Month: March 2017

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Rethink April Fool’s Day

April Fool's Day prank
I felt clever when I mixed up my friend’s CDs, but he was not amused.

When I was a kid, April Fool’s Day made me slightly nervous, even though I enjoyed the chance to say “April Fool!” to someone if I could manage it. Although the pranks that I worried about would not have harmed me and never actually happened to me, they still loomed large in my mind. I heard about people switching the salt and sugar, rendering their victims’ food inedible. I feared buckets of water falling off doors onto me, although I’ve never seen or heard of that happening to anyone I know. When I was a teen, I was horrified by the story of parents who set clocks ahead, then woke their children at some ungodly hour and informed them they were late for school.

I’ve managed a few good pranks — none of them on April Fool’s Day — during my life, but what I was so proud of made others genuinely unhappy, even though the pranks were not that big a deal in my eyes. In college, I was left alone in the room of a friend who had an extensive collection of classical, jazz, and rock CDs. Bored, I came up with the idea of switching the disks around, but I decided that merely swapping disks would be too easy. I pulled several CDs from different genres and mixed them up so that you might find Beethoven in a Charlie Parker case, Charlie Parker in a Pink Floyd case, Pink Floyd in a U2 case, and U2 in a Beethoven case. I remember my friend telling me months later that he was still finding disks that were out of place. He didn’t sound amused; he sounded frustrated. I recently asked him how he felt about the prank, and he told me that it was a “monumental pain.”

Then there was the time my daughter asked me to check her boots for spiders. I reached in and let out a yelp, jerking my hand backward. Although I still smile when she brings it up, she didn’t find the prank funny. She told me that, for just a moment, she was scared that I was truly hurt.

I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer. It should be clear that I love pulling a good prank as much as the next person. And not all pranks are horrible. A friend told me that she felt amused and loved when her tree was TPed. But clearly some of the pranks I’ve taken great pride in are not remembered in the same way by my victims, so if you have any doubt at all about how someone will feel about a prank, it’s best not to try it.

I’d like to propose that we still celebrate April Fool’s Day, but reconsider who the fool is. What if we decided to engage in foolish play rather than trying to fool someone else? Remembering my own childhood anxiety over April Fool’s Day, I established April 1st as “Backwards Day” with my daughter. (I believe I got the idea from a book, but I can’t remember the source.) I woke her with a loving “good night” and then went through her bedtime routine with her, including a bedtime story. At breakfast time, I tried to serve foods that we would normally have for dinner, starting with dessert. Of course I served breakfast for dinner. I tucked my daughter in that evening with a “good morning.” Backwards Day wasn’t always easy to pull off. I returned to work full-time when she was three months old, so we usually had to fit our celebrations around work and daycare or school. Even more challenging, once she was in school we sometimes found ourselves visiting relatives on April 1st, since her spring break often fell around that time. While I could still wake her with a “good night” and read her a bedtime story before breakfast, I never felt comfortable asking family members to adjust their meals to fit our celebration.

My daughter came to really enjoy Backwards Day. We dropped it during her teen years, but it was a special part of her childhood. Given her reaction to my “spider in the boot” trick, I’m glad she has the memories of our silly celebrations on April 1st instead of “that time Mom woke me at 3:30 a.m. and told me I needed to hurry up and get ready for school.”

What can you do this year to make April 1st a day of silly, fun memories for everyone?

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Roller Derby

Roller Derby Teams

This weekend I finally got around to doing something I’ve been meaning to do for years: I attended a roller derby bout.

I think I first became aware of modern roller derby when I saw an article about a staff member at my workplace who was on a team. Then I became familiar with the Minnesota Roller Girls, who showed up at CONvergence [I’ll use this opportunity to link shamelessly to my book on CONvergence]. The league also volunteered to cheer on participants in HeroSearch‘s first Cookie Fun 5K.

You may be aware of roller derby from the past. It started in the 1930s when body contact at a roller skating event got the most reaction from spectators. From there it grew and became increasingly theatrical, and some time after the ’70s it began to die out. It revived in the early 2000s, becoming primarily an amateur women’s sport.

Most roller derby is on flat tracks. The rules are fairly simple. I walked into last weekend’s North Star Roller Girls bout completely ignorant of the sport, but it didn’t take me too long to figure out the basics. When I left, I still had questions about some of the finer points, but for the most part, I understood what I was seeing on the track. That said, I don’t recommend most people go to their first bout as ignorant as I was. The North Star Roller Girls make things clear on their Derby 101 page.

Part of the fun of roller derby is the atmosphere. Teams, players, officials, even bouts often have playful names. The bout I attended was called Purple Pain. It was actually two bouts between all four North Star Roller Girls teams: first between Delta Delta Di and the Kilmore Girls, then between the Violent Femmes and the Banger Sisters. It featured players with names like Maul Bunyan, Pop Roxie, KiLLRoy, and Salty Maude. (Were I to participate in roller derby — and given the fact that I don’t feel comfortable on skates, that’s not happening — I have decided I would be ObliterKate.)

If it had merely been an evening featuring women with amusing names skating around a track, I wouldn’t be writing about it right now. When the first bout started, given both my ignorance of the sport and the effectiveness of the blockers on the two teams, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. It just seemed like two groups of women blocking a couple of other women. When things really got going and the jammers from the teams broke through the pack, I began to see the point to the sport. The last bout got really exciting. At first the Banger Sisters scored several points, leaving the Violent Femmes far behind. Before the end of the first half, the Violent Femmes made a huge comeback, and the second half was a nail biter, with the two teams staying pretty close in terms of points. My mom, my daughter, and I began rooting for the Violent Femmes, in part because we liked a couple of the players: The Fawkes was doing a great job as jammer, and Pop Roxie was an outstanding pivot. The Banger Sisters won, but I had a great time.

There are banked track teams, but such tracks are hard to come by, so your best bet for seeing roller derby is on a flat track. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association has hundreds of leagues around the world, so you may very well be able to see roller derby where you are. There are also at least some men’s teams for people who are interested in seeing or participating in men’s roller derby.

The roller derby season is practically over for the year, so check now to see if you can get to a bout in your area. And if you have local teams but can’t make it to a bout this season, mark your calendars for the 2017-18 season. If you like what you see, maybe you’ll even consider trying out for a team!

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Take Photos of Your Hotel Room

Hotel room

Sometimes making a difference is ridiculously easy.

I first heard about TraffickCam through one of the anti-slavery organizations I follow. The concept is simple: Since sex traffickers often take pictures of their victims in a hotel room, searchable photos of hotel rooms can be used to locate the traffickers. TraffickCam wants to verify the location of the hotel where you are taking pictures, so you will need to allow it to see your location while you are using your phone, and you should use it while you are at your hotel, not after you’ve returned home.

If you have a smart phone, you can make a difference whenever you stay in a hotel. Simply get the free TraffickCam app and take up to four photos of your room (the app recommends two photos of the room from different angles, a photo of the bed from the foot of the bed, and a photo of the bathroom from its doorway). You can either take the photos in the app or upload them to the app.

That’s it! Please get the TraffickCam app today and use it during your next hotel stay.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: A Retreat in a Hermitage

try a retreat in a hermitage
Solitude can be good for the soul.

I know that most of my recommendations have been cultural, but I want this Monday part of my blog to introduce you to all sorts of wonderful things, so this week I’m recommending something a little different: a solitary retreat in a hermitage.

I firmly believe that we all need times of solitude and silence in our lives – times to reflect and times to connect to God. One way you can do this is through going on a retreat in a hermitage.

My own experience with this has been through stays in a hermitage at Pacem in Terris. I love the simplicity of the hermitages: each one consists of a room with a bed, a washstand, a rocking chair, and a couple of side tables. They have no running water. Water is provided in jugs, and there are latrines nearby as well as a commode in your room. The hermitages are connected to gas, which provides light and heat. Each is also equipped with a gas burner so that you can boil water for tea. (Note: As a tea lover, I recommend bringing your own, because they only provide bags of Lipton tea.) Guests are supplied with a basket of bread, fruit, and cheese, which is replenished as needed; a mailbox outside of your door allows you to leave notes for the staff, who make rounds twice a day. Visitors don’t need to worry about many basic supplies. Ponchos, bug spray, flashlights, plates, napkins, and matches are all available. Each hermitage has one large window facing away from paths, as well as a screened-in porch. You can wander along paths to the lake, through a meadow, and through the woods. There is also a retreat center, which includes exercise facilities, a library, and a chapel (Mass is offered there, although I am not Catholic and do not attend). If you let staff know to expect you, you can have dinner in the retreat center on weeknights; this is included in the cost of your stay. The retreat center also provides some rooms for those who cannot or would rather not stay in a hermitage.

The rhythm that suits me is to spend three nights there, coming in for dinner at least once and eating dinner in my hermitage at least once. I sleep a lot, walk a lot, and pray and read the Bible a lot. For me, the time is restorative, but I am an introvert; I know some extroverts who say they couldn’t stand it.

Whether this sounds wonderful to you or a little scary, I recommend giving a retreat in a hermitage a try. Not all hermitages are as simple as the ones at Pacem in Terris, but all should allow opportunities for silence, meditation, and prayer. Start your search with “hermitages for private retreats,” and see what you can find! Please let me know if you’ve been on retreat and what the experience was like for you.

 

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Shake Up Your Easter Traditions

Easter basket

A 2016 survey showed that 87% of parents in the United States planned to give their children Easter baskets. If you will be putting together an Easter basket, consider doing something a little different this year.

Buy Fairly Traded Chocolate

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you probably knew I was going to say that. It was my love of chocolate and my discovery that my buying habits could be supporting slavery that first started me down the path to becoming a modern-day abolitionist. That’s why I talk about buying fair-trade chocolate so much.

If you are concerned about slavery and chocolate, you will be happy to know that you can find fair-trade chocolate bunnies and eggs. Of course, you should expect to pay more than you would for many of the best-selling Easter treats from major candy companies. You can save money by checking Aldi before ordering chocolate online; I have found UTZ-certified chocolate Easter candy at Aldi in the past.

If you can’t get fairly traded chocolate at a local store, check these online retailers:

Divine Chocolate makes both milk and dark chocolate mini eggs and candy-coated milk chocolate eggs. We have purchased these in the past and enjoy the taste.

Lucky Chocolates has a variety of chocolate bunny offerings, including one with coconut nests. If you want to get really fancy, buy some Easter truffles.

Mama Ganache offers chocolate bunnies in three different sizes, as well as creme-filled eggs. If you prefer to buy complete Easter baskets, they also offer some of those, including a vegan option.

Lake Champlain Chocolates has a large variety of chocolate bunnies, eggs and even carrots, including some vegan chocolates. Like Mama Ganache, they offer complete Easter baskets.

Include a Charitable Gift

Consider swapping out or supplementing some of the contents of an Easter basket with a charitable gift. There are, of course, many different charities you could give to. I will focus on a couple of options related to animals traditionally associated with Easter: lambs, rabbits, and chicks.

(1) Donate livestock to people in need. Heifer International gives many different animals to families, including the animals I mentioned above. While these animals do provide for the families in all sorts of ways, including supplying wool, milk, pest control, and eggs, they are also sources of animal protein for the people who receive them. If this bothers you, you may want to consider my next suggestion.

(2) Make a donation to an organization that looks out for the welfare of animals. Your local animal shelter may very well receive some unloved bunnies soon after Easter, and at any time of year, they will need to provide space for pets waiting for adoption. You could also give to organizations that look out for the welfare of farm animals, such as the ASPCA.

When I planned this post, I was going to focus solely on Easter baskets. As so often happens, my plans changed the day before the post was to go live. I ran across #doctorsoverdresses on Twitter. The woman behind this hashtag, Holly Stallcup, is encouraging women to spend money on covering women’s medical bills rather than buying a new Easter dress. I don’t remember when I last bought an Easter dress for myself (for that matter, it’s been years since I bought one for my daughter), but since Americans spent approximately $3 billion on new clothes for Easter last year, I think this is a great idea! Holly is the executive director of a nonprofit called Mended Women, and she started this campaign in association with her nonprofit. But — and I hope she won’t mind my saying this — I think you can give to other charities if you prefer to do so. The important thing is to question your priorities this Easter.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: Three Poetry Anthologies for Children

one of my favorite children's poetry anthologies, Piping Down the Valleys Wild

Poetry is underappreciated. Perhaps it is because people had to struggle through interpreting poetry in high school literature classes and decided that it was too difficult, or perhaps it is because people simply prefer to be either informed or enthralled by their reading material. Whatever the case, I want to recommend three books of poetry — all excellent anthologies compiled for children, and all out of print. I owned these books as a child and paged through them again and again. I treasured them enough that I still have them today.

The oldest of the trio is The Big Golden Book of Poetry. It was originally published in 1947 and, judging from the inscription inside the book, it was probably my first book of poetry, since my grandmother gave it to me when I was an infant (this says a lot about my family). It’s possible the book belonged to my father before me, although my granny may have given me a new copy. I can’t resist sharing my grandmother’s message to me here:

To Kate on her first Christmas.

I know you’re going to love the ‘written word’ as much as most of your family.

I’ve taken the liberty of starring your father’s favorite poems which were first read to him — over and over! His choice is the very last poem, “There was once a puffin.” Hope you like it, too.

Among the poems she starred were Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Swing” and “The Little Land,” James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” and “The Raggedy Man,” and Rachel Field’s “The Animal Store,” a poem which also enchanted me. To this day, I still think of that poem and imagine going on a shopping spree for pets (though I’d need far more than the $100 mentioned in first line).

I also really loved Mildred Plew Meigs’ “Moon Song,” in part because of the mermaids and in part because of the sheer beauty of the language — the rhymes and rhythm of the poem.

Zoon, zoon, cuddle and croon–
Over the crinkling sea,
The moon man flings him a silvered net
Fashioned of moonbeams three.

"Moon Song"
“Moon Song” from The Big Golden Book of Poetry

 

The volume is beautifully illustrated and well worth chasing down.

The Golden Treasury of Poetry is enormous and is organized by theme, including poems about “Creatures of Every Kind,” poems about people, and poems that tell stories (my favorite section, which includes “True Thomas,” “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” and “The Tale of Custard the Dragon”). The book is one to grow into; there are poems that appeal to very young children, like “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” as well as excerpts from Shakespeare and the gruesome poem “The Inchcape Rock.” Like The Big Golden Book of Poetry it is illustrated. It also includes commentary by Louis Untermeyer. It was first published in 1959.

The Golden Treasury of Poetry
“The Inchcape Rock” from The Golden Treasury of Poetry

I went through a stage in childhood when I put a sticker from the National Wildlife Federation inside each of my favorite books, and this treasury was graced with one of those stickers.

My copy of Piping Down the Valleys Wild includes the blurb “Poetry for the Young of All Ages,” but most of the poems were probably selected to appeal to children in elementary school; it has fewer “grown up” poems than the Golden Treasury, though it does include poems like “Ariel’s Song” from The Tempest and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With the Night.” Like the Golden Treasury, it is organized by topic. The most modern of the books (it was first published in 1968), it includes poets who are not in the other volumes I’ve recommended, such as Shel Silverstein and Gwendolyn Brooks. Although there are poems in this book that are also in the other ones, I keep it because of the many poems that aren’t in them.

What are your favorite poetry anthologies for children? Did you love them enough to hang onto them?

 

 

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Prioritize People

prioritize people

Sometimes I’ve written posts weeks ahead of time; other times I’m working up until the night before a post is scheduled to appear. Right now, I’m in the latter situation. I took the week off work, because a couple of close relatives are in town. They are staying with someone else, so at the beginning of the week I actually told myself I’d work ahead on blog posts when I wasn’t with my loved ones.

That is not, of course, what has actually happened, and I don’t mind that. But it does mean that, as of last night, I had barely worked on this week’s “make a difference” post. This morning I thought I would come home from a fun and busy day at about 8 p.m. and write and schedule my planned post.

Instead, I came home and found that one my family members needed me.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who sometimes feels pulled in a million different directions by the people in my life. Maybe you have a couple of kids who want help with schoolwork, an aging parent you need to check in on, a spouse who feels neglected… all at a time when work is busy and, oh, yeah, it’s your best friend’s birthday tomorrow. All of these people are also competing with the dishes piling up on your counter, your empty refrigerator, the taxes you really need to do… And when are you going to find time to exercise? Not to mention the fact that, honestly, you just want some time to yourself!

Sometimes you need to say “no.” You may need to say it for sanity’s sake, or you may need to say it because some of the people in your life need to be less dependent on you.

But sometimes you need to do what I did tonight. You ditch your plans and make yourself available to the person who needs you. Yes, I’ve still managed to write something. It’s not the post I had planned, but it’s something, if only because I found that my circumstances inspired a new post that I knew wouldn’t take long to write. But there may a time when I can manage nothing — at best I might post a message noting that I cannot share a planned blog entry.

I don’t like that idea. Consistency is important to me, and I hate the thought of letting a post go for a week. In my ideal world, I’d always be ahead of the game, but with a full-time job and a family, that’s a challenge.

So I’ll do my best to honor my commitment to two blog posts a week… but I’ll also do my best to remember my priorities. Sometimes people need me. At times like that, I may have to drop things, even things that are very important to me, because when I don’t put the people in my life ahead of my to-do list, my priorities are out of whack.

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Something Wonderful

Something Wonderful: The Librarians

The Librarians Season 2 cover

The Librarians television series owes its existence to three movies that aired on TNT between 2004 and 2008: The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines, and The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.

Had those three movies not inspired the TV series, I wouldn’t be writing this post. The movies aren’t bad. They are enjoyable, though formulaic, Indiana Jones-style adventures with just a pinch of Harry Potter thrown in. They are not, however, “wonderful.” The Librarians is something else entirely.

The original Librarian, Flynn Carsen (played by Noah Wyle), is the only character from the original movies who shows up frequently in the television series. Chosen by the Metropolitan Public Library because of his exceptional intelligence and expertise in several different subjects, Flynn is charged with finding and retrieving magical artifacts, which are placed in the Library to keep them out of the wrong hands. Traditionally there is only one Librarian at a time, and he (the Librarian is often a male) is usually protected by a kick-ass Guardian (who tends to be female). The television series opens with the recruitment of a new Guardian, Colonel Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn).

In addition to selecting Eve, the Library expands its staff with three new Librarians. Cassandra Cillian (Lindy Booth) is a math and science geek who is dying of a brain tumor that augments her talents, allowing her to visualize complex things in a manner reminiscent of Sherlock’s “mind palace.” Jacob Stone (Christian Kane) is an expert in art, history, and literature; his work is frequently published in academic journals under fake names. Ezekiel Jones (John Harlan Kim) is an egotistical master thief who understands technology inside and out. As these new recruits begin training under Eve and Jenkins (John Larroquette), caretake of the Library’s annex, Flynn and his work take a back seat to the stories of the new Librarians.

Of all of the characters, I find Flynn the least appealing, so his frequent absences from the show don’t bother me. Like Ezekiel, he’s arrogant, but somehow Ezekiel’s ego comes across as charming, and Flynn is just annoying. As you come to know Ezekiel, he shows a depth of character that makes him all that much more wonderful; Flynn, though significantly older than Jones, manages to come across as a perpetual child, a loner who is rarely willing to listen to or cooperate with others.

I like Eve, who is almost a mother figure to the three new Librarians (although there is an alternate timeline twist that casts her in a different role), but my favorite characters are the Librarians themselves and Jenkins, who develops from fussy old man into a beloved member of the team over the course of three seasons. I wouldn’t do without any of the Librarians, and it is hard for me to pick a favorite among them, although I especially enjoy the way Ezekiel’s character has evolved.

The series reminds me a lot of Doctor Who — even some of the music sounds similar. “The Promise of Action” from The Librarians reminds me of “I Am the Doctor,” and Cassandra’s theme is similar to Amy Pond’s theme. The Librarians are a bit more limited than the Doctor in his TARDIS, almost always traveling only to different present-day Earth locations rather than through “all of time and space,” but, like Doctor Who, there is an overarching theme to each season, with each episode providing a new problem to solve while propelling the team forward to the season’s finale. In Doctor Who, these problems are always tied to aliens, but in The Librarians, the encounters are related to magic (in fact, Jenkins informs the Librarians “It’s never aliens”). Whether or not the folks behind The Librarians had Doctor Who in mind as they worked on the series, they definitely gave it (and Back to the Future) a nod in an episode that actually did involve time travel.

Within the series, episodes makes references to everything from fairy tales and Greek mythology to Cthulu and horror movies. One of my favorite episodes, “…And Santa’s Midnight Run,” features Bruce Campbell as a marvelous Santa who changes incarnations several times throughout the episode.

The characters are what really pulled me into The Librarians, but I also love its wit and geeky references. If you haven’t watched this show yet, by all means, check out the first season; my guess is that you will move on to the second and third. You may want to watch the first Librarian movie to get a sense of what’s going on in the series, but you can skip the second and third unless you are a completest.

 

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Make a Difference

Make a Difference: Smile!

picture of smiling child
By ZuliannyGM (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Wow! I didn’t realize smiling mattered. Thank you for your sharing your great wisdom, Kate!

Okay, the importance of smiling is obvious, but how often do you actually smile at others — especially strangers?

I want to be the sort of person who smiles warmly at everyone I pass throughout the day, but that’s not how I usually behave. While I’ve never been told I have “resting bitch face,” I find that, instead of smiling, I often deliberately avoid eye contact with others. Much of this is because I’m too caught up in my interior monologue. Let’s see… I need to stop by the library on the way home from work. And I want to remember to look up that recipe I heard about on the Splendid Table podcast when I get home. Oh! I can’t let myself forget to make that vet appointment for the dog. I’m worn out. I don’t feel like putting much effort into dinner tonight. What can I make instead of what I’d planned?… My thoughts roll on and on. I’m preoccupied with to-do lists, worries, and the perpetual mental chatter that Buddhists call “monkey mind.” I’m so engaged with my own thought life that I fail to pay attention to the people around me.

I’m also an introvert, and there are times that I just can’t muster the energy to interact with strangers. In these situations, I avoid making eye contact with others, because if I pretend I don’t notice someone, I won’t have to deal with them.

And to be truthful, I’m still a junior high school student at heart. I have a feeling I’m not the only one. I’m afraid that if I smile at someone, they will reject me. If I don’t look at them, there’s no risk involved; they can’t reject me if I’m not even glancing their way. It is beyond me why I still let this fear of rejection dominate my behavior. I’m well aware that most people respond to friendliness with… friendliness! And if someone did reject me, I can either assume that they were preoccupied with something else (just as I often am) or I can conclude that how they treat me says far more about them than it does about me.

You may already be that person I want to be — sending everyone you pass a little love with your friendly grin.

But if you, like me, aren’t yet that smiley person, start by asking yourself what’s getting in your way and how you can overcome it. Together, let’s make a commitment to smile more — this week, and every week.