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Ten Things Tuesday

January 6, 2009 – 12:35 am

Mamacita says:

1.  My sourdough starter is over twenty years old.  The bread is delicious.  Whenever I use it - and it’s been a while; the starter is currently residing in the freezer - I think about pioneer families, with starters that went back for generations; some starters made the long trip across the sea, even.  This makes me really happy to think about.  I love the part of “By the Shores of Silver Lake” where Laura explains to Mrs. Boast why the biscuits are so light and tasty.  They were all astonished that Mrs. Boast didn’t know anything about sourdough bread, and frankly, so am I, today.  In “The Long Winter,” Pa mentions to Ma that he noticed she’d gotten her sourdough working again, and Ma replied that a body didn’t need yeast to have light, delicious raised bread.  And so we don’t.

2.  I am very upset when I meet someone who has never read the Little House books.

3.  I am actually horrified when I meet someone who has never heard of the Little House books.

4.  A home that contains children should be required by law to have copies of the entire Little House series* and the parents should be ashamed of themselves if they don’t read them aloud and do a lot of the things mentioned in them with their children.  MY mother took us on a road trip to Laura’s last home, for crying out loud.  I know, I know, you’re all busy and you all prefer electronic games.  MAKE THE TIME. This is important, dammit.   Are you the adult in your home or not?  Do the job properly. Those horrid, insipid, television episodes most decidedly do NOT count.

5.  Why would a student who didn’t have a computer at home sign up for an online or hybrid class?  It beats the hell out of me, these things they do

6.  It is a sad fact that many just-out-of-high-school students fully expect paper and pencils to be supplied by the college professor.  It is also a fact that I blame this trend on the dastardly and communistic community supplies policy many public schools and/or their teachers force their students to do.

7.  I was once punished in fourth grade for. . . wait for it. . . having too many library books in my desk.  To compound this dreadful sin, all of the books were from sections too advanced for fourth graders.  What might the other kids think?  Did I want to make them feel bad?  Well, frankly, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.  My reading habits were my business, then and now, and I still loathe that teacher for making my business her business.  I loathe her for many other reasons, too.  She was ALMOST as interesting as a box of hair.  Not quite, but almost.  The box of hair still had her beat.

8.  The one and only thing I remember about sixth grade was that Mr. Norman taught us how to wire a little desk lamp.  Math?  English?  Science?  History?  I’m drawing a blank. Two fascinating hours out of an entire school year of tedium.

9.  I am probably the only kid in the history of the world who hated recess with an unholy passion.

10.  When a kid demonstrates mastery, the kid should be automatically moved on and up.  Why don’t we do this?  It’s CRIMINAL to make a kid sit and endure months of excruciating boredom, waiting for the other kids to catch on.  Why do our schools do this to the cream of the crop?  Oh yes, I remember now.  It would cost money to move them up, and we musn’t do anything to disturb the self esteem of the lowest common denominator.  The self esteem of the cream doesn’t matter; they’ll get by, somehow.  Bullshit mahoney.

*I know, there are chapters that contain things that some people consider politically incorrect.  How sad, that so many people have no concept of “CONTEXT.” I mean, jeepers, people!  Get a grip.  It’s history, for crying out loud.  That’s how it was, BACK THEN.  Deal with it.

Doesn’t Mamacita ever blog about positive things?  Sure I do.  Stay tuned.  You have to catch me at the primo momento.**

**I never pretended to speak a foreign language.  I only pretend to be witty.

I have stayed awake all day by inhaling one ice-cold Diet Coke after another.  I didn’t have any solid food until nineish tonight.  That’s not a real excuse for being snarky, but it’s all I’ve got.

Yeah, well, my children love me.  So there.  (I bought Belle a lamp tonight.  She HAS to love me for a few days.)  (It has a lovely bright red shade.)  (It was NOT on sale.)  If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

Jane Goodwin | Baking, Books, Censorship, Education, English, Family, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Jobs, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Political Correctness, Scheiss Weekly, Ten Things Tuesday, Traditions, children, love, schools, work ethic | Comments (6)

Things I Haven’t Done Yet

January 5, 2009 – 2:08 am

Mamacita says:

1.  I haven’t taken the wreath off the front door.  I can’t.  It’s been pouring down rain for three solid days, and I can’t put the wreath away soaking wet, can I?  Besides, I like to see it still there, telling the world that within this house dwell people who know how to do Christmas up right.

2.  I haven’t taken the lighted wreath off the wall inside the house, either.  I like to have something still twinkling, and I haven’t unplugged that wreath since Thanksgiving.  I’ll take it down when it stops raining and I can take down all the wreaths together.

3.  I haven’t put any medication on this horrific long deep cat scratch on  my shoulder today.  I really should, I suppose, because it’s starting to glow.  I’m not mad at the cat; she was only trying to jump down from the printer, and she assumed that my shoulder was a stepping stone.  When I moved, she tried to hold on for dear life.   I get that a lot.

4.  I haven’t gone to bed before 3 a.m. since well before Thanksgiving.  I have to go to meetings all day tomorrow and well into the night, so maybe I’ll turn in early tonight.  Well, almost 2 a.m. is early compared to 3 a.m., isn’t it?

5.  I haven’t taken any naps, either.  I’m not a napper.  If I’m going to go to sleep, I want it to be worth my while.  I’m not turning down the bed or getting out a blanket for an hour or two.  I also really hate resent it when somebody is napping in any room where people are trying to be awake and doing something. Sleeping is for bedrooms. Couches only when you’re spending the night and all the guest beds are full and it’s night.  If you’re determined to nap where the action is, don’t get all hissy with me when there are pans rattling and people talking in normal tones of voice and a chick flick movie resounding in the kitchen.   I have spoken.

6.  I still haven’t watched Titanic yet, even though I’ve owned a copy of the movie for many years.  Can’t get interested enough to sit still that long.  Besides, my son used to have the action figure of Leonardo de Caprio as Jack at the bottom of his piranha aquarium, and it cracked me up too much to get serious about the plot.

7.  I haven’t been able to figure out why people are so crazy about A Christmas Story. I had the DVD and gave it away to my Other Sister for my nephew.  It was cute, sure.  Nostalgic, sure.  But I only keep the movies I know I’ll watch again and again, and with A Christmas Story, once was enough.

8.  I have never “matched” any of my family or friends when it comes to “favorite Julie Andrews movie.”  Theirs is always The Sound of Music or Mary Poppins.  Now, I LOVE The Sound of Music - even though they family-ed and cutesied-up the movie version and left out the genuinely scary and upsetting stuff  - and I could watch Mary Poppins over and over again, getting more and more disgusted by those parents every time, but my favorite Julie Andrews movie is Victor/Victoria.

9.  I have never learned to like coffee or tea, not a single kind of either.  Hot or iced, flavored or plain. . . I loathe them all.  I think this might mean that I am not a real adult.  I’ve had my suspicions for a while.

10.  I have never learned to like or even tolerate celery.  It’s just too much like congealed snot with strings.  Peanut butter doesn’t help.

Okay, I’m going to brush my teeth, smear some kind of medication on this huge scratch, and go to bed.  I’ve got lives to change tomorrow.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Family, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Movies, Night owl, Scheiss Weekly, Thanksgiving, Things I Haven't Done Yet, Traditions, holidays, schools, work ethic | Comments (5)

Quotation Saturday: Special New Year 2009 Edition

January 3, 2009 – 1:35 am

Mamacita says:  For this first Quotation Saturday of 2009, here are some quotes about the New Year:

1.  It depends on us.  Another year lies before us like an unwritten page, an unspent coin, an unwalked road.  What pages will be read, what treasures will be gained in exchange for time, or what we find along the way, will largely depend on us.  –Esther Baldwin York

2.  Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?  –Ogden Nash

3.  I will seek elegance rather than luxury, refinement rather than fashion.  I will seek to be worthy more than respectable, wealthy and not rich.  I will study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly.  I will listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with an open heart.  I will bear all things cheerfully, do all things bravely, await occasions, and hurry never.  In a word, I will let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious grow up through the common.  –William Ellery Channing

4.  We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives, not looking for flaws, but for potential.  –Ellen Goodman

5.  New year, same goal.  –Joe King

6.  The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.  –George William Curtis

7.  Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly.  So let’s just wish each other a bileless New Year and leave it at that.  –Judith Crist

8.  No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.  It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left.  It is the nativity of our common Adam.  –Charles Lamb

9.  New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot.  Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.  –Jay Leno

10.  Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.  –Brooks Atkinson

11.  I made no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning, and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  –Anais Nin

12.  New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.  –Mark Twain

13.  Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.  –Jean Paul Richter

14.  An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in.  A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.  –Bill Vaughn

15.  New Year’s Resolution:  To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.  –James Agate

16.  New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.  –Hamilton Wright Mabie

17.  People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.  –Unknown

18.  New Year’s Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  –Mark Twain

19.  Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.  –Hal Borland

20.  The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!  –Edward Payson Powell

21.  Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.  –Oprah Winfrey

22.  We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.  –Edith Lovejoy Pierce

23.  The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.  Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.  Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.  –G.K. Chesterton

24.  Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.  –Oscar Wilde

25.  Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.  –Benjamin Franklin

26.  Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.  –Unknown

27.  Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve.  Middle age is when you’re forced to.  –Bill Vaughn

28.  The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel.  Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.  –W.H. Auden

29.  It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets.  –William Thomas

30.  Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year.  Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.  –Thomas Mann

31.  One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this:  To rise above the little things.  –John Burroughs

32. From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.  –Leonard Bernstein

33.  Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. Vow not to make a promise you don’t think you can keep. Walk tall, and smile more. You’ll look ten years younger. Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I love you’. Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world.  –Ann Landers

34. Surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year.  –Samuel Johnson

35.  No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.  –Friedrich Nietzche

36.  It is difficult not to believe that the next year will be better than the old one! And this illusion is not wrong. Future is always good, no matter what happens. It will always give us what we need and what we want in secret. It will always bless us with right gifts. Thus in a deeper sense our belief in the New Year cannot deceive us.  –Kersti Bergroth

37.  I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined. Added to this is the spirit of ambition which pervades your very being, and seems to make the day’s work like a happy child at play. –Albert Einstein

38.  Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.  –Eric Zorn

39.  In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, never in want. –Old Irish toast

40.  For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. –T.S. Eliot

41.  A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. –Unknown

42.  As you go through your week, month, and even New Year, recognize the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today.  –Unknown

43.  Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them.  –Brittany Murphy

44.  For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice, and to make an end is to make a beginning.  –T.S. Eliot

45.  The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings.  –Charles Dickens

46.  Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

47.  But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.– Andre Gide

48.  A weasel comes to say “Happy New Year” to the chickens.  –Chinese proverb

49.  Life is a challenge; meet it!  Life is a dream; realize it!  Life is a game; play it!  Life is Love; enjoy it!  –Sri Sathya Sai Baba

50.  I’m always excited about the new year.  Every time I make it to another birthday, it’s a good deal.  –Bruce Kinzie

Jane Goodwin | Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Quotation Saturday, Scheiss Weekly, holidays | Comments (5)

Friday? Already?

January 2, 2009 – 3:11 am

Mamacita says:  The holidays flash past so quickly, don’t they. . . .

My sisters are coming down in a few hours - good grief, it’s almost 3 a.m.! -  and we’re going to spend some time with our mother, admiring her Christmas tree - which is always absolutely gorgeous - and doing our annual New Year’s bargain search.  We’re thorough and we’re ruthless.  I only wish I had some money to spend.  Sigh.  The important thing, of course, is that I will get to see my sisters; I don’t get to see nearly enough of them throughout the year, and I miss them!

Mom said not to bring any food, because she’s going to order out and have something delivered.  Better and better!  Super!

Mom rocks.

This was a “few” years back, but you still don’t want to mess with my mom.

She has a Red Hat now, and she’s not afraid to use it!

She’s also still beautiful, inside and out.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Family, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Traditions, holidays | Comments (1)

Happy New Year from Mamacita

January 1, 2009 – 1:57 am

Mamacita says: Happy New Year to the Blogospheric Universe!  (I’m the one on the right, by the way)  (As in, “Yeah, right!” that is.)  Actually, that second arm from the left might be mine.  Is there Diet Coke in her glass?  Yup, that’s me!

I hope everyone’s holiday season was wonderful, wherever you are and wherever you went and whatever you did and whoever you are. If you don’t recognize any holiday season, I hope you were happy anyway, in spite of all these damn cheerful people wishing you well all the time. Bah.  The nerve.

We didn’t do anything big this season, but we did a lot of little things in a big way. This has been a lovely holiday season, in fact, even though we experienced no big deals.  We did nothing extravagant or large, but we gathered with family and friends and we’re still gathering (Mom is having all of her kids and their families over tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to that!)  and most of our best memories are made up of little things, which are, of course, really big things in disguise.

There was only one negative thing that happened, in fact, this entire holiday season, and I won’t go into it on here because it’s still a bit too raw.  Everything else was postive, though, and glowing and twinkling and sparkling and shining and happy and laughing and just simply, well, good.

I spent New Year’s Eve taking down my Christmas tree.  This has never happened before, and I hope it never happens again, but at least I’ve got it done and I don’t have to worry about it later. (Happy New Year, Janice, and I hope everything is better at your house now!)

It always takes me a few weeks to get used to NOT having my Christmas tree sparkling at me through the window as I go down the driveway towards the garage.  I love that; seeing the glowing tree from outside, like strangers would see it, and thinking things like “Inside that house live people who love Christmas.”

Because inside this house, we do.

Happy New Year, Blogosphere.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Friendship, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Traditions, holidays | Comments (5)

Ten Things Tuesday, on Wednesday

December 31, 2008 – 1:30 am

Mamacita says:

1.  Life can really kick you below the belt sometimes.

2.  You’re never safe from being surprised ’till you’re dead.*

3.  When someone is really, really busy, and isn’t watching the clock, something that should have been done on Tuesday  might not get posted until Wednesday.  I guess I could have set the time for Tuesday, but that wouldn’t have been honest.  You would never have known, but I would.

4.  We had friends over last night and the food was really good, if I do say so myself.  And I do.

5.  My cats get along very well until it’s time to share a single can of the good cat food  instead of the cheap stuff they normally get, which they share with no trouble at all. (Un)Fortunately, they don’t get the good stuff very often.  Besides, it gives them the trots.

6.  I hope you’re all doing something fun tonight.  Our party hostess got sick, so we’re staying home.

7.  I said a naughty word twice on Twitter and when I realized it, I was horrified.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.  Usually, I’m not this horrified.

8.  I don’t want to take down my Christmas tree.  I also don’t want to be one of those weird lazy people who keep a Christmas tree up all year.  I guess I’ll take down my Christmas tree this weekend.

9.  We have no Kraft cheese.  This is serious.

10.  I did some laundry for my visiting daughter this week, and I realized that there was not a single stitch in her basket that was purchased by me.  This is a strange sensation.  I don’t half like it.

*I would venture to say that a lot of people are surprised AFTER they’re dead by the temperature alone.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Friendship, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Ten Things Tuesday, Traditions, holidays | Comments (5)

Things I Haven’t Done Yet

December 29, 2008 – 4:00 am

Mamacita says:

1.  I haven’t run the sweeper since the Christmas tree fell.  There are fake green “needles” all over the house.

2.  I haven’t dived into the bowl of half-price Hershey miniature candy bars yet. Um, never mind.

3.  I haven’t been able to get a piano tuner to come to my house during the holiday season yet.  The piano is really out of tune, too.  It’s so bad, we can’t play along with any of the keyboards.

4.  I haven’t replaced my violin bow that apparently blew up inside the case some time after Thanksgiving.

5.  My sourdough starter is an exceptionally good one.  I’ve kept it going for almost thirty years, but I haven’t made any sourdough bread for a long time.   The starter is in the freezer now.  I should get some of it out and feed it.

6. I haven’t seen my brand-new baby niece yet. Never mind; she’s absolutely BEAUTIFUL! She’s perfect in every way. She makes my heart smile.

7.  I haven’t done any laundry - of our own - in over a week.  However, I’ve done so much OTHER PEOPLE’S laundry, that I had to buy more detergent at Tar-jhay today.  Fortunately, it was on sale.  So was the Christmas stuff, and I purchased a little of both.  Maybe even a lot of the holiday stuff.  I’ll put it this way:  I won’t be needing any more gift wrap or ribbon for a while.

8.  I haven’t put away any of my Christmas decorations yet.  My tree is still up.  I’ll probably do that this weekend, AFTER New Year’s.

9.  I haven’t gotten tired of my Christmas music yet, either. I might have purchased two more Christmas cd’s today, at 80% off, in fact.  Maybe.

10.  I usually buy one bag of expensive cat food and one bag of El Cheapo cat food, and mix them together.  I haven’t done that yet, and the cats have been feasting on the good stuff, undiluted.

11.  I haven’t told y’all lately how very much I love you.  This is unacceptable behavior, because when we love others, we owe it to them to mention it once in a while.  Therefore, “Thank you, dear friends.  I love you.”

Yes, my blog goes to eleven.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Friendship, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Things I Haven't Done Yet, Traditions, holidays, music | Comments (10)

Oh No She Dinnit: The Eye of the Beholder

December 27, 2008 – 10:57 pm

Mamacita says:  When the kids came home on Christmas Eve, I was ready with Christmas cookies. I knew the children were glad to be home for Christmas, but I didn’t really understand all the laughing coming from the kitchen.

Then they ran for their cameras and took pictures of the cookies.  Or, rather, one of the cookies.

It’s not what you’re thinking.  I know what you’re thinking because it’s what my children were thinking, and it’s what I’m thinking all over again as I giggle over the picture of the cookie.

I didn’t roll the cookie dough thin enough, and when I pressed the angel cookie cutter into the dough, the slot under the handle filled with dough, too.

I tried to convince my children that the angel was holding a candle, but they didn’t buy it.  I have a feeling that none of you would, either.,

But this is what a cookie can look like when the cook is in a hurry and doesn’t roll the dough thin enough and it pokes through the slot underneath the cookie cutter’s handle.

Why, what were YOU thinking?  Because it certainly looks like a candle to me.

Okay, not really.

But I think I might know why she’s smiling like that.

Jane Goodwin | Baking, Christmas, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Oh No She Dinnit, Scheiss Weekly, Traditions, holidays | Comments (6)

Quotation Saturday

December 27, 2008 – 12:05 am

Mamacita says:

1.  Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.  –engraved over the Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

2.  A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.  –Albert Schweitzer

3.  We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.  –Edwin Markham

4.  Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.  –John Wesley

5.  That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.  –William J. H. Boetcker:

6.  Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.  –Susan B. Anthony

7.  We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.  –G. K. Chesterton

8.  Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life. –Napoleon Hill

9.  Loyalty cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line. In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart-the center of self-respect and human dignity. It is a force which leaps into being only when conditions are exactly right for it-and it is a force very sensitive to betrayal.  –Maurice Franks

10.  You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.  –Gandhi

11.  Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. –Og Mandino

12.  If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.  –Bob Hope

13.  Caring is a reflex. Someone slips, your arm goes out. A car is in the ditch, you join the others and push…You live, you help.  –Ram Dass

14.  You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.  –Samuel Butler

15.  Kindness is for all times in all situations — not just when it suits you.  –Audray Landrum

16.  Giving of ourselves is the way we change the world at the end of our fingertips.  –Richard F. Schubert

17.  The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Always be satisfied with your opinions. –Elbert Hubbard

18.  If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.   –Francis Bacon

19.  Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. –Leo Buscaglia

20.  Do good and care not to whom.  –Italian Proverb

21.  He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it. –Dante

22.  There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.  –Elie Wiesel

23.  If you judge people, you have no time to love them.  –Mother Teresa

24.  One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.  –Mark Twain

25.  Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.  –Scott Adams

26.  Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.  –Seneca, philosopher (4 BC)

27.  Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue.  –Samuel Johnson

28.  No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.  –Montaigne

29.  A sleeping child gives me the impression of a traveler in a very far country.  –Emerson

30.  It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.  –George Santayana

31.  Sanity is a small price to pay for happiness.  –Marabeth Madsen

32.  Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.  –Eric Hoffer

33.  Science is a collection of successful recipes.  –Paul Valery

34.  Self-control is the quality that distinguishes the fittest to survive.  –George Bernard Shaw

35.  What grace is to the body, good sense is to the mind.  –La Rouchefoucauld

36.  Look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.  Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.  –Jacob A. Riis.

37.  Most quarrels are inevitable at the time, incredible afterwards.  –E.M. Forster

38.  Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.  –Samuel Johnson

39. If you can’t say just what you mean, in words and all otehr efforts at pricise meaning, then sing it.  –Bernard Berenson

40.  “Healing,” Papa would tell me, “is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing Nature.”  –W.H. Auden

41.  Don’t be humble.  You’re not that great.  –Golda Meir

42.  We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God.  –Chief Joseph

43.  It’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down.  –Tank Girl

44.  He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.  –Sydney Smith

45.  It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly.  When every day is a step in the unknown - as for children - the days are long with gathering of experience.  –Henry Ryecroft

46.  There’s a time for departure even when there’s not certain place to go.  –Tennessee Williams

47  Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.  –Antoine de Saint-Exupery

48.  The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.  –Pearl S. Buck

49.  Though we speak with the tongues of men and angels, and give our bodies to be burned, if we are irritable or hard to live with, it all counts for nothing.  –Unknown

50.  The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.  –Shakespeare

I hope you all had a wonderful, joyous Christmas.

Now, be thinking seriously about your New Year’s Resolutions, for I shall expect to see them posted in a few days.  Let’s assume we all want World Peace, and get on with the real stuff, shall we?

I like to re-read Hans Christian Anderson after Christmas.  The Little Match Girl used to make me sob out loud, almost uncontrollably will always bring tears to my eyes, and it’s because of The Fir Tree that the sight of a discarded evergreen tree, after Christmas, makes my heart ache.  I really do believe that people who toss their Christmas tree on the roadside, to finish dying in full view of travelers, are fiends.  At the very least, those people are litterbugs, and litterbugs are a kind of fiend at any time of the year.  A tree lot after Christmas breaks my heart, too.  There is something about the few unchosen pines that never had a chance to be a Christmas tree for a few days before dying, that makes me sad beyond words.  Christmas tree lots used to give them away on Christmas Eve; don’t they do that any more?  They should.

I ventured to the shops this afternoon and bought some gift wrap and wired ribbon for next year.  I know, I know.  Wrapping paper isn’t “green,” but in my family, we love to make the outside of our packages as full of love and attention as the inside.  Besides, some of the boxes and papers and ribbons have been re-appearing for several Christmases now, so it’s not as though we were filling a dumpster or anything.  We use and re-use our pretty furbelows.  It’s part of the fun!

If I tell you that I’ve already made a few purchases for NEXT Christmas, will you still love me?  What’s that?  You won’t?  Um, well, then, I haven’t.

51.  Live long and prosper. –Mr. Spock  (not the polio Spock - the logical Spock.)

Ahhh, logical.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Quotation Saturday, Scheiss Weekly, Uncategorized, holidays | Comments (2)

It’s Astounding. Time Is Fleeting.

December 26, 2008 – 12:05 am

Mamacita says:

. . . and so another Christmas Day has come and gone. The day after Christmas always seems sad to me. Christmas itself takes such a long time to get here; the calendar turns to fall and fall brings thoughts of winter and winter without Christmas would be exactly the horror C.S. Lewis paints it to be. We need December in all of its holy and secular incarnations. It gives us hope. Reasons to go on. As Allison Kitchell says, in the Christmas novel What Child Is This that I’ve already quoted several times but am not finished quoting yet because it’s packed so full of great ones, “December is the crown.”

Christmas takes a long time getting here, but it’s over in the wink of an eye. It’s over. 24 sixty-minute hours made up of sixty-second minutes, but the day went by so fast it made my head spin. On Christmas Day, we live in hyperspace. I could almost see the clock hands spinning around and around, and it seems as though the chimes were ringing every few minutes instead of on the hour.

It’s over, but December is the crown.

Einstein was right: it’s all relative. Days like today yesterday go so fast. Christmas Day has the same shelf life as any other day, but it’s always thus with the things we love most: time passes so much more quickly when we don’t want it to. If only we had the power to slow time down a bit when wonderful things are happening. . . but then, when wonderful things are happening to somebody, someone on the other side of the world, or the street, is weeping and broken-hearted. It’s all relative. And when we know something lovely is fleeting, we tend to appreciate it more.

We are all fleeting. Therefore, let us all try harder to be kind, and honest, and considerate, and helpful, slower to pass judgment, quicker to assume the best of people, more inclined to work hard, braver, more trustworthy, and cleaner*, so that anyone and everyone we encounter is encouraged by our lives. Let us all try to pay attention to each other, and bolster each other, and do our fair share and then some, and extend a helping hand whenever we possibly can. Today, it’s someone else who needs help. Tomorrow, it might be us.

*Clean scouts smell better.

Let’s do the Time Warp again.

Jane Goodwin | Christmas, Friendship, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Traditions, Uncategorized, etiquette, holidays | Comments (3)