a radio was on.

Shakespeare, in Twelfth Night, wrote "a horse of the same color," meaning the same matter rather than a different one.  But by the mid-1800s, the phrase was used to point out difference rather than likeness. The horse of a different color was also the horse who drew the carriage containing Dorothy and friends as they entered Emerald City in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.   The horse would change its color from time to time, and apparently four horses were used to create the effect, because it took too long to completely scrub one horse and then re-color it for the scene.  The APSCA would not allow the horses to be dyed with chemicals, so they were painted with lemon, cherry and grape flavored powdered gelatin to create the colors.  Apparently the horses tried to lick their own coats between takes--which if you think about what gelatin is, makes the whole thing surreal and a little revolting, given a horse's predilection for grass and grain. Of course, a horse of a diffe

Shakespeare, in Twelfth Night, wrote "a horse of the same color," meaning the same matter rather than a different one.  But by the mid-1800s, the phrase was used to point out difference rather than likeness. The horse of a different color was also the horse who drew the carriage containing Dorothy and friends as they entered Emerald City in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.   The horse would change its color from time to time, and apparently four horses were used to create the effect, because it took too long to completely scrub one horse and then re-color it for the scene.  The APSCA would not allow the horses to be dyed with chemicals, so they were painted with lemon, cherry and grape flavored powdered gelatin to create the colors.  Apparently the horses tried to lick their own coats between takes--which if you think about what gelatin is, makes the whole thing surreal and a little revolting, given a horse's predilection for grass and grain. Of course, a horse of a d

Last Friday we were awakened at six in the morning by Sebby's outraged barking.  You could tell from the barking that something was actually up. Upon investigation, we were immediately enchanted by the young owl who had clearly landed on our porch during an early morning flight, an owl without the flying skills to rescue herself.  We put the deeply offended Sebby in an upstairs bedroom and spent the next several hours watching the little owl scritch and scratch and fluff up her wings if we got too close to her with our cameras and our excited quiet thrill--it was a thrill, it was an honor, it felt like magic to be in the company, however briefly, of this creature of the night and the woods and clearly not of our porch. He walked or hopped down the stairs, and eventually made his way up the sloping hill into the backyard and then into the woods.  It gets a little confusing here.  Avery knew where the owl's nest was, and when we looked, there was another little owl sitting in tha

Last Friday we were awakened at six in the morning by Sebby's outraged barking.  You could tell from the barking that something was actually up. Upon investigation, we were immediately enchanted by the young owl who had clearly landed on our porch during an early morning flight, an owl without the flying skills to rescue herself.  We put the deeply offended Sebby in an upstairs bedroom and spent the next several hours watching the little owl scritch and scratch and fluff up her wings if we got too close to her with our cameras and our excited quiet thrill--it was a thrill, it was an honor, it felt like magic to be in the company, however briefly, of this creature of the night and the woods and clearly not of our porch. He walked or hopped down the stairs, and eventually made his way up the sloping hill into the backyard and then into the woods.  It gets a little confusing here.  Avery knew where the owl's nest was, and when we looked, there was another little owl sit

Borrowing from Alain de Botton in today's New York Times, who was borrowing from Camus. Camus knew that when it came to historical progress, to the theory of forward progress and modernity, there is no escape from vulnerability, which is to say, death.  "Plague or no plague, there is always, as it were, the plague, if what we mean by that is a susceptibility to sudden death, an event that can render our lives instantaneously meaningless."  [We'll return to the idea of death rendering our lives instantaneously meaningless.] De Botton says this is what Camus meant when he talked about the "absurdity" of life.  That recognizing this absurdity should not lead to despair.  Instead, the recognition that death comes for each of us (usually uninvited) should lead "to a tragicomic redemption, a softening of the heart, a turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude." This idea of joy and gratitude in the face of death and dying is a second-

Borrowing from Alain de Botton in today's New York Times, who was borrowing from Camus. Camus knew that when it came to historical progress, to the theory of forward progress and modernity, there is no escape from vulnerability, which is to say, death.  "Plague or no plague, there is always, as it were, the plague, if what we mean by that is a susceptibility to sudden death, an event that can render our lives instantaneously meaningless."  [We'll return to the idea of death rendering our lives instantaneously meaningless.] De Botton says this is what Camus meant when he talked about the "absurdity" of life.  That recognizing this absurdity should not lead to despair.  Instead, the recognition that death comes for each of us (usually uninvited) should lead "to a tragicomic redemption, a softening of the heart, a turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude." This idea of joy and gratitude in the face of death and dying is a s

I am of two minds about the dearth of snow this winter. On the one hand, aside from wanting one big snow, the kind of snow that stops the commute, closes the school, allows the dog to romp in ridiculous ways in the deep drifts, allows the boys to climb on top of the small mountain of snow that the plows push to the corner of Curve Street and Hart Farm Road, I am content without the heavy snows, content with my specific, Tracy Brown worries about slipping on the walkway, or driving through snowstorms, or losing power and sleeping on the couch in front of the fire, in the dark night.  On the other hand: the earth.  There seem to be competing names for the psychological disorder marked by anxiety and depression about the plight of the planet--eco-anxiety, climate anxiety, or my favorite, climate grief.  The twins have homework this February vacation--a project on the Iditarod where they map out the race and pick a musher to follow during the race. The cosmic question of how long such a ra

I am of two minds about the dearth of snow this winter. On the one hand, aside from wanting one big snow, the kind of snow that stops the commute, closes the school, allows the dog to romp in ridiculous ways in the deep drifts, allows the boys to climb on top of the small mountain of snow that the plows push to the corner of Curve Street and Hart Farm Road, I am content without the heavy snows, content with my specific, Tracy Brown worries about slipping on the walkway, or driving through snowstorms, or losing power and sleeping on the couch in front of the fire, in the dark night.  On the other hand: the earth.  There seem to be competing names for the psychological disorder marked by anxiety and depression about the plight of the planet--eco-anxiety, climate anxiety, or my favorite, climate grief.  The twins have homework this February vacation--a project on the Iditarod where they map out the race and pick a musher to follow during the race. The cosmic question of how long such a ra