Electric Wind

Electric Wind

“Magetsi a mphepo,” he whispered. I will build electric wind.     I live a life of comfort in my upper middle class American home.  I don’t worry about things like famines or poor sanitation.  When I’m hungry I go to the store to buy whatever I want from the thousands of options.  I eat,…

Scoop the Poop!

Scoop the Poop!

This one should go without saying and yet, it still needs to be said. Pick up after your dog!!! As you may remember, I love dogs and I spend a lot of time walking them.  In the many miles that I cover each week, I sadly come across piles left by dog owners who haven’t…

Deep and Simple

Deep and Simple

To this day I can still sing the opening song to Mister Rogers’ Neighbohood. Along with Sesame Street and Electric Company, Mister Rogers was a childhood favorite.  A new movie is coming out later this year (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) so I wanted to freshen my Mister Rogers memories and learn a little…

Be kind to clerks

Be kind to clerks

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Return to Civility post.  This one seems particularly appropriate to the season…   We’ve all seen it… the rude customer giving the clerk a hard time or being impatient when something goes wrong at the register or  just plain ignoring the clerk, too busy talking on their cell…

Happy Care Bear Day

Happy Care Bear Day

Who’s your favorite Care Bear?  At our house, it’s Cheer Bear.  Of course, to us, she will always be “Care Bear” because she’s the only one who matters. Care Bear came to live with us, and specifically, to live with Bella, in May 2004.  We had discovered at Bella’s two-year-old well-child check that she had…

No cuts!

No cuts!

A refrain heard often in schools every day.  No cuts in the line!  No frontsies, no backsies, and no saving places.  All school children are well aware of the rules but it sometimes seems as though grown-ups have forgotten.  Whether it is intentional bad behavior or just because we are becoming so self-absorbed that we…

Librarian of Basra

Librarian of Basra

How far would you go to save a library full of books? ”It was like a battle when the books got burned. I imagined that those books, those history and culture and philosophy books, were crying, ‘Why, why, why?’ ” -Alia Muhammed Baker One of the many tragedies of war is the destruction of irreplaceable…