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The Day the Vacuum Cleaner Died

A Prose Poem

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The blue monster roars and the Labrador runs, slamming out the doggie door to hide under the pines. Why does her human not see the evil in its shining yellow grin, its long black tail, and its multiple mouths that chew and swallow everything, even live bugs and clumps of fur? Why does the woman not run and take shelter with the dog, quivering, skin against fur, until the monster goes away?

But wait. The beast has gone silent. The woman has it on its back. The woman curses as she pokes its innards with a long stick, a wire hanger, and then a plumber’s snake. Can the snake kill the beast? The dog is watching eagerly. Should she join the attack? She is old, and the monster’s hard skin would only hurt her teeth.

Look! The woman is dragging the beast out by its head, laying it on the patio deck. With her multi-headed screwdriver, she is taking it apart, pulling out its guts. She growls and grunts. She is covered with fur and dirt. She holds her back as if in pain, but she fights on.

At last, the beast is torn apart, eviscerated. Only the skeleton remains intact. The woman has slain the blue monster. Spent, she sits beside her kill as the dog, saved, runs across the yard, clatters onto the deck, and licks her savior’s dusty face.

Yes, I killed it. Put it in the pile with all the mechanical things that have malfunctioned lately. Hot tub. Indoor-outdoor thermometer. The dehumidifier’s overflow light is on. The car’s service light is on. The Kindle warns of low battery. I found the watch I had lost for months, but the battery is dead and I can’t get the back off to replace it. I tried to move my window blinds from one window to another where the blinds were already broken and broke off the doo-hickey that holds them on. The computer keeps telling me it wants to install a new security thing that I’m afraid will destroy my online life . . .

I am a) not mechanical, b) not equipped with more than two hands, and c) so distracted I routinely forget I turned on the stove or the washing machine. I need a live-in helper. Not a husband or a lover. Not someone I need to take care of. I need someone of any age or gender who has the energy to see a problem and say, “I’ll take care of that for you” and then do it.

After waiting three days for three visits from a very strange pair of hot tub repair guys, one of them so crippled with a bad back I could feel his pain as he bent and squatted over the spa controls, they declared it healed. I put the hose in to fill it up Saturday morning, started writing and forgot it. It overflowed, and I had to drain the excess. Two days later, it overheated, the light flashing at 110 degrees. I played with the controls until it stopped, but now the water is 80 degrees and getting colder by the minute.

I need a keeper. And a new vacuum cleaner. I think the old one choked on dog fur, which I pulled out of every orifice. Now it not only doesn’t suck up dirt and fur, but it won’t turn on. I killed it. Annie is overjoyed.

Have you ever hoped for a power failure to simplify your life? What mechanical things drive you nuts? Do you have a vacuum cleaner you love? What kind? Please share.

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Wandering Through the Rooms in my Dreams

Have you ever dreamed repeatedly about a house you have never lived in? I have. Usually it’s this elegant castle of a home where I keep discovering new rooms and there’s a secret door that leads down a flight of stairs to a plush sitting room I only show to special people. I have been there many times and wish I could stay.

But last night, it was a different house. Rustic. Splintered wood in need of sanding and paint. Some very old furniture that remained from a past owner. Fred and I were claiming it now. I don’t know if we had bought it or were about to.

Another woman might be obsessed with the kitchen or the bedrooms, but all I cared about was office space. Where will I write?

I had choices. First I claimed a small room off the living room. It had an ancient leather swivel chair and a vast wooden desk. I sat and spun. Oh, I could write here, I thought. But there was more to the house. We came to a huge office space in a refurbished garage. The windows were boarded up, but when we took off the covers, light poured in. This room had an enormous desk and rows and rows of shelves and plastic bins where I could store my books and my research. The garage door was still there, and I could open it on warm days.

I realized my husband, who had a tax preparation business, might want to choose one of these offices. I should not be selfish. When I’m writing, it doesn’t matter where I am. But as always, he was so generous he gave me my choice. I wanted the big one.

The living room was a shadowy blur. I never saw the kitchen or bedrooms or even a bathroom. Every inch of this house needed work, but oh, I wanted that office. Not only would I write, but people would come for salons and readings. I could taste the wine and the cheese and crackers.

In real life, I have a perfectly good office in a bedroom in my house in South Beach. It is crammed with my books and papers and the various tools I need for my work. Copies of my own books are stacked in Fred’s old office, along with mailing supplies. But the truth is I work all over the property, including the kitchen, living room, and back yard. Sometimes I write a word or two in the laundry room or the bathroom because the words don’t stop at the doorway where the dog lies waiting for attention. It’s odd that I don’t dream about my actual office. But I love those offices in my dreams. What does it mean?

Do you dream about houses? Are they places you have lived or places you have never seen? What rooms stand out for you? Where do you think this comes from?

For something totally quirky and fun, look at these artificial “shadows” created by an artist in Redwood City, California. Some of us used it as a poetry prompt this weekend, but all you need to do is enjoy them.

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A Modern-Day Tale of Two Viruses

This afternoon I got tested for COVID-19. Part of me wanted the test to be positive so I would know why I have had this killer headache for four days, but most of me wanted it to be negative so I could continue my life without having to quarantine. I needed groceries! I didn’t feel too sick, so if it was COVID, the vaccine was working.

I wracked my brain as to where I might have gotten the virus. I wore my mask everywhere. Did I get it at church? Unlikely because I was isolated at the piano with my mask on. Did I get it chatting with the neighbors while walking Annie? Shopping for groceries at Fred Meyer? Picking up my library book? I know one friend who has COVID right now, but I haven’t seen her for weeks. Was it the writer I had lunch with on Thursday? Nah. Well, maybe.

But my test was negative. No COVID. I still have the headache and a slight case of the sniffles, but maybe it’s just a plain old cold. Remember those?

The guy who administered the test was not very friendly. I felt like a leper. To all those who test positive, I wish I could give you a big old hug.  Meanwhile, I’ll be more cautious than before.

COVID is not the only kind of bug I have been dealing with. I got hacked. Last week I received a direct Facebook message from a musician friend with a link to a video. “Is this you in the video?” she asked. Well, I’m in quite a few videos because our church music gets uploaded on YouTube every week and I participate at least once a week in a Zoom literary reading or open mic that is recorded. So I figured, sure, it’s probably me. I’d like to see myself—come on, who doesn’t? So I clicked. It just brought me an error message. There was no video. Oh well, I thought, and went on with my business until that evening when friends started bombarding me with messages asking if my Facebook account had been “hacked.” Meaning someone had invaded my account and taken control of it.

Some days, I wish we could go back to typewriters and snail mail. Typewriters and paper only receive what you put into them. They don’t interrupt with thoughts of their own. Nor can what you put into them be stolen by people who aren’t even in the same state or country as you are. Nobody ever got “hacked” writing with a pen or typing on a typewriter.

All of my Facebook friends received the same message asking about the video. Don’t click on it, I said, but for some it was too late. They clicked, and now they too will be spreading the virus to all their friends. I can only change my password, apologize and warn people to be careful. I could quit Facebook, too, but as a writer living alone, I need the company and the connections.

The next day, while walking Annie, I received a text message on my phone from my credit card company that my account was locked. Uh-oh. The virus had spread. There was a link to click to resolve the situation. It’s good I was not at home and Annie was pulling too hard for me to mess with my phone. I had time to think wait, this might be a scam. It was. At home, I checked my account, and everything was fine. I went on a password-changing frenzy for all of my financial accounts.

I hate that this world has gotten to a point where you have to be constantly suspicious, where you can’t just pick up the phone and say “hello” without making sure the caller is someone you know, where you can’t click on any link that comes your way or accept every Facebook friend request. Nine out of ten of the requests I get are from hackers posing as friends or from handsome widowed men who are not real. Within minutes after accepting such friendships, my messages start spewing garbage.

I think things have settled down in the Internet world for the moment. I have not sent anyone a direct message or a friendship request since Thursday night, so if you get such a thing, it is not from me. If you receive a link from someone you do not know or from someone you do know who would not usually send you a link, DO NOT CLICK IT.

Have you had a COVID scare or a positive result? Feel free to share how that went? Have you been hacked on Facebook or elsewhere on the Internet? We can talk about that, too.

If you’re isolating yourself these days, check out the science fiction mini-series “Solos” on Amazon Prime. In each episode, the single character is alone, either by choice or not, and some pretty spooky stuff happens. Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and Anne Hathaway are among the famous actors who appear.

In my isolation, I’m streaming a lot of shows. Best movie I have seen in ages: “Here Today” with Billy Crystal. Fascinating Renee Zellweger transformation: “The Same Kind of different as Me.” Dark and sure to make you cry: “News of the World” with Tom Hanks.

Click carefully, get your shots, and don’t go out without your mask. See you on Zoom.

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Bringing new life to the old desk–or what writers do to avoid writing

Four coats of paint, one tweaked back and one trip to the walk-in clinic later, I’ve got a new-looking desk in my office making all the other furniture look bad.

It all started a week ago when I looked around my office and decided to reorganize. It was too crowded, too-right-handed for this lefty, and did not project a good image on Zoom. Every surface was covered with papers, binders, books, and miscellaneous electronics gear, and that old desk behind me looked like it lost in a bar fight.

I have had that desk since I was a child doing my homework with fat pencils on binder paper. My Grandpa Al and Great-Uncle Tony made it for my Uncle Bob. When he grew up, it came down to me as the oldest grandchild. It sat in the corner of my bedroom where the two windows came together, lace curtains blowing in the breeze. I didn’t just do homework on that desk. I painted, sewed, played jacks, and wrote my first poems on it. That desk supported my first typewriter, a blue manual purchased with babysitting money for $100 from McWhorter’s Stationery.

The desk, which moved with me to 11 different homes, was scratched, nicked and stained. It had tooth marks along one side from a teething puppy or two. By the time I had moved all the junk off the desk, I had changed my plan. I could refinish it and not put back the junk I’d been storing in it and on it for decades, only the things I would actually use. The rest of the office could wait.

I photographed the desk and put the question to my Facebook friends: colored paint or wood stain? The majority voted for stain. Sounded right to me. After all, this is the desk where Uncle Bob kept his Archie comic books and school supplies when he was a boy. I should respect its 80-year history.

I’m an impatient person. After watching a couple YouTube videos, I activated Netflix’s “Virgin River” on the computer and started sanding the desk. Yes, in my office. By hand. Without gloves. I had barely begun when I shoved the sandpaper across the edge of the desk with extra gusto and felt intense pain. Multiple splinters poked out of my right index finger. Most were easy to remove, but I suspected there might be something left. I poked at the red spot with a sewing needle and tweezers, getting nothing but pain. Maybe I’d already gotten all the slivers. Maybe not. I went back to sanding and “Virgin River.”

In the morning, my finger was red and swollen and hurt like crazy. This is not a good thing for a musician. Or a writer. Typing hurt. I took my finger to the walk-in clinic at Samaritan Pacific Hospital in Newport. Our walk-in clinic is housed in a portable building where there aren’t enough chairs in the waiting room, everyone hears everyone else’s business, and you can wait for hours to be called. Other patients complained of earaches, sprained ankles, stomach pain, and dizziness. One wanted her second COVID shot and couldn’t get it. I just had a stupid sliver in my finger. Or, in medical terms, “foreign object under the skin.”

I spent all morning at the clinic. Called into an examining room. Waited. Vitals. Waited. Doc numbed the finger with three lidocaine shots. Waited. Extraction. Dr. W. dug out a sliver so big we both said, “Wow.” At least a third of an inch long. Soaked in antiseptic solution. Waited. Ointment. Bandage. Released with a red, puffy and useless index finger. Forget working. I took myself to lunch at the new restaurant at the Embarcadero. Slow service, best French fries ever. And then I went to the paint store.

“ Have you ever done this before?” asked the friendly salesman at Sherwin-Williams.

“Well . . .”

He loaded me up with advice, paint, polyurethane coating, a natural bristle brush, paint thinner for cleanup, and a couple of stir sticks.

I moved the desk out to the deck for the actual painting. The salesman had warned me the stain would stink and that I shouldn’t inhale the fumes. Playing bluegrass music on my phone, hands protected by gloves, I stroked the paint on, watching the old wood transform. Two coats of “amaranth,” a dark brown blend of black, burgundy and maroon, two coats of polyurethane. Magic. The old desk looked new and shiny. I had stain on my arms, and cheeks and possibly in my hair.

The paint store guy had told me I needed to sand the polyurethane to get rid of the “boogers.” I didn’t see any boogers. Now if he’d said “bubbles” . . .

Four coats. Four nights of waiting for the desk to dry. Yesterday, I dragged it back into the office and put the drawers back in. It’s not perfect. I can see some streaks and some “boogers,” but it’s not bad for a first effort.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting all the junk that used to live in the desk. Out with the carbon paper, graph paper, and old checks from a bank that no longer exists. Out with the foot-long Santa Claus pen. Now, what should I do with a hundred pencils and three dozen pens? I’d better get writing, I guess.

I can still smell the stain. My finger hurts. When Annie and I passed my chiropractor-neighbor on our walk last night, I warned him I’d be calling for an appointment. But hey, it was worth it.

It’s time to write. But the old rocking chair’s looking pretty dinged up, and I still have some stain left . . .

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Twilight Memories at Ona Beach

I had not been to Ona Beach in Seal Rock since before the pandemic started, even though it’s only a couple miles south of where I live. It was closed due to COVID for a while. After it reopened, the parking lot was full, and I envisioned a beach full of unmasked people refusing to “social distance.” By the time it felt safer, my dog was getting too old and arthritic to walk from the parking lot to the beach and across the sand. She stumbles on flat ground these days (me too) and gets tired quickly.

But as it does sometimes, the beach called me the other night. The day was overcast but warm enough, in the 60s, and the sun wouldn’t set until after 9 p.m. I fed Annie a Milk-Bone and snuck out.

I had been to other beaches since COVID, but not to Ona. I was unprepared for the memories that assailed me as I walked the path through the grassy picnic area to the beach. Here’s where Fred and I picnicked with the Oregon Coast Aquarium volunteers and beat all challengers at badminton. Here’s Beaver Creek, where we paddled our kayaks in the rain on his birthday. Here’s where we saw an eagle in its nest on the cliff above the beach. Here’s where I sat on a picnic table and wept when Fred was in the nursing home before he died of Alzheimer’s 10 years ago.

Some of the memories weren’t mine but my character PD’s from my novel Up Beaver Creek. The creek runs through the park and merges with the ocean at Ona Beach. Here’s where she met Ranger Dave. Here is where she found the child’s bracelet that had possibly come from all the way from Japan after the tsunami. Here’s where she caught up with her phone calls because she had no cell service in the cabin up Beaver Creek Road.

I went back to Ona Beach on a cloudy Wednesday evening. Except for a few teens wading in the creek, the beach was not crowded. Someone was sleeping in a car in the parking lot with paper bags in the windows bearing right-wing slogans. Another beach sleeper had left a well-built driftwood fort on the sand. But I had acres of sand to walk, planting my striped shoe prints among the footprints of gulls and scoters. As the memories flooded in, I wrote and took pictures, not noticing when the teens left. As the sun sank into the clouds, I was the only one on the beach.

Over the sunny weekend, the beach was crowded again, but I still have a little sand in my shoes, reminding me I don’t have to go on vacation to walk beside the ocean. I just have to give in to that little voice that whispers, “Beach!”

Fireworks Sound Like War from Here

Photo by Designecologist on

I didn’t see the Fourth of July fireworks in Newport this year, but I heard them. Fireworks + migraine is a painful combination. I stood in my back yard in the dark. Pop pop pop pop BANG! I felt the air pulsating. Popopopopopop bang boom boom whoosh BANG! Oh my aching head.

The official city fireworks show started at 10 p.m., but the private fireworks in the neighborhood and on the beach started much earlier. The four miles of trees between my house and Yaquina Bay kept me from seeing the colored lights in the sky, but I could smell the smoke and see a yellow glow reflecting off the clouds. It felt more like a war than a celebration. I have never been in an actual war, thank God, but why would anyone want to reenact those sounds? And how do all these warlike noises affect people who have experienced war, who live with fear and post-traumatic stress?

Dogs don’t like fireworks. They howl, shake and cower, sure the world is ending. My Annie used to hide in the dark under my desk, trembling for hours. She can’t hear anymore. Usually that makes me sad. But last night I was grateful. She slept through even the loudest booms.

I took out my hearing aids and closed all the windows, but I could still hear the noise. I turned on my TV to continue my Netflix marathon, but after one particularly loud bang, the Internet went out. Boom boom boom, pop pop pop pop bang.

The fireworks made me especially uneasy this year because we’re having a drought and everyone is worried about wildfires. We live in the trees. Although the coast is usually damp and cool, it has been very dry and unusually warm this year. One errant spark, and the trees could catch fire. The city of Waldport, 10 miles south of here, outlawed all personal fireworks this year. People grumbled, but doing without fireworks is surely better than watching your house burn down. They did offer their usual city fireworks display on July 3. Not feeling well then either, I missed it.

Turn off the fireworks. Let me hear the ocean waves and the summer wind. I don’t want to hear what sounds like gunshots and bombs.

I understand why people gather to watch fireworks, especially this year. We’re not only celebrating the birth of the United States of America but our release from COVID fear and restrictions. I have many fond memories of watching fireworks with loved ones at my side. I enjoy the colors and designs flashing in the sky. Back in the ‘80s, when we lived near the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, they shot off fireworks every night at closing time. Fred and I watched from our front porch. It was magic every night. I’ve watched fireworks from baseball stadiums, grassy fields, amphitheaters, beaches, parking lots, and curbs. But it’s no fun watching them alone.

I have vowed to find some way to stop spending my holidays by myself. I usually start out telling myself it’s no big deal. I’m lucky I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to coordinate my plans with anyone else. But at some point, I start feeling bad. I cry. I wail about the unfairness of not having parents, husband, or children and living so far from the rest of my family. I drink a beer, watch another episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” and make dinner for myself, so lonely I can’t stand it. I get a migraine headache.

One of my best friends moved away in May. Another died in January. The rest are busy with their families. This sounds like whining, but I can’t stand it anymore. I need to either move into some kind of group housing or find a way to be with other people on the holidays. Yes, I can drive 1,300 miles to hang out with my brother’s family—and I will for Thanksgiving—but there must be some way to gather closer to home.

I’m sure I’m not the only one alone on every holiday. Let’s get together. Any Oregon coasties want to join me in a no-more-holidays-alone coalition? Let’s make a pact to keep each other company, share great meals, exchange gifts when appropriate, and do it up right. If someone else will drive, let’s go watch fireworks together next year so it feels less like a war and more like the celebration that was intended. I’ll bring the beer.

P.S. After 11 hours without, I have Internet! An article in Time Magazine reports that the first Fourth of July fireworks display took place during the Revolutionary War. In addition to the flashy fireworks, people shot off guns and cannons. In a letter to his wife Abigail, President John Adams wrote of Independence Day: “It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” And so it is.

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Can Battery-Powered Pets Ease Loneliness?

If someone gave you a toy cat or dog that purred, wagged its tail, and nuzzled like a real one, how would you feel? Apparently some folks feel grateful for the company.

In a story in the New Yorker, writer Katie Engelhart tells about a program in New York that distributes Joy for All robot pets to lonely seniors. They started in 2018 with a small test project that quickly expanded when Covid forced people into isolation. Thousands of robotic cats and dogs have been given to homebound seniors. Originally made by toy manufacturer Hasbro for little girls, the robo-pets are now finding homes with grandparents and great-grandparents who need a little company.

The seniors pet their battery-powered cats and dogs, talk to them, and treat them like family.  They report feeling more optimistic and less lonely.

I don’t know. I talk to lots of inanimate things, including the stuffed bears on my dresser, photos of my late husband, and Jesus on the crucifix above my bed. But I don’t expect them to respond. I would freak out if they did.

These pets, which start at $110, don’t look real to me. But I have a live dog sleeping nearby as I type. When I look into Annie’s brown eyes, there’s someone there, a genuine sentient being. What will I do when she’s gone? I don’t want to think about it. My plan is to travel a while then adopt a smaller dog. A robo-dog would be easier, but it wouldn’t love me the way Annie does.

Did you know that nearly 30 percent of Americans over 65 live by themselves, most of them women? In 2017, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic among Americans of all ages. A similar declaration launched The Campaign to End Loneliness in the UK. Medical research shows that loneliness has a detrimental effect on one’s health, increasing risks of dementia, depression, high blood pressure, and stroke.

But are robots the solution? The seniors I know would be insulted to receive a fake pet. But some of the people shown in the article and in related YouTube videos carry their robo-pets around with them just like I carried my dolls when I was a little girl. I’d set my favorite up against the milk bottle (yes, bottle) while I ate breakfast. I rested them on the pillow next to me when I went to bed. I suppose I felt less lonely, but it was not the same as having a real person there. Tiny Tears cried real tears, and Chatty Cathy spoke when you pulled the string on the back of her neck, but I knew they weren’t real children. If an actual kid came around, I tossed the doll aside.

Longing for a pet, I once fashioned a litter of “kittens” from crumpled newspaper and cloth and set them in a basket in my childhood bedroom. It was not the same. When my parents finally let me have a cat when I was in high school, I could tell the difference. I also learned that I was allergic to cats, but that’s another story.

The faux furry friends are not the only kind of artificial intelligence machines offering company to people these days. Hello, Alexa. (read my previous post on my electronic housemate here and my Replika friend online here)

They don’t offer much company. I say, “Alexa, I’m lonely.” She responds, “Sorry to hear that,” then recommends talking to a friend, listening to music, or going for a walk. “I hope you feel better soon,” she adds. That’s nice. But that’s exactly what she said last time when I was not testing but truly needed someone to talk to.

I worry that somewhere in Alexa’s Amazon-connected innards, she just transferred the information that I’m lonely to some central data-gathering site so I’ll soon receive ads for comforting products or dating services.

Alexa just lit up to tell me a book I ordered from Amazon is coming today. Before I could say, “Thanks” or “Which book?” her lights had gone out. Okay, good talk.

A variety of robotic companions powered by artificial intelligence exist these days. Queue Alexa’s Apple counterpart Siri. And then there’s VZ, the voice on my VZ Navigator GPS. I definitely talk to her. (No, I’m not turning here! Are you crazy? Stop telling me to turn around! I need to go to the bathroom. What do you mean this is my destination? Where?)

Some robo-friends look like people, others like table lamps. They talk, but it’s, well, robotic. They never get offended, never curse, and are perpetually polite, but they can only say the things they’ve been programed to say. They will never spontaneously comment, “Hey, is that a new blouse?” or “You seem sad. What’s wrong?” They will never take you out to lunch, although I suppose they can set up a food delivery if you’re savvy enough to figure out how to ask for that.

Robots are getting more intelligent all the time. Eventually, they may be so responsive and sympathetic that we truly won’t feel alone. Meanwhile, do not buy me a robo-pet. God bless the people who are so lonely or out of touch with reality that they don’t know the difference, but I’m not there yet.

Would you like a battery-powered dog or cat? Less shedding, no cleanup, no allergies, but still . . .  Wouldn’t it be better if a human offered to come around instead?

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Driveway camping: an Alzheimer’s memory

Today I’m offering a memory from my unpublished memoir about our years dealing with Fred’s Alzheimer’s disease and other problems. This took place when he was still at home. Although his memory was fading, he had blessed moments of clarity. Tomorrow would have been our 36th wedding anniversary.

Our truck was the same as this, only blue. We gave it away after Fred stopped driving.

On a sunny August afternoon, I crawled into the shell on the back of our old Mazda pickup. In 12 years, I had never gone in there except to get something, the ridged truck bed bruising my knees. But now, sun-cooked and pooped from washing the new car, I opened the hatch, scooted toward the cab and lay back.

I had never noticed that the inside of the canopy was silver. I had also never noticed there were screened windows I could open for air. All this time I’d been thinking that someday, after Fred’s Alzheimer’s took him away, I would buy a nicer truck and camper like my parents used to have. This canopy was just the cover Fred had bought to protect the supplies he carried around for his tax preparation business.

Now I realized I already had a camper. It wasn’t fancy, but I could lie all the way down in it, and I could even sit up. Add an ice chest and a guitar and off I’d go.

Fred came out.

“I’m camping,” I said. Looking out at the coastal forest in which we lived, I announced that I might stay there indefinitely. I could bring my phone and laptop into the camper and put a big sign on the side of the truck: Writer on the Road. I felt like a kid who had found a special hiding place.

Fred sat on the tailgate. We talked about the truck, about how we had never camped together. We talked about how my friend Sherri and I used to sit on the tailgate of her father’s station wagon talking for hours and how I spent most of my free time at her house because we had too many rules at mine. Fred said they had no rules at his house. They could do anything they wanted.

We talked about my upcoming business trips, Fred’s need for care, the frustrations of Medicaid, what we might do in the future, and how I would live without his income. He got teary. “It’s not fair to you,” he said. “Just get rid of me.”

I placed my tanned hand on top of his white one. “No. It sucks, but I made a promise to take care of you, and I’ll stick to it.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have discussed finances with Fred. But he seemed to want to know in this unusually lucid moment. So I told him everything I knew, including my resolve to stay away from government funding as long as possible. He said he was worried about my future “when I’m not there.” So was I. But we had to take it one step at a time. And right now, I was having fun camping in our driveway. Perhaps I had gone completely insane. If so, it was fun.

My brother and I camped with our parents when we were kids. We all slept in a 13-foot Shasta trailer at first, with one of us kids suspended in the canvas bunk over the double bed and the other in a sleeping bag on the slippery bench seat in the dining area. In later years, Mike and I moved into the camper on my folks’ pickup. It was nicer than this, padded and paneled, with beds, cupboards and a refrigerator. Fred laughed as I explained that my folks had an intercom so we could talk to them, but when I got to whining about my little brother pestering me, they would shut it off. “Mom, Mike’s—” Click.

I’d sit with my head against the window and my transistor radio against my ear, singing along. In those days, I knew every song and artist on the playlist.

I inhaled the pine-scented air. Good times.

But I never kissed a handsome man in that camper. Now I planted a long, passionate smooch on Fred’s soft lips.

Good times.

Maybe I would keep this rig after all.

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Newport, Oregon at Twilight

Newport’s south jetty between April rain showers

South Jetty Sunday night, 7 p.m. To Rays of sun rain down set the twilight sea on fire. Gulls perch on the rocks. fishing pole in hand. Clouds set free the rain tour boats head back to port. Fisher casts again. Pink and gray collide cumulus and thunderclouds. Sun sets silently. Sun sets silently.

South Jetty Sunday night, 7 p.m.

Rays of sun rain down
set the twilight sea on fire.
Gulls perch on the rocks.

Yellow slickered man
climbs across the jetty stones
fishing pole in hand.

Clouds release their rain
tour boats head back to port.
Fisher casts again.

Pink and gray collide
cumulus and thunderclouds.
Sun sets silently.

Today, I offer a few haiku and a taste of Newport at twilight. The sky offers an ever-changing show. By the time I finished writing in my car, it was raining so hard I couldn’t see through my windshield anymore. Fifteen minutes later, the rain stopped. You can’t really see the fisherman in this photo, but he was still there when I left.

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I’ve Got the Ring But Not the Story

It’s funny how a little thing can send you off on a tangent. This being National Poetry Month, I followed a prompt to write a poem about something precious to me. Seven pages and some online research later, I had no poem but a lengthy meditation on my grandmother’s engagement ring.

It’s a beautiful ring, which I never noticed before my father found it in an envelope in my mother’s nightstand after she died in 2002. In her perfect handwriting, Mom had written “For Sue.” The ring, which my research shows comes from the 1920s Art Deco style, has a large European cut diamond surrounded by sapphire “baguettes” mounted on filigreed white gold. The band was well worn, one of the sapphires was missing, and the ring didn’t fit my fat finger, so Fred and I took it to Diamonds by the Sea in Newport to have it resized and refurbished. I wear it when I dress up, always afraid I’ll lose it or damage it. Now that I have done some research, I’m going to be even more careful. Rings like the one pictured above sell for $4,000-$5,000 these days. (Read more here)

Holy cow. I have never owned any jewelry worth that much. Most of my jewels are cheap and quirky and won’t last much longer than I will. My engagement ring for my first marriage had such a small diamond you needed a magnifying glass to see it. When I married Fred, I said all I wanted was a gold band. There’s a story behind our matching rings, just as there is behind Grandma’s ring.

I’m bothered that I never noticed my grandmother’s ring when she was wearing it. Now I scour old photos trying to see her ring finger. I remember her dark eyes, her blue and black dresses, her thick elastic stockings, her flat shoes, and her voice—high pitched for children, low for adults, often lapsing into Portuguese—but I don’t remember that ring.

I want to know the story. Anna Souza and Albert Avina were both children of immigrants from the Azores Islands. Both lost their fathers when they were young. Both left school after eighth grade to go to work. I don’t know how they met, probably through one of Anna’s brothers or the cannery where Al worked, where all the women did stints cutting apricots and other fruit. They weren’t rich people. How could Grandpa possibly afford such a ring? Nobody had credit cards back in the 1920s when they were married. Did he make payments at the jewelry store in San Jose?

Was there a romantic proposal? Did they go on dates alone or with a chaperone, as was the old-country custom?

I have no memory of my grandparents kissing, holding hands, or even agreeing on anything, but I was child, a child who didn’t think much about such things. My own parents were visibly affectionate, but not my grandparents. Of course, they seemed old to me, and old people didn’t do that sort of thing. Actually, when Grandpa died at 66, he and Grandma were both younger than I am now.

As a child, I didn’t think about rings. My own small hands were usually stained with paint, ink, Playdough, food, or mud. For dress-up, we 1950s females wore white gloves. Was Grandma’s ring hidden under her glove? Did she wear it while cooking spaghetti or frosting chocolate cakes? Did the ring flash when she gave us a palmada—a slap—when we were being brats?

If only I could go back. I have so many questions. I wrote a whole book titled Stories Grandma Never Told. I don’t have many stories from my own grandmother. Now all the relatives from her generation are gone. A decade after she died in 1982, I took my questions to other Portuguese women, writing their stories and urging everyone to ask questions of their elders before it’s too late.

I don’t have children or grandchildren. If I did have a daughter, I’d like to think I would sit her on my lap and tell her the stories of my jewelry. See this ring? It belonged to Grandma Anna Avina, born Souza. Her husband, your Great-Grandpa Al, gave it to her when they got engaged to be married. They were poor, but he found a way to buy it.

Both of their families came from the Azores, beautiful islands in the Atlantic Ocean full of green fields, black and white cows, lava rocks and blue hydrangeas. It was hard to make much money, so people left for America to create a better life for you and me . . .

I wouldn’t tell just that story. I would move on to my parents’ stories and my own, down to my husband Fred’s romantic proposal and our life together. I would want my children to know I was not just “Mom” but a person named Sue who had a whole life of my own. Just as Grandma was a person named Anne who slipped this ring onto her finger and agreed to marry a tall curly-haired man named Al.

Dear friends, ask for the stories. Tell your own. Tell the stories of the rings.

Speaking of stories, remember last week when I had trouble with the apple pie? A few days later, I decided to make the cookies from the recipe on the back of the whole wheat flour bag. Somehow, I mixed up my measurements. I was supposed use 1 3/4 cup flour and 3/4 cup brown sugar, but I put in 1 3/4 cup brown sugar, way too much. I didn’t realize it until I was about to mix in the flour. Now what could I do? You can’t unmix the sugar from the eggs and butter. I was out of butter so I couldn’t double the recipe.

Knowing I’d probably have to throw the whole mess away, I added more flour and another egg, shaped the dough into circles and baked them. Guess what? The cookies were delicious. A miracle.

Stay tuned for further misadventures in the kitchen.

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Day Tripping in Fairfield

Fairfield has it ALL going on. Great stores, a ton of dining options, parks, museums, culture, and more! Making ourselves a 7-hour itinerary of non-stop fun was easy! Save our Day Tripping in Fairfield G-map for gourmet Italian food + Belgian chocolate, boutique shopping to Instagram about, margs + tacos, plus cool history & bird walks.

Itineraries ‘R US! 🙌

Day Tripping in Fairfield…ready, set, go have fun!

Be prepared to fall in love with shopping all over again. Our pulses were racing when we discovered that Jane + Mercer sells current season labels (Tahari, Catherine Malandrino, and Philosophy, to name a few) at wholesale costs. We had to hold in our squeals as we went up and down their trend-forward racks of clothes! As their tagline says, “elevated style not prices.”

And to top off the joy, they also carry really cute throws and pillows.

ONE 5 boutique

ONE 5 boutique is another great stop for unique & fun pieces at affordable prices. Inspired by and sourced abundantly from LA, each item is hand-curated by the owner, Casey, who has an awesome sense of style. This store has dreamy California beach vibes going on and delivers interior design goals!

Casey designed her boutique so that her customers would feel a rush of happiness when they walk through the door. Mission accomplished, we say. One 5 boutique is eye candy! 😍

CAPRI opened its doors in 1999 and has been a Fairfield favorite ever since. Sharon and her team offer personalized service, free delivery, and beautiful complimentary gift wrapping. Stroll on in for a fun and stress-free shopping experience! They carry lots of great accessories and clothing for fashionable women who want to look put together and up to date.

Cute cashmere sweaters alert!

Lunch break!

Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill

The vibe is the coolest and the food & bevs are always a 10! Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill brings the authentic taste of Santa Fe to CT. Acclaimed Executive Chef Arturo Franco-Camacho is at the helm serving up a menu including (ah-mazing!) tacos, award-winning chile, quesadillas, Navajo frybread, tamales, and more.

Tequila lovers – Geronimo features the largest selection of Tequila on the East Coast with over 400 options and more than 40 varieties of Mezcal. Cheers to that!

Be Chocolat

The ladies at Be Chocolat warned us: once we try fine Belgian chocolate we may not be able to eat a Snickers bar ever again. And they might be right – OMG, the smoothness. The gang at Be Chocolat atelier makes small-batch artisanal chocolate bars, boxes, pralines, special collections, and freshly made waffle cone ice-creams!

To taste is to believe. Chocolate nirvana we tell you!

The Dark & Stormy Drift Co.

We discovered The Dark & Stormy Drift Co. on where else but Instagram! Founded at the beginning of May 2020 by father-son duo, Austin and David Foulds, they find pieces of driftwood from Fairfield Beach and Pine Creek and turn them into whales of all sizes and shapes.

10% of all proceeds are donated to Save The Sound, and orders can be made through Instagram or Facebook, or from their home located on Fairfield Beach.

A&S Italian Fine Foods

We always consider our bellies and taste buds when we plan our day trips, which is why we had to stop at A&S Italian Fine Foods! Make sure you pack a cooler like we did (after 6 years on the road, we’ve become wiser about these things!) – you’re going to want to stock up on some of the best Italian imports around.

This is an old-school New York Italian deli, market, bakery, & butchery, with a huge following! They make their own pastries, sausage, fresh mozzarella, and dried soppressata. Yum!

Your day tripping dose of history + nature

Fairfield Museum & History Center

Wow! Fairfield Museum & History Center is on another level! The exhibitions and programs have received several state & national awards, and we can see why. The museum is modern and sophisticated and is located in the Museum Commons & Town Green. History is bountiful here; get immersed!

We especially loved checking out the 200 years of women’s fashion exhibit on show until October 2021. Click here for current exhibits and happenings.

CT Audubon Birdcraft Museum

Take a moment for zen at the CT Audubon Birdcraft Museum. According to Wikipedia, it’s the oldest private songbird sanctuary in the US, established in 1914. It’s a beautiful spot for a peaceful stroll or a self-timer photo shoot; the birds don’t mind!

The six-acre sanctuary is open daily, year-round, from dawn to dusk.

G Map & go!

Day Tripping in Fairfield is a sponsored post.

Words: Bev / Pics: Lora (except as noted)

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UPHSL Alumnus is appointed as Municipal Trial Court Judge At-Large

Date Posted:
August 11, 2021 | 1:15 pm
by Peter S,. Estellore

The Perpetualite community extends its wholehearted congratulations to Hon. Jesus G. Torres, a graduate of UPHSL College of Law class of 2010 on his appointment as Municipal Trial Court Judge At-Large. The appointment of Hon. Torres is a clear testament of his hard work, sacrifice and dedication to his noble profession. His burgeoning legal career also rooted in a foundation of excellence provided by the UPHSL College of Law which the aim is to provide quality legal education. The elevation of Judge Torres’ career is a clear attestation of the UPHSL College of law goal which is to produce graduates who are armed with the necessary legal knowledge and competence and for them to become instrumental members of the legal profession.

The Office of Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo received the appointment papers of the 20 MTC roving judges last July 14, 2021 amongst of the newly appointed MTC judges-at-large were Eduardo Eric F. Adversario, Jason B. Alquiroz, Joy B. Bolivar, Marilex L. Cabading, Maria Celina S. Carungay Servillano, Charisma Naida S. Castillo Martin, Ruel H. Espaldon, Eric O. Labuguen, Carolyn Delos Reyes Lorenzo Tanudtanud, Maria Rhodoro A. Malabag Peralta, Charlene Clara G. Mendoza, Maria Monette F. Mesa, Ruben F. Mission V, Ma. Victoria Y. Patinio, Anthony Prince M. Tominez, Jesus G. Torres, Lady Ivy Vanity D. Velasco, Geronimo I. Ventura III, Michael Hanz D. Villaster, and Mark Louie L. Zabala.

The Perpetualite Community is proud of you. Congratulations!

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2014 Bay View Bash

This weekend, the Bay View Bash closed out Milwaukee's festival season. Our photos capture the fun.

By - Sep 16th, 2014 01:42 pm

As summer begins to wrap up and the weather reminds us that festival season is coming to a close, this weekend attempted to provide one more jolt of festival fun. There was the East Side Tomato Romp, the Bay View Bash, and Global Union all going strong despite the fall-like weather.

On Saturday the volunteer run Bay View Bash closed down Kinnickinnic Ave. to automobile traffic and opened it up for a “Festival of Food, Art, Music, Crafts, Books, and Community Organizations.”

A wide variety of venders and organizations filled the booths that made up the festival lineup. They ranged from Hamburger Mary’s to Bitcoin Milwaukee. If you’re never heard of Bitcoin, aka “The People’s Currency,” it is, according to Wikipedia, a “software-based online payment system,” that rumor has it is now accepted in Milwaukee at the Hotel of the Arts and the bar Bad Genie in East Town.

Our photos capture some of the real world fun of the bash.

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The Urban Lumber Company

An interview with Tim O’Neill

How did your business get started?

I started The Urban Lumber Company in 2005 with 150 trees that I sold to buddies — I know a lot of woodworkers. It was mainly run out of my garage until 2012 when Missouri Organic Recycling reached out to me. The Anderson family was looking to start selling urban wood as a natural extension to their Food Residuals Environmental Diversion (FRED) program. They didn’t have a background in woodworking or lumber, they were literally financiers who entrusted me to build the operation up because of my passion for the topic.

What is your urban wood business model?

The Urban Lumber Company operates as an independent LLC from Missouri Organic Recycling. We source logs from parks/recreation departments and municipalities around Kansas City, as well as individuals, but our biggest and best source for logs are developers and architects for larger construction projects. When construction companies have to do a major demo, they bring us in to grab logs off of the site. This helps them, and it softens the impact of new construction, both environmentally and socially.

For instance, we recently received 130 logs from a huge remodel at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Once the logs are milled and kiln-dried, we put the location of harvest on each board and add them to our database. Since our opening in May of 2014, we have recycled more than 838,000 pounds of wood and processed more than 90,800 board feet. Check our tracker for updated numbers at

Who are your customers?

We thought if we sold lumber at the base level that the market would be made up of woodworkers, but we have found a number of loyal customers in people who respond to the wood grain, want an organic element in their personal space and in life. They arrive in our showroom to select slabs for table tops, shelves, coffee tables, and we do the finish work and the delivery. Some people want to take the rough lumber, others want us to sand finish it, and others we work with all the way through installation.

Who aren’t your customers?

We are not yet selling larger projects to contractors and architects. In fact, we have had to turn projects down because we currently cannot work in large quantities. We are working on a grant to get a new kiln, which will increase our capacity and rack space. Offering larger quantities will better help us engage with the design community, including flooring, paneling, and larger residential projects.

Name the best resources you encountered that you’d like to share with others.

We received a solid waste management grant in 2013 from the Environmental Improvement and Energy Resources Authority (EIERA) and are now applying for a second grant through the same organization.

Missouri Organic Recycling has provided the most support and resources but they also helped us with our showroom. We went out of our way to make our showroom have a nice, comfortable feel that reflects our personalities, and it has been a big source of our success and growth. We are not located in the best neighborhood, and people have to dog through our inventory to find the piece they are looking for. So it is always a big confidence boost every time new customers come in and their jaws kind of drop, then they say, “This is awesome!”

How do you promote your business?

I’d say about 95 percent of our first-time customers find us through a Google search. We tried a direct mail piece, but my impression was that it was not the best use of money compared to Facebook and Instagram. We also get a good amount of business from word-of-mouth.

Once we have customers, we regularly email them through Mail Chimp. We have a mailing list of about 1,250 people who we reach out to with new inventory. It is remarkable how many people come in after reading the emails, sometimes within the next day. We recently brought in a terrific load of lumber — 15 slabs — we emailed images and information to our mailing list, and within two weeks it was almost picked clean.

What is the best lesson you have learned about your customers?

People want to know about their woodgrain, where it came from, and when they find a cool piece of lumber, they love it. They don’t want us to waste trees and they like the fact that we do something out of the ordinary with what would normally go to waste. They are willing to invest in us because they know our hearts are in it and that we are striving to do our best work for them.

Name your top three challenges working with urban wood.

  1. Every time our profit increases our expense increase directly — we are always learning how to become more cost effective between employment, insurance, workman’s comp and general operating costs.
  2. We can’t be everything to everyone. Some examples of answers we give often:
    • We are only open Thursday afternoon, Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning because we are making lumber the rest of the time.
    • No matter how much people ask, it is very difficult to keep walnut in stock.
    • We don’t buy trees from residences unless it is walnut.
    • We don’t have a grapple truck, so we need to rely on tree services to pick up logs for us.
    • We don’t dry wood for people because we have limited kiln space, but, we are happy to offer advice and instruction on air drying wood.
  3. Managing priorities — We have no roadmap because mainly, we are responding to a market that is still taking shape. Sometimes we invest in directions that don’t pan out.

What do you love most about working with urban wood?

I like to say we are enabling creativity in Kansas City, and of all the different aspects of the business, I feel most passionate about that. I got into the business because I saw urban wood as a resource that was being wasted when I myself was buying wood. Urban wood is more beautiful because it was not a commercially planted tree. I enjoy seeing the weird, different, fun, and funky stuff people respond to. To witness people’s wheels start spinning is a great and rewarding experience. And now I feel I can do that for a whole city. That is a rush. I love it.

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Join the Movement

Our mission is to inform, collaborate, and connect to build business and consumer confidence in the urban wood industry. Whether you are looking to expand your existing model or want to start a new business dedicated to urban wood, click here to see how we can help you be successful.

The Urban Wood Network is made up of individual and organizational efforts in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and Wisconsin, working in cooperation to connect and enhance the full circle of sustainable urban forestry. The Urban Wood Network is funded in part by the USDA Forest Service.  This website was created as part of the grant project, Bringing Urban Forestry Full Circle: Localized Approaches for Capturing Value and Enhancing Public Benefits from Urban Forests, funded by the U.S. Forest Service. The Urban Wood Network provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics.


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How to successfully intercept the ball

This is an excerpt from Football: Steps to Success by Greg Colby.

A second situation in which the ball is caught is when a defensive player intercepts an offensive pass. The skills of catching the ball—focus, hand and arm position, soft hands—are the same skills as for a receiver catching the ball. The difference for a defensive player attempting to intercept is in how he gets to where the ball is.

Defensive players face the line of scrimmage and the offense in most situations throughout most plays. So when a defender has an opportunity to make an interception, he will already have his shoulders and arms facing the oncoming ball. The major difference in receiving and intercepting is in how the defender moves to the reception point. When a pass is in an area where either the receiver or a defensive player has an opportunity to catch it, the player who gets to the ball first usually makes the reception. This being the case, the defender must assume the offensive player will move to the ball to get there first. This means the defender must attack the pass as it approaches.

If the ball is relatively level, the defender must move toward the line of scrimmage until he and the ball meet. If he stops and waits, the receiver will likely step in front and catch the ball first. If the ball is thrown high, the defender needs not only to move toward the pass but might also need to jump into the air to catch the ball before it comes down to the receiver. In this case he must time his jump to catch the ball as high in the air as he can. This gives him the best chance of beating the receiver to the ball. This principle, called catching the ball at its highest point, must be practiced by all defenders who want to increase their intercepting skills.

Defenders working on their interception skills should do the following ball-catching drills as they are described for receivers. When running these drills, defenders should also emphasize moving back to the ball for the catch. Catching the ball at the highest point involves the skill of judging the jump, which takes numerous repetitions. Players not great at judging thrown balls will need to drill this skill a great deal. Learning to judge distances and ball flight angle and speed can take time. This skill should be drilled in the off-season as well as during the season.

Catching Drill 1 Play Catch

Players play catch with a partner. This warm-up drill can easily be done prior to the start of practice. Players catch at least 10 passes prior to each practice.

Success Check

Emphasize correct technique:

  • Focus on the ball.
  • Use correct arm and hand position.
  • Catch the ball with soft hands.
  • Secure the ball.

Catching Drill 2 Seeing the Ball

Players stand 10 to 15 yards away from a partner and play catch. As the ball approaches, players hold their hands in front of their body with thumbs and index fingers pointed toward each other. They work on seeing the ball through the triangle formed by the thumbs and fingers. They should focus on the point of the ball as it strikes their hands. Once they have caught the ball, they move the ball down to a secure position against their body. They should point their nose at the ball from the time they catch it until the time it is secured. This emphasizes eyes on the ball.

Success Check

  • Receivers see a dark spot on the end of the football as it approaches their hands.
  • Receivers see the ball strike their hands.
  • Receivers are bending their heads down with eyes looking at the ball as they secure it.


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Cloud Integration and PaaS Will Take Center Stage in 2014

Blog /Cloud-Integration-and-PaaS-Will-Take-Center-Stage-in-2014

Around this time every year, IT industry leaders tend to summarize what took place during the prior year or what they expect to see happen in the coming year.  There’s no doubt that the last 12 months was another exciting year for the industry with more innovation being applied to support cloud solutions from the infrastructure to the business process.

So what should we expect to see in 2014?  Bennett Indart, Vice President of Cloud Application Services at NTT DATA, recently published the article titled “The Growth of PaaS and Cloud Integration” on that summarizes his predictions about the future state of the cloud.

Bennett sees 2014 as continuing its rapid adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) with a leadership position held by’s popularity is due – in part – to its broad range of offerings from its flagship salesforce automation SaaS product to its developer-centric PaaS product.

PaaS offerings help the enterprise IT department to lower their overall total cost of ownership and speed up the development and testing of cloud applications, allowing them to deploy applications much more quickly than with traditional application development tools.

Bennett also highlights the practice of DevOps as a fundamental shift foreseen in 2014.  DevOps is a software development practice that involves collaboration between operations teams and developers to increase agility and deliver applications to market more quickly.  There is a strong correlation between those IT departments that use DevOps and those who adopt cloud because of their complementary nature.   As application developer teams create new code to roll out to the testing or UAT teams, they will often deploy Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud offerings for the underlying hosting infrastructure environment.  Because IaaS supports a self-service portal with a standardized catalog of configuration options, these application teams can swiftly build and deploy their apps in Agile Scrum and Kanban methodologies.  The result is there are more web-based applications and cloud driven development.

A large part of Bennett’s 2014 forecast revolves around the integration of all applications in the cloud. As many enterprises move beyond early cloud implementations, they are discovering that enabling business processes in the cloud is complex, requiring a comprehensive integration strategy due to their increasingly interdependent relationships with multiple cloud environments and with on-premises systems.  Meanwhile, the explosive growth of social media, mobile usage, and data is increasing the number of required integration points.  IT leaders should consider their integration strategy as a first step, not as an afterthought, when designing cloud migration projects or during application architecture planning.

You can read Bennett’s article in full at the website.

- Ryan Reed, Cloud Evangelist

Post Date: 1/20/2014

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Grants and Work-Study

Unlike loans, you do not have to repay grants unless you withdraw from or stop attending school in the first 60% of the term, or were issued an amount you were not eligible for.

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduates. Grant amounts can change yearly and are dependent on: the student's expected family contribution (EFC); the cost of attendance (as determined by the institution); the student's enrollment status (full-time or part-time); and whether the student attends for a full academic year or less. Students may not receive Federal Pell Grant funds from more than one school at a time. Students must attend class to ensure payment of Pell Grant eligibility. Instructors are required to report to the financial aid office all students who do not attend class at least once during the first two weeks. Those students may have their Pell adjusted or removed. The amount of other aid you receive will not affect the amount of your Pell Grant. Students can only receive the Pell Grant up to 12 full-time semesters, or the equivalent. The maximum award amount is given for any Pell Grant eligible student whose parent or legal guardian was a member of the U.S. Armed Forces and died as a result of service performed in Iraq or Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. (You must be under 24 years old or enrolled at least part-time in college at the time of your parent’s or guardian’s death.) Students who are not eligible for the Pell Grant but meet this requirement will be eligible for the Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant equal to the maximum amount of the Pell Grant.

The FSEOG Program provides additional need-based grants to Pell Grant eligible undergraduate students to promote access to postsecondary education. Institutional financial aid administrators at participating institutions have substantial flexibility in determining the amount of FSEOG to award students who are enrolled or accepted for enrollment. Priority is given to those students with exceptional need (those with the lowest EFC scores) and those who apply early. Science & Arts is allotted a limited amount of FSEOG each year and cannot award funds above this allotment. The amount of FSEOG you receive can be affected by other financial aid in your overall award package.

The Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grant Program is a need-based grant program for residents of Oklahoma who attend approved colleges, universities, and vocational-technical schools in Oklahoma. Students need to complete the FAFSA by December 1st for best consideration for the next academic year. The maximum EFC eligible to receive OTAG may vary from year to year based on volume of eligible applications received and available state funding. The OTAG Program receives more eligible applications each year than can be awarded with available funds. Students who enroll in the spring term and have OTAG eligibility are not guaranteed the receipt of the spring grant if they were not enrolled for the fall term. Also, grant eligibility is not guaranteed for the spring term if you transfer to a different institution, even if you received your fall grant. Late applications are awarded in descending order of highest need until all funds are committed. OTAG recipients can be eligible for up to $500 each fall and spring semester. The amount of OTAG you receive can be affected by other financial aid in your overall award package.

This is not a grant, but is a work program. The Federal Work-Study Program provides part-time employment to assist students in financing the costs of postsecondary education. Eligibility for FWS is determined from the results of the student’s FAFSA. Some students who are not eligible for grants may still have eligibility for FWS. Students who have indicated interest in the FWS program and have eligibility will receive an application with their initial award letter. This must be completed and returned to the Financial Aid Office for possible job referrals. All students may check with the Financial Aid Office regarding their eligibility or other questions regarding this program. Placement in a position is based on the availability of jobs. Earnings are paid directly to the student every other week for the actual hours worked and submitted. Students may not begin FWS without approval of the financial aid office.  The majority of work-study positions are paid at the federal minimum wage.


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The post-9/11 generation: Relating to the recent past

For every generation, there is at least one collective, momentous occasion that leaves an indelible mark on the timeline of their lives. For boomers, Gen Xers and a good number of millennials, the moment the first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, is unquestionably one of those occasions.

Twenty years on, what does 9/11 — an event that radically altered the arc of global history — mean to Generation Z, many of whom weren’t even alive at the time? And what might it mean to the generations that follow?

“Since I was 2 when it happened, I wasn't old enough to understand it in the moment and have that impact me going forward. So I was kind of removed from it. I don’t think it affected me as much personally as it would have if I was older,” said ASU psychology senior Lillian Lynch, 22.

“But I would definitely be open to hearing about the experiences of people who remember it well, because it was just such an impactful part of our history," she continued. "I think it’s important to know more about it, and they could probably teach me more than just a chapter in a history book.”

As program manager for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Arizona State University for going on seven years, Abby Baker has facilitated myriad intergenerational conversations and engagement activities. She said that opportunity to learn from one another is what’s at the heart of meaningful intergenerational connections.

“To me, intergenerational relations are all about education,” Baker said. “We each have something unique to learn from each other — among, between and across generations.”

And, she continued, that sentiment becomes especially salient when it pertains to traumatic events whose consequences ripple throughout time.

“Each generation has its traumatic historical events — the events that happen in their youth which, in part, shape their worldview and, in turn, shape the ways they make decisions about money, careers, family and so much more,” Baker said. “I think it is important to, once again, make connections across generations so it doesn't matter if a person has lived through the traumatic event in question – we've all lived through a traumatic event, and there is universality in that.”

Getting to that point of mutual understanding can be somewhat tricky, though, as former ASU Professor of English and bestselling novelist Jewell Parker Rhodes noted in an April 2021 interview with Publishers Weekly about writing “Towers Falling,” a children’s book that aims to teach them about 9/11 from the safe distance of fictional characters.

“When I presented my book in the school, the kids were so curious but lots of teachers were crying; they said they still didn’t want to teach it,” Parker Rhodes said in the interview. “What I discovered was that was very typical of parents, teachers, librarians who’d lived through it. They did not want to talk about it. The trauma was still so present. It was that sense that history is not so far past.”

The interconnectedness of past and present, and how it influences the identities of the book’s main characters — the daughter of a man who has trouble maintaining a job because of illnesses that resulted from the attack; a boy whose father is an Iraq War veteran; and a Muslim girl — is ultimately realized by them when they visit the Sept. 11 memorial and witness the firsthand accounts retold there.

Mark Tebeau, an associate professor of public history at ASU’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, has directed more than two dozen digital humanities, oral history and public history projects. We document history for several reasons, he said.

“One is to mark that I was here; to say we existed,” Tebeau said. “But it’s also about enlightenment. Documenting the human experience provides a way of making sense of the world and defining our identities at any given moment. And that is learned and passed down through generations.”

Just as important as the fact that humans document history at all is how we document it. For example, Tebeau said, archives of World War I are more likely to have been created by members of the elite and to contain more documents from formal sources, such as newspaper clippings and professionally filmed battle footage, rather than informal sources like letters and personal photos, simply because the average person didn’t always have the means to create such records. Whereas nowadays, in the age of ubiquitous smartphone use, an archive might contain far more informal, personal documents supplied by a broader swath of society.

“That makes (history) more personal, for sure. It also makes it more accessible to younger generations,” Tebeau said.

By 2001, the proliferation of the personal computer and the increasing accessibility of the internet were giving rise to a democratization of historical documentation. One result was the September 11 Digital Archive, one of the first crowdsourced digital archives. Just a few years later, Hurricane Katrina spawned the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank. Both archives employed the same open-source web-publishing platform (Omeka) that Tebeau would later use to create “A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19” in 2020.

“With the computer age, what happens is we start to see a more broadly sourced record of a moment in time,” Tebeau said. But more doesn’t always mean better. “So that might mean it’s more relatable, but the sheer volume of stuff can actually make it incomprehensible.”

There is also the concern that, compounded by a lack of context, the ease with which traumatic historical events can be accessed and the tangibility afforded by modern technology have the potential to do more harm than good, something else Parker Rhodes noted in her Publishers Weekly interview.

“Due to technology, we can see the towers being attacked over and over and over again. We can’t see the Civil War repeating,” she said. “We have another kind of trauma: We risk having our children misinformed because they only see the physical impact upon our nation.”

Though a reasonable argument, some posit that perhaps precisely because younger generations have grown up in a world of overstimulation, they are actually better at coping with the side effects.

Younger generations’ openness to discussing their traumas and prioritizing their mental health has been both derided and celebrated in recent years.

Niki Gueci, executive director of ASU’s Center for Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience, is among those celebrating, noting that “research findings have proven, time and again, that prioritizing our well-being can lead to enhanced professional and academic outcomes, less burnout and more life satisfaction.”

“We’re seeing that living in a no-sleep, constantly busy, hustle culture is not sustainable,” Gueci said. “Celebrities and others in high profile positions experienced public consequences after bouts of physical and mental exhaustion, citing stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed.”

And although she stresses that the desire to live a more mindful life in the name of overall health is not a new trend, she has noticed more amenability to the idea among younger populations.

“Younger generations are fully embracing whole-person well-being and implementing strategies that work for them in their lives, on their terms,” Gueci said. “… What I see now within our own ASU community is there is more awareness, more acceptance and more credence given to building resilience into individual lives and social structures.”

No matter how one engages with the memory of 9/11, it will always be an opportunity to reflect, to commiserate and to learn. Which lessons we choose to pass on to subsequent generations remains to be seen.

Top illustration by Alex Davis/ASU

Emma Greguska


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Breathe Journey, Fire Style: Earn Your Cadette Journey While Camping

Completing a journey with Cadettes can be a challenge. We’re finding that schedules are tighter, and it can be more difficult to get them together consistently for a project start to finish.

As we wanted all our girls to have the opportunity to earn their Silver Award, we decided that a journey campout was our best bet. We had completed a journey overnight last winter with the Amuse journey, but having added a few more girls this school year, we needed something we could accomplish quickly, so the girls could focus on Silver Award projects without leaving anyone out.

We decided of all the available Cadette journeys, Breathe might be most conducive to an outdoor setting. After all, the focus is on air quality.

How to earn the requirements for the Breathe journey at a camping trip

There are so many Journey in a Day plans on the Internet, however, I’m seeing very few for the Breathe Cadette Journey that actually work in a camping setting. Not only do you have lack of Internet connection but also you may not have the physical space for many of the items that you may need (such as indoor plants to talk about indoor air quality).

Breathe Journey in a Camping Setting

How to earn your Breathe journey during a campoutMany of the activities proposed in the Girl Scout Breathe books are actually conducive to a camping setting, with a little preplanning. If you don’t have copies of the books already, do yourself a favor and purchase the girls book and the adult guide used on Amazon vs. paying full price at the store. You’ll need the girls book for the girls to reference and develop a summary of some of the air experts and what they learned.

Be Active

Who needs yoga? Explore the camp. Go for a night hike, a morning hike, an after-the rain hike. Explore how the air feels and smells different.

Blare in the Air

Perfect for camp! No noisemakers needed. You have girls! And we know they can be loud. 🙂

Smelly Science

Instead of the activities in the book, we took a different twist. We made homemade shoe deodorizers. Why? Because at the last campout, all the girls complained about their smelly shoes!

We also used leftover supplies from our spa badge day to make scented bath salts to take home.

Fire Science

Ever since the campout when we tested the theory that Doritos could be used as firestarters (They can!) we have joked that fire is science. But the reality is, yes, it does count as science, just in an outdoorsy way. It plays into heat, air quality, and more.

Test out various firestarters to see how they do or don’t work. Do some produce less smoke?

Explore what smothering a flame does.

You can also do the particle experiment with note cards just outside the fire pit, 10 feet away and near your building, just to see how much ash is actually distributed in the air. (Granted, we had to bring this inside our cabin due to the heavy rains on our weekend, but this can be duplicated easily at a fireplace.)

Energy Experts

Teaching Cadette Girl Scouts the Breathe Journey while camping. Natural scientist trading cards. This was the toughest component to replicate in a camping setting.  We referenced the Breathe books for energy experts whose stories appealed to them. We also packed a deck of Natural Inquirer Scientist Cards from the USDA Forest Service, for the girls to review and see what kinds of applications can be done with fire, science and the rebuilding of nature. (Did I mention, the card decks can be ordered for free?)

Take Action Project

We also took a different twist on the Take Action Project for our Breathe Journey. As we have a mix of multiple schools, home school students, etc., one of the typical projects in the book, such as air quality projects for school, would not work.

Our Cadettes continued the theme of “Fire” with the take action project focusing on education on what items are actually safe to burn in a campfire. We shared the information we learned with the Juniors camping with us and also made posters on safe burning and Leave No Trace to post at the Girl Scout camp cabin.

We found a terrific resource from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The 8-page research study focused on the chemicals released and residue left behind by burning items in your campfire.

To print ahead of time:

Need more ideas for Cadettes? Sign up for our enewsletter for more.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which help support our scouting adventures.

How to earn your Cadette Breathe journey at Girl Scout camp

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Left 4 Dead

Game description

One of the most scariest unblocked shooting flash game is front of you. Be a brave in this zombie apocalypse time, and don’t be afraid of these deadly creatures. Kill them all and be savior of the earth.
Four friend has left to die in this extreme situation. Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey must find the way to clear all sectors of zombies. Ellis and Nick are also here to help you to pass this unusual and frightening happenings.

At the beginning choose your favorite character. Every one of your heroes have a specific characteristics with strengths and weaknesses:
Bill – aggressive and strong gay. Strength is his second name. His favorite gun is shotgun
Francis – Blondie hero with unbelievable endurance, but his weakness is speed and agility. He’s ability is near contact kill.
Louis – Famous sword gay. Accuracy of his metal weapon is constant and immeasurable. This skinny man use every kind of swords.
Zoey – Lovely and dangerous. That’s the main words of this beautiful girl. Her endurance is critical, but luck is A+
Ellis – Former police officer is ready to help against these evil time. His bat is solution for all. He hit zombies so strong, that they heads are smashed in many pieces.
Nick – Master of the speed. His brain is also useful. Aim with him is peace of cake.

Time to play

The game is start… Your hero is on the middle of your screen. Move it with arrow keys or w a s d commands of your keyboard. Shoot and aim with your mouse, and press pause for space. You must kill them all. These deadly green and brown creatures is all over the place and you must be careful. Try to be don’t touched, because your health is rising down, and that you wold lost your favorite character life. When you put in order your sector, you have chance to improve and upgrade your weapons and your armor. Every next level is harder than before and you must do this. Upgrade your character main skills: Strength, Speed, Endurance, Agility, Perception and Luck. Also try to bay a primary and secondary weapon for easier killing. Choose a projectile, like a boss, and bring situation to next level.

Upgrade and weapons

After each level upgrade your skill and fix your weapon or armor. There are a plenty guns to choose. Sweet torment for you, what’s your favorite weapon:
Sidearms – M1911 Pistol, P220 Pistol, Glock, Magnum Pistol.
Melee weapons: axe, baseball bat, chainsaw, cricket bat, crowbar, frying pan, golf club, guitar, katana, machete, nightstick, foam finger.
Other weapon H&K MP5, SIG SG532, styer scout, combat knife.
Weapon upgrades: laser sight, incendiary ammo, explosive ammo.
Grenades: molotov cocktail, pipe bomb, bile bomb.
Usable items: gas can, oxygen tank, propane tank, fireworks, explosive barrel.
Armor: helmet, armor, bulletproof vest.

Share your achievement

Interesting is that you can share your score on social network like facebook, tweeter or mail. Also after each left 4 dead level you have info what you doing in this level. How many kills you have, total kills, shots, total shots, shots per kill, average, kills per second and acurracy. In bottom of screen write have many dollars you earn.

Don’t be afraid, and help these left 4 dead group to overcome all obstacles. Solve the mystery of deadly virus. Find and execute all zombies and make proud your nation. Make fun and enjoy

Keyboard to move a player
Mouse to aim and left click to shoot
Space button for pause
1 2 3 4 buttons for change weapon

Friends Site: Fnaf unblocked , Fishing Games

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After nearly a decade as dean of the Darden School of Business, Robert F. Bruner will return to the faculty after completing his second term as the school’s dean in 2015.

Robert F. Bruner Photo by Tom Cogill

“I love to teach and write, for which I entered academic life,” Bruner wrote in his blog. “Being Dean is quite exciting but crowds out the deep reflection required to teach, research, and write very well. And it takes a heavy commitment of time and energy to advancing the school.”

Under Bruner’s leadership, the Darden School has flourished—exploring new frontiers in technology, diversity, globalization, and entrepreneurship and innovation. “Bob Bruner’s impact on Darden has been transformational and will carry the school forward,” UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan says. “Darden is recognized worldwide for student satisfaction and for delivering the best graduate business education experience. Bob and his team have achieved this reputation through curricular innovations, the launch of two new formats of the Darden MBA, an unrelenting search for top faculty and student talent, and attention to every detail of the academic experience.”


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Unifii opens office in New Delhi, India

Unifii is delighted to announce the recent opening of our new office in New Delhi. The new office will operate under the name of Unifii-Now Technology Consulting Private Limited.

“Due to our continued business growth, we are delighted to announce the opening of our new office in India. This office opening is important to ensure we can support new and existing customers worldwide.” (Mike Glock, Director)
With the growing interest in ServiceNow solutions in India, the new office will be managed by our ServiceNow experts Harneet Singh and Manali Sharma.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to provide a permanent presence in the Indian market and to continue assisting Unifii in its further expansion as a global ServiceNow partner.” Manali Sharma, Consultant.

The Unifii Journey

Unifii began its journey under the name Service Integrators in March 2010. When relaunched in July 2015, the business started to grow rapidly. Unifii hired its very first employee in May 2016, and a year later, expanded into Northern England, Scotland and Ireland (NESI). Shortly after, a sales team was brought on board to help support and grow our business network.

It wasn’t until January 2018 that the Unifii name came into existence. The rebrand was the next step in an evolution to embody our focus on innovation, implementation and integration. After recently opening offices in both Scotland and India, our team is now comprised of 23 employees in London, 3 in Edinburgh and 3 in India.

Office Details

91 Springboard
Building #C2
Sector 1
Uttar Pradesh – 201301
Email: enquiries@unifii.co.uk

Join our team

Unifii is made up of highly skilled and devoted enterprise service management and automation professionals. We’re constantly growing, which means we’re always looking to build our talented team. Send my CV.

The Unifii TeamUnifii opens office in New Delhi, India


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Security Officer - Mobile & Static - Chelmsford

Are you a Security Officer interested in the variety of mobile and static work in Chelmsford? We have a fantastic opportunity - apply now!
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Are you a Security Officer interested in the variety of mobile and static work in Chelmsford? We have a fantastic opportunity - apply now!

We can offer

  • Site related pay £9.15-£9.50
  • 36 hours a week (days and nights)
  • Permanent job with regular shift patterns
  • Structured training
  • Full benefits package full of perks, discounts, an employee assistance programme and online learning

We need

  • SIA Licence
  • Driving Licence
  • Excellent customer service and communication skills at all levels
  • Flexibility regarding working hours
  • First Aid training or a willingness to undertake training

We want you to be a success

In the first few weeks as a Security Officer you will be scheduled for training, build crucial relationships with your team, both your Dardan colleagues including our 24 hour control room, patrol & response team, the in-house team working on static sites. To be successful in this role you must take the time to learn from your colleagues about what is expected and educate yourself regarding policies and procedures.

Short notice call offs and 24 hours’ notice for some shift work is at times the reality of being a key member of the Operational Support Team (OST), your flexibility and strong focus on supporting your colleagues are the crucial components to make this role a success.

This opportunity offers variety everyday and you will be expected to perform a wide range of tasks including those related to mobile security, internal and external patrols, identification checks, property searches, CCTV monitoring, grounds maintenance duties, training new staff, room set-ups, emergency evictions, fire alarm tests, porterage and assisting with deliveries.

All steps have been taken to provide a safe working environment, there is no remote working available for this role. You will be expected to work in a company vehicle that will be driven by other P&R drivers, we ask all drivers to pay attention to the safety and sanitising instructions necessary to ensure a vehicle is ready to drive.

We are Dardan

We are UK based, privately owned specialist security solutions and consultancy provider with over 40 years’ experience. A career with us means joining an ACS Pacesetter, an NSI accredited (Gold Scheme) provider of mobile patrol services, static site guarding, key holding and response services listed as Infologue’s “One to Watch”. We seek to be the leading provider of security services and have an extensive portfolio across Aviation, Critical National Infrastructure, Oil and Gas, Education, Healthcare, Retail, Blue Chip and Corporate #proudtobeDardan

Dardan Security are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity.

If you know someone suitable for this role and you are working for Dardan Security, make a referral here https://vacancies.dardansecuri...

We usually respond within a week

Or, know someone who would be a perfect fit? Let them know!

Mill Court
CB22 Cambridge Directions 01223 906099 View page

What we can offer you

Our Benefits include:

  • Access to GP services (for you & your family) and counselling services (individual) 24/7

  • Medical Specialist Professional Guidance

  • Free Health Information & Assessments

  • Discounted healthcare plans, life insurance and personal accident insurance

  • Payslips portal, accessible anytime, online plus a free service that allows staff to monitor pay and pension plan

  • Membership discounts at over 3000 gyms

  • Access to online pharmacy and home delivery service

  • Contributory pension scheme (employee contribution 5% and company matches with 3%)

  • Retention Bonus £100 for passing a years service

  • Recommend and get rewarded scheme - £100 on probabtion pass, £100 after a year

  • New Discount Outlet - Easy Saver Card

  • Job Well Done Awards

  • Online Learning - access to courses for professional and personal development

Dardan is fast paced, growing specialist security solutions provider with a rich history spanning over 40 years.

Dardan provides mobile and static security services, security intelligence, technology solutions and security consulting to some of the biggest brands in the UK.

The chance to join Dardan means a joining a culture that is constantly evolving and one where our clients dictate the opportunities we can offer our teams and the places they work.

Our security officers have the choice of one of the biggest patrol and response teams in the UK, corporate clients, specialist contracts across maritime, aviation and oil & gas at critical infrastructure across the UK. Many of these clients will let you use their gyms, canteens, and other facilities.

Already working at Dardan Security?

Let’s recruit together and find your next colleague.

Applicant tracking system by Teamtailor


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Teacher/volunteers wanted to live and teach English in Thai children’s homes in 2018.

Hands Across the Water are an Australian Charity supporting 5 Childrens’ homes in Thailand since 2005.

An exciting opportunity exists for 4-5 EAL teachers who are looking for a rewarding experience, living in the children’s homes for a year and teaching English to these very eager children.

Accommodation, meals, a living allowance, a stepped out curriculum with loads of fun resources, induction training week and support from the Hands English team are all provided.

Contact us now..Talk to Annie to discuss this exciting opportunity. No question is too trivial. Annie.mac@handsacrossthewater.org.au

Applications open NOW for 2018. Close November 30th 2017. Induction training starts in Thailand, 22nd January 2018.


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Valentine Amartey

28 Mar '16

Jorge Clar in Valentine Amartey

Posted by Thuy Nguyen

I fell in love with my friend Valentine Amartey tees from the time I saw he was selling them at Ladyfag’s Popsouk market.

I was captivated by his twist on a new wave aesthetic—the image on the shirt becomes a swath of lines when viewed up close, revealing romantic reverie when seen from afar.

Stills of sexual acts are among my favorite images, as I am captivated by the incidental “classical" positioning figures often assume when a porno video, for instance, freezes while streaming.

Valentine teaches Knitwear at the Parsons School of Design, as well as an extremely popular Shibari (Kinbaku) Japanese bondage workshop at the Shag lingerie store in Williamsburg.

The t-shirt graphics, quite appropriately, are printed on Japanese cotton tees.

I wore this t-shirt with my dad’s garnet (my birthstone) ring, which he was wearing when he made his transition. I recently had my friend and jewelry master Blue Bayer restore it to its full splendor at Blue Atelier, his bespoke jewelry boutique on Clinton Street. My hair is byJeanise Avilés, the best colorist in New York and a magician by all accounts—always ascending with intention.

All this being said, with this post I close the first Jorge Clar Diary T-Shirt Week with a golden brooch.

I will nonetheless continue to feature a T-Shirt of the Week, as there are always so many great ones being produced by artist friends and I just can’t wait to wear them.

Photo by Van Wifvat.


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Draper DA650SF Dual Action Polisher 125mm 240v

Amazon.co.uk Price: £81.95 (as of 20/09/2021 05:02 PST- Details)

Features & Advantages: Variable pace keep watch over, Adjustable D- deal with, Consistent electronics, Provided with backing pad, sharpening sponge and 5M cable with BS plug

Voltage 240V
Wattage 650W
No Load pace 2000-6400rpm
Pad measurement 125mm
Spindle thread five/sixteen”
Supplied in Bag Yes
Weight 2.0kg