International Women’s Day

How many of us knew about the women of Hidden Figures before the movie?

Hedy Lamarr, one of the most “beautiful” movie stars of the 1930s and 40s, also invented a radio system to throw off Nazi torpedoes. Her work is the basis for cellular and Blue Tooth technology. Did you know that?

Rosalind Elsie Franklin discovered DNA…but a couple of guys took the credit and won the prizes. Chien-Shiung Wu disproved something in physics, but a couple of guys took the credit and won the prizes. Jocelyn Bell Burnell did something with pulsars, but a couple of guys took the credit and won the prizes. I mention only three. There are more.

Which is why we need an International Women’s Day.

Hear me roar.

 

 

 

 

Peaceful Places

This week’s #UpbeatAuthors topic is “a place that gives you peace.”  I really had to think long and hard about what peace means to me. There are many kinds of peace. Different places offer different types of peace.

One such place is my bed, which offers me peace from the crazy scary world in which we live.

I have an extra firm mattress (which my husband hates), and an extra thick box spring, so the bed is higher than a standard bed. Being short, I love the feeling of elevation.

We recently purchased new bedding. The debate over color took several weeks. We settled on this, and we both like it.

Have you ever heard the phrase “bedgasm?” This is exactly how I feel every night when I crawl into bed. And while I am a morning person, that doesn’t make leaving my bed any easier.

So yes: my bed is my place of peace.

Music in Our Schools

A co-worker, speaking of her daughter, once said: “It’s only band.” As in, “it’s not as important as <<insert name of sport. Any sport>>.”

I was livid. It’s that kind of attitude that’s behind funding cuts for arts in the public schools–funding cuts that that aren’t as deep when it comes to athletics.  All students need outlets. Not every outlet is physical. Painting and composing are as important as knocking down another player.

Research indicates that music education:

  • increases  IQ
  • improves spatial-temporal skills
  • improves test scores
  • helps develop language skills and reasoning
  • increases hand-to-eye coordination and other motor skills
  • pattern recognition

Band and chorus are as much a team activity as football or basketball…except no one ever suffered brain damage from playing a tuba or singing soprano.

Why shouldn’t the arts be funded as generously as athletics?

 

#UpbeatAuthors: Gratitude

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When TV Stevie and I first got married, we started sharing “one good thing” before we ate supper each night. As our family grew (and became verbal), the children joined us in the sharing. It is as automatic as breathing for us to say, when we sit for our evening meal, “My one good thing is…”

Good things are our blessings.

Gratitude, according to my faith, requires acknowledging the blessings which are a part of our lives.  There is no limit to what we don’t have, so it is better to inventory what we do have.  Take nothing for granted, from the opening of our eyes in the morning, to closing them at night. Each moment in between is an opportunity to count our blessings.

Thanksgiving shouldn’t be one day in November where we overeat and watch football (or slave in the kitchen cooking, then cleaning up), but a daily practice.

I am blessed.

 

 

 

Childhood Treasures

Who remembers S&H Green Stamps? They’re still around, but they now call themselves S&H Greenpoints. For uninitiated, they were given away as “value added”  at service (gas) stations, supermarkets and so on. The more one spent, the more stamps one earned. One then pasted them into little books. The books could be redeemed for merchandise.

A trip to the S&H store was always a treat. (Okay, I lived in the middle of nowhere with a mother who didn’t drive. A trip anywhere was a treat.) There are two visits to the S&H redemption center I vividly recall. The first was when I laid eyes on a lamp. A beautiful lamp. A lamp any little girl would adore. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, etc. And the next trip to the store–after the family had accumulated enough stamps–was to procure that lamp for my bedroom.

You see, the girl on the swing actually swings. It moves. I was fascinated.

And yes, I still have the lamp. Right now, it has no shade. The original shade is long gone, probably scorched from tilting to get more reading light. The second shade is also gone. I believe I tossed it because it was in tatters. I’ve been looking for a replacement, but no luck yet.

The lamp has history. I shared a room with my sister. One morning, I woke up to a nasty smell and a weird crackling noise. I sat up and saw the cord sparking. I screamed for my sister to unplug the lamp (she was closest to the outlet). Then I screamed at her not to touch it. Back and forth until my father came into the room and handled the situation. He discovered a puddle near the sparking portion of the cord. After a brief examination, he concluded the cat had bitten the cord and had the pee shocked out of him. Dad replaced the cord and all was well.

My sister wrote her name on the underside of the little girl’s skirt in a misguided attempt to the claim the lamp for herself. Ha! I’m the one who gave birth a daughter, and my daughter had the lamp in her room for many years. It now resides in my office with a black light bulb in the socket.

A lamp with a swinging girl was a big deal back then. A treasure. My parents saved to get the lamp for me. We didn’t have computers, electronic games,  or even more than one television in the house (and only two channels at the time). I had decks of cards, board games, a back yard, and cousins.  And it was all so very, very special.