U and V is for UltraViolet

THIS IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER my 100 Random Thoughts Contest. Click on the link in the sidebar at right to enter and win a unique prize! Winners will be announced next week. Come join the fun!

Ultra: Latin from ultra meaning beyond, from Latin ulter meaning situated beyond (more at ulerior....)

Violet: Middle English, from Middle French violete, diminutive of viole, from Latin viola (no relation to the viola, a musical instrument, which is Italian and Spanish in origin.)

Ultraviolet is "situated beyond the visible spectrum at its violet end."

I wonder how many of you remember walking into a head-shop and going into a black light lit back-room (now there's a tongue twister) that was papered with posters all glowing eerie colors; green-yellow, orange, blue-white.... White tshirts, fingernails, eyeballs, all fluoresced a ghostly violet. My friends and I liked to go into those rooms just to see how funny we looked. None of us were really interested in the posters. 1. They were too garish. 2. We would have needed to buy a black light and have a dark room in which to hang the posters. 3. We'd rather have spent our money on albums.

I know you're wondering. How am I going to relate ultraviolet light to writing?

It's like this. Sometimes the characters in books or stories appear or seem to be one thing, but when a black light is focused on them...well, ghostly traces of flaws or dreams or fears show up.

Readers tend to walk into a normal looking room. It's the writer's job to turn on the black light. But beware. Too much and the character turns into an fluorescent imitation of Elvis. Too little and the character is a stick figure.

T is for Treasure Hunt

Don't forget to enter my 100 Random Thoughts Contest. Click on the link in the sidebar at right to enter and win a unique prise! The contest is open until tomorrow, Friday, April 30th. Come join the fun!

Treasure: Middle English tresor, from Old French, from Latin thesaurus, from Greek thesauros. Does anyone else notice something? Thesaurus is Latin for treasure or collection. Neat!

Hunt: Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian; akin to Old High German heri-hunda meaning battle spoils.

In my last post I wrote about the fertile garden that is my brain and the multiple serendipitous ways story ideas come to me.

However I have learned over the years that some people have to work at finding ideas. Some people mine for them. They go digging for jewels with a pick and shovel. Other pan for gold. Still other follow a paper trail of clues until they reach the place where X marks the spot where they dig until they find the hidden chest.

But once they've opened the chest...oh! the thesaurus that awaits them!
No matter where they come from or how you find them, whether they are flowers lying at your feet or gems buried deep in the earth, our stories are treasures that deserve to be shared.

Happy treasure hunting.

S is for Serendipity

Serendipity: Serendip is the Persian word for Sri Lanka. It comes to us from a Persian fairytale called "The Three Princes of Serendip." In the story, through luck and accident, three brothers have adventure and happy endings. The word serendipity was coined by Horace Walpole (an author and art historian) in a letter to a friend after he read "a silly fairy tale." It has come to mean, "the faculty of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."

I love the word myself. It has a happy and light-hearted sound to it.

Serendipity. I don't know about you but the vast majority of my story ideas are serendipitous; they are valuable, agreeable things that have come to me without my seeking them out.

They have come to me in dreams or from reading the newspaper. They have descended upon me from out of the blue while taking a walk or watching TV. They have appeared under rocks and beneath flower petals. They have startled me by jumping out from behind trees.

I have three rings binders and notebooks and file drawers full of ideas. And I mean that quite literally.

This then is my problem. I have so many ideas I have trouble focusing. It continually amazes and surprises me that I am able to finish something because I am invariably tickled, pinched, poked and nudged by other ideas while working on another. But I do. Somehow. I have lots of finished stuff to prove it.

What about you. Do you live in a lush flower garden of ideas where you have a difficult time choosing which flowers to pick? Or do you have to dig and weed and work the soil before you get a strong and worthy plant?

R is for Rest and Recreation

Don't forget to enter my 100 Random Thoughts Contest. Click on the link in the sidebar at right to enter and win a unique prise! The contest is open until Friday, April 30th. Come join the fun!

Rest: Middle English from Old English; akin to Old High German rasta meaning rest, and ruowa meaning calm, and the Greek eroe meaning respite. (Rasta...It seems the Rastafarians have it right!)

Recreation: Middle English recreacion, from Middle French recreation, from Latin recreation, recreatio meaning restoration to health, from recreatus, past participle of recreare meaning to create anew, restore, refresh. Notice how the word re-create is hidden in recreation.

Rest.
We all need our sleep. There is no doubt that without good sleep we loose our ability to concentrate. Our reflexes and ability to respond quickly (like slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident) become impaired. It's a sad state of affairs, but it appears that our society is producing at worst a lot of insomniacs at best a bunch of people who don't get enough sleep. There seem to be a lot of sleep disorders and lots of drugs to help people sleep.

I don't know that drugs are the answer because I think (I don't know for a fact) that a drugged sleep does not allow one to dream. I've read enough about dreams and dream interpretation (I 'm partial to Carl Jung's approach) to believe that dreaming is important to our psyches, to our mental health. Dreams let us act out our dark emotions and fears. Without dreams I think we might be more likely to act them out in real life. Please understand this is just a Bish Theory, I have nothing to back it up with. But it seem possible. We dull ourselves with drugs of all kinds (from alcohol to crack to...you name it.) We dull ourselves with TV and video games and countless distractions. And in dulling ourselves we are fill our heads with meaningless drivel and lots of noise.

We are taking ourselves out of the world and out of our lives.

Which leads me to, Recreation.
Re-creation.
I think we need to lie in the grass and stare at clouds. Take out the earbuds and sit by a stream and listen to the water burbling. Climb a tree and listen to the birds. Dig in the dirt. I think we need to empty our minds of all the crap and look around at the beauty of this world else one day we will wake up and discover it's gone.

I think
we need
to be
still.

In stillness we will be able to sleep and be able to dream.

An aside: Click here to read an informative article for us bloggers by Chuck Sambuchino from Writer's Digest. In it he explains about the dangers of blogging certain stuff from the copy-right angle. We have to remember our ideas are not protected. And there are thieves out there. I think it's important, so I thought I'd share it with all of you, my fellow writing/blogging friends.

Q is for Quest

Quest: Middle English meaning search, pursuit, investigation, inquest, from Middle French queste search, pursuit, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin quaesta, from Latin the femenine of quaestus. The word "question" is related.

We're all on a quest of some kind or another. The quest for (pursuit of) life, liberty and happiness. The quest for a plastic free world. The quest for the perfect hamburger. The quest for a dust free home. The quest for eternal youth, a weed-free lawn, the newest electronic devise. There are probably as many quests as there are human beings. Some quests are trite, some heroic.

Some are small as in Pooh's quest for honey.



Others are legendary as in Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail.



Some are mythic, like Jason searching for the Golden Fleece.


Still others are historic as is the quest to be first to land on the moon. (Now there's a quest to land on Mars, a useless quest as far as I'm concerned.)

Whatever the quest, something is needed, wanted, missing.

As writers we are on a quest as well. Large or small, loud or quiet, our quest is to tell a story.

To learn how to write a MG quest story, click here. It is a simple six step process. Well, simple is relative.

Let the quest begin. (Say it out loud enough time and it starts to sound like a really weird word. Questquestquestquestquest....)

P is for A Plastic Ocean

Back to the A to Z Challenge which is taking me longer to complete than everyone else....

Plastic: Latin plasticus, from Greek plastikos, from plassein meaning to mold, form. Little did the Greeks know the word would turn into a killer.

Earth Day was the 22nd, but I say every day should be Earth Day.

Albert Schweitzer said: Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end up destroying the earth.

As some of you may know I hate plastic. Try as I might it's everywhere in my home and my life. I have posted several times about the Great Plastic Garbage Swirl in the Pacific Ocean. You can read about it here. I have since learned there are actually five (5!) garbage swirls: in the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic and in the Indian Ocean. This article by Associated Press Writer, Mike Melia, is about the garbage swirl recently found in the Atlantic.

Read it and weep.

A 2nd garbage patch: Plastic soup seen in Atlantic
By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press Writer Mike Melia, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 15, 5:30 am ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Researchers are warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles (kilometers) in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

The floating garbage — hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents — was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands.

The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.

"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.

The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals — and at the top of the food chain, potentially humans — even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.

Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products.

"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem — it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.

The research teams presented their findings in February at the 2010 Oceans Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. While scientists have reported finding plastic in parts of the Atlantic since the 1970s, the researchers say they have taken important steps toward mapping the extent of the pollution.

Cummins and her husband, Marcus Eriksen, of Santa Monica, California, sailed across the Atlantic for their research project. They plan similar studies in the South Atlantic in November and the South Pacific next spring.

On the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, they crossed the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by ocean currents including the Gulf Stream. They took samples every 100 miles (160 kilometers) with one interruption caused by a major storm. Each time they pulled up the trawl, it was full of plastic.

A separate study by undergraduates with the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association collected more than 6,000 samples on trips between Canada and the Caribbean over two decades. The lead investigator, Kara Lavendar Law, said they found the highest concentrations of plastics between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude, an offshore patch equivalent to the area between roughly Cuba and Washington, D.C.

Long trails of seaweed, mixed with bottles, crates and other flotsam, drift in the still waters of the area, known as the North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone. Cummins' team even netted a Trigger fish trapped alive inside a plastic bucket.

But the most nettlesome trash is nearly invisible: countless specks of plastic, often smaller than pencil erasers, suspended near the surface of the deep blue Atlantic.

"It's shocking to see it firsthand," Cummins said. "Nothing compares to being out there. We've managed to leave our footprint really everywhere."

Still more data are needed to assess the dimensions of the North Atlantic patch.

Charles Moore, an ocean researcher credited with discovering the Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the Atlantic undoubtedly has comparable amounts of plastic. The east coast of the United States has more people and more rivers to funnel garbage into the sea. But since the Atlantic is stormier, debris there likely is more diffuse, he said.

Whatever the difference between the two regions, plastics are devastating the environment across the world, said Moore, whose Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in Long Beach, California, was among the sponsors for Cummins and Eriksen.

"Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint," he said.
Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish: A paper cited by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says as many as 100,000 marine mammals could die trash-related deaths each year.

The plastic bits, which can be impossible for fish to distinguish from plankton, are dangerous in part because they sponge up potentially harmful chemicals that are also circulating in the ocean, said Jacqueline Savitz, a marine scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation group based in Washington.

As much as 80 percent of marine debris comes from land, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.

The U.S. government is concerned the pollution could hurt its vital interests.

"That plastic has the potential to impact our resources and impact our economy," said Lisa DiPinto, acting director of NOAA's marine debris program. "It's great to raise awareness so the public can see the plastics we use can eventually land in the ocean."

DiPinto said the federal agency is co-sponsoring a new voyage this summer by the Sea Education Association to measure plastic pollution southeast of Bermuda. NOAA is also involved in research on the Pacific patch.

"Unfortunately, the kinds of things we use plastic for are the kinds of things we don't dispose of carefully," Savitz said. "We've got to use less of it, and if we're going to use it, we have to make sure we dispose of it well."

This is me: However you can, whenever you can, recycle, reuse and/or eliminate plastic from your lives. We depend on our oceans for life. They depend on us.

100 Random Thoughts Contest

I interrupt the A to Z Challenge because...
Wow!

I've made it!

100 Random Followers!

And, as promised, in honor and celebration of YOU I'm holding my very first contest. (Aren't you just thrill?)

There are the rules. (I know, I know, I'm not all that keen about rules either, but without a few there'd be bedlam.)

Since this is about the auspicious number of 100, and writing is all about words this contest is going to be about writing a

DRABBLE!

(No, not a dribble, a drabble.)

For those of you who may not know what a drabble is, let me 'splane.

A drabble is a 100 word STORY. It CANNOT be 99 words or 101 words. HAS TO BE 100 WORDS

EGG-SACT-LY!

So....

Rule Number One:

Write a drabble of exactly 100 words. It can be about anything. It can be a true story or totally made up. It can be fantasy or humor or sci-fi or drama. It can be for kids or adults. Anything! Just, PLEASE no foul, awful, nasty, vulgar language. No sex or violence. I'm just not into that kind of stuff.

Rule Number Two:

Leave your drabbulous drabble in my comments section, or if you're shy, email them to me.

Rule Number Three:

You have one week from TODAY to post your drabble. Which means this contest ends on April 30th. Your drabbles will be read and judge by my husband and me. We will no doubt argue and fuss over who wins, but that will be the fun part.

There will be THREE winners. Well, actually, a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner. They will be announced no sooner than May 1st and no later than May 7th (because who knows how long it will take me and my sweetie to agree?)

And what do you get for winning the drabble contest?

First, I will post the winning drabbles on my blog with links to winners' blogs.

But here's the real deal. Most everyone has books to give away. Alas, I do not. What I do have is something to go with those books you read. Something unique and one of a kind. (What, what is it you ask? Be patient, my drabblers, don't get your drabbles in a wad.)

One of the things I do is tat. (No I'm not offering tattoos!) Tatting is an old form of lace making made on my hands with a shuttle. It is ALL done with half-hitches. (That's knots for those of you who don't know your knots.)

So, to grace those books you read, I thought I'd give the winners some choices between these six tatted bookmarks! 1st place gets first choice. 2nd place gets to choose from the remaining five and 3rd place gets to choose from the remaining four. How's that grab ya?

Beautiful Butterfly

Sally Seahorse

Florence Flamingo

Leonardo Lion

Peter Peacock

Flowers

And to give you an idea...here is a drabble from yours truly.

WAITING

“Come on!”
Peering into the mirror she checked her hair, make-up.

“What’s taking you?”

She turned slowly looking at her reflection.

Downstairs he paced, becoming so angry his lip whitened. He wondered why he put up with this; her always being late, his always waiting.

He yelled from the bottom of the stairs, “We’re going to be late!”

Then suddenly she appeared. Light illuminated her; a golden aura. She beamed soft rays of warmth.

His anger melted into puddles on the floor.

“Now I remember why.”

“What?”

“You’re beautiful.”

She smiled. These humans are so easy to control, she thought.

N is for Nurturing the Inner Child and O is for Oz

Okay people I'm up to 98 Random Followers! When I hit 100 there will be a contest! (Even if it means interrupting the A to Z challenge.)

Nurture: Middle English from Middle French norriture, from Late Latin nurtritura meaning the act of nursing, from Latin nutritus the past participle of nutrire, meaning to suckle, nourish.

As children's writers we need to stay connected with our inner child, for it is from this place that our stories come. I think some cases of writer's block may stem from our adult world over-powering the little kid inside each of us. And as most kids will do when this happens, he/she pouts, goes to his/her room and won't speak to us. When this happens our inner child must be tempted to come out and play.

Here are just a few things you can do to nurture your inner child, particularly if you have kids of your own. You might could do some of these things with them. But you can also do some of these thing by yourself.

Have a water fight.
Blow big bubblegum bubbles.
Dance in the rain and play in the mud.
Have a screaming contest.
Play dress-up/make-believe.
Play hide and seek.
Jump rope.
Play jacks or marbles.
Run around crazy in the back yard yelling like a fool.
Spin around until you get dizzy and fall down.
Laugh at a really stupid joke.
Have a pillow fight.
Eat an entire meal with you hands (maybe even have a food fight.)
Stand behind a door and "scare" someone.
Roll around on the lawn like the dog does.

In other words have fun. Try to remember what it was like to be a kid when everything was new and you were seeing/experiencing it for the first time. There was wonder, magic in the world and you were at the center of all.

What are some other ways you can nurture your inner child?

And all of that leads wonderfully into...

Oz: And I'm not talking about the good doctor. The most commonly believed origin of the name for this, the first and only American fairyland, is that L. Frank Baum, while telling his four sons stories and needing a name for his magical land, looked over at a file cabinet and saw the letters O-Z. You can read all about Oz here, the official website.

I was first introduced to the Oz books by my mother who read them aloud to my sister and me. The tiny library on St. John may not have had many books, but the Oz books were there, jewels on the shelves.

Baum was a dreamer who failed at most everything he tried until he was encouraged by his mother-in-law to write down the stories he'd been telling to his sons and their friends. Like most writers he had trouble finding a publisher, but once he did...well the rest is history.

He was a prolific writer who wrote under several pseudonyms. He wrote a great deal more than the 14 Oz books. There were a total of 40 books in all written by various others authors like Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neill, but I preferred those written by Baum himself.

He would probably be edited today from writing such things as, exclaimed the Ork scornfully, or, he answered gravely. But truly, I don't mind this style of writing at all.

I still love the illustrations by John R. Neill. I scanned these from the only Oz book I have, The Scarecrow of Oz.

The Scarecrow of Oz

Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and her friend Betsy.


His boundless imagination should be an inspiration to us all.

One of my favorite characters is the Glass Cat from The Patchwork Girl of Oz. She was very beautiful, vain and self-centered.

"The cat was made of glass, so clear and transparent that you could see through it as easily as through a window. In the top of its head, however, was a mass of delicate pink balls which looked like jewels, and it had a heart made of a blood-red ruby. The eyes were two large emeralds, but aside from these colors all the rest of the animal was clear glass, and it had a spun- glass tail that was really beautiful."

At one point the Glass Cat (whose name was Bungle) says, "Three heads are better than two, and my pink brains are beautiful. You can see em work."

Can you name any other Oz characters? Do you have a favorite one?
What was the Tin Woodsman name?
What was the color of Dorothy's magic slippers?

L is for Language and M is Music

Language: Middle English from Old French langue meaning tongue/language, from Latin lingua (more at tongue. )

Language. Where would we be without it?

Music: Middle English musik, from Old French musique, from Latin musica, from Greek mousike any art presided over by the Muses, especially music, from the feminine of mousikos meaning of the Muses, from Mousa meaning Muse.

There was always music of one kind or another in our home. My father had a fairly large collection of 78s and LPs; everything from Dixieland jazz to Swing to Classical. I grew up listening to and singing along with the standards. Dad played trombone and E-flat tuba. Wherever we lived he'd find a band to played in. He was really good on the trombone. We called it his magic plumbing because it seemed every time he'd haul it out and start playing unexpected company would show up.

When I was about 17 Count Basie came to St. Thomas. My father took my grandmother and me to hear him play at the Lionel Roberts Stadium. He and his band played right out there on the pitcher's mound. It was wonderful. (The large white roofed building is the old hospital. It now houses government offices.)

Because of my early exposure to Big Band jazz it took me a while to get into Rock and Roll. But I did learn to love it. I was fascinated by drummers like Ginger Baker from Cream. To this day I don't know how drummers do it, have all four appendages going at the same time, each doing something different. And then on top of that there are drummers like Phil Collins and Don Henley who SING while they drum! A-MAZE-ING. One time I got Dad to listen to Baker's long solo on the song "Toad" off Fresh Cream.

After patiently listening for a while he said, "You gotta hear this." He rummaged through his 78s, hauled one out and put it on the record player. I heard this wildly fast beat to a tune called "Lover."

"That," said Dad, "Is Gene Krupa. He was the first to use drums as a solo instrument. They called his playing scary and spooky."

And indeed when you listen to him it is a bit scary how he managed to get so much sound out a such a small drum kit. Compared to the kits drummers use today, Krupa and even Ginger Baker, had tiny kits.

This is Krupa with his band playing "Lover" a slightly slower version than the one on the 78, but still amazing, plus a second song called "Leave Us Leap."

And if you ever wondered about the origins of Rock and Roll, listen to this.

What are your first music memories?

As an aside I've been given these three awards.

Susan Fields is the second blogger buddie to pass this one to me. Thanks Susan!

The Awesomesause Award (for displaying awesomeness on a regular basis) was given to me by Creepy Query Girl. Thank you Creepy!

And lastly, Rena Jones has bestowed me with the Beautiful Blogger Award

As with all awards, if you are reading this consider yourself awarded. I pass it on to you with all my heart.

J is for Journey and K is Kryptonite

Journey: Middle English, from Old French journee meaning day's journey, from jour meaning day, from Late Latin diurnum, from Latin diurnus.

As I look back on my life I can clearly see how one choice lead to another and to another, until after a long winding and interesting journey I have arrived here, at this point.

There have been some wonderful turns in the road when I was near overwhelmed by the spectacular views. Likewise I have fallen into the La Brea Tar Pits and come close to not being able to get myself extracted. There have been lush valleys, an arid plain or two, oxygen poor peaks, placid rives, and rivers in flood. I have crossed oceans both literally and figuratively.

Mostly, though, my journey has been fairly easy, following the contours of the hills and mountains I have climbed over and around.

This is all very metaphorical and the language rather flowery. But there is a point and a lesson for us writers. In noticing how our lives go, in noticing the individual steps we have taken on our journey, in training ourselves to become observers, we will become better writers.

As for me, the journey will continue until the day I take my last breath.

Kryptonite: A fictional element from the Superman. However there is krypton, a relatively inert gaseous element found in air and used in elelctric lamps, from the Greek kryptos meaning hidden. There is more at crypt.

As we all know kryptonite can bring down the Man of Steel, leaving him weak as baby.

I have my own form of kryptonite. It's called sharing my ideas too soon. Say I tell my sweetie about an idea I have for a story or novel. He will, of course, have all these who, why, when, where, and how questions and even make suggestions about where the story should go or what I shouldn't do. Because it's just an idea, a barely sprouted seed, I have not answered the majority of those questions even for myself, let alone someone else. And all of the questions acts like kryptonite.

I have learned to guard, protect and nurture my tiny sprout from outside influence else it could become over fertilized or over watered or get too much sun all of which have the same consequence. My idea shrivels up and blows away.

In fact, I don't like sharing a first rough draft of something I've written because the same thing can happen. I mean I know a first rough draft is just that. I don't need to hear about the problems. So...I don't like to share anything until I've got a fairly clean copy.

What's your kryptonite?

Anyone remember The Spin Doctors?

H is for Harpy and I is for An Impressionist with an Infinite number of Individual Idiosyncratic Ideas.

OKAY PEOPLE I'M UP TO 93 FOLLOWERS! REMEMBER, WHEN I HIT 100 THERE WILL BE AN AWESOME AND UNIQUE CONTEST WITH AWESOME AND UNIQUE PRIZES!

(okay i'll stop yelling now)

Harpy: literally means "that which snatches" from the Latin harpeia from the Greek harpuia. In Greek mythology she was a winged being, half woman, half bird who stole food from Phineas. Phineas had the gift of prophecy and apparently said too much about the plans of the gods. Zeus being Zeus got pissy about it and blinded poor Phineas. If that wasn't enough Zeus placed him amidst of sea of food. Each time Phineas was about to put something to his mouth the Harpies came and snatched it out of his hands.


A shrewish woman is called a harpy.

And yet we have the harp, a musical instrument that produces the most beautiful of sounds. Inspired by listening to my father's record of Harpo Marx, I wanted to learn to play the harp . But my mother pointed out it would be like lugging around a piano. Imagine...piano, jeep, four-wheel drive roads.

As for the bird above, she is related to the mind games of C is for Cranial Contortions. I think we all know someone like her. This person grates on our ears like the screeching breaks of a locomotive train.

"Why don't..."
"You shouldn't..."
"You can't..."
"You haven't..."
"You aren't..."
"You won't..." etc. etc. etc.

What makes it so destructive is that it tends to be our own inner voice. We are our own worst harpy. At least I am.

I've spent a life-time keeping her voice muffled. Most of the time she's locked up in the dungeon but she does break out from time to time. Her threats are mostly gaseous belches that stink so she doesn't frighten me any more. Besides easy to turn her negative into positives.

What about you? Are you able to keep your inner harpy in chains?


Idiosyncrasy: From the Greek idiosynkrasia, from idio+synderannynai meanining to blend, from syn+kerannynai meaning to mingle, mix.
Idea: Latin from the Greek idein, meaning to see.
Impressionist: Impress, Middle English impressen, from Latin impressus (there's more at press.)
Individuality: Individual from Middle Latin individualis, from Latin individuus meaning indivisible.
Infinity: Infinite from Middle English infinit from Latin in+finitus meaning finite.

As you can see I had trouble deciding on an "I" word.

I like playing with words so here for your amusement are five sentences containing all five words. This is something you can do as a writing prompt with any group of random words.

An idiosyncratic impressionist is an individual with an infinite number of ideas.

Infinity is the place idiosyncratic individuals long to be so they can express their impressionistic ideas.

Impressionism is an idea for individuals of an infinitely idiosyncratic bent.

Ideas can be found in an infinite number of idiosyncratic places, particularly by impressionistic individuals.

Individuals of an idiosyncratic nature tend to have an infinite number of ideas and may become impressionists.

Ha! Join me...make up your own sentence.

F is for Freedom, G is for Great Expectations

First, a big THANK YOU for all your kind comments on the death of my mother. Though not unexpected, it is still sad and she will be missed. I already have reservations to go to the islands the end of May and be there for a couple of months. (There's a family wedding to attend and my 40th class reunion.) Since my mother is to be cremated, my sister and I will make plans for a memorial when I get down there. Life goes on.

Second, I plan to continue with A to Z Challenge. But to sort of play catch-up I will post two letters a day for a while. So today, we have the letters F and G.


Freedom:
Free from Middle English fre or free from Old English freo, akin to Old High German fri, Old Norse frjals, Gothic freis, Welse rhydd (meaning free), Greek prays (meaning mild, gentle), Sanskrit priya (an adjective meaning dear) and priya (a noun meaning friend.)

dom: suffix from Middle English, akin to Old Saxon dom and Old High German tuom, Old Norse domr all from a prehistoric Germanic noun represented by the Old English dom meaning judgement. There is a connection to doom in this suffix.

So it seems that freedom basically means free of judgement.

On the highest level, the "freedom" we enjoy in the United States came, and continues to come, at a cost. The cost is high as it is paid for with human lives.

Our genius Founding Fathers wanted to secure for us three inalienable rights: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. But just because we have them doesn't mean we have the right to seek them if it impinges on the freedom of others.

With freedom comes responsibility, something I'm not sure is really taught. It requires that we be self-aware, in that we realize what we are doing and why. It requires that we be awake and conscious, that we know and understand how what we do affects others.

Freedom is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Freedom begins with me, with you, with each individual. We have to work for it, strive for it, earn it. To be truly free we must become enlightened beings.

My mother attained the ultimate freedom on the 15th. There is a cost in that as well. Though my sister and I knew this day would come and were in many ways prepared, something is gone now that can never be replaced. There is this space. From the moment of my conception to the day she died, her heart beat with mine. We breathed the same air. Her breath and heartbeat is no longer here and this is the empty silence that I feel. I know in time it will fade as it did after my father died. Yet here it is...an intangible something missing. I am a motherless child.

But she is free now, free of judgement. I choose to believe that the smile on her face was Dad coming for her.

Freedom, whatever form it takes, is not free. Use it wisely.


Great: Middle English grete, from Old English great (pronounce greet); akin to Old High German groz, meaning large.

Expectations: Expect from the Latin exspectare, meaning to look forward to.

I make no excuses or apologies for copping a title from a great book.

As writers we all have them...Great Expectations.

In my case I didn't think about writing and publishing for children until after I retired. (Retired: a word I'm not all that crazy about because the word "tired" is in it and I'm certainly NOT tired.)
Up to the point of being um...retired I didn't think of myself as being a published author. And yet I was. I had articles in my yearbook and articles in a local newspaper. Most particularly, as an assistant editor, I had 18 years of articles and stories that I wrote for a newsletter that promoted a home for abused and neglected kids.

The newsletter went out six times a year to about 10,000 people. It went to such far away places as New Zealand and England. I wrote stories about the kids and their successes. I did interviews with the generous people who donated their time and money. I wrote about the numerous programs and our fabulous summer trips.

So many, many stories.

Yet for some reason is it never occurred to me that this was being published. I was wrong.

Those stories and articles were/are just as valid as being published in Stories for Children, or Wee Ones, or Fun for Kidz, or Spider, to name a few.

Without realizing it my Great Expectations of being published were met long ago when I published a poem in my high school year book. (Did I tell you I was the copy editor? Me? Who can't spell? HA!)

Great Expectations can come hidden in small packages.

I may never get a book published (though I keep working on it) but they will continue to be written. To date I have one YA, 3 MGs and a collection of retold tales.

Ideas abound for other novels. Great Expectations waiting in the wings.

What are your Great Expectations. In working/hoping for the big ones have you over-looked the small?

In Most Loving Memory

Erva Claire Boulon Denham

May 12, 1917 - April 15, 2010

Our beautiful mother passed peacefully in her sleep, in her own bed, at home. She was an amazing woman who touched the lives of many, many people.

If I'm not around for a while I know will you understand.

E is for Etymology

Etymology: Middle English ethimologie from Latin etymologia from Greek etymon+logia. Etymon literally is the meaning of a word according to its origin. Etymology then is the study of words, their meanings and origins.

You will discover as you read these next posts that I will begin each with a brief etymological history of the word's origin. I love finding out were words came from and how their definitions can changed over time.

I first learned that words change meaning when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Despite being dyslexic and bad speller my family did not give in to my whining pleas to spell a word for me.

"Look it up in the dictionary," one or more of them would say.
"But how can I look it up in the dictionary if I don't know how to spell it?" I would whine.
"Sound it out," they would respond.
"But...but...but...."

I was given no reprieve. I learned there can any number of ways to sound out a word but only one way to spell it.

One time while hunting up a word I ran across another. (This happens to me a lot.) The word was "nice." You know what it means right? But do you really?

The following is children's article I wrote sometime ago that has never found a home. It's still one of my favorites. Enjoy.

It's Not Nice to Say Nice

Do you know what the word “nice” means? It comes to us from Middle English (spoken between the 12th and 15th centuries) and meant “foolish.” Before that it came from Old French (spoken between the 9th and 13th centuries) and meant “simple-minded” or “stupid.” The Old French word came from the Latin “nescius,” meaning, “ignorant” or “not knowing.” The obsolete (or no longer used) meaning of the word nice, was someone who was “ignorant, unschooled or silly.” However, by the time Shakespeare started writing in the 16th century, “nice” was already beginning to take on new meanings.

Etymology, the study of words, their origins and meaning, can be very interesting. You can not only learn about the history our wonderful English language you can also learn about the history of different peoples from around the world.

The next time your mother says, “You’re room is a shambles!” think of animal body parts at a slaughter house. A “shamble” was a kind of table used to display meat that was for sale. It comes from the Middle English word, “shamel.” Shamel was used to describe a person whose legs looked like the meat table; they were bowed or malformed. Because of the deformity, they couldn‘t move around easily. And so we get the verb, “to shamble,” which is one way to walk. Eventually, a shamble table came to mean a kind of butcher block, which in turn became another word for a slaughter house. What your mother really means to say, is, “Your room is a bloody mess!”

Speaking of meat, we all know a buccaneer is a pirate, right? Well here’s the history. Buccaneer is from the French word “boucanier.” A boucanier was a 17th century French hunter who lived in Haiti, the western half of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. A boucanier made “barbacoa.” Sound familiar? Barbacoa is Spanish for barbecue, which you‘ve probably eaten. The boucanier cooked his meat on a “boucan.” Boucan is French for the Brazilian word “buccan,” which was taken to Haiti by early adventurers. A buccan was a kind of wooden grill on which cannibals roasted human flesh and other meats. Eventually those French hunters must have gotten tired of barbecuing meat in the heat of the tropics, so they decided to try robbing ships on the high seas. Thus, from “buccan,” a cannibal’s roasting pit, we get, “barbecue” and “buccaneer.” Now, at your next family picnic see how many you can gross out with the story of cannibals and their buccans.

Perhaps you’ve seen people going berserk and vandalizing buildings on TV. A sorry sight, indeed. Berserk comes from the Old Norse words, “bjorn,” meaning “bear” and “serkr” meaning “shirt.” Literally it means, “bear shirt.” Old Norse was spoken before 1350 A. D. Way back then, someone thought berserk meant “bare shirt,” as in, “without clothes.” Ancient Scandinavian warriors were known to “go berserk” in battle. The confusion is whether they fought naked, weren’t wearing any armor, were wearing bear skins instead of armor, or were magically transformed into bears. What ever they did, when they went berserk, the warriors were filled with a mad and wild frenzy. It was also believed they couldn’t be wounded.

Vandals, on the other hand, were an ancient Germanic people. They went berserk and overran Gaul (present day France), Spain and North Africa. In 455 A. D. they arrived in Italy and sacked Rome, helping to bring about the final end of the Roman Empire. While they were visiting the city they destroyed many buildings and monuments. Now we have vandals who vandalize buildings, breaking windows and writing graffiti.

I wonder if there were any thugs among those berserk vandals? Thugs were professional robbers and murderers in India. Their trademark was to strangle their victims. They were finally put out of business by 1840. Thug comes from the Hindu word “thag,” which means “thief.” Thag comes from two Sanskrit words, “sthaga,” meaning rogue and “sthagati,” meaning to cover or conceal. Translated that means, sneaky thief. By the way, Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world.

Those thugs can be real barbarians. Barbarous comes from the Greek word “barbaros,” which means, “foreign, rude or ignorant.” It’s similar to another Sanskrit word, “barbara,” meaning “to stammer;” as in a person speaking a language in which he is not fluent. In other words, speaking unintelligibly. Which is another way to say, “you’re babbling.” So we have babbling barbaric thugs who go berserk and make a shambles of things by vandalizing buildings. Maybe they got jealous of those barbecuing buccaneers.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all snobs, then maybe they would ignore the rest of us. The origin of snob is unknown. In 18th century England, snob was another name for a shoemaker or a cobbler. It eventually came to mean someone who was NOT from the upper-class, country-club set. An uncultured commoner was a snob. Now it means someone who thinks they’re better than you are. I bet you’ve known a snob. The next time someone looks down her nose at you, maybe you can tell her with all sincerity and from the bottom of your heart that you think she’s a really “nice” person.

A little something extra. Here are some every day words we use that are Persian (modern day Iran) and Arabian in origin: Shawl, cotton, scarlet, orange, lemon, peach, shrub, syrup, candy, sugar, coffee, mattress, sofa, caliber, zenith, chemistry, and, your favorite and mine, algebra.

D is for Dyslexia

Dyslexia: dys, from Middle English dis meaning bad, difficult, from Middle French and Latin dis, from Latin dys, from Greek; akin to Old English to or te meaning apart and Sanskrit dus meaning bad or difficult, + lexis Greek for word, speech.

Be warned, I am dyslexic, though midlly compared to some. I'm going to give you a visual. I'm not a great speller and I make typos, mostly reversing letters (as in mildly above) and I sometimes confuse letters as in g for c because I mis-hear them in my head. I am not going to correct the mistakes, which is difficult for me not to do. I'm used to editing as I go. This is also rather soul bearing (baring? See, I'd have to stop and look it up.)

My mother realized early on there was something different about me, that I didn't learn the same way my sister did. Erva, who is more like our father in the brain department, thrived on studying and tests. She made straight "A's" and went to college on scholarship. Mom, brilliant woman that she was, realized it would not be a good thing to put us in the same school. She didn't want me to be compared to my sister and thus avoided alot of sibling rivalry.

I struggled in school. Math was particularly hard. I still do not know all my times-tables. Numbers just do not stay in my head. They dissapate like fog. I can do your basic stuff; add, subtract; multiply and divide, but anywhere in the process I can flip two numbers and come up with a wrong answer.

I worked hard for the grades I got, making a good solid B average (math never got above a C) and somehow came in 6th in my glass (er class.) But, through no fault of my own I lost two years of school, graduating 12 days before I turned 20. So by that time I was so sick of school I had no interest in going on to college.

Another area that has always frustrated me is music. I have a good ear. I used to sing pretty darn well (I sang in a jazz trio for a while.) But I've never been able to learn to read music, much as I would like to. Those little black dots on those lines don't make sense. It's like they move around. It's for certainly I can't tell a quarter note from an eighth from a whole note. Sign (sigh.)

Luckily dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence or creativity.

I'm in good company. A few mafous (famous) dyslexics are:
Leonardo da Vinci, George Washington, Tom Cruise, Jewel, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, John Lennon, Sir Winston Churchill, Whoopy Goldberg, Thomas Jefferson.

As for authors who couldn't sepll (spell) there's, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, William Butler Yeats, Hans Christian Anderson, Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allen Poe, Agatha Christy, Mark Twain....

You can read about others here and here. You will note that dyslexia seems to be more of a mlae (male) thing than female.

We are simply wired differently.

C is for Cranial Contortions

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled program to make two announcements.

First let me say Happy Birthday to my sweetie, Stan the Man.

Second I'm up to like 83 followers! This is a REMINDER. When I get to 100 there will be a wonderful unique contest with wonderful unique prizes! I only need 17 more....

And now back to the A to Z Challenge. Today it's

Cranial: Middle Latin from the Greek kranion; akin to the Greek kara for head.
Contortion: Latin contortus, past participle of contorquere, from com+torquere meaning to twist.

One can see the word torque is related to contortion. Ominously the dictionary says, "more at torture."

For me there are two forms of Cranial Contortions.

Mental gymnastics: as in doing crossword puzzles, or cyphers, or sudoku. There are a ton out there. A quick search on the web brought up lots of sites where one can play free word games. It's official, playing games such as these work the brain and actually create new synopses. Playing games keeps the brain flexible, otherwise it atrophies. And we all know that leads to senility and/or Alzheimer's.

Throughout my life my father did two things that inspired me. 1.) He read the dictionary. He'd pick up our great huge book open it at random and...read. He wasn't looking up a particular word, he was reading. He'd read a page or two at a time. 2.) He did crossword puzzles in ink. The harder the better. He particularly liked the ones from the Sunday London Times because it would have British colloquialisms and plays on words that stretched his brain. Puzzles of various kinds were a part of our lives, a way of passing the time since for so many years we didn't have electricity or TV. If we weren't reading, or playing a board game, or putting a jigsaw puzzle together, my sister Erva and I had our noses in puzzle books. I get a feeling of withdrawl, of nervousness, if I don't get my daily puzzle fix.

The second Cranial Contortion is/are:
Mind games. I'm sure we've all met or know a person who plays mind games; as in saying one thing and doing another. These people are manipulative. Alot of the so-called "reality" shows seen on TV thrive on mind games. They drive me nuts. I question, if children are watching these shows, that they aren't learning how to be devious and manipulative. For me people like that are an energy drain. My basic optimism (though I must admit I get misanthropic from time to time) causes me to want to take people at face value. I want to believe they are who they say they are. However if I am ill-used, if they hand me rotten fruit while insisting it's perfectly good, I will turn my back on them and never look back.

Another kind of mind game is the one we play on ourselves. It's that nagging, creative destroying voice that whispers sour nothings in our ears.

Like: I can't. I'm an idiot. I'm stupid/this is stupid. It's all been written before. Why bother? Who am I fooling?

The list is long and I'm sure each of us could write our own. Which is not a bad exercise if you write down after each negative the opposite positive affirmation.
I'm an idiot/I'm brilliant
I'm stupid/I'm smart
It's all been written before/It's never been written quite like I write it
Why bother?/Why not try?
Who am I fooling?/Who am I teaching?

So play word games to keep the mind subtle. In keeping the mind subtle you'll be able to spot mind gamers more rapidly.

Do you work crossword puzzles or cyphers or other such games?

B is for...

What else? Bish.

So I'm taking part in the A to Z Blog Challenge, though granted, I'm starting a bit late. It just seemed like a really neat thing to do.

Thus, today's letter is B and the word is Bish.

When people first meet me there can be one of several reactions.

"You're name is what?" As in they are shocked because they think they heard the word bitch.

"How is that spelled?" As in they think they heard the word bitch and they want to hear how it's spelled to make sure they didn't hear what they thought they heard.

To which I reply: It' s Bish, with a b, like dish or fish.

It's interesting to note that as a child, even into my twenties, my name was never associated with the b-word. It wasn't until the '80s that people started to question what they had heard.

Then there's: "Is that short for Bishop?" Absolutely not! Though I do seem to recall an Elvin Bishop album that had BISH splashed across the front.

"That's an unusual (pretty, beautiful) name. Is it foreign? Does it mean something?" I don't know. Over the years I've run across the syllable in Middle Eastern countries, such as Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan where there's been a civilian revolt. Someone once told me it means "welcome" but I can't remember in which language.

My Puerto Rican family and friends of Hispanic origin tend to call me Beech, because in Spanish the "i" is pronounce as a long "e" and the "sh" sound is well, like a soft "ch."

"Is it a nickname? Short for something?" No.

So just exactly where/how did I get the name Bish? This is a true story.

Unlike most babies whose first sounds are la-la or ma-ma or da-da my first syllabic out-flow was, "Bishbishbishbishbishbishbish." According to my parents I would lie around in my crib making the noise for hours. They thought it was cute. They thought I'd outgrow it. Obviously I didn't.

At six months I was already being called Bish.

I named myself.

A to Z Blog Challenge

So I'm starting this a little late. So sue me!

It was started by Arlee over at tossing it out. The idea is to write a blog about a topic (any topic) that corresponds to the day's letter. I've been reading the blog entries of Jen at unedited and Summer at ...and this time concentrate and decided to join in the fun. Actually I tossed and turned last night because my head was filled with ideas and wouldn't stop talking to itself.

I thought about cheating and starting with the letter "I" as that is today's letter. But I'm going to start from the beginning. Why not? And though I may not blog everyday, I will be blogging the alphabet until I'm through.

Hang in there, it could be a fun and scary ride.

So for me, today's letter is A.

As writers where would we be without our letters, our alphabets?

Thus I give you,
A Brief History of the Alphabet.

Literally the word is alpha and beta the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. The first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are aleph, meaning ox, and beth, meaning house.

Alphabets have a long, glorious and prestigious heritage. Most can trace their ancestry all the way back to Egypt. The Egyptians had their hieroglyphics to represent consonant sounds, but it was Semitic workers who devised the first consonantal alphabet around 2000 BCE. From this humble beginning does our own alphabet descended.

It was the Greeks who gave us the first script that consistently assigned letters to both consonants and vowels. The Romans changed it up a bit and gave us Latin which became the most widely used alphabet and the one we use today.

Left to right, Latin, Greek, original Phoenician, Hebrew and Arabic.


So let us be respectful, let us be reverent, let us not take it for granted. Let us be thankful for those first inventive souls who experimented with a new form of writing. Let us rejoice, for our 26 letters have given us wealth beyond measure.

A toast to the humble building block. The Alphabet.

Oh Hummingbird!

Fearless little bird. Your were stuck on the porch. Your little wings beat furiously. You searched and searched for a way out but kept flying into the screen.

You must have been beating your beak against that airy wall for some time, for when I came out and found you, you were obviously weary.

You were lost in a corner, no energy left to zip from one end of the porch to the other and back again. I reached out my hand and...you perched on my finger.

But you could not stay there and in an instant you were flying in your corner hunting for the exit.

Again I raised my hand and again you perched upon my finger.

And yet a third time. It was, for those brief moments, akin to holding the energy of an atom on the tip of my finger. Small, fleeting, eternal motion.

Oh hummingbird, tiny fearless female, you could not sit long enough for me to carry you to the door. I had to cup you in my hands where you lay still. Yet when I opened them
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip
you were gone.


Have you ever had a hummingbird sit on your finger?

New Words

My husband passed these on to me, so I have NO idea where they came from or how long these have be out on the world wide web. But they are just too funny for...well, for words! Enjoy.

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an (censored) hole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

Do you have any "new" words to add to the list?

How about:
Explortation: The act of exploring new territories for the purpose of exploitation.

Awards

Jen over at unedited has given me the...

Thank you Jennifer!

Recently I made a decision. There are so many wonderful awards going around and so many wonderful blogs, that I am finding it difficult to keep up with who has what. Therefore if and when I am given an award (like this one and I DO APPRECIATE them, honest) I say...If you are reading this, consider yourself awarded!

So take this wonderful hug and pass it around.

Blue Bonnets

Blue bonnets are the State Flower of Texas. For the past two years blue bonnets have been minimal because of the drought. This year there is a bumper crop. People are taking the blue bonnet tour. One particular drive is the Willow City Loop. You can see pictures of the fabulous views here.

We have no idea how these came to live in our yard. Though their seeds can lie dormant for ten years or more, we didn't seed them. They just appeared. There used to be two green houses (in which my husband grew herbs for wholesale to the local nurseries) where they are now growing . It's a mystery, but however they got here we are honored to have them. The bees are happy too.

From this first picture of the first blue bonnet which I posted just three weeks ago...


...we now have this!

Has something wonderful and unexpected come up in your life or yard this spring?

Thinking About a Contest

I'm up to 71 followers. Only 29 to go and I'll be at 100. Which got me to thinking about having a contest when I reach that auspicious number.

This is a heads-up to let you know something will come along.

It will involve words.

There will be three winners.

Prizes will be unique one of kind items.

To move this contest forward, to help it along... if you know someone who might like to become a Random Follower of Random Thoughts, well I'd be just elated. The sooner we can get to 100 the sooner you can play with words and win a prize for doing it!

Haiti Update

As we hide and hunt for Easter eggs, as we celebrate and pray, as we eat lots of food and chocolate and enjoy our time with family, let us not forget about those in need.

An update from Past District Governor, Rotarian Dick McCombe, on what's happening in Haiti.

Another Mini update
March 30 2010

I have been remiss in not updating all of you on the continued progress with our Haiti Relief effort. As I mentioned in the last update our mid term focus was going to be schools and to complete the consolidation of relief supplies on the way to Haiti and to help facilitate that exercise through our Charter from Nassau. This charter is leaving with 68 20’ Containers or equivalents on it FULL of Rotary supplied or coordinated Relief supplies.

Many Districts and Clubs have continued to send relief goods to be consolidated and shipped through our shipper in the US. Thanks to Larry Labadie and Phil Lustig this has gone well state side. There has been one disappointment with this exercise but I believe it has been resolved.

The ship was to have left 3 weeks ago, but due to the following it has been delayed and leaves next week. The first obstacle was that we needed to get approval from the Bahamian Government to transship the ship load of containers through the Bahamas. This was necessary because some of the containers (23) were being filled in Nassau from Relief Supplies sourced in and through Nassau which meant that they had to be off loaded here. This approval process took a bit over a week. When approval had been received it took an additional week for ACL to coordinate the container movement to Nassau. The approval unfortunately came after the ship was scheduled for another Humanitarian trip to Haiti that had delays in the offloading. What does that mean? We are running very late!!!!!

We have containers of medical supplies, tents, Xtra Large School tents, building materials for school desks and benches, ambulances, busses, trucks, hospital beds, awnings, beds and mats, clothing, some food and water items, prepackaged meals, and much much more.

When the containers arrive in Haiti they will be distributed to the selected communities that they have been packed for, by Chatelain Cargo, a fellow Haitian Rotarian so we are confident that that exercise will be swift. On arrival in the communities the Rotarians will erect the tents and begin to make space for the expanded population of students while local labour will assemble the desks and chairs and get paid for doing so. This should help with the kids in school and add some local employment.

At our Haiti Task Force meeting in Miami, we had asked the Rotary Clubs through the Assistant governors to submit their needs lists so we could allocate additional resources depending on the latest needs identified. Unfortunately we are still waiting for submissions from some Club Presidents, and have others that are requests for well beyond what our funding capabilities are. We are working through this but it is taking some time. Once we have all the information consolidated we will try to make it available to all clubs in Zones 33 and 34.

We are anxiously awaiting the final draft of the PDNA (Post Disaster National Assessment) and the scheduled review of the document by all parties. Unfortunately this information has also been hard to come by in any reliable form so we are standing by for the information and ready to move when we get it.

Finally, the rainy season has begun and the challenges in Haiti for Shelter and Health issues will only grow exponentially, so pray hard and hope what we do achieve will make a difference to those that need it most.

PDG Dick

Have a blessed and happy Easter.