from the laundry, they could keep this up for load after load. …
“In interviews conducted after the pilot, [Team member Nicholas] Dowdall was thrilled to learn that many of the mothers believed their relationships with their children had improved. Some even said their children were asking for story time every evening before bed.
“One participant, Ntomboxolo, 34, a mother who attended the sessions with her infant daughter, says, ‘I am a working mother, so more often than not I am tired. But now, I make time to share something in a book with my daughter every night.’ Ntomboxolo also says she saw changes in her daughter’s behavior: ‘There was not much communication before. I see her drawing closer to me.’ ”
In October, Tim Faulkner of ecoRI wrote that for the local celebration of National Food Day, “there was plenty to celebrate about Rhode Island’s food industry. During a downtown food festival, leaders and pioneers in the local food movement explained how they are connecting Rhode Island’s restaurants and culinary arts sector with farming, education, environmentalism, entrepreneurism and social justice.
“This effort was best demonstrated by Julius Searight, founder of a new food truck and mobile soup kitchen. Searight’s Food4Good held its grand opening during the Oct. 24 Providence Food Day Festival, selling chicken waffle sandwiches and baked potatoes. Proceeds from food sales are expected to fund about 400 meals a week for the needy.
“Searight, 26, grew up as a foster child in Providence and graduated from Johnson & Wales University in 2013. He got the idea for the hybrid food operation after volunteering at local nonprofits and wondering what it was like for his biological mother to get fed.
“ ‘I really just saw the need to give back to those in need,’ he said.
Photo: Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News Julius Searight is the founder of Food4Good food truck and mobile soup kitchen. Every $5 dollars earned buys two meals for people who need them.
In the Boston Globe‘s new “Stat” offering, Melissa Bailey has a story about a Boston doctor’s cost-effective bed for treating jaundiced African babies with blue-light.
“The invention looks like a space-age bassinet: A basket of reflective material, covered with canvas dotted with blue LED lights. It aims to treat an ancient problem. Jaundice — an excess of bilirubin that turns the skin yellow — kills 100,000 babies per year, many in developing countries. But exposure to plain blue light can cure it.
“The device, called the Bili-Hut, was inspired by inventor Donna Brezinski’s experience as a neonatal doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital. One day, about ten years ago, she was caring for a pair of jaundiced newborn twins at a community hospital that partnered with Children’s — but found only one available phototherapy lamp, the standard treatment for severe cases. When she looked into buying another lamp, she was shocked by the $4,000 price tag.
“Sewing together simple materials at her kitchen table in Winchester, she set about creating a cheaper and more portable alternative that could be used in the developing world. She came up with a bassinet that reflects blue light around the baby’s body. She started a company, Little Sparrows Technologies, to produce and distribute the device. It weighs less than three pounds, can be rolled up to fit inside a FedEx tube, and costs only $250 to make.
“While the device awaits clearance from the Federal Drug Administration for use in the United States, a rural hospital in Burundi has been testing out a prototype and has reported promising results.
“Dr. Alyssa Pfister, a pediatrician at Kibuye Hope Hospital in east central Burundi, found the Bili-Hut on the Internet and e-mailed Brezinski. The inventor sent a free prototype to the hospital, which started using it in September. …
“Brezinski said the device provides the same intensity and quality of light recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and used by other blankets and lamps approved by the FDA. She has tested it on synthetic skin samples and expects to hear back from the FDA within 18 months.” More here.
Interestingly, John’s company, Optics for Hire, was involved in a successful device for treating babies in the developing world called Firefly. See it here.
This story from the NY Times is about a matrilineal society near Lugu Lake in Yunnan Province, China. Amy Qin writes that the area’s beauty and the colorful female-centric traditions are a tourist draw, but once again, a culture and a language are threatened.
“A young man clad in a white shirt, black pants and red belt suddenly scrambled up the side of a log house and slid feet first into a second-story latticed window.
” ‘This is how Mosuo men would climb into the “flower room” of the women,’ Ke Mu explained to visitors as the triumphant swain stuck his head out the window of the flower room, or private bedroom, and waved his hat.
“It was morning in the lakeside village of Luoshui here in southwestern China. On a narrow side street, dusty from hotel construction nearby, a group of young workers, including Ms. Ke, 18, was preparing for another day of cultural pageantry at the Mosuo Folk Museum. …
“A fascination with such traditions has led to a booming tourism industry in this once-isolated region. …
“Visitors can watch residents perform traditional dances in colorful costumes and can take boat rides on the lake as young Mosuo men serenade them with love songs in Naru, the Mosuo language.
“All around the village are signs that read, ‘Welcome to the Kingdom of Daughters.’
“Lively as its traditions seem, however, the Mosuo community is facing a crisis. As its interaction with the wider society increases, residents and outside experts fear that the group’s unique cultural practices are facing a grave threat.
“Experts say that the population of Mosuo in the Lugu Lake region, estimated to be about 40,000, is decreasing as more young people marry outside the group or move to larger cities for work. And without a written language, Mosuo culture is particularly vulnerable to disappearing.” Read about some curious customs here.
Photo: Adam Dean for The New York Times Mosuo women in traditional outfits danced for Han Chinese tourists at a show in Luoshui.
The Barrow Bookstore featured a Thoreau quote on its kale-decorated book barrow at Thanksgiving: “My Thanksgiving is perpetual … for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.” This shop off Main Street is the place to go for gently used and out-of-print books.
A yellow rose was blooming on Beacon Hill as late as November 19.
Fort Point Arts has a new show by six contemporary mosaic artists using a variety of techniques and materials. One favorite example: Aesop’s wisdom about the fox, the grapes, and the crow, rendered as a mirror.
Finally, no matter how many times I have walked up and down School Street in Boston, I have failed until now to zero in on the reason it is called School Street. A Latin school was established there in 1635, before the founding of Harvard even, and many notables attended over the years. You should be able to read these names on the plaque in the sidewalk: Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Charles Bullfinch, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston Latin is still going strong, but in a new location.
I love that the original Boston Lain was teaching Latin and Greek, languages I once knew a bit. I am also reminded that those languages were taught at outdoor hedge schools in 18th Century Ireland, when the English were blocking education by Catholics.
Photo: Jesse Costa/WBUR
Workers lay cement for the Lynch Family Skate Park in Cambridge, Mass.
Other than Asakiyume, I didn’t know any daredevil types who skateboard. But at Thanksgiving, David was telling a young parkour artist at my house about his early years doing skateboarding — before getting into tamer events like double marathons.
Whew. I do appreciate being exposed to worlds I am never likely to explore on my own.
Here is Zeninjor Enwemeka with a WBUR story on the new Lynch Family Skate Park in Cambridge, Mass.
“The $3 million, 40,000-square-foot facility, located in East Cambridge underneath ramps to the Zakim Bridge, is the first skate park of its size in the Boston area.
“Organizers say the skate park is designed for skaters of all skills levels as well as athletes in wheelchairs. It features three bowls reminiscent of empty swimming pools (the largest is 11 and a half feet deep) and a street skating areadesigned to mimic public locations like sidewalks and plazas — complete with stairs, ledges and other common street furniture.
“ ‘Skaters that like street are going to find enough street-type elements to satisfy their wants and needs, and then the same thing goes for the folks that like to ride transition in the bowl area,’ said Doug Russell, the skate park’s project manager. …
“[Renata] von Tscharner, of the Charles River Conservancy, said the skate park will not only be ‘a home for the skaters’ but also an attraction for the city.
“ ‘It’s wonderful to watch skaters,’ von Tscharner said. ‘It’s like watching fire, constantly changing [and] flowing. So, it will be a great destination also for tourists to come here and see what the skaters are up to.’
“In addition to skateboarders, the skate park will accommodate BMX riders, rollerbladers and scooter riders. The park also has viewing areas for spectators, and organizers say the facility will be used to host community events and professional skating competitions. The public outdoor park will be open year-round. Organizers say skaters will likely still get use out of the skate park even in the winter months since a large portion of the park is covered by the highway.”
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