Gee, Somebody Likes Me

It has been a while since I've received a blogger award. I've been blogging since 2006 and I confess I don't get out to visit other blogs as much as I would like these days. If you comment on my blog I always try to return the visit, though. I know there are folks who visit hundreds of blogs every week and I admire them for that.

Anyway, Gone Country over at the blog From City Streets to Country Roads very kindly gave me the Versatile Blogger Award the other day. I am very glad she enjoys my blog and I want to thank her and all of my readers for taking a little time out of their day to see what I have to say.

These things generally come with a little hook and something to do, and I am going to break the chain here and not list them. I will list some blogs that I enjoy reading and if they want this award, or if you are blogger and you would like this award, then here it is. Personally, I think if you blog you deserve it just for being you.

So here is a shout-out to some blogs you might enjoy!

A Journal of Days

Autumn Sky Ranch (a brand-new blog!)

The Blue Ridge Gal

Greener Pastures - A City Girl Goes Country (Deb, you need to write more!)

Loose Leaf Notes

News From the Hill

Peevish Pen

Shenandoah Gateway Farm

Sweet Virginia Breeze

Happy reading!

Why I Don't Watch TV

The class I am taking called Detectives in Film & Literature has pointed out to me something I already knew but tend to overlook.

I am not up on popular culture.

Movies are not something I go to, except maybe once a year. I don't sit around and watch them on TV, either. I don't watch very many TV shows. At the moment, the only thing I am making a point of watching is Survivor and the new Charlie's Angels, and neither are overly great. We also watch a lot of shows on History and Discovery Channel, but if I miss them, I don't worry about them.

I stopped watching a lot of TV in 1995. The other day I was trying to figure out what happened in 1995 to make me stop sitting in front of the 'tube, and it hit me. That was when we suddenly had more than three channels.

You see, up until that point, my TV viewing was limited by accessibility. When I was growing up, I could only get one channel - ABC. If a show came on ABC, I watched it. I loved going to my grandmother's because they could get all three channels - and PBS.

When I married, I moved up in the world. We could get CBS and ABC. After we moved to our current home in 1987, we could get all three channels. But not PBS.

The big C-Band satellite came to our house in 1995. You might remember those honkin' big dishes that folks had outside their homes. The thing was huge, about 10 feet across, covered with mesh, with a big pointy nose sticking up into space. It moved about in search of the satellite feeds.

So we suddenly had 250 channels. My husband picked up the remote.

Flip.
Flip.
Flip.
Flip.

And that was the end of my TV watching. I cannot stand to sit there and watch pieces of shows. I'm rather anal in that when I watch a movie, I watch it from beginning to end. Same with a series. If I don't see the pilot, I generally don't watch the show.

But it is not all his fault. That was also the year I began freelancing for a newspaper in another county. I covered all the government meetings over there, and that meant that I was out at least one night a week, if not more, and not generally the same night. That meant I missed shows. Which meant I just stopped watching, because if I couldn't see them all as they were shown, I just wouldn't watch.

These days, I read while he flips through the TV channels. Sometimes he stops on something and watches it. Sometimes I might look up if it is interesting.

I started watching Survivor from the very first episode. My mother had just passed away and I needed a distraction. It came on the one night I did not have something else to do, and it was on CBS, a channel I could easily find on the satellite. It has remained a show I watch just out of, I don't know, some kind of weird icky voyeurism. I know it's stupid and a waste of my time but I watch it anyway. I don't know why.

Since 1995, the series I have watched in their entirety are few. Here are some: JAG, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Also Six Feet Under, The Band of Brothers and John Adams on HBO.

I wanted to watch Lost but I missed the first episode so I never picked it up. I never watched X-Files. I never saw any of the offshoots of Star Trek, except for Voyager, and I only saw that up to season 3, and then it moved to a channel that the C-Band satellite didn't get so I didn't see the rest of it. Actually, I didn't see all of Buffy until I watched it a few years ago on DVD while I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill for the same reason. Something happened with the channel.

I have not seen a single episode of American Idol, So You Can Dance, or 24. I don't know what Mad Men or Modern Parents are about. I have not watched any version of CSI, NCIS, or anything like that.

These days we have one of those small satellite dish and 300 channels.

Flip
Flip
Flip

It's the same thing. Lots of channels. Nothing to watch.

I have missed out on a lot of TV viewing. But I have also read a lot of books, met a lot of people, spent way too much time on the computer, returned to school several times over the last 20 years, and lived what I consider a full life.

If that means I don't have a clue what they're talking about in class, it's something I can live with.

Thursday Thirteen #210

I always knew the Thursday would come when I was completely and absolutely bereft of ideas, and not feeling up to an eclectic Thursday Thirteen. That day is here. So today, I guess I'm going to start out doing things that start with the letter "A" and we'll see where that takes me. I suspect it will be an eclectic TT about things that start with a certain letter!

1. Me! Well, "me" doesn't start with the letter A, but my name does. Anita. That's my name. According to the website Behind the Name (one of my favorites), Anita is a diminutive of Ana, which is a form of Anna, which originally came from Channah, or Hannah. "The name appears briefly in the New Testament belonging to a prophetess who recognized Jesus as the Messiah," the site says.

2. Apple. I love apples. Did you know Johnny Appleseed's birthday is in September? That's right, he was a real person. His real name was John Chapman and he was born on September 26, 1774. He brought apples to the American mid west.

3. Angels. Angels are spiritual beings who serve God, mostly as messengers. They are depicted in the Bible as being important to the Apocalypse. The theological study of angels is called angelology. Many people think we have guardian angels who watch over us and keep us safe.

4. Accordion. An accordion is a musical instrument that has a bellows and a keyboard. Believe it or not, I used to play one. My father had one when I was a teenager, and at that time I could play pretty much any instrument I picked up. I did not particularly care for the accordion because it was very heavy and hard to hang on to and manage.

5. Ankle. When I was 32, I carried some food outside to toss over the fence. I stepped in a big hole and fractured my ankle. I also made a mess of the tendons. I was on crutches for a while and I had a limp for almost a year. For several years after that, my ankle would pop and make crunchy sounds. Thankfully it doesn't do that anymore.

6. Art. I love to look at art, but aside from writing, which is a type of art, I don't really create art. I took a couple of art courses in college, and received decent grades, but I am no artist. My friend Dreama Kattenbraker is a wonderful local artist who has a whimsical style. My Hollins professor was Nancy Dahlstrom. These two wonderful ladies, and many other local artists, will be part of Botetourt County's first-ever Open Studios event on October 29 and 30.

7. Anagram is a form of word play. You take a word or a phrase and then you use all of the letters of that word or phrase to create a completely new word. Example: Antigone = negation. You can find an anagram solver here.

8. Academics. I love academics, that is to say, learning. I enjoy being a student and gaining understanding of new things. I feel better when my brain is getting a workout.

9. Asthma. This is not something I have blogged about much, but back in July I was told my asthma needed to be controlled. In fact, I was only breathing with something like 67 percent of my lung capacity. My doctor put me on two different controller inhalers, and I am breathing much better now. When you have asthma, your lungs swell and the little air tubes narrow, making it hard to breathe. It causes wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing. Apparently there is no cure.

10. Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in words. It is used a lot in poetry. For example, "juiced and jazzed" or "immemorial elms march madly for miles." These are also examples of consonance, that is, alliteration with the consonants.

10. Assonance is alliteration with the vowel sounds, not consonants. For example, "The purple curtain made me uncertain as to why I was hurting."
11. Ancestor. I have long been a student of genealogy, and I can trace my ancestors back to the late 1700s in Botetourt County, Virginia, where I live. My ancestry here goes back at least seven generations. At one time, my ancestors owned part of the Catawba Valley, particularly the area around Catawba Hospital. They came over to America from Scotland and Germany.

12. Aspartame. This is a good time to offer up my occasional rant against this rat poisoning that the government allows as a sweetener. I am not a fan of sucrolose, either, as that is chlorinated sugar. Here is a pro-aspartame website. It will tell you how safe it is. Here is a website that tells you how terrible this drug is. It lists 92 different problems that aspartame can cause, including MS, lupus, cancer, vision problems, and death. I think this is a loathsome chemical. The 'net is full of reports about aspartame and the illnesses it reportedly causes. Just type it in. The government says aspartame does no harm. Since I tend to believe little the government tells me, I guess you can figure what I think about this. I think the stuff is poison. So is sucrolose.
13. Afraid. Something I am a lot more afraid than I care to admit. The older I get, the more a-feared I become, I think. These days I worry about my health and fear becoming even less healthy than I already am. I think I am afraid of my own shadow on some days, but fortunately that does not happen very often. Other things I am afraid of - failure, success, mean people, rabid animals, losing my house, writing, and not writing. I am not afraid of ghosts.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 210th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Hound of the Baskerville

Hound of the Baskerville
By Arthur Conan Doyle
Written in 1901
130 pages
Read the entire work at this link.

This is one of the books we are reading in my Detectives in Film & Literature course at Hollins University.

Dr. Mortimer visits Sherlock Holmes because a supernatural hound has killed the owner of the Baskerville estate. The man's heir is on his way, and Dr. Mortimer wants only to know if he should take the man to the estate or send him back to Canada.

Holmes does not believe the owner died because of a supernatural hound. He sends his pal Dr. Watson with Dr. Mortimer and Henry Baskerville along to the Baskerville estate. Holmes stays in London to tend to other business.

Watson tells the story about odd happenings at the Baskerville estate. Eventually he is joined by Holmes and they solve the mystery.

I have never been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, though I know others like him. There is little characterization in this story and I find that tedious reading. It's mostly plot.

Also, class bias is quite evident as the the tales of the supernatural hound are given over to the common folk, and they are quickly dismissed.

The story seems to make fun of other books, such as gothic tales, that require a little suspense of reality while there are supernatural things going on.

The author tosses in a red herring or two to throw the reader off, but I had pretty much figured out who the criminal was long before I realized his motive.

However, if you like a detective story and have never read this, check it out. Note that I did not give away the ending!

Ch..ch..changes

So, Facebook has made changes to its newsfeed.

Blogger made changes to its dashboard and the way it posts, which I just this weekend decided to look at it.

It's one thing when you make changes yourself, it is quite another to have them thrust upon you so that you're forced to deal with them.

And these are very minor things, really, in the grand scheme of life.

I mean, life is all about change.

You change your clothes.
You change your mind.
You change your lifestyle.
You change jobs.
You change your brand of cereal.
You change your diet.
You change your shoes.
You change the color of the paint on the walls.
You change your decor all around.
You change your locale if you move.
You change jobs.
You change friends.
You change.

You get the idea. Change is the one constant in the world. It's always out there. The trees are growing, the rain falls or the sun shines. Every day, every minute, every second - it's all about change. Every spin of the earth brings about change, good or bad. Every action has a reaction - you can't stop it.

So there is no arguing against change. It's a-coming whether you want it not. The questions then, are two: What kind of change? And how will you handle it?

Change can only be three things: good, bad or so little that you barely notice it and it is therefore negligible. You can deal with it in a million ways, but essentially it boils down to you handle it well or you don't.

I have been trying to make positive changes in my life of late. In the last year, I've made these positive changes:

returned back to college.
started a diet.
increased my exercise.
returned to playing the guitar.
returned to journaling in a notebook.
looked up some old friends.
learned how to use the digital video camera.
visited a doctor and took care of health issue.

These are all good things. I hope that you have added some good things to your life in the last year, too. It's important to stop, revisit the list, and pat yourself on the back for the achievements every once in a while.

Change is not all bad. So I wish for you today that good changes come your way.

TV: Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (2011)
Starring:
Annie Ilonzeh
Minka Kelly
Rachael Taylor
Ramón Rodríguez
Victor Garbe

I know my regular readers are puzzled. What am I doing watching TV - and actually writing about it?

Well, I do watch some TV, but not a lot. And I cannot remember the last time I made a point of sitting down and watching a pilot of a show.

However, I am a big Charlie's Angels fan from way back. When I was 13 and the original show came on, I never missed an episode. And I liked the first Charlie's Angels movie with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu. The second one, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, is okay but it went a little over the top, moving from detective to superhero in one gigantic leap.

So I was curious to see what the new incarnation of Charlie's Angels would look like. Plus I am taking this class on detectives in film and literature, so I could plausibly call this homework.

This will be a spoiler, so if you are not keen on knowing what happens, please walk away now.

The three angels, Abby (Rachael Taylor), Kate (Annie Ilonzeh), and Gloria (Nadine Velesquez), are more or less criminals. Abby is from a wealthy family, but she is also a good cat burglar. Kate is a former police officer who went bad. Gloria was in the military but received a court martial. Charlie has given them a second chance.

Bosley (Ramón Rodríguez) is a very handsome young fellow who got caught hacking the IRS's computers.

In this first show, called Angel With a Broken Wing, the three girls go off to save a young girl who is being sold as a sex slave. They accomplish their mission quickly and meet back at headquarters for a pat on the back. Abby and Kate decide to go party, but Gloria says she has something else to do. They all go outside, and Abby and Kate stop to have a chat about some unopened letters from Abby's father that Kate found in the trash. Gloria goes to her car, gets in, and the car explodes. She is dead.

Exterior cameras caught a woman on a motorbike leaving the scene of the crime. Kate and Abby go after her and find her on a boat. The woman in question, Eve, turns out to be a tough catch. As they have a stand-off, a helicopter comes roaring over the water and bullets fly. They all dive in the ocean, and Kate and Abby decide Eve is not the bad guy.

They join forces to find Gloria's killer. Eve is a childhood friend of Gloria's, and she relays a horrible tale of a time when she and Gloria lived together in an orphanage and some men came to take them away to sell as sex slaves. However, they escaped but they could not forget the looks of terror on the faces of their fellow orphans. Of course, the fellow that the Angels were after originally is the very same guy.

The evil sex trader is now a wealthy millionaire, so they infiltrate a ritzy party and capture his woman. Eve gets caught, though, and the evil fellow recognizes her as the little girl who got away. He takes her away for torture.

His woman soon tells them where Eve and other enslaved young girls are, and the Angels go save her.

Charlie asks Eve to join the team as the third angel, and she agrees.

That's the basic story. Not bad, really. This episode reminded me a lot of the Charlie's Angels movie with Drew Barrymore, which is no surprise since Barrymore is an executive producer of this new show.

The show is set in Miami, and I think it was a good idea to move it to the east coast. I thought the girls were pretty, the acting okay. I like the young, sexy fellow as Bosley, though I personally think he should be gay. Just because.

The show offered up a few homages to the original show. First, Kate's name obviously is a nod to Kate Jackson, who played Sabrina Duncan in the original. For those who may not know, the original Charlie's Angels was created as a vehicle specifically for Jackson, who at the time was on her way to becoming a major TV star. She was my favorite Angel and I remember reading that she was Barrymore's, too.

The address of the Townsend Agency was 1976 Ocean Blvd. and that address is obviously a nod to the year the original series began. The original ran from 1976 to 1981.

When Bosley is introduced, Abby says his name and the camera cuts to a fellow who looked very much like David Doyle, who played the original Bosley. I was actually relieved when Bosley turned out to be a hunky Latino with two beautiful women adoring him in a swimming pool.

The idea of killing off the lead angel and bringing in the second sister is what happened with the original show. In the original, Jill Monroe (Farrah Fawcett Majors) left (though she didn't die) and her young sister, Kris Monroe (Cheryl Ladd) took her place.

There were probably more nods to the original that I would see on a second viewing.

The only thing I did not care for was the voice of Charlie. It is far too soft and sexy.

I don't know if this is a show that will stand the test of time - even a few months - because I certainly have no idea what the pulse of the viewing public is these days. I think the show would be a solid medium viewing experience, but these days that is not good enough.

The camera action was interesting and different, very reminiscent of the movies. The show had a lot of fast action and if you like to see girls doing martial arts then this is the show for you.

I did not dislike it. I will watch it again next week to see how it progresses.

You can read a review of it here. This writer calls the show mediocre, neither good nor bad.  Below you can see the trailer for the 2011 TV show.

Thursday Thirteen

I'm taking a class called Detectives in Film & Literature at Hollins University. So today I think I'll list 13 female detectives. They can be from TV, movies, or books. And I am not current on my TV and movie viewing, so some of these go back to the 1980s simply because I haven't really watched that much TV since about 1995.

1. Stephanie Plum. She is the heroine of Janet Evanovich's books, and I have listened to all of these on audio, and read a few of them. She is a bounty hunter/amateur detective, and she doesn't so much detect as have stuff just sort of happen. She's a bumbling detective. The first book is called One for the Money, and the rest of the books have titles that have something to do with the number of the book in the series. A movie based on the first book is scheduled for release soon.

2. Kinsey Milhone. She is the heroine of Sue Grafton's ABC mystery series. These books are interesting in that they continue to be set in the 1980s as opposed to bringing the heroine up to the present day. She is a strong detective, a loner, who enjoys her work and is very serious about it. No bumbling here.

3. Nancy Drew. I grew up reading these stories. Nancy always saved the day. She was very much the amateur detective. These books were written under the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene, and were actually the work of a series of writers.

4. DeeDee McCall. She is a sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department and the co-star of the 1980s TV series Hunter. She was played by Stepfanie Kramer. Rick Hunter is the other detective in the show. He was played by Fred Dyer.

5. Christine Cagney. She was a detective with the New York Police Department and co-star in the show Cagney & Lacy. She was played most famously by Sharon Gless; the role was first taken by Meg Foster. However, she only lasted a season.

6. Mary Beth Lacey. She was a detective with the New York Police Department and co-star in the show Cagney & Lacey. She was played by Tyne Daly throughout the series.

7. Amelia Peabody. She's a detective, of sorts, in the mystery series by Elizabeth Peters. She's actually an archaeologist, and the mysteries generally surround her work in Egypt.

8. Sabrina Duncan. She was one of three detectives in the original Charlie's Angels TV series. She was played by Kate Jackson.

9. Kelly Garrett. She was one of the three detectives in the original Charlie's Angels TV series, too. She was played by Jacqueline Smith.

10. Precious Ramotswe is a detective in a series of books called The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. The books were made into a series that showed on HBO, too.

11. Kay Scarpetta is the chief medical examiner in Virginia in a series of books by Patricia Cornwell.

12. Buffy Summers is a vampire slayer and solver of mysteries in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the TV series. I read a lot of the books that came out when the show was popular, and they were pretty good, too.

13. Goldy Bear. She is the heroine of the Goldy books, a series by Diane Mott Davidson. Goldy is a chef and so the mysteries tend to have something to do with cooking. There are recipes in the books, too.


PS I was using the amazon associates widget that allowed me to put pictures of the books up on my blog. However, it is no longer working. Anybody have a clue?



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 209th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: Pontoon

Pontoon
by Garrison Keillor
Copyright 2007
Read by the author

I enjoy hearing Garrison Keillor read. He has interesting inflection in his voice. His stories are genuine, full of detail, and fun.

Pontoon is another Lake Wobegone tale. Evelyn, who is 82 years old, has died. She wants to be cremated and buried in a bowling ball. This is not acceptable behavior for a conservative, Lutheran town.

Not only that, but Evelyn's daughter, Barbara, is a lush. And someone named Debe wants to get married out on the very lake that Evelyn wants to be plummeted into (while she's in the bowling ball, of course).  Add in a bunch of Norwegian pastors and well, you've got a Keillor tale.

Fun listen.

Art for Art's Sake

Yesterday, my husband and I visited the Taubman Museum in Roanoke.

It was the first time I had been in the building, which was built in 2008. So it took me a long time to get down there.

I love to look at art, but I am not a fan of downtown Roanoke. I always have trouble parking and I don't like the atmosphere of the entire city - I find it smelly and fraught and full of crazy people who seem to always want to accost me for a cigarette or money.

I used to work downtown and I am pretty sure it ruined my idea of the area. I once had a man chase me down three blocks, trying to take my purse and my life, until I ran into a shop and begged the owner to hide me while she called the police. The man wasn't a criminal, he was insane and he thought I was his mother or sister or something. But he scared me and I have never felt safe in downtown Roanoke since that happened. Yes, that was a long time ago, like 1990. No, I haven't gotten over it. It scarred me for life.

So anyway, I try not to go to downtown Roanoke unless I have someone with me.

The Taubman, on the exterior, looks to me like a spaceship that crashed into downtown. The inside looks better, but what a lot of wasted space. I didn't even find it that visually interesting. Oh well. I didn't go to see the building.

We looked at all of the exhibits. We went because I was keenly interested in one called In the Moment: Light, Vision and Memory Celebrating Photography in the 125th year of The Roanoke Times. Being an old newspaper woman, this interested me, as you might imagine.

They had some wonderful photographs on display. Several depicted scenes where Roanoke was on the national list - visits from presidents such as FDR, JFK, and Nixon, for example. There were just a few from the Flood of 1985. There was one of a house burning down earlier this year, and another of a fireman resuscitating a child back in the 1970s.  They were all high quality shots. My biggest complaint was not quality, but quantity. I wanted to see much more. There simply weren't enough of the pictures.

Because of regulations against photography at most of the displays, I did not take many pictures. You could take pictures of things that are on permanent display, and I took a few shots there. Follow the links if you want a better idea of the displays.

My husband enjoyed the Civil War Drawings from the Becker Collection. These were made by special artists on assignment who kept track of the Union soldiers during the war by drawing pictures.

I don't think either of us knew what to make of the Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth exhibit. This is a display of wearable suits that look completely out of this world.

Here a few shots of some of the permanent exhibits.

A very large portrait of a lady. She took up a very big space.

 Some of those pictures that make you scratch your head.

My husband looking at sketches on one of the walls. The picture in the rear, right, is called "Mardi Gras."

A few sculptures. The picture in the right rear, the one with the yellow, was called "Strumming" (or something like that) and I thought it was an artistic depiction of the sound of music. I think it was my favorite piece in the museum.

If you're local or just visiting, you can explore the Taubman Tuesday through Saturdays, 10 a.m - 5 p.m. and from 12 - 5 p.m. on Sunday. General admission is $7.

Moon Set

I snapped this shot earlier in the week as the orange full moon began to fall beneath the horizon. In the shot, the fog has settled in the valley and the trees harbor a tinge of yellow as Autumn sneaks her way in.

Through the Window

Some days, the deer come right up to the house. They are so close they are looking in through the windows.  I start to wonder if I'm the animal in the zoo cage and they're the ones visiting.

The other day, a mother doe and two of her fawns appeared.

Mother and Junior grazing in my yard. The photos were taken through the window with my Nikon D40. The glass created a bit of a glare.

Apparently this little one was in need of attention. Mother Deer stayed with it for quite a while. 

 Mostly she cleaned the little fawn's ears.

 Apparently they were very dirty!

Here's a shot to show you the window, so you can see how close they come to the house. That's about 10 feet away.

Thursday Thirteen

I have been thinking about careers. My career path has been rather erratic. For 10 years I worked in the legal field as a legal secretary. I don't think there are legal secretaries any more.  During that time I also freelanced and wrote articles. Then in 1993 I began freelancing full time, and that's all I did up until I started back to college last year.

Oh, there were a few little things here and there - one year I worked as a substitute teacher in the lower grades, which I absolutely hated. Occasionally I worked as a temp worker and that was always interesting. But writing was my passion and while I haven't followed it exactly as I planned (there is no book to show for all of that work, after all), I did manage to make a living at it for almost 20 years. And that's more than many folks.

But now I am wondering what I might have done had writing not been the thing driving me. So here are 13 career options that might have worked out for me:

1. College professor. Obviously, I would have to have gone to college right out of high school and then went after a Ph.D. to have managed this one. I think, though, of all the things I might have done, this would have suited me best. I have my bachelors and my masters is within my grasp. The Ph.D.? not so close.

2. Lawyer. This, too, would have required a great deal more schooling, but I enjoyed the legal profession when I was working in it. I wasn't too keen on the personality of the some of the lawyers, because many of them were jerks, but I like the idea of the law. I  particularly enjoyed estate work and I could see myself doing that.

3. Forest ranger. I tested high for this job when I was in high school. I was offered a summer internship as a park ranger but my parents would not let me go. But I think I would have liked it.

4. Psychologist. Another job that requires a great deal more education. I have a lot of empathy, though, and I have been told that I give good advice and I am a good listener.

5. Artist. This requires talent, which I do not have, in that I cannot draw very well at all. I have taken a few art classes in my time and I have never been successful at it. I am not very crafty, either.

6. Photographer. Actually, I have done this, so perhaps it doesn't belong here, but I never really considered myself a professional photographer even though I have published and been paid for many, many photographs. I'm more of an auto-setting sort of girl when it comes to the camera, though I do play around with the F-stops and such occasionally. But mostly I fly by the seat of my pants and any really good photos I've managed to take have been the result of luck, not talent.

7. Sociologist. After my sociology class last spring, I thought this would have been an interesting field of study. I am particularly interested in the field of women's studies, and probably would have gravitated in that direction.

8. Musician. Here again, talent is key. I played guitar well enough, and I have a good musical ear, but I never felt I had the true talent necessary to be a professional. I lacked the drive, I think. But it would have been an interesting life.

9. Private investigator. Now this would be exciting, wouldn't it? Even though I think in real life, PIs mostly investigate things like insurance fraud. The cloak-and-dagger stuff really doesn't happen, but I like to solve problems and use my intuition to figure out the next move, so this might have been a really interesting line of work for me.

10. Historian. I consider myself an amateur historian, of sorts, and have written many articles about the local history. However, I don't dig around in the archives and I'm not much on musty old buildings because of my asthma and allergies. So maybe not, but not something to toss aside because I do have an interest in the subject.

11. Video game creator. I don't even know if this is a job, but I think it would be cool to work in the video game industry and create video game story lines.

12. Town Manager. I think I would like some kind of job with a small government like a town. It would be detailed and interesting, changing every day.

13. Librarian. This would require more schooling, too, as most librarians today must have a masters degree in library science. But I think it would be fun.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 208th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday

Music: In Your Dreams

In Your Dreams
Stevie Nicks
2011
13 songs

Music is not something I blog about much, but I love it and I listen to it daily. What I don't do is buy it. I tend to listen to what I already own, turn on the radio, listen to the music on the DirecTV satellite, or listen to Pandora on the PC.

However, Saturday I purchased Stevie Nicks newest CD after reading a review of it in the newspaper. I have always liked Stevie Nicks. I have several Fleetwood Mac albums and a couple of her solo efforts.

This newest album is very smooth. If I wanted to mix it with the music I already own, I would not hesitate to toss it in with my Fleetwood Mac, Melissa Etheridge, and Sheryl Crow albums, for it flows much like their songs do.

My favorite song on this newest album is Annabel Lee, which is taken from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe. How cool is that? Very cool!

Lots of nice guitar sounds, and Nicks hasn't lost a thing with age. Her timeless, haunting vocals are still full and strong.

If you click on the Amazon link, you can hear a preview of the songs. I highly recommend a listen if you're curious. The preview is free, though you might have to poke around a bit to figure out how to make it work.

Remembering 9/11

Art Everywhere

Tuesday when I pulled into the parking lot at Hollins University to go to my first class of the semester, I found this row of decorated trash bins.

The college had held  bin decorating contest earlier in the day, I think.

I thought this was a wonderful sight.

Last night when I was back on campus, I saw that the trash and recycling bins had been placed all over the campus.

Way to go Hollins Women!

Thursday Thirteen

Today's Thursday Thirteen offers up some numbers. I think you'll see the connection by the time I'm done.  The numbers pertain to the United States and the first sets of numbers were tabulated in 2009

1. 3,010 - the number of deaths by fire

2. 1,348,500 - the number of fires


3. 17,050 - the number of civilian injuries caused by fire


4. $12,531,000,000 ($12.5 billion) - property loss by fire

5. 26,534,000 - the total number of calls to 911 for assistance

6. 50 - the average weight of a firefighter's gear (helmet, coat, boots, gloves)

7. 25 - the average weight of a firefighters SCBA gear (oxygen, breathing mask)

8. 75 - the average weight in pounds that a firefighter carries when rushing into a burning building

9. 24 - 30 - the average length in feet of a fire truck

10.  107 - the number of floors in New York City's World Trade Center's largest building



11. 8:50 a.m. on 09/11/2001 - the time an incident command was established by firefighters after a plane flew into the World Trade Center building. The first plane hit at 8:45 a.m.; firefighters were on the scene and entering the building within five minutes of the attack.

12. 9:59 a.m. on 09/11/2001 - the time the first building collapsed at the World Trade Center

13. 343 - the number of firefighters who lost their lives when both towers collapsed on 09/11/2001.

I am the wife of a firefighter. These people go out every day and risk their lives to save people. When you are running away in fear of your life, these people are running in to help you. Whether it's flood, tornado, fire, hurricane, downed powerlines, or a sore toe, when you call 911, these people come.

On the upcoming 10th anniversary of the attack on New York City, please remember the sacrifices of these brave men and women.

Thank you.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 207th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday

Watching the Storm

When I was a small girl, one of my favorite things was to sit out on the back stoop at my grandmother's house in Salem when a storm was approaching.

My grandfather would often sit with me. He'd light up a cigarette and together we'd watch the lightning as it danced across the sky.

He was not a demonstrative man, but if the thunder cracked loudly and I jumped, he would sometimes put an arm around me, and chuckle.

I still love to watch storms, but we seldom see lightning streaks anymore. We're not situated in a good spot.

However, Friday evening a storm came up and settled over Stone Coal Gap. Stone Coal Gap is a cut in the mountains, and I have a good view of it out my front door.

Capturing lightning on film has eluded me, and I have given up doing so with a camera. But I did want to try it with the video camera.

I placed the camera out on the porch and I went back in the house to watch from the safety of the glass door.

Here's 20 minutes of video distilled down to about a minute. You can hear the thunder and see a few lightning bolts. It's not a tornado or hurricane or anything spectacular like that; it's just a storm. But it brought me great memories of my grandpa.

Upcoming Author's Signing

This coming Saturday, September 10, from 1 - 3 p.m., Amanda Cockrell, Director of Hollins University’s Children’s Lit Grad Program, will be signing her book at Ram’s Head Book Shop in Roanoke.

Her book, What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay, is her first young adult novel. It's billed as "a quirky, surreal, and peculiar story of 15-year-old Angie, her relationship with two war-damaged men and her connection with God."

A review by the Center of Children's Books called it, “An utterly engaging narrative with a witty and thoughtful protagonist.”

I've had numerous classes with Amanda and I've read several of her books, including all of her Deer Dancer series. She is a solid writer, great with descriptions, and her characters are always believable and well-done. I have not read this book (that's why I'm going to her book signing, to obtain a copy), but knowing Amanda, I can't imagine that it is anything less than wonderful.

Amanda has published critical essays, poems, articles, and books for children and adults. She is the founding director of Hollins University's graduate program in children's literature and managing editor of the university's literary journal, The Hollins Critic. She has received fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Visit the link above to her website and read her essay on why she writes and what she has learned in her many writing jobs. It's an interesting read and a little look at what makes us writers do what we do.

Maybe some of my fellow bloggers will join me at this event? I do hope so!

Deer Pictures From Game Camera

The thing I like best about shots from the game or trail camera is the angle and the closeness.

So far all we've photographed are deer. I'm hoping for something different, like a bear or coyote, but not so far.

Thursday Thirteen

Happy September 1! It's a brand new month! That means it's time for my Thankful Thursday Thirteen, where I list 13 things that happened in the previous month that I feel were blessings.

1. My class reunion. Wow, this was a big one. Our 30th reunion was a smash. I enjoyed every minute of it.

2. I discovered that I want to learn to dance. At my reunion I did dance but I can't dance, so I would like to rectify that. Maybe by the time we have our next reunion, I will be able to foxtrot or something.

3. I reconnected with several old friends. This has been an interesting time for me. Some old high school chums I have seen out and about regularly for these 30 years, but others I literally had not seen since the day we graduated. I am back in touch with a few of these folks on a more regular basis and we're in the process of becoming friends again. It's nice.

4. I received my grade for the graduate class I took this summer. It was an A-, which I was not so happy about, but that was better than a B+ so I can't really complain.

5. I continued to make squash casserole and refined the recipe. Since I do not consider myself a cook, this was an accomplishment.

6. My husband and I took a day trip to West Virginia. We visited the New River Valley Gorge Bridge, and other places, and had a wonderful day together.

7. As of last Sunday, I have lost 13 pounds since June. Weight Watchers is good for me!

8. I visited my asthma doctor and received a thumbs up on my breathing tests. The asthma inhalers are working and I am breathing much better.

9. I read these these books: The Way, by Kristen Wolf (highly recommended!), Ladies of the Lake, by Haywood Smith, and Rescue, by Anita Shreve. It is such a blessing to be able to read!

10. I had lunch with my friends BS. and LS. and we had nice visits.

11. I wrote about 13 pages on my thesis.

12. I saw a golden sunset and was thankful for the beauty of nature that is all around me.

13. My computer crashed but I was able to fix it and get everything working again. I was so relieved!






Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 206th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday

Why My Flowers Won't Grow

Alas, the flower pots on the end of the deck are looking sad these days.

I wondered why.

The other morning I glanced out the door and I knew.

Three deer eating on my flowers!

Here are two of the culprits, laughing at me!

Darned deer.

The Art of Letting Go

I keep a tight rein on my thoughts and feelings about 99 percent of the time. It reflects in my writing, even on my blog. I seldom  just "let it go" and write, but when I do the results are often surprising.

Deb over at Greener Pastures let loose a whopping blog entry that was ostensibly about another blogger, Ginger over at landuvmilknhoney but was more about how alienated she feels as a northerner in the south, and as a progressive living in the south amidst a bunch of right-wing bible thumpers.

Oh how I envy that entry, and Deb's ability to say what she wants to say without worrying about who she might offend. Because she believes her opinion is as valid as their criticism. And I find that remarkable, for I sit here in my timidity with my butt planted on a very solid line between absolutely nothing. I am fence sitter extraordinaire even though I know which side I think is the more appropriate one.

Not that I don't have opinions, because I do. I just don't share them often. Regular readers know that I am not a member of the conservative party, or the tea party, or the libertarian party. Nor do I always countenance what the progressive party sanctions, mostly because these days it is rather hard to tell the difference between parties. They're all out for profit, for big business, for control and military, and they have very little to say about regular people, the little person who sits behind a computer and plugs away trying to make a living. They care nothing for the living cogs behind the machinery, just the machines.

I feel alienated from any political party because none of them represent me. Maybe we need a Creatives Party, one that represents people who believe in the creative process, who believe in the greater good of society. A party that believes people everywhere have basic needs that government can and should meet, one that doesn't allow people to become homeless because their spouse had a heart attack and can't pay the medical bills. A more benevolent society that sees people as human beings and not as paychecks.

Ginger was a homeschooling, homesteading mom who lived about eight miles from me. She and her family were making a go on 20 acres of land - just 20 acres! and were doing well until her husband unexpectedly passed away. She stayed for a year - a year longer than I thought she would, to be sure - and then she moved to Texas to join her parents. She left the farm unsold and packed up and went. Deb admired that, and I admire that, too. I admire Ginger's ability to take care of herself and her family, to do what is necessary without fear of what others might think, without worrying about the financial end of it because she is sure God will take care of it all, in the end.

Deb wants to go back home to New Jersey, but she is staying until her place sells. She laments her inability to simply move back home like Ginger did.  She is bound here financially and she feels those bonds keenly, and aches to be free of them.

We all have our bonds, I think. We are tied up in our lives, wrapped so tightly that we can never be free. I am bound here. My family goes back generations, two hundred years of blood, sweat and tears building and creating and moving and making things more, or sometimes less, than what was here when they came. I have a farmer husband with those same ties, a fellow who would no more think of moving away than he would of tearing out his right eye.

So many days I feel simply alien in my own skin, but who wants to read that? Besides, this is a blog, not a diary, and that kind thing doesn't belong here. Not day after day, anyway. Maybe just this once, or once in a while.

But the letting go? The being free and easy with the words, the laying down of ideas and the tossing around concepts and communicating with an effortless, uncontrolled touch of a finger to the keyboard, that does belong here. Saying what I really think, without wondering if someone will sue me, accuse me, or abuse me, that does belong here, and I'd like to see it here, somehow.

I'd like to be so out of control that I know my opinion counts, and is worth something, and that its value lies in putting it out there, and so what if somebody disagrees. I sit on the pot same as they do, and so what if their pot is guilded while mine is porcelain? They do the same job.

Letting go. Being free and easy, tossing off the ropes that bind. Why O Why is it so damned hard?

**This entry has been edited.**

Books: Rescue

Rescue
By Anita Shreve
Read by Dennis Holland
Unabridged
Copyright

Peter Webster is a young paramedic when he saves Sheila Arsenault after she flips her car. He is smitten, and soon the two are a couple.

When young Rowan is born, Peter's life is complete. Unfortunately, Sheila has problems with alcohol. She is a troubled young woman and Peter cannot save her.

Fast forward 15 years. Rowan is now a troubled young 17-year-old, and Peter is uncertain how to deal with his daughter. Things happen quickly.

Fortunately, it's a happy ending.

This is a sweet little book. Most of it is spent on the relationship between Peter and Sheila, and they are interesting characters.

Recommended summer beach reading.

Deer Photos

I've been taking deer photos again!

This was taken with a game camera.

So was this.

The other morning I walked into the kitchen to see this scene out the window. It had an autumn look to it. I grabbed the Nikon and snapped.

Same scene, just a little different cropping and settings. For some reason this looks more like a painting than a photo picture to me.

Thursday Thirteen #205

I'm running late with my Thursday Thirteen today!

Here are thirteen small things that I consider blessings.

1. New socks. I absolutely love the feel of new socks on my feet. Soft and cushiony!

2. A massage. Getting a massage is just about the best pampering a body can have.

3. A touch. You know that touch from a friend, spouse, or child can be loaded with meaning. Just a touch on the shoulder can say volumes. We should all touch more often.

4. A cup of tea, and the time to sit and drink it.

5. The view out my window. I look out on a pasture field, trees, and the Blue Ridge Mountain. What could be more lovely?

6. Chocolate. Okay, I am a chocolate addict. It is one of my biggest weaknesses. I am learning to savor one piece instead of eating the whole bag, though.

7. A glass of water. Now can I get more mundane than this? But it is so cooling. It quenches my thirst. It fills me up so that I stop eating. It gives me something to do with my hands. Getting a glass of water gives me a reason to get off my duffus and away from the computer. It's wonderful!

8. A coolish day with low humidity. On a clear day I can nearly see forever, looking miles and miles across the terrain to the tops of the mountains. On such a day, you can be outside without sweating or breathing too hard.

9. Phone calls and emails from friends and family. I enjoy knowing that someone has thought about me.

10. A good book. Nothing like spending time reading, lost in a story.

11. Writing. Yes, this should have been way up on the list. It is a great joy to be able to write, to know how to write, and to actually do it.

12. The smell of roses. They make me sneeze but I love to smell my roses in the mornings when I walk outside for a deep breath of fresh air. They have such a delicate fragrance about them.

13. My cameras. I love being able to photograph the world around me and share it with others. Photos are a wonderful legacy to leave behind.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 205th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday

11 Years

Eleven years ago today, August 24, my mother died. She was 56 years old. I am 48 years old. She was not old at all.

Regular readers know she passed away from pancreatic cancer. It is a terrible disease, and I'm sorry to say, one that took my husband's aunt in January of this year.

This is my mother. The picture was taken on my wedding day, and this is pretty much how I remember her. Dark hair, lovely, all made-up and ready to take on the world. My grandfather always said she looked like Elizabeth Taylor.

My mother gave me irises when I built my house. She told me when she dying she would send me something orange so I would believe in the afterlife, and she did.

She could curse like a sailor, my mom, and she could yell loud enough to make bees freeze in midair. She would go on the warpath and we'd all know we'd best get to doing something.

Mom taught me to act like a lady when it counted, and to always wear good underwear. And to never go out in public without my makeup.

My mother could sing. She could paint, sew, and dance. She could cook anything out of nothing and make it taste good, too.

Some days I miss her.

You can read more about my mother at this entry, if you like.

Thanks for reading.

Books: Ladies of the Lake

Ladies of the Lake
By Haywood Smith
Read by Cynthia Darlow
Abridged
Copyright 2009


Four aged sisters must spend 90 days together in order to inherit their grandmother's fortune.

Of course, they do not get along. But now they're in their 50s and 60s, so its time to act like grown ups.

Some hilarity, a budding romance, a few life lessons, a little family drama. If you have a fondness for the sister relationship (whether you have sisters or not), this is a nice read.

30 Years Ago . . . Today

So last night was my 30th class reunion. When the class graduated, there were about 230 people marching for their diplomas.

We had  44 classmates and 23 guests sign up, and a few people dropped in, for a total of around 70-75 people for our big evening.

The event was held at the Kyle House in Fincastle. This is an old structure that once was a grocery store. It is now used for weddings, reunions, and other events.

The food was catered appetizers consisting of some fish things, BBQ biscuits, cheeses, crackers, spinach dip, etc.

This will be my favorite picture from the evening, I think. Not because I am in it (I'm the one in the pink) but because all of us went to Breckinridge Elementary School together. So we have known each other since we were small children. From left: Alan, Chris, Ramona, Me, Kathy, and Ann.

This is Ann. We talked a lot about our days in the rock band, Almost Famous, and our misadventures.

Ramona. I was quite impressed with how wonderful she looked. I give her many thumbs up for making positive changes in her life.

Donna and I shared a few adventures in high school, too.

Greetings at the door.

Gale (in black) saying hello to Ramona.

The memory table featured the yearbooks, a copy of The Interloper, which was a school paper of sorts, somebody's report cards, photos, etc.

We went outside to take a picture. Originally they wanted us on this balcony but some of us worried that we'd end up crashing it to the ground if we all gathered on it. Not wanting to die or be injured, we insisted on moving the photo op to the courtyard below.

This was accomplished via a circular staircase at the rear. I did not get a group picture but am hoping to steal one from someone's Facebook page later.

Our classmates who have passed on. There are 8 that we know of.

The event was very nice. I behaved myself, except for dancing. Greg wanted to dance and no one was dancing with him, so I did. The only thing is, I can't dance. I look a bit like Elaine from Friends when I dance. This has immediately gone onto my bucket list as something I want to do - learn to dance.

It was a nice time. I was home by 10 p.m. I hope to keep in touch with a few of these old friends. Back to the present day now.

Down Memory Lane

I dug out some old photos as I did a little reminiscing, what with my class reunion tonight and all. Here are a few shots of me as a younger person.

This is me in the 8th grade with my math teacher. This photo is the way I tend to remember myself, and apparently still think of myself sometimes. Long hair, jean jacket, and blue jeans. And a lot thinner than I am today. It can be quite a shock when I look in the mirror, because this is certainly not what I see!

Here's proof of that rock band I have mentioned a few times in the past. That's me on the guitar.

Another rock band photo. This was the New Year's Eve gig at Hotel Roanoke. I'm the smiling girl with glasses on the far right. I'm not naming other names out of respect for their privacy.

 Me and that guitar again. That band had a big impact on my high school years and was a big part of my life for some time.

 Me and a friend during a July 4 parade. I played flute, as you can see. This would be either 9th or 10th grade, I'm guessing.

This would be me about two years after my high graduation, since that is my husband's old pick up truck in the photo.  I can't believe I was once that little!

Ah, memories! They may be beautiful ... and yet ... sometimes painful to remember! Maybe I should choose to forget!

Looking forward to exorcising demons tonight at the ball.

Thursday Thirteen

My class reunion is this Saturday, and I am planning on going. I attended Lord Botetourt High School in Daleville, Virginia. I graduated in 1981.

So here are 13 things I remember from high school. Thirty years ago. Wow. I am old!

1. The food fight. The class of 1981 started a terrible food fight near the end of the school year. The principal, who was new that year, called in the police. The local paper wrote a story about it that ran all over the country, as my grandmother in California sent me a copy of the story from her paper. The fight was actually planned by the seniors. The new principal was very stern. It had been tradition for the senior class to pull a prank, and he was having none of it. He'd have been better off with the senior prank, which according to the yearbook was the theft of water cooler handles, though I don't recall that at all. In case you are wondering, I did not participate in the food fight. In fact, I was nowhere near the cafeteria when this happened. But I certainly saw the residue from it, and it wasn't pretty.

2. Band camp. I was in the high school band and we had summer camp at Ferrum College. I had trouble with my knee and it swelled up so that I couldn't walk on it. I eventually had to leave early, which I did not want to do. I played the flute, if you want to know.

3. Being in a Top 40/Rock Band. I played guitar in a band called Almost Famous. The band was comprised of me, Glynn Loope, Beth Arrington, Ann Jones, and Joel Woods. We started out with two others who did not stay with us long. The band stayed together for three years, and it gave us all spending money for those years. We even played a New Year's Eve gig at Hotel Roanoke (the swankiest place in town). Of the five of us, only Joel went on to do something with his music, though I lost track of Ann so she could have done something, too, I suppose.

4. Taking up for my brother. Trouble found me once because some boy was picking on my brother, who was a freshman the year I was a senior. I went after the boy in the hallway about the time a teacher turned a corner.

5. Detention. Even though I was a good student (I graduated 5th in the class), I tended to skip band class. Finally Mr. Lowe, the band director, told me if I skipped one more time I would be in trouble. I did, and I was. I remember most of my teachers were mortified. Straight A students just didn't get detention.

6. Telling off a boyfriend. We were standing in front of the library. I spat out a lot of big words. He finally told me he had no idea what I was saying. I stalked off, through the jeering crowd. How embarrassing.

7. First chair. In band, we competed for the glory of first chair. If you were the best, you were first chair. That meant you played the hard parts and you could play the piccolo. Angie Cundiff and I swapped the first chair seat back and forth for years.

8. High school football games. As a band member, I went to most of the games. I remember long bus rides back from some godforsaken place like Alleghany County after midnight, with stops at a Dairy Queen or something in Clifton Forge. But the high school game that counted the most was the game I attended the year after I graduated, for that was when I met my future husband.

9. My Datsun. This was  my first car. It was a horrid brown and it was a hatchback. I don't remember what year it was. My father gave it to me; I don't know where he got it. I drove the crap out of the thing. Backed it into a post. Took it around where the Pagan motorcycle group was camping one time, and a big knife that was in the road jumped up and poked a hole in the gas tank. I had to lie about that one as I wasn't supposed to be in that area of the county. Oops.

10. Alegebra. My favorite teacher was Tina Flippin. Many other students did not care for her. She was  a hard teacher and expected you to do your best. I loved her. I aced her classes and while I can't even figure percents today there was a time when I could do trigonometry and all of that stuff, and do it well.

11. English classes. Of course I loved my English classes. However, I remember being incredibly embarrassed once when I was reading aloud per the teacher's instructions. The sentence had the Leaning Tower of Pisa in it, which I mispronounced as pizza. The teacher laughed and asked me if I was hungry for lunch. I nodded and she pulled out a big bag of candy bars and passed them around. That was Ms. Dee Jones. What a great teacher.

12. The prom. I was a sophomore when I attended a prom at Hotel Roanoke. The thing I most remember about this was dressing up and then having my date drive me all the way to Salem so I could show my grandmother my dress. She cried.

13. Losing my retainer. I had braces and then a retainer. I threw that thing into the cafeteria trash twice, and both times I had to go outside and hunt through huge trash cans in search of it. I found it, but what a trial. It was always fine because I would wrap it up in a napkin, but the hunt sure was messy and stinky.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 204th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday

Summer Squash

This year we've had an abundance of yellow squash. The zucchini did not do well, but the yellow squash has more than made up for it.

I've fried it, sauteed it, baked it, grilled it. By far the favorite, though, has been a yellow squash casserole. This casserole is 3 points per serving on the Weight Watchers Points Plus plan.

I don't add salt and paper but use Mrs. Dash instead.

Here's the version I am using:

Squash & Rice Casserole

3 cups of squash
3 egg whites
1/2 cup low fat milk
1 cup low fat sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup onion
3 cups of cooked white rice
1 can of low fat cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup fat free Miracle Whip
Mrs. Dash
Greased casserole dish
Oven 350 degrees

Cook the squash however you like. Sometimes I boil it, sometimes I fry it up in a few tsp. of olive oil. The boiling is probably better for calories and fat. However you cook it, add liberal sprinkles of Mrs. Dash for flavoring.

Combine all the ingredients except squash. Blend in squash. Spread in casserole dish. Top with cheese. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.

This is an easy recipe for substituting ingredients. You could use cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup, for example, to change the flavor a  little. And of course you can use regular instead of low fat items for something that has a bit more fat to it. And two eggs instead of egg whites.  You could add bread crumbs or stuffing, even.  However, it's pretty good without all of that other stuff.

Go ahead, call me "liberal"

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.' . . .

"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves. . . .

"I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them. . . . liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies." 

  ~ John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960