Gear Shift

Hello, and happy June.  "Rabbit, rabbit," as my Twinnie would say.

I am feeling so much better today.  Last night was the most complete night of sleep I've had this week.  Fingers crossed.

Believe it or not, there are only two months until this year's Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick contests will get underway with nominations.  Since that means I'll blog every day, I'd best get in some practice.  So, I'm going to blog one of my favorite words every day this month.  Just something to stretch the muscles.

If you want to know what the word means, or how it's pronounced, feel free to research.  I'm just putting them out here for you.  But understand that my favorite words are almost always favorites because of how they sound.  Or look.  Meanings don't figure in too much.

I'll start with My Favorite Word of All.

Chthonic.

Do you have any favorite words?

Tea and Sympathy

The fever released me from its clutches yesterday, but my throat is still sore and I am absolutely exhausted.  Being sick really takes it out of you, you know?

I've been drinking gallons of hot tea.  Do you know how many online tea stores there are?  It's fun to just go through them all and see the various flavors.  I've never been an iced tea drinker, belying my Southern heritage.  Milk was always served with dinner when I was growing up.  My husband, on the other hand, came from a family whose babies drank tea from bottles.  When we would go visit, my in-laws would have to make a special grocery run to buy milk for me.  And then Briton and Hannah.  It just wasn't in their house.

One thing I have been able to do is color.  Perfect when you were home sick from school when you were little, and perfect now.

Ailing

Well, it would seem that, sometime during my trip, A Contagious Person breathed on me.  I woke up on Sunday with a sore throat, pounding head, aches, and a fever.  All three have gotten gradually worse, and now my chest is aching.  And I am SO tired.

Lots of sleeping and tea-drinking, moving all over turning the air conditioner on/off, putting on/taking off layers of clothes, sitting under/moving away from the ceiling fan as I sweat, freeze, burn up, get chills. . .

I'm just miserable.  

So, here are pictures of pretty colors to distract:

A Drawn Line

Teaching Sociology as long as I did, I was involved in a lot of discussions about a lot of societal and cultural rights and wrongs.  Very, very sadly, a lot of those discussions were about guns and gun violence.

It was always my goal to get my students to understand that the vast majority of human behavior is too vastly complicated to be reduced to a single cause.  I sought to teach my children the same thing.

Were I teaching now, I've no doubt I could go into the classroom and give measured, reasonable, and plausible explanations of the murders and the murderer near Santa Barbara, California.  

But I'm not teaching.

I am still a mom.  And my daughter has been savagely affected by what happened there.  She has been struggling to deal with all that went on there, and none of my cool objectivity can help her a single bit.  When she finished a tweet with the hashtag "I Am At Risk," my heart shattered.

What are we doing to each other?  Why won't/can't we stop?

Here's One Thing About Pennsylvania

There are lots of parks.  Great big, beautiful parks.  Not the occasional, small squares of land here with a softball field and a few pieces of playground equipment.

Shari and I went to Covered Bridge Park in Allentown:

The river is something of a fly-fishing Mecca.  We came across a fisherman during our walk;  wholly picturesque.

The park also has a planet walk --- a scale model of the solar system which you can stroll.  From the side of the park where we started, Pluto was first.  (Thank you, Pennsylvania, for not leaving poor Pluto out.)

We only had time to walk to Neptune, but it felt like quite an accomplishment.

Wow

It was very much a religious experience.  The man whose music has meant more to my life than anyone's and the woman whose friendship has does the same.

I've Worked My Way North

And am in the very comfy den of my best friend Shari.  Nice flight up from Atlanta, though

I had a window seat.  Not the best place for an acrophobe like me.  I don't like seeing the planet fall away from me.  But I did get this nice picture.

It was a good flight, I was surprisingly un-stressed.  Son drove me to the airport, I could relax before take-off, and being with Shari is just as easy as you can imagine.

We did make one stop between the Philadelphia airport and Allentown.  My long-time friend Bridget works Sunday afternoons in a yarn store in downtown Philadelphia, and Shari was kind enough to take me by to see her.  Pen-pals-turned-Internet-friends actually meet in real life!

I even met Dug the Doodle Dog!

And, in a remarkable meeting of two worlds, Bridget and Shari bonded over the adorable Greta.

It's been a good day.