Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  Mitt Romney, after The Quake on the Lake:

“Please, please champ, don’t beat my brains out – because if you did, I’d have to become a Democrat.”

I don't like to think about what it might have been like to have a President Mitt Romney instead of a second Obummer term, because cry...

My mother-in-law made the front page...

My mother-in-law made the front page ... of the web site for the nursing home she's in.  That's her in red at right.  Like many in her condition, she has good days and not-so-good days.  She's physically fragile, too; not a great combination with dementia.  Little injuries, often completely mysterious, seem like almost a daily occurrence – and serious injuries have occurred several times in the past few years.  I hope she's not miserable all the time.  It worries me that we have no way to find out, really, how she's feeling.  The folks at the nursing home have mostly been great, with just a very few instances where we suspected the care was anything else.  But even the people caring for her every day can't reliably tell how she's feeling.  The dementia makes everything about her care very challenging...

A pleasant surprise...

A pleasant surprise ... was ours last night, when we learned that Sheila Miller (the proprietor of Wolftree Acres, and the breeder from whom we got all three of our field spaniels) would be in nearby Logan this weekend.  She's at a dog show happening in the fairgrounds there, and we're hoping to be able to have dinner with her tonight.  Sheila keeps threatening to stop breeding (it's a LOT of work!), but we're hoping she'll do it at least one more time – as we'll probably be looking for another puppy in a year or so...

This is turning out to be a highly social weekend for us.  First the Mormon horde, then Sheila, and (allegedly) our friends Jim and Michelle are showing up tomorrow.  Woo hoo!

Despite the cold drizzle...

Despite the cold drizzle ... the Mormon horde showed up and went to work.  In just four hours they got more done that I could have done myself in a year of part-time (hard!) work.  All the old barbed-wire fence is down and hauled off to the dump.  Nearly all of the dead limbs have been cut down, cut up, and piled up ready for burning.  There are just a few branches left that were too high to reach without ladders.  The trash in the old dry canal bed has all been dug up and hauled away.  It's amazing how much got accomplished!  People came and went all morning, but overall I think about 15 people contributed.  There were a half dozen guys with chainsaws, we had a nice big hydraulic dump trailer for hauling, and a neighbor with a 40-horsepower tractor came over to do the heavy lifting and pulling.  The only real challenge we ran into was an old corner post made from cinder blocks and reinforced concrete.  We managed to knock it over, but we couldn't lift it or break it up.  That will have to wait for another day...

Debbie had a nice meal waiting for us when we finished: chicken salad sandwiches on nice buns, with tomato and lettuce, chips, cookies (her homemade chocolate chip cookies with cranberries and orange), and lemonade.  The sandwiches and cookies were a big hit – they disappeared quickly, though Debbie of course made way more than we could possibly eat :)

Now that we're done, I'm all sore and creaky.  Those guys were all way younger than I, and in trying to keep up, I think I've strained ... everything.  No more working for me today!

A boy, a truck, and two flags...

A boy, a truck, and two flags...  Nice story.  It would be different here in Utah.  I can't imagine the local school behaving this way here.  And none of my neighbors are complaining about my flagpole and flags...

False memories...

False memories...  I first started reading about this phenomenon in the '70s, and I'll note that the more research on it that's done, the more common the false memories turn out to be.  One study I read recently said that of 150 people whose memory of a vivid incident was tested one week later, even when they were tasked with remembering it accurately – 100% of them had “significant” errors in their remembered chronology or list of events.  One hundred percent, and the group included over a dozen people whose job required accurate memory.  By far the most common error was addition, not omission – meaning that chronologies were changed or events that didn't actually happen were added.  Another thing that seems clear from the studies: emotionally charged incidents (which the previously mentioned study used) are far more likely to be mis-remembered.

Fallible, we humans are...

Today is the day...

Today is the day ... that the Mormon horde shows up to clean up our canal area, as a service project.  However, the weather isn't looking very cooperative: heavy rain is predicted starting at around 9 am, and the weather radar in fact looks a little ... ominous.  The leaders were here last night doing some final planning, and noting the weather they decided to start this morning at 7 am.  I'm not sure how long they're going to last – if it starts getting wet, we've all agreed they're going to pack it in and reschedule...